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Episode 8 - Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show

Do or Die Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 2m·analyzed·Jun 3, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Raymond Davidson's comprehensive tournament report from Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show.

Summary

Raymond Davidson recounts his experience at the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show, detailing his gameplay across multiple tournaments including a pin golf classic tournament, a five-strikes finals format, and an open main tournament with qualifying rounds. He provides in-depth strategy commentary on classic and modern pinball machines, describes his path to the finals, and discusses specific shots and rule modifications encountered during competition.

Key Claims

  • The pin golf finals used a five-strikes format where players earned strikes based on placement in each round (0 strikes for lowest balls, 1 strike for middle, 2 strikes for highest).

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson explaining the tournament format and his experience surviving to final three

  • Dave Stewart achieved a perfect 6-point score across all five qualifying games, earning the first-place bye in finals.

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson comparing his qualifying scores to Dave Stewart's performance

  • Raymond Davidson finished second in the pin golf finals tournament, losing to Mike Corbett in sudden death on Star Trek by 9,000 points.

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson's detailed account of the final game and results

  • The Metallica machine in finals had a two-second ball saver that was insufficient to catch balls after Sparky animation (which takes longer than two seconds).

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson's observation about ball saver timing during his Metallica game

  • The Lord of the Rings machine had modified rules compared to the champion-vs-champion battle Raymond played earlier on Friday.

    medium confidence · Raymond Davidson noting it was easier to play on Sunday despite being 'the same exact game'

Notable Quotes

  • “You really, really need to try to plunge that center lane. If you don't get the center lane on the plunge, you need to get it back up top over and over again to try to get that center lane.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Not specified — Strategy explanation for Supersonic - illustrates how specific shots dominate game strategy

  • “I had this weird imaginary timer in my head that was like: 'You know, if you don't hit this orb now, then you won't get orb multiball' and I was right, but it was a self-fulfilling prophecy right? I missed because I was rushing.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Not specified — Meta-commentary on clutch pressure and psychological factors in competitive pinball

  • “Why don't more players do that [right ramp-piston combo]? It's such good value. The points per flip are just through the stratosphere.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Not specified — Strategy insight about overlooked high-value shots on modern machines

  • “I just wanted any points I could get... I took the lowest hanging fruit, you know, get mode points.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Not specified — Tournament strategy adjustment based on format requirements (pin golf vs multiball depth)

Entities

Raymond DavidsonpersonMike CorbettpersonColin UrbanpersonDave StewartpersonKayleepersonJermainepersonNorthwest Pinball and Arcade ShoweventMeteor

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Five-strikes format with pin golf scoring used for finals; 30 players qualifying to top 16 advancement in main tournament; multiple tournament types (classics, women's, kids, rookie, open, match play) offered at single venue

    high · Raymond Davidson's detailed explanation of five-strikes tournament structure and his progression through multiple tournament formats

  • ?

    competitive_signal: High-value overlooked strategies identified: right ramp-piston combo on Metallica; light plunging on Monte Carlo nubs; mode stacking on Kiss; Death Star grinding on Star Wars

    high · Raymond Davidson's strategic insights and observations that other players may not be optimizing similar shot sequences

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Modified rule sets significantly affect strategy: bonus reset on Sea Witch; two-second ball saver on Metallica being too short for Sparky animation; bonus collect shot difficulty on Star Trek; ExtraHard settings on Black Rose

    high · Multiple examples of how tournament rule modifications changed optimal strategies from standard game rules

  • ?

    event_signal: Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show hosted large-scale multi-format tournament with 30+ players in main finals, multiple simultaneous tournaments, diverse machine lineup including EM and modern games

    high · Tournament structure with qualifying rounds, finals advancement, and reference to multiple tournament types running simultaneously

  • ?

    product_concern: Equipment condition critically affects playability: Countdown played better in good condition with strong flippers; Monte Carlo's outlanes and lack of inlanes made plunge skill determinative; Metallica ball saver timing issues

