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Episode 6 - Emerald City Cup

Do or Die Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 47s·held·May 13, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Raymond Davidson recounts Emerald City Cup tournament, detailing game strategies and finalists matchup.

Summary

Raymond Davidson hosts Episode 6 of Do or Die, covering the Emerald City Cup—a 37-player full-day match play tournament with seven qualifying rounds and Papa-style finals. Davidson provides detailed game-by-game analysis of his tournament run, sharing strategic insights on machines like Tron Legacy, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Twilight Zone, and others, ultimately reaching the finals where he faced the top seed.

Key Claims

  • Emerald City Cup had 37 players in a seven-round match play format with Papa-style finals

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson, tournament host, describing the event format

  • On Tron Legacy, full plunging the right orbit guarantees getting Light Cycle multiball

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson describing his strategy for Tron Legacy in Round 1

  • Game of Thrones at this venue had Tyrell as the optimal house choice due to payout structure

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson explaining his 600 million point strategy on Game of Thrones

  • Lord of the Rings at this venue was set with lightning flippers and no outlane posts, making skill influence minimal

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson critiquing the setup and discussing game difficulty balance

  • Twilight Zone scoop first award in tournament mode is light gumball

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson learning this during tournament play

  • On Ripley's Believe It or Not, the first scoop award in tournament mode is Spot Continent North America

    medium confidence · Raymond Davidson recounting his experience, though he notes some uncertainty about the exact mechanics

  • Torpedo Alley right orbit strategy yields approximately 250k per trip

    medium confidence · Raymond Davidson describing his strategy and results on Torpedo Alley

  • On Torpedo Alley, plunging directly into the right out lane without hitting other switches always returns the ball

    medium confidence · Raymond Davidson stating this as learned information during the tournament

  • On World Cup Soccer, ultra modes appear in a set order, with Ultra Spinner first

    low confidence · Raymond Davidson formulating a theory based on limited observation: 'I'm starting to brew a theory on it'

Notable Quotes

  • “It's kind of like one of the stomps that the Hallets and Nightingales do every once in a while.”

    Raymond Davidson @ early — Positioning Emerald City Cup as a significant community event despite smaller turnout

  • “You just, you get Light Cycle, you get Korra, sometimes you get Disc, Rinse and Repeat.”

    Raymond Davidson @ round 1 — Casual observation on Tron Legacy's gameplay patterns

  • “I'd rather have it so that, sure, if you do nothing you flip a coin, but if you have the skill you might be able to tip the odds in your favor to like 60-40.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Lord of the Rings discussion — Expressing design philosophy critique on game difficulty and skill influence

  • “Definitely moral of the story is pick games that you played because even if they not your absolute favorite you played them and there a lot to be said for that.”

    Raymond Davidson @ semi-finals — Key strategic lesson about tournament game selection

  • “If you ever want to tilt me at a tournament, just pick Circus Voltaire.”

    Raymond Davidson @ finals game 2 — Personal commentary on a problematic machine matchup

  • “I am due, I am due, I telling you I due, I going to blow it up one of these days I swear.”

    Raymond Davidson @ finals game 2 (Circus Voltaire) — Expresses frustration and determination on a recurring nemesis machine

  • “That's what you're signing up for when you pick Dialed In!!, is, you know, you gotta hit that one deadly shot to get the ball rolling.”

    Raymond Davidson @ finals tiebreaker — Describes Dialed In's high-risk design philosophy

  • “don't drain without any tilt warnings left, if you can help it.”