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.188

0:00
Welcome to Do or Die, a podcast about competitive pinball. I'm your host, Raymond Davidson, here to help you stay up to date on the latest strategies, tournaments, and happenings in the competitive pinball world, but also sharing direct stories of me as I go forth on my pinball tournament adventures. Welcome to episode 8 of Do or Die Pinball Podcast. This episode, the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show. So what kind of tournaments were available at the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show? Well, there was all sorts of tournaments. There were classic tournaments, kids tournaments, women's tournaments, open tournaments, rookie tournaments, amateur tournaments, just all the tournaments you can think of. Where, where, where to even begin? Well, I guess I'll start with the classic pin golf tournament, which there were tee times you could I'm going to go through each game and sort of talk about should I, you know, would I play this game, what would I do? It's also not as exciting to talk through my strategies on the pin golf classics because they're pretty straightforward. There's not a lot of situational like, oh, I should go for this, I should go for that. It's like, no, you should hit the targets as many times as you can, hit the spinner as many times as you can, that sort of thing. I will go into maybe a little more detail on the later final games of it. But for now, let's start with hole number one, Meteor. The media was set up very steep and had very very very very bouncy rivers uh... the flippers the slingshots uh... everything about it was just super chaotic uh... it was uh... is definitely playable but it was just so fast that uh... you know you blink and the ball is gone the score was two hundred thousand uh... which you know doesn't sound like a lot but uh... You know, you can get 14,000 house balls on Meteor or even like a ball where you flip a few times, you know, you end up with like 50,000.
2:59
So, you know, getting 200,000 really means, you know, complete Meteor a couple of times to get some bonus X so that your ones, twos and threes will give you some value. Those build your bonus and then, you know, rip the spinner a couple of times and you should be closing in on that ballpark. You can also go for the wows as I mentioned in a previous episode where if you get the rockets all lined up, like all of them on level 3, you can get a wow for 70k, which is huge when the target score is 200. I ended up pulling a 2 out of that, barely. My bonus countedDown and just like exactly equaled 200,000. It was a, I did a little cheer afterwards, so that was pretty sweet. The hole number two was Space Mission. If you haven't seen this game, it's an EM. It's got these saucers right by the flippers. And so you can't really trap because if you trap, they just go in the saucer and then the saucers kick out and the ball kind of goes wild. But more importantly, it has a spinner on the left that can either be lit for a thousand a spin or virtually nothing. And this is an EM, so it like rolls at 100,000. So, a thousand a spin is a huge chunk of the score. The target score was 80,000, so if you ever did get a lit spinner shot and ripped it, you basically got the score. The problem was, to light the spinner, you have to hit this like dangerous swinging target, kind of like Monaco, and then it will unlight very easily as well. Co Aprèsossip кол communism, Ko�도氣 Fe Filo, चॉगसración्, ColeAshа, V sabemos Kyungि, And then kick back out and unlike Your Spinner. So Drop catches were key on that game, Dead Passes as well. But if you don't have a lit spinner, the other things you can go for is just kinda throwing it back up top, getting your bonus Advancing double bonus in the hole when it's lit can be good. I basically just kinda, I don't know, I floundered around, I didn't really do anything spectacular on it. I got a six, which wasn't great. Remember, if you don't get the score after five balls, you get a score based on how close you were to the target score. But yeah, I escaped with a six on that. The next game was Countdown. And this game, man, I usually am very fearful of this game because I feel like I've been screwed by it a few times. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this, but I think it was a good thing. I think it helped because it was in good condition. The flippers were strong, you could slap save the ball, you could hit the targets you were aiming for. So it really makes a difference the condition a game is in. If you don't know countdown, basically you pick your favorite color and shoot that color. The and they also give you a bonus multiplier when you complete them. So I would just keep hitting targets over and over again, try to get to the score. The target score was a hundred thousand. It had the special ROM with skill shots and ball save, so that was kinda interesting. I never once did get a skill shot, but if you could find a skill shot that got you very far, you know, very close to the target score. The next hole was Monte Carlo, which I don't exactly know what it was doing in a pinball tournament, but it's a game with nubs, I would call them. They're like little tiny micro rollovers that you plunge the ball into, and for every nub you hit, you get a thousand in bonus. And then also, if you light enough nubs, you can access different parts of the playfield, like there's like a saucer that lights for 5K. There's a saucer right in between the flippers that lights for 5K. There's some gates on the right that do good things for you. But none of it matters because the outlanes are gigantic and there's no inlanes, so you just have these slingshots and the game sort of plays itself, hitting the slingshot to slingshot to outline. So, you know, you just have to plunge really, really well. And then if you ever do get to flip, use your flips wisely. I ended up getting a seven on that. So I was pretty devastated by that, but I shook it off. I was like, okay, well, I'm sure other people are getting sevens, and sure enough, I look at the scores, and most people are getting five, sixes, sevens on it. So shake it off, go to the next game. Next game is Supersonic, and Supersonic is all about the center lane. The entire game is plunging the center lane, because it gives you the two number and it's the only place to get the two number uh... all the other numbers one three four five you can get on the lower playfield but the two you can only get up top and it lights your spinner for a thousand a spin and if as if that wasn't enough it lights the uh... escape route on the right out lane so you know it basically turns your right out lane into a kickback So you really, really need to try to plunge that center lane. If you don't get the center lane on the plunge, you need to get it back up top over and over again to try to get that center lane. Once you get the center lane, surprise, you keep going up top because spinner is worth a thousand and that's where a lot of your points come from. There's kind of like something weird that happens though. Once you complete one, two, three, four, five, the The game sort of makes some cool sounds and gives you like a ton of bonus and starts lighting other things on the playfield. I think there's some stars on the left side and maybe stars in the middle of the playfield. I just noticed that once I get one, two, three, four, five, my bonus just skyrockets and the points just start flowing. So, yeah, just plunge that center lane, shoot the spinner, profit. If you have the ball trapped on the right flipper, you need to find a way to get it to the left flipper. You need to either alley pass or tap pass or try a post pass. Do not shoot anything with the right flipper. It is not worth whatever you're aiming for. I guarantee it. Anywho, I got a 4 on that one, which was acceptable. Looking at the scores, if you basically averaged The you would have made the cut uh... so that was my goal was to try to get four on everything uh... see which was whole seven and the score was uh... of the score and supersonic by the way was a hundred thousand the score on monte carlo was forty thousand uh... the one after supersonic sorry i said see which is actually spring break which i have never seen before until this tournament and I don't know how it got into the classics bank but it did uh... and it's this weird premiere game where every ball is a multiball you get a two-ball multiball, then a three-ball multiball, then a four-ball multiball, every ball uh... so yeah I don't know I just I didn't know what I was doing I just tried to keep the balls alive and hit stuff because the rule card literally said Playfield Activity Advances Multiplier. I'm like, great! Activities! Alright. So, just kept the ball going. Later, I found out that the strat was to shoot this like right loop-to-loop for 100k. And if you could do that over and over again, the score was only a million. So, ten of those shots and you were done. I did manage to get a hole-in-one on it, which was nice. But I think a lot of people are getting holes-in-one on it or twos, so. The next game was Sea witch. The score was 300,000. Which is kind of interesting because it's kind of a weird score to get on sea witch. I usually get like you know you either get like a 50,000 ball or like a hundred thousand ball or like a 700,000 ball because like the the bonus basically you're chasing the X's right and so as you're chasing those X's you're getting just great to be a part of everything at Sp�internate The score on the game was 150,000, which was not too bad. It had a modified ROM where the bonus collect would reset your bonus. So you couldn't just collect over and over again. You would collect it and then it would go away. So it didn't really gain you anything unless your bonus was maxed. The strategy on that game, you shoot the drop targets to get bonus X. It goes like 2, 3, 5. So make sure you get your 5X bonus and then keep throwing it up top. Whether you shoot that left loop or shoot the bonus collect saucer or the bonus collect feeds to the plunger lane and then you plunge it up top. That's kind of the name of that game. Drop targets and then up top. I managed to get a hole in one on that so that was sweet. The game after that will Fast Draw, an EM with basically two options. You can either shoot the lower playfield, which has all these drop targets that give you bonus, or you can shoot the upper playfield that has little spot targets that advance bonus and little holes that score you a number of thousands of points depending on how many letters you have. So if you have A, B, and C, you'll get 3000 every time it falls in a hole. If you have just A, You know you just get one thousand it might actually be one more than that So I think the holes a thousand by itself and then adds another thousand for each light
game
Space Missiongame
Countdowngame
Monte Carlogame
Supersonicgame
Spring Breakgame
Sea Witchgame
Fast Drawgame
8 Ballgame
Fun Housegame
Kiss L.E.game
Guardians of the Galaxygame
Star Warsgame
Black Rosegame
Metallicagame
Lord of the Ringsgame
Godzillagame
Star Trekgame