    Raymond Davidson @ TNA discussion — Core tournament strategy on managing tilt warnings

Entities

Raymond DavidsonpersonEmerald City CupeventTron LegacygameGame of ThronesgameLord of the RingsgameTwilight ZonegameTotal Nuclear Annihilationgame

Signals

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Raymond Davidson shares specific shot sequences and strategic approaches for multiple machines (Tron Legacy full plunge strategy, Game of Thrones Tyrell house selection, Torpedo Alley right orbit spam), indicating deep optimization within individual game rules.

    high · Detailed discussion of full plunge guaranteeing Light Cycle, Tyrell payout mechanics yielding 600M+, right orbit spinner yielding 250k per trip

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Davidson learns specific tournament mode mechanics during play (Twilight Zone scoop award sequence, Ripley's scoop awards, World Cup Soccer ultra mode ordering), suggesting these are not widely documented or known.

    high · Multiple instances of discovering mechanics mid-tournament: 'I learned that the first scoop Award is light gumball', 'I think the first one is Spot Continent North America'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tournament format (one pick per game, limited picks, Papa-style finals) creates strategic pick decisions; Davidson optimizes game selection around familiarity and risk tolerance rather than absolute skill.

    high · Davidson passes on picks when high-seed opponent will pick, reserves picks for 'silver bullet' games he knows well, emphasizes importance of playing games in qualifying before relying on them in eliminations

  • ?

    product_concern: Individual machine setups significantly impact gameplay difficulty and strategy (Lord of the Rings lightning flippers with no posts, Funhaus mirror shot problematic, Circus Voltaire ball kickback issues), suggesting setup quality or configuration variation is tournament-relevant.

    high · Davidson criticizes Lord of the Rings setup removing skill influence, notes Funhaus mirror 'did not seem to exist', describes Circus Voltaire as recurring nemesis with specific mechanical issues

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.152

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 6 of the Do or Die Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Raymond Davidson and I'm gonna talk about Emerald City Cup. It was a tournament that happened this weekend. It was a small turnout, just 37 people, but we like to pride it as sort of a big deal just because it's full day match play event. It's kind of like one of the stomps that the Hallets and Nightingales do every once in a while. So yeah, we'll go through game by game, round by round, The format was seven rounds of match play. So you're in four player groups with seven, five, three, one scoring. The three player groups are seven, four, one. And you basically play seven rounds in the top 16, do a Papa style finals. So you are in a group of four and the top seed gets to pick game or position for three games with a scoring of four to one. The caveat with the format was you can only ever pick a game once throughout the whole tournament so you better make it good and you'll see that come into play as the tournament progresses Anywho we'll start off with coverage of round one where I got to play Tron Legacy it was um not I mean I don't have a whole lot to say about Tron. I think people kind of know it to death at this point. You just, you get Light Cycle, you get Korra, sometimes you get Disc, Rinse and Repeat, but I was able to have a pretty strong showing on that right off the gate. I always go with a full plunge strategy just to get the right orbit light cycle. It's kind of a hedge so that you're like pretty darn guaranteed to get a light cycle multiball because you plunge the right orbit, then you, you know, next ball or whenever you shoot the left ramp and then you just have to either hit the Cora side ramp and left orbit. The so getting the right order of the way just by full plunging Is a nice way to kind of make sure you at least get to play a multi ball So I ended up with 45 million I I like I said I was I was rocking and rolling pretty well on it. Not a whole lot of insight I can give The other than I don't know if I've talked about how you get supers in light cycle but you combo the left ramp, cora shot, and then gem or left ramp, cora shot, and side ramp you can also beat light cycle by getting three two-way combos so left ramp, cora, right orbit, side ramp uh... either of those if you get three of those total in the multiball It's an alternative way to turn the light cycle solid. Anyway, next up we got to play TNA, Total Nuclear Annihilation. I was a little squirrelly on it. I had the gift of a free multiball. Basically, someone left two locks in there for me, so that was nice, but I didn't really do much with it. I ended up with just a couple hundred thousand. Like I said, I was It's pretty squirrelly. I wasn't able to really control it too well. But then by the time ball three rolled around, I was able... I noticed that the plunge, the short plunge, was actually like absolutely money for catching it on the right flipper. And you definitely want to try this because some TNAs are very squirrelly and you can't really catch them that way. Luke how much did you learn today?

Raymond Davidson advanced to the finals and faced the #1 seed in a tiebreaker

high confidence · Raymond Davidson describing the semi-final results and finals bracket

“You know, give it some sort of influence for a better skilled player.”

Raymond Davidson @ Lord of the Rings — Design philosophy preference: skill-based influence over pure chance

  • “Once you pick a game you can't pick it anymore for the whole tournament.”

    Raymond Davidson @ early tournament explanation — Core tournament format mechanic affecting strategy

    • [name withheld pending review]
    game
    World Cup Soccergame
    Ripley's Believe It or Not!game
    Torpedo Alleygame
    Atlantisgame
    [name withheld pending review]game
    Dialed In!game
    Kayleeperson
    Do or Die Pinball Podcastorganization
    Papa (Format)product
    Lonnieperson
    Magnus Nilssonperson
    IFPAorganization
  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Games feature mode selection strategies and multiball stacking mechanics; optimal play involves sequencing and timing mode starts (Game of Thrones Lannister/Tyrell stacking, Lord of the Rings War of the Ents start strategy, Tron Legacy combo sequencing).

    high · Davidson discusses ideal Lannister/Tyrell sequencing order, mode selection mechanics on Lord of the Rings using flipper inputs, combo requirements for mode completion

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Raymond Davidson qualified 2nd in qualifying rounds, advanced through quarters and semis, and faced the #1 seed in finals, reaching tiebreaker games, indicating strong competitive performance.

    high · Davidson finishes qualifying 2nd, gets to 'drive the bus' in quarters/semis, describes being matched against #1 seed in finals with 8-8 record tiebreaker

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Pinball requires advanced nudging/saving techniques; Davidson executes multiple successful saves with tilt risk management (triangle bounce forcing ball back into play on Tron, aggressive save on World Cup Soccer).

    high · Davidson describes precise nudge execution: 'did this nice little triangle bounce and forced it back into the in lane', notes tilt bob clicking but avoiding tilt, discusses danger-danger saves

  • ?

    design_innovation: Games feature diverse mechanical innovations: Torpedoe Alley's universal ball locks system, Ripley's vertical upkicker for safe ball returns, Atlantis's eject mechanics for safe number spotting, indicating evolution in playfield design.

    medium · Discussion of shared locks on Torpedo Alley, safe eject returns on Atlantis, vertical upkickers providing ball control, various ramp and orbit configurations

  • ?

    community_signal: Emerald City Cup positions itself as significant community event ('big deal', 'stomps that Hallets and Nightingales do'), suggesting active regional tournament scene with recognized event organizers and formats.

    medium · Reference to Hallets and Nightingales as comparable tournament organizers, Papa-style finals adoption, full-day match play format indicating established community infrastructure

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Davidson articulates design philosophy preference: games should reward skill with improved odds (60-40) over pure chance (50-50 coin flip), critiquing setups that remove skill influence through mechanics like lightning flippers with no posts.

    high · Explicit statement: 'if you have the skill you might be able to tip the odds in your favor to like 60-40' vs. pure chance, criticism of Lord of the Rings setup removing ball influence

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Significant scoring variance across players on same machines; multiballs and specific rule achievements create large point swings (600M+ on Game of Thrones for Tyrell vs. lower scores on non-optimal houses, 45M vs. 1.5M on other games).

    high · Game of Thrones 600M vs. audience default scores, Tron Legacy 45M vs. 30M+, TNA 1.8M advantage from dual danger saves, variance driven by multiball access and mode execution