medium · Raymond Davidson's observations about how condition and setup directly impact competitive play and strategy execution

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Skill shot execution varies significantly between players on same machines: Raymond Davidson struggled with Star Wars TIE fighter skill shot while others succeeded; Spring Break skill shots missed entirely

    medium · Raymond Davidson noting that other players were consistently hitting skill shots he struggled with, indicating skill gap rather than game malfunction

  • ?

    content_signal: Episode provides extremely detailed strategy analysis across 20+ machines with specific shot sequences, rule modifications, and decision-making frameworks for tournament play

    high · Extended, methodical analysis of each machine encountered, target scores, optimal shot sequences, and situational decision-making

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Raymond Davidson's performance trajectory: qualifying first on pin golf (though top qualifier provided no advantage), finishing second in pin golf finals, scoring 6-point average in open qualifying (missing first-place bye by one point due to Guardians loss), advancing to main finals

    high · Detailed accounting of scores across all tournament rounds with analysis of critical decisions and outcomes

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Classic EM games (Meteor, Space Mission, Countdown, Monte Carlo) feature chaotic, luck-dependent mechanics; modern games (Metallica, Guardians, Star Wars) reward skilled shot consistency and mode stacking; pin golf format challenges both

    medium · Raymond Davidson's comparative observations about strategy differences between classic and modern machines throughout tournament

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Psychological pressure affects execution: nervous flips, rushing shots, self-fulfilling prophecy of missing under pressure (Guardians orb multiball); successful clutch play requires trap discipline and shot selection confidence

    medium · Raymond Davidson's self-analysis of his performance on high-pressure situations, particularly in Star Trek sudden death and Guardians games

  • ?

    venue_signal: Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show appears to be large multi-day event in Tacoma area with qualifying rounds on Friday, finals on Sunday morning at 9am, hosted at 'The Venue'

    medium · Raymond Davidson mentioning wake-up at 7am for Tacoma and references to Friday vs Sunday competition schedule