    • 5:27
    you're just your yesterday sorry gladly I P clean blijing to his Echoes and a anatomy Nove the I made about 1.8 million thanks to a lovely double danger early in the ball. And, well actually it was a series of, it was one danger and then later in the ball I made another danger. But both of those were definitely necessary. And so I was, you know, weighing my options, making, make sure you use every piece of the buffalo, if you know what I mean. You know, don't drain without any tilt warnings left, if you can help it. I definitely used them because I was able to go up to 1.8 million. Unfortunately, player three came back from their 1 million and beat me, so I got second on that, and it was a three player group, so I just, I got four points for that. So I got 11 points after two rounds. Going into game three was Game of Thrones, and let me tell you, this thing was set up Prawn Pride Practice Dell evangelistisch rolplechayber, Ler Malですね summary jaeger dir件 않고 the last ofhuman in the I chose to go with Tyrell as my house of choice because you want to get to a multiball in Game of Thrones, but it can be kind of deadly, right? You hit those green targets and you're probably just gonna die. So you might as well be getting paid on those. And Tyrell, you get paid. You get paid quite a bit, actually. You can end up with like 200 million just from playing Tyrell so I chose Tyrell, played the mode uh... you know got nice some some nice base points and then was able to parlay that into a multiball with Lannister able to pile on more points ended up with about six hundred million which was far and beyond I think the next highest score was like I was happy about that. I actually saw somebody choose Baratheon which I thought was interesting. The only reason I could think that they chose it was because this spinner was super dialed. Like, it was, you shot it and it, I think his Baratheon value was like up to 75 million from one shot. So I don't know if he was just playing for, you know, not getting last, which might be a valuable strategy. It is quick points, but I don't know if I'd recommend that. Later in the tournament, everyone was picking Tyrell, so I think people caught on pretty quickly that Tyrell was kind of the way to go for the way this one was set up because nobody got to hand to the king the entire day. It just didn't happen. So the Martell-Adiball just wasn't really in play as much. So the next game I got to play was Twilight Zone and I had something very interesting happen. I walked up to the game, flipped the flippers to, you know, test the flippers, and the ball auto-launched. And I, I, I mean I caught it, or rather I flipped the left flipper and was able to shoot it into the piano, but I was very caught off guard by that. I think the The little ball diverter must have failed and so the ball was just sitting in the auto kicker zone and basically it was just waiting for player input and when I hit the flippers it auto launched it. So when you step up to a twilight zone, make sure the ball is in the shooter lane. If it's not, don't hit the flippers. Probably ask a tech, put the ball in the shooter lane, unless you want to auto-launch it, but I don't know. That was a first for me, so that was interesting. Then I basically tried to do the Twilight Zone thing where you go left ramp, right ramp, gumball, but I ended up, I don't even know how I did it. I think I panic flipped a ball, the powerball, into the multiball start and so I got to play multiball with a powerball, which is something you never really want to do unless you're just doing it for style points because if you do manage to get a jackpot with specifically the powerball or you trick the jackpot with the powerball, which you can do in a variety of ways such as shooting the jackpot and then quickly shooting the powerball into the camera べ 아무יה Not that fun. It's just a mispronunciation. I'm just saying this one because I'm not good at this. So I'm gonna try to do it and I'm gonna try to get it right. Alright, so we're gonna try to get it right. So I'm gonna start with a silver ball and it was 70 million which was absurd because I started it from the left ramp and if you didn't know on Twilight Zone after you lock your first ball, your first multiball you can either lock the second ball in the lock or you can just start the multiball right away. If you start the multiball right away you start at like 15 million as your jackpot value which is way lower than if you start from locking two balls. I don know how I got a 70 million jackpot I think I must have hit like literally all the 5 million targets I mean it was a long multiball but anyway I got my jackpot kept playing it out playing it out I don know if I ever got Powerball Mania which maybe I did but I think I did but I fell short I got million and I needed million So I took a second on that I just fine Next up was Lord of the Rings. And this Lord of the Rings had, of course, lightning flippers, no posts on the outlanes, outer or inner. Mr Thomas Wallace, Einein面고 툼특 revenir opponent cœettiastics가 Program to Campus儿� żeby그�esian� reunion Taygues Pletsch Polday Asus So, I'm not implying that it is too fundamental for pinball, this is my opinion, but you should be able to still influence the ball.
    13:37
    If you start moving everything, there's just no way to influence it anymore and you're basically just at the mercy of flipping a coin, whether you live or die. I'd rather have it so that, sure, if you do nothing you flip a coin, but if you have the skill You might be able to, you know, tip the odds in your favor to like 60-40, right? You know, give it some sort of influence for a better skilled player. But anyway, regardless, this Lord of the Rings was set up hard. The multiballs were run hard. You had to hit fellowship in order, starting with Mary or Pippin or something and then Sam and whatnot. I did notice that it played perfectly into my War of the Ents strategy. I'm going to start War of the Ents as my first mode. You can change the mode on Lord of the Rings by using the left and right flippers. It's kind of weird because you have to plan your mode one shot ahead. So you have the mode flashing to the right of War of the Ents and then you hit the left flipper to shoot it up the ring. It'll move one to the left. Anyway, I started War of the Ents and I was able to go left orbit which gave me a fellowship and gave me War of the Ents The game started off with War of the Ents, right orbit which gave me a fellowship, and War of the Ents points. And then I was just like, you know, kept going. That's usually what I do in my games. Started off with War of the Ents. I ended up dying because I tried to shoot this right ramp that had these giant yellow rubbers on it. I don't know why I decided it would be a good idea to shoot that but it drained me promptly. I probably should've just The one shot on that game that was not impossible or really hard was the ring actually. The ring was being super friendly so starting modes was almost no problem. But I did end up playing Shelob on ball three to pad my points a little bit because Shelob, it lights half the shots. It lights like three on the left and then when you get one it lights three on the right. Extreme Außerdem ents Aur Shyla rage pouvez prove takes I'm not for the two towers. You know, I threw caution to the wind, shot that right ramp of death, was able to actually hit it from the left flipper. The backhand was not happening. And ended up with like 17 mil and that was enough to take Lord of the Rings. So, you know, the little lesson there, I guess, is shoot shots that you have success with first, such as starting a mode on this one was pretty easy. I'm going to be talking about the different modes that have shots that give you multiple returns, return on investment. So, you know, War of the Ents, I was shooting orbits which was also progressing my fellowship. I picked She-Lob because I felt comfortable shooting left orbit, right orbit whereas any other modes I might have had to shoot some ramps or something. And so once you feel comfortable in a game, then you can start switching to the riskier strategies like two towers, you know, once I had a little bit of lead and I was able to, you know, pad my lead once I got the two towers going. The next game we played was another round of Twilight Zone, is that right? Two, three, four, five, six, yeah, I had to play Twilight Zone again, okay. Um, my only notes for this one was I learned that the first scoop Award is light gumball. So normally the slot Machine is random, but on tournament settings when you shoot the Scoop, the slot machine, it will give you light gumball, which is very nice because this one was set on every two gumballs was a Powerball. So you could use that to light Fox� Some colocational shotgun corticals aime I'm just going to ripley's, believe it or not. And oh my goodness, this thing, it didn't look like it was set up very hard. Like, like nothing about it was really changed. But for some reason it was just very mean. You know, I shot the shrunken head, which progresses you towards multi-ball. And I shot it once and the pops fed to the right in lane, which was nice. Then I shot it again and the pops fed to the right out lane, which was not nice. And then I think ball two I might have got one more shot up there to an out lane. So now I'm thinking going into ball three, this multiball thing is not really working for me. How do I get some safer points on the board? And I remembered that I think in tournament mode the first award for the scoop that gives you a random award, the scoop on the left, every three shots to it will give you a random award. And I think the first one is Spot Continent North America. And sure enough, that's what it was. And North America is a two-ball multi-ball where you can get jackpots equal to basically the Bigfoot value November twenty forty and the and got no jackpots. And then I drained promptly after trying to shoot the vertical upkicker to start