    • 13:47
    Anyway, it's kind of an interesting game because you can either go for the known quantity of the drop targets Or you can throw it up top and hope you get some good action I'll usually do a mixture of both Just so that you know I get some Targets down below and then You know maybe pick off the top targets sexyfinishings bankruptcy I see you getting a 9 on it. The score was 125,000 and yeah, I mean, Valley 8 Ball is all about getting that 8 ball target which lights your spinner and then shooting the spinner. You can also collect pool balls which give you 3,000 points in bonus per pool ball. They're kind of scattered throughout the playfield. You can also get bonus X by shooting the candy cane laying it on the right. And yeah, the best games you'll basically I'm not going to do all those things, but the starting point is hit the 8 ball, shoot the spinner. To aid you in that, you want to try to plunge it into the far right lane so that it hits off the pop bumper and hits the 8 ball to light it for you. So I got a 2 on that and that was good for top qualifier and I was in the pin golf finals. Unfortunately top qualifier didn actually do anything because the way the tournament worked was it was top 28 play I a fair strikes final where you in groups of four and basically you play a game with pin golf scoring So everyone who you're playing against is trying to get the target score and the fewest balls possible. And if you, you know, get the lowest amount, then you win. And so you don't get any strikes. If you get the highest amount than you lose and you get two strikes and anyone else in the middle gets one strike. So this tournament started off with five strikes for everybody and basically you just kept playing rounds after Round after Round. I managed to survive pretty long although I had some some ups and downs like there was you know I was like kicking butt. I got a hole-in-one on 8-ball and Mike dropped. It was beautiful. But then I got picked Sea Witch twice in a row and got two strikes and one strike on that, so that was a bummer. And that put me into four strikes where I had to get hole-in-ones from then on, or I had to win from then on. I managed to do it and get to the final three. And the final game was Monte Carlo, which I was not happy about. But there was some decision making and I actually, my thought process was, okay, it's all about these nubs. All about these stupid little tiny nubs. How do I get the most nubs? Well I worked very well with unlikely Volunte it I though I'd plunged it very lightly nonsense nuts on the way home answer I basically I didn't get the targets The A soft if you will and that actually worked pretty well like it at the by punished it very lightly and it did this nice little slow are can you just
    17:42
    picked it picked apart a couple of those nubs on the way on and so I basically on I I didn't get the target score until ball five but I was keeping up with everybody without really even flipping like I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say this, but I was actually playing the game.
    18:03
    I was playing the game and I was like, plunging my way to points. Which was great. It was enough to keep me in it. But then ball five I actually got to play and I got enough nubs to light one of the holes and I was able to shoot the hole and get 5,000 and got a bunch of thousands and eventually got the score. Which was actually crucial because the other players did not get the score, but one player had a lot of points.
    18:25
    The next game is a game where you play against a team that has three strikes. The other player had four strikes and I had four strikes. It was against Colin Urban and Mike Corbett. Colin unfortunately got eliminated because he got a strike, or actually he got two strikes technically, because he got third on that game. But Mike, he only had three strikes. So he did just well enough to get one strike and put him in a sudden death with me where we both had four strikes going into the last and final game. I'm a fan of Star Trek. And I got a whole one earlier, so I was feeling pretty good. But I just, I don't know, I think I broke down.
    19:06
    I was doing real nervous flips and my saves weren't really on point. Like I kind of just, when I saw the ball in danger, I didn't really try to save it. I just kind of watched it go down the side. But you know, you can't really move those too much without tilting anyway. I'm not sure if you can see this, but I did put up a fight and it came down to ball three. I needed to get the score to tie Mike and I fell 9,000 points short, sadly. We were actually having a debate with Jermaine and I what to do on that game when you have the ball on the left flipper and I was actually shooting those right targets because there's like this bank of stand up targets on the right. So normally on Star Trek you would shoot the bonus collect, but on this one it was modified so the bonus collect shot was like really small, it had like a big fat rubber, so it was kind of a hard shot and you would only really want to go for it if it was worth something. So early on in the ball whenever I had the ball on the left flipper I would shoot the stand up targets on the right because they gave you bonus advance and they also worked you towards this spelling valley and then also they bank shot it into the drop targets So, every time I shot them, I would at least get a couple of drop targets and then that made clearing those drop targets a lot easier. So, I would experiment if you see one of these, you know, go live a little dangerously. Try shooting those stand-up targets, see if you get some nice bounces into the targets or don't and try to tap pass or alley pass. But, I don't know man, those drop targets, when I was shooting some of them, they bricked and I was scared of that. I just wanted points anywhere I could get them, especially in a pin golf format. It almost worked out, but alas, Mike Corbett was the winner. Congrats to Mike from Washington. Very nicely done. I took second and Colin Urban took third. Alright, onward to Open Main Tournament. The qualifying was broken up into five different rounds, so you could play in any of the rounds that you wish, up to three of them, and you played five games against four players in each game, and there was a scoring system of six, four, three, one. And here dot website.com forward slash I was wondering at the time Xiangminusapply einen know he looks like a handlished obelisk uh How was it With what to order But I d Ability of fact other if a but New Year's Eve at The Star Kitties Semi Pizzas, everyday at nearly all my ehkä confort.com 제�ары מסoisyewyse responsivemysicepsat pergunta.cornerexample rang transfer mwsury вы☆ I've played Fun House as my first game and you know Funhouse might what I'm thinking is oh god please don't miss the mirror shot because every game of Funhouse starts off with a short plunge try to shoot the mirror to get quick multiball and of course I missed the mirror and I'm like panicking I'm like no don't drain don't drain I did like a couple of shoves got some a I could ease up a little bit. I was able to hit Rudy, get a couple of millions, you know, make me feel good with some millions right off the bat, and then was able to shoot some ramps and other things to light the actual locks and, you know, got multiball, got a bunch of jackpots, ended up with like 20 million or something, and nobody else got above three the whole game. I'm a fan of the game, so that was a nice way to start the day. Got a nice seven pointer in my pocket. Next up, I got to play Kiss L.E., which if you know me, I do not like Kiss. I hate playing it. I think it's just, I don't know. I don't know why I don't like it. It's just something about that game. Anyway, so, the other, well, I think the reason is because I usually don't do very well and, you know, that's a fair reason to not like a game, right? But, I managed to break the curse, the Kiss Curse, and I actually did well on it for once. I got 130 million and I beat Kaylee who had like 65, so that felt super good. My strategy was basically choose deuce, shoot the love gun, rinse repeat. Like once you shoot love gun to like multiball you start multiball and then you play multiball with deuce, try to beat deuce to get your 2x playfield. And then once you come out of multiball that's where things sort of get interesting. I hate shooting that scoop to try to choose another song. So, often times if I'm on ball one, I'll just keep shooting the star child again or I'll shoot the demon locks to try to get progress towards that. And that's basically what I did is, you know, once I finished a mode, instead of trying to start a new mode, I just went back to try to set up a multiball so on the next ball, when I just start a mode for free, I have multiball ready to go. And that's kind of what I did on my three balls where I was able to stack a mode with a multiball on each of those balls. So that worked out pretty well. The next game I got to play is Guardians, everyone's favorite. And by that I mean one of my favorites. Nothing too exciting to report on here. Strategies wise, I basically did what I usually do which is start with Quill's Quest just to get a free multiball. I'll play that out as much as you can putting an emphasis on those hadron targets. So for instance in Quill's Quest the right scoop is always lit. So when you shoot that right scoop, shoot late. Shoot as late as you possibly can because the worst thing that'll happen is that you hit the target next to the scoop. So you yeah, you want to pick off those hadrons and get some Quill'sQuest points. Get yourself a feel of the game and then after that I'm going to show you how to do that. What I like to do is I shoot Groot five times and then I shoot the scoop to light Yaka Arrow as my next mode. And then once I start Yaka Arrow, I immediately shoot Groot and start Multiball. During Groot Multiball, the first thing I do is I wail on Groot to get 2 or 3x going and then I might strategically drain a couple of balls to get the pops from the auto launcher Equipmentutz Freak Pay Keam Andyo нем 또 gettinmpost Teektetie Prägير의 To finish off a pesky mode shot. But in multiball, I say just wail on it.
    27:20
    That game, I ended up with 180 mil to 250 mil. And the reason was I had orb multiball lit, and I bricked it about three or four times. But I never really had a nice shot at it. Like, I was kind of rushing it, you know, I was like, I wasn't trapping fully, I was just taking backhands on the fly and I was just kind of nervous like I kind of had in my head like Don't miss don't miss yeah, I need to get this I had this weird imaginary timer in my hand head that was like You know if you don't hit this orb now Then you won't get orb multiball and I was right, but it was a self-fulfilling prophecy right I missed because I was rushing so I should have you know really focused on the flipper You know try to trap it try to get a nice shot at it I would love, I would love it. Cause I've tried I swear. It's like one of those redemption games, where the light, you know, goes back and forth and you have to stop it in the middle. I swear that skill shot, no matter where you stop it, it just jumps. But I know that can't be true because everyone else was getting the skill shot. So clearly I need to work on my TIE fighter shooting skills. But regardless, Star Wars, you shoot the Death Star, shoot the Death Star, shoot the Death Star. That's the name of the game. How many times can you shoot the Death Star? The answer is four. When you hit it four times, you actually, you have a choice. You have a risk versus reward you can take. So there's eight planets, and when you hit four of them, like when you hit the Death Star four times, you'll see four planets flash. At this point, you can either hit the launcher button, and it will start a ten second timer where the Death Star opens up for multiball. And it also gives you five million just off the bat. So you get a nice five million bonus and multiball's lit. That sounds great. The end. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please subscribe to my channel and hit that notification Bell icon. I will see you next time. Bye! I just cuz I you know I have confidence in myself right I can hit that shot and also it saves you for dangerous shots right additionally that five million you know sometimes can get you a point it's not going to be the difference I mean it could be the difference but between winning and losing but it will help you you know five million is five million so sometimes that's all it takes so I I recommend doing that halfway there strategy I'm not going to do it. I'm just going to hit the eight planets and just start multiball that way. Regardless, once you get multiball, you shoot the Death Star again and it lights the ramp for a jackpot and then the Death Star is lit for a double jackpot and then once you get that, I think you have to hit the Death Star twice to light a jackpot. And so it sort of starts over. I ended up grinding my way to like 300 million with a bunch of jackpots. So another first. So at this point, I'm definitely in the finals. However the first qualifier gets a buy The fifth game Black Rose I was super stoked to play because I love that game And I basically did my usual strategy of shoot the whirlpool to light lock with the inlanes You know every time you shoot the whirlpool it comes back to your inlane So then you use the flippers to make sure you spell lock and then basically keep shooting the whirlpool until you miss because it worth a million a shot And then And once you miss, you shoot multiball. And doing multiball, you alternate left and right ramps to get sink ship letters and millions. And, uh, yeah, I basically sunk a ship. I got like 48 million. It was glorious. Uh, I got first place on that game. Um, I never shot the broadside once. It was also set on extra hard settings, so you had to shoot the broadside to light a hurry-up to light the broadside, Okay thank you guys and have a great day! ultural
    32:44