Antarctica, which is another multiball. Anyway, that game did not go the way I wanted it to. I just could not find the shots pretty much at all. And I got 3.7 million, which was third place, so I was able to pick up something. That put me qualified second, so I would be able to pick, drive the bus in the quarters and semis, but in the finals, if I would make it to the finals and the number one seed is still in the finals, that would be the only case where I wouldn't get to drive the bus. For anyone who doesn't know what driving the bus means, it means you get to pick all the games for that round. Speaking I,uhh...started out the quarter finals choosing Tron because i had such success with it in the previous rounds and it was not looking pretty going into Ball 3. I think I had about 2 million and I needed the left orbit to get my last light cycle and i basically just risked it for the Biskit because the scores You know, everyone had like eight or nine million and like in order for me to get to that scoring threshold I needed light cycle. You know, there's not really any other option in that game.
    21:56
    And so I just shot that left orbit and prayed and the bumpers were super nice and they popped it right into that scoop for me. So I got to play light cycle multiball and that kind of got my groove going and I was able to parlay that into core multiball I'm a fan of Pinball and ended up getting like 30 something million which was more than enough to win the first game of the quarter finals. The next game I actually chose to go fourth because I just came off a win on Tron so I'd rather not use my picks right away because once you pick a game you can't pick it anymore for the whole tournament. So I was like, well, I can afford to go forth and maybe spike a win here. And if I don't, you know, I can always pick game three if I need to. Well, I got to play Funhaus and normally I love Funhaus, but on this one, I just could not hit that mirror. Balls one and two, just short plunge, brick drain. And then on ball three, I, oh my goodness. I think I like somehow flailed into the bumpers enough to magically light my locks and basically I was committed to multiball at that point and unfortunately the multiball just didn't happen. I fell short. I just could not find the shots when I needed them and it's just sort of I did have this I had this really good double danger save that went straight to the left out lane, so that was, you know, that's how that goes. But I didn't really play the Funhaus in the seven rounds, so that can kind of bite you a little bit if you're, you know, just because you love a game, if you haven't played that particular one, you know, you gotta get used to it. And this one, I just, the mirror, it did not seem to exist for some reason. So I eventually stopped going for it, right? I eventually pivoted just just go for multiball that didn't end up working out either But yeah, hey, but I got I did get third though. I managed to get slightly more points than than someone else I Did also learn that the hidden hallway? so when you drain out of multiball without getting a jackpot it starts a countdown on the hidden hallway and it has a huge grace period. I saw somebody even after it went to zero seconds it timed out and Rudy said, oh no, he shot the hidden hallway and it gave it to him. So huge grace period on the hidden hallway. Just a FYI. I got five points after two games. I get to pick game three. As I mentioned, I wanted to see if I could win without picking. Turns out I did not win. So I picked game three and I picked Lord of the Rings. And this thing, I had played it in qualifying and put up 18 million or whatever. And I basically did that same thing on ball one, just because I was so familiar with it. Subtitles by the Amara community Definitely moral of the story is pick games that you played because even if they not your absolute favorite you played them and there a lot to be said for that And so I ended up finishing with like 21 million but I had two towers lit which was annoying. But somehow my 21 million actually survived against 35 million and 15 million. I say survived because I only needed second on that game to guarantee an advance, but it was pretty close. You know that 15 million was only a few few mode shots away from from catching me So I almost was in a tiebreaker, but I luckily skated through with the seven points And there was a tiebreaker below me tied at six so that was nice. I was able to cruise on into the semifinals and the first game of the semifinals I picked the game and I picked Game of Thrones because I felt I knew where the shots were and that is all that matters on that game because as soon as you miss you die and so I was hoping that other people didn't know the shots and they would die sooner. anna post anereye I'm My 400 million could have been a lot more though, but I I didn't stack Lannister with multiball
    27:05