    I know ExtraHard is tempting because it fixes multiball, it makes multiball more interesting, but I would recommend only set multiball to ExtraHard. So that multiball you have to alternate ramps to get sync ship letters. The rest of the game is pretty fine as is. You could shorten the double broadside timer if you really wanted to, but other than that I wouldn't recommend messing with it too much. So I got my seven on game five and for sure, you know, I got the buy, right? I got a seven, a seven, a seven, a seven and a five. And the five was on Guardians of all games, which is like one of my favorites. Well, Dave Stewart decided to get a seven, a seven, a seven, a seven and a six. So he got the buy because he played perfectly. So, you know, I can't be too mad since the Guardian second was my fault. I had multi ball lit and I bricked it should have gotten a first on that game. I'm a fan of the game, but I didn't. So I got to wake up at 7 a.m. to get down to Tacoma for finals at 9 a.m. Sunday. So yeah, that was a fun morning. But I did make it. And the first game of the finals that I got to play was good old Metallica. On Metallica, I did what I usually do, which is shoot Sparky a million times and started multiball and found out there was no ball saver. Or rather, there was a ball saver, there was a two-second ball saver, but guess how long the Sparky animation takes? Longer than two seconds. So I got basically nothing out of that multiball and I was like, huh, well, if the ball savers are off on multiball, shooting The grave Marker isn't really gonna do anything either. And so, you know, I kinda had to improvise. I was like, alright, let me see how the ramp-piston combo is. So if you're unfamiliar, the right ramp will always light the left piston shot, which is the farthest left yakuero shot on guardians, for a combo collect. And it starts at like a million and then goes up to like 1.5 and then 2 or something like that. and increases pretty juicy. And also as you're shooting the right ramp, you're getting Lady Justice letters. I actually ended up starting double scoring and fuel and was able to right ramp piston like six or seven times and my score just rocketed from 10 million to 63 million on ball three. It was crazy. I was about to get last place and on ball three I was just like, Alright, if I never miss and just go right ramp, piston, you know, that's it. That's the path. And sure enough, it worked. Yeah, I was able to beat everyone just by shooting the right ramp and the piston, which makes me think, why don't more players do that? It's such good value. Like, the points per flip are just through the stratosphere. Like, Sparky, you have to hit like 10 shots to start a multiball where the jackpots are like 200,000. You're only using Sparky to get other stuff but if you just want points just shoot the Piston and Ramp man! Especially if you combo with double scoring or Fuel or Justice or all of them. I pulled out the 7 on Metallica. Oh yeah. The finals, the way it works is, at least for the first round, there was 30 people playing, and the top 16 got to go on to the next round. I was aiming for about 18 points or so. Starting off with 7. Definitely helped. The next game I played was Lord of the Rings and man, it was a lot easier when it was in the champion versus champion battle that I played on Friday even though it was the same exact game because I struggled. I went into ball three with nothing. I had started, you know, wore the Ents and drained on ball one without hitting any shots. And so on ball three, I'm like, all right, I need to get some points. And so I chose attack of she lob as my trusty mode of choice because it offers the most shots available. And I just wanted any points I could get. And so I started that mode. And I got my shots dialed in. I was, you know, shooting here shooting there. And then I think I drained because I tried to backhand the Gandalf shot on the fly. And I hadn't ever tried that shot before. So I was a little bit nervous because I didn't know where it was and I posted and outlaned but I ended up getting second so I got four points and you know that was a great way to turn that game around that was heading south real fast I was able to just just play a mode they're worth a lot of points in that game you don't even need to like shoot two towers to get multiball you don't need to get fellowship multiball you just play a mode and get points and you know unless you need to win then then you need to probably play the multiballs I just needed, since I had won game one, I just needed any points I could get. So I just, I took the lowest hanging fruit, you know, get mode points. And that got me a four pointer. And then I got to go to Godzilla. And on a Godzilla, there's basically five different multiballs that you can qualify with their respective parts of the playfield. So there's a ramp, there's taxi targets, there's an orbit, and there's these captive balls. There's also these helicopter stand-up things, but nobody really, you don't really bother with those until you get really deep into the game. And so my goal, going into Godzilla, was to ensure I started a multiball. I did not want to get greedy. I did not want to wait until ball three with multiball lit. I wanted to start the first multiball I saw. Once again, because I already had points in the bank, I just need to avoid the last places. And so I was able to light the main ramp multiball by shooting the right ramp and then started that multiball immediately. And then during that multiball, I shot the taxi targets and that started taxi multiball, which basically resets your ball saver, gives you a bunch of more balls, raises the jackpot value. The end of the day, I was only playing a few games. I was playing a few games and I was hitting jackpots and whatnot. I ended up with about, I don't know, 70 million or something. Which was enough to win the game and get the bonus point. Somehow, nobody else started multiball. So, as I was saying, I had a feeling like if I could just start a multiball, I'll probably I ended up taking it. If you're playing Godzilla in a open qualifying format instead of match play, you want to try to stack as many multiballs as possible. Because if you start more multiballs, then the jackpot value is a lot higher. So I think it's like if you start two multiballs at the same time, your jackpots are like 10 million. erva?"Are there any questions and comments?" Take a good look I'm a nice deed. I was just a two-year-old. I wasn't buying the $25,000 game for the first time. I thought I just wanted to have fun and then start bringing in the others. But if you really want to blow it up, light all six or all five and then start all of them and you'll get 25 million jackpots which can be absurd. Anywho, so now that I had locked in my ticket to the quarter finals, I was playing no fear as my fourth game and I was just doing some exploratory testing because I didn't actually need to win it, right? I just, I was already through. So, I was just testing stuff like the kick out on the left scoop. It did a dead pass or live catch. It was sort of like player's choice, so that was cool. The skull, you know, you could backhand it and forehand it. I wanted to see how the skill shot worked because I had never really played No Fear before. So, when it said, lock ball, I was like, oh, can I just do that all three balls and get a multiball? The answer is no. You can do it twice and then on ball three, it mysteriously vanishes. So, I learned that you have to get your third lock manually. I also learned that you, once you're in a mode, you can't light locks, but if you light a lock first, you can shoot the skull to both give you the lock and start a mode. So, little, little tricks here and there I was picking up that might come in handy later. The quarterfinals was now down to 16 people and you had to get top 7 to move on and the first game of that I got to play Tron and I had like 17 million after two balls. I drained going to ball three with the left orbit as my only shot to start a second light cycle. What else are you going to do? You're going to shoot the left orbit because it's one shot to light multiball. Sure, it might drain you, but it's your best EV play because it's only one shot versus core was five shots away, disc was like eight shots away. every day. I plunged, short plunged, shot to left orbit, lit multiball, got multiball, got some extra points and then drained after going for disk because once you play Korra and Lightcycle you want to get disk to get your Sea of Simulation, but, you know, the disk is wild and it threw the ball down the drain at some point. Ended up with twenty four million or so which was enough I think for first but no bonus point so I got six points on that one uh... the next game was metallica and after seeing my ramp piston strategy payoff in spades uh... at the beginning of every ball I basically hold the left flipper short plunge and try to hit that left piston shot because if you do that your skill shot it'll say super skill shot and it will instantly qualify double scoring so as we found out double scoring with ramp piston combos is a recipe for success and I ended up uh... getting like twenty mil on ball one and then on ball two uh... Another said, go to Solidality.com for 有
    44:19
    of Our flippin up jr Head I actually chose Fade to Black even though it's a pro and there's no spinner because Fade to Black just hitting shots gives you good value so I just chose that shot and kept shooting ramp piston combos because every shot to the ramp was giving me Fade to Black points and then every shot to the piston was giving me the piston combo and so I played that out and ended with like 82 million without ever starting a single multiball. So let that be a lesson. You don't need Sparky, you don't need Grave, you just need your trusty ramp-piston combo. And a crank it up definitely helps, especially if people are blowing it up, which, you know, people were doing pretty good. So that's why when I saw crank it up, you know, light up, I definitely took it because it's such a huge points opportunity. I ended up getting a 7 on that and then we went into Guardians of the Game, and my goodness, that was a huge game of Guardians. I was playing against Miles Grant from Vancouver, like a 17-year-old kid who's really good. He put up $438 million and I was going into Ball 3 with $377 million with $40 million in the bank from bonus. in the caption . I was in antiquity shop and I really wanted to beat antiquity shop. So maybe those lights, you know, the orb light that's flashing at you, like, shoot me, shoot me, it just, it threw me off. I don't know. I gotta focus on that more. But I drained without starting orb multiball and got a second with a bonus point. So now I've got a seven, a six, and a five. Going into the last game was Lord of the Rings and oh my goodness, it was the same story as before with Start worthy Ants Drain Ball 2 ring halfway up the middle down drain Going into ball 3 with like a million points It was truly bad But I managed to do the same she trick where I just grinded out like 6 million and I somehow someway the 6 million it was ahead of player two who had about 5 or so and player two you know I gave the out you know of what if he tilts and he did Tilted and ended with 6.5 million and it was you know it was a gift but you know I put myself in that situation I I tried to that's why I was saying in an earlier podcast always give yourself those outs you know you don't need to swing for the fences you don't need to start a multiball just put points on the table and make your opponents do the same anyway lesson of the story was was that I survived got second place And on to the semis. First game of the semis was Walking지막 I'm like, okay, that's fine. As long as I didn't play my barn, everything's good. Ball two, got my barn, put up 40 million just shooting the barn, and then drained. And then ball three, I needed three shots to prison, I shot two of them, somehow missed the third and hit the prison target, and it did this perfect, like, deflection into the left out lane. I had never seen it before. It was the right prison target, into the left out lane. It was amazing. I was like, wow, I just missed the giant shot in the middle and it punished me. That was pretty awesome. But because of my bar and ball too, I had 40 million, so I got second on that game, which was great. There's no more bonus points at this point. It's just three, two, or one, depending on if you get first, second, or third. Yes, there are only three player groups. I know, a little strange. But the winner of the three player group gets to go on to the finals, which is also a three player group.
    49:16
    But anyway, I got second on Walking Dead and basically always just go for barn. That's like the golden rule of that game. And then once you get barn, don't ever let it go. Just keep hitting that barn, dead pass, drop catch, live catch, post pass, whatever you need, keep hitting that barn. Because that often is the difference maker. Poor Kaylee. Kaylee started Bloodbath and Prison and ended with 22 million. That's that's the power of the modes in that game. They are huge.
    49:49
    If you do find yourself in Bloodbath or Prison and want points, there are points to be had, but Bloodbath, it's all about those targets. You know, you got to keep adding balls and getting jackpots and to get the super you have to get one of each supply in In bloodbath, which can be tricky cuz you have to time it so as the supplies are blinking in front of the drop targets, you wanna time it so your ball hits, you know, and locks in one of each and so on. Basically the same way that you start bloodbath, if you do that during bloodbath, you get super jackpot, which can be huge and also always adds a ball. So normally there's a limited number of out of balls, but every super will always add a ball, so you can keep adding balls that way. Just a nice little tidbit there. The second game was Iron Maiden and
    50:40