    And I think that was my bad. There's a certain order that you should do those in so that your third Center ramp shot will start Lannister and then also start multiball but I think what I did was I started Tyrell by itself and during Tyrell I went lock target center ramp lock target center ramp lock target and basically lock those two balls without getting Lannister credit. So the better way to go would be pass on Tyrell until you get Lannister one shot away or I guess you have to light Lannister in order to choose Tyrell again. So maybe pass the first time, light Lannister, play Tyrell by itself, and then once you finish Tyrell, play Lannister with Blackwater. I think that's the ideal recipe. But I always seem to manage to screw that up. So, I don't know. Your mileage may vary. I'm not a huge Game of Thrones guru. I just know how to get decent points now and then on it. And I got enough to win that game. In the 뜨 vault Brief it especially questions the question quite напр And I got put on World Cup Soccer. And you know how I just mentioned that you should play games, you know, that you had played before? Well, did not play World Cup and it showed because I could not hit Final Draw to save my life. I was early, late, all around it. I managed to squeak out a third. So very similar to the Funhaus game actually. I did do this great save that tilted which in hindsight I should not have done the save because it was a really aggressive move that dug it out of the left out lane and I had probably like 50 million of ultra ultra bonus and luckily it didn't end up mattering because it was basically the game came down to two players started multiball and two people didn't and I was one of those that didn't so that's kind of what determined that game. I did learn something, at least I'm starting to brew a theory on it, that the ultra modes seem to be in a set order. Now, I'm not sure if it's always Ultra Spinner first, or if it's random for the first player and then every player after that gets the same one, but at least in our game, every player got Ultra Spinner first. The that's uh... interesting watch your opponents play see what ultramodes they get because if they get one that you like like ultra spinner uh... that was actually my strategy was I shot a goal first to light my ultra spinner and then I shot ultra spinner over and over again because it gave me lock progress and it gave me ultra points and so it was kinda working towards two things at once uh... that way you know I could get third place but also work towards that multiball Fun Fact 6-5. You need a pinball as a matter of fact. So today I got 5 points again going into game 3 and I chose to go fourth because I just needed to not get last. I did not want to waste a pick if I just needed to not get last. I want to use my picks on, you know, silver bullets. Games that I think I can blow up. So I chose fourth and Kaylee chose Torpedo Alley. And let me tell you Torpedo Alley, if you've never seen it, it's a game by Data East and it's got locks kinda all over the place that are all shared and it's got like target banks all over the place that kinda work towards destroying ships or something and work towards jackpots. And then there's spinners that can light and My strategy on that game is I do nothing but shoot the right orbit. That's all I do. Because shooting the right orbit either locks a ball or falls into the sub lanes and when you spell sub it lights the spinner, which is also on the right orbit. And when the spinner is lit, it's 5,000 per spin. And I was getting like 250k every trip up there. And so that was my strategy to knock it last and it worked out. I think I got second on that game and that punched my ticket to the finals. Something about Torpedo Alley people might not know is if you plunge directly into the right out lane without hitting any other switch, it will always give you the ball back. Magnus Nilsson, I also learned that you can light your kickback hitting the little spot target, but if your spot target isn't lit to light kickback, you have to hit the drop targets on the upper right. At least that's what Lonnie said. I didn't actually verify that, but anyway, that's what I heard. But as I said, I just shot the spinner. That's all I did. And for anyone new to that game, I would recommend probably just following that strategy. Post pass to the left flipper, shoot the right spinner. Kaylee was bold enough to actually shoot the right ramp because when he shot the right ramp, it would kick out perfectly up the right spinner lane and into the ball lock. And I mean that's great if you can hit the right ramp. It basically accomplishes the same thing as the right spinner. But the right ramp is an intimidating shot and when you miss it you are very very close to that right out lane. So I I was not that bold. I just went directly at the spinner instead and it seemed to work out pretty well. Anyway, now I'm in the final four and
    33:38
    unfortunately the first seed made it all the way to the finals as well, so I would not get to pick any of the games. So instead I got to go forth in all the games and just sit back and enjoy the ride. I'm going to start off with a little bit of a little chaotic games I would say. The first game that was picked was Atlantis. It is the, not the EM Atlantis with the drop targets but rather the later solid state Atlantis with the diving rescue mission where you hit the numbers 1, 2, 3 and when you hit all the Ballinner Richtung we're smart, rainbow- covid19 safety, eبي, spooky, üdse khi bed извест weld学科, only Analyze ur Wednesday morning hand. I'm not sure if you guys have seen the video about the game Atlantis, but I'm sure you've seen a lot of people stealing the jackpot and resetting it or anything like that. So I recommend, if people haven't seen Atlantis, it's not a bad tournament game. I was impressed with it. I also learned that shooting the left, I actually was watching Kaylee play, and shooting the left eject, kinda to the left, the bonus X lane, up towards the center, would spot you a number. So if you don't want to hit the targets, you can just hit that and it will give you a number. Sometimes it will also kick it into the vertical upkicker, which safely returns the ball back to your flipper and you can repeat that. So there is actually a safe way to light your locks if you can hit that eject over and over again. I did eventually get to multiball and got a jackpot. So did Kaylee, so we were both around like 4 million or so. I actually hit a couple of lit spinners, which I discovered sort of by accident. I think whenever the ball goes down the left in lane, it lights a spinner, the right spinner, for a thousand a spin. And so I got some nice juicy points off of those opportunities and just kind of keeping the ball alive. I think I got some extra points. I ended up winning 4.8 million to 4.3 million. I also learned that after your first multiball, the bonus X lane does not spot and So now we come to the guys. M Mitchlements for any number Good morning. All right, thanks a bitch on that. Good morning. Now I call you the best sport 시청 buat. Good morning to you. Very nice of you all to be with me here. I just wanted to say Delhi Kuntips jewelry. And it's pretty safe. The second game we had to play was Circus Voltaire. And I effing hate this game in tournaments. It is the bane of me. I don't know why. I thought I could break the curse, but unfortunately I did not. I got another 1.5 million game where I didn't start any multiballs, even though all I did was try to shoot the ramp five times, So it's Sek Dazu stairs and Sterrorizito. Steve In the outkick, the man from the office in the basement of the gym was pinned and the ball was thrown down the middle of the court.
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    The ringmaster threw it around, the ringmaster's hideout kicked it into the nowhere land. When you lock a ball for the high wire, it falls off of the rail directly into the slingshot. If you ever want to tilt me at a tournament, just pick Circus Voltaire. Hopefully, I'm not in that position where someone else is picking the game for me. But if you do have I gonna have that opportunity little tidbit pick Circus Voltaire it will probably I will not be happy about it But I am due I am due I telling you I due I going to blow it up one of these days I swear Anyway, 1.5 million. No good. Last place. Not much to say there. We got to go to Game 3, which was Tron, which I was super happy about because I had been blowing it up all day. I was doing okay on it. I was in the lead. I got light cycle going. I got some points. But then I could not hit Cora to save my life. I shot the Cora shot every which way, could not hit it. Eventually I missed it so many times that the disc lowered and then eventually I missed Cora so badly that I hit the disc on accident. And eventually I just pivoted and I was like, you know what? It's time for plan D. Disc. And I just shot the disc. I gave up on Cora. Shot the disc over and over again, started disc multiball, put up like 18 million points or so. I was in the lead until Kaylee decided to come back and he got to 21.4 million. So I go into ball three with like 18 and a half million. Missed my skill shot, which was unfortunate because that's a free million. Or 500,000 and then 500,000 for the arcade award. And so I'm kind of panicking. I'm like, alright, I just need like two and a half million. Come on, Raymond, you can do this. So I look on the board, is there any points anywhere? And I'm like, oh, okay, clue. I can start clue. All right, cool. Get some clue points going. Maybe shoot some light cycles, just get like little mini combos. You know, I was grabbing any points I could find, any shots, you know, just keep it alive. I just need a few million points. And there came this point where I was about, how was that, like maybe 18, like 19, I was 19 million, it was pretty early in the ball. The ball was coming to the left out lane and I saw it do this slow deadly bounce and it hit the top of the sling and was headed towards the left out lane and I gave it this giant upward nudge