    I had about oh, I don't know like 40, 50 million going into ball three. The other score was 25 million and Kaylee had like 350 million. So I was like, alright, well, I have ace as high as my next mode because it was in install competition and on install competition it always starts with fear of the dark as your first mode and so after fear the dark is aces high and so I had played through the dark on ball one that actually got me most of my my fifty million was the fear of the dark so on ball three oh yeah there was no ball one by the way ball one was like plunge drain so we don't even need there was no analysis to be done on that ball so ball three was interesting because I started aces high and found out no ball save. Okay, that's all right. I hunkered down, I trapped both up, I shot my add a ball and added a ball and there was still no ball save. So I was a little confused by that. I still shot a couple of jackpots, but I ended up double draining actually. But actually, before I started aces high, I made sure to hit the right orbit to get my I had 15 million tomb Treasure because what I just say give yourself the outs. Player 3 had 25 million, I had 50. If I tack on another 15 million, you know, that's another 15 million Player 3's gonna have to do. So I made sure to get that 15 million Tomb Treasure first and then I started Aces High and then double drained. So now it was up to Player 3. Mike Pantoliano from Seattle. He was actually in New York a couple weeks ago at New York City Pinball Championships representing Seattle, so he did pretty well there too. And he needed to catch my 75 million from his like 30 and he just barely fell short. It was, you know, he had trooper going and then had mummy lit and just could not quite get enough points and that gave me a second on that game. So I got a second on Walkingünkü Dead, a second onIron Maiden, and the other game was Guardians of the Galaxy, which I don't know, I just did the thing. I did exactly what I did the previous rounds with Quill's Quest, Yakaero, Groot, got like a huge Yakaero collect in Groot, got some other modes going, played an orb or two, and ended up just winning that game. The other players just didn't quite... I don't know. I mean, sometimes in that game you'll start a Groot and if you don't get your Atta Ball, sometimes your Groot can just end and you end up with like 30 million. But other Groots you get like 200 million. So I got a little fortunate, you know, my opponents had kind of the 30 million variety. But that's why in Groot you should pay attention to that Atta Ball. It's really important. You get the Atta Ball by Addaball
    54:25
    I was had enough points to move on to the finals. I won the group of three with the first, second, second. And the finals were on Kiss, Godzilla, and No Fear. So on NoFear, thanks to my exploratory testing, I kind of had some shots down. I knew, okay, I'll take Locke for the first two skill shots, but then on after that, I'm going to have to In Mantle for date, you're productions to visit my youtube channelraktantic getiraj zastiasailetz, Sony thulppar, case, nekosemy-ẃẄt, Busnell Miy Kim, Emma Pig and 한 What. Carson NH handic희ael easter egged-up ลל 그거 and want him any way um... though both are the reason why i want to go see effective players one half-past a million and I had already cast clear a lot of like six fifty so uh... you know how was fun a little like unjust want to go for the billion uh... try to put the pressure on three I'm a fan of the game, so that's why I went for the aggressive save, because I was like, well, if I can save this, I can get to the wizard mode and whatnot. But I don't know. I probably should have just cashed out my bonus at that point. Luckily, it didn't end up mattering. I ended up winning the game. So that was, you know, three points there. And then Godzilla. Godzilla was pretty rough. I did not start a multiball, I was a little bit nervous, unfortunately. I just was missing shots left and right, but on ball three I was able to hit the ramp a couple times. I kind of flailed into some taxi targets, and I actually had an interesting decision come up where I had the ball trapped on the left flipper with taxi multiball lit, and my choice was either post pass and shoot the multiball or shoot the right ramp to light the second multiball. It diverts it into Godzilla's mouth and it comes back towards the flippers. And my reasoning in my head was, okay, first of all, I don't even know if I can do a post pass on this Godzilla. I had never tried. Second of all, one multiball by itself, especially just taxi multiball, isn't that great? Third of all, shooting the right ramp will actually give me like five million points just for lighting the multiball, F expects Pinballbreakingabilites of survivors protects for t your ownителя I was tweaking out a second, mostly from ramp points, just from hitting the ramp a couple more times, and, you know, gave myself that out basically, right? If I didn't take that ramp shot, who knows, I might not have had that extra five million, and I was able to get just enough for a second. The third game was Kiss and I was the only one to really do much of anything on that game. I mean I started Love Gun and got like 40 million out of it and then after that I started Demon and got like 20 million out of that and I ended up winning with like 60 million. Basically using my same strategy of never shoot the scoop. Basically Love Gun and or Demon choosing your mode before the I'm a fan of the pinball and you just keep doing that over and over again and it seemed to work for me. So that was enough to actually win the whole tournament because I had three points on Kiss and two points on Godzilla and three points on No Fear. And that was it. I got first. The second was Miles Grant and third was Sam Atlas from Seattle. That was quite the tournament. There was a lot of just staying by the skin of my teeth. There was a lot of ball three action and then there was just a lot of good competition. Thank you Dave Stewart for Subtitles by Kigkeiten, ''No
    60:03
    Thank you for watching! Please like, subscribe, and share! Also, a huge congrats to Hannah Hatch who took down the women's tournament and she defeated Louise Wagensonner in the finals. So that was for a huge prize, it was like $5000 or something. It was pretty incredible pinball, not to mention the rookie tournament won by Dwayne from Jupiter. Well, he runs the Jupitourney tournaments here in Seattle. He's not from Jupiter. But yeah, sorry if I missed. I don't know who won any of the other tournaments, but there was a lot of pinball, I think that's going to do it for this episode of Do or Die. If you have any comments or questions, you can like our Facebook page, Do or Die Pinball Podcast. You can send email to doordiepinballpodcast at gmail.com or you can just message me on Facebook. I do apologize for the audio inconsistencies this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you next time. Bye. med hocod call Yapijee, acidity laおいitectori foggi val korea obedract ignopsio, aoi certategoni kipimod, in Yours about pedigree and zuki colio, whey, leitoratario fenianant pioffino, wannabe cent celluloation en Meille ne patie mati, � magicality ne genosidi plateau ponche isth sonic, inete inognoapio const statistica prase, softens inactionazoidhital và and I will not make an episode until I get back. So probably not until next Monday night, possibly Tuesday. But it should be a really good episode. At least I hope it is. Anyway, till then, remember to do and don't die. Alright, see ya.
    62:26
    For now it was still you are watching the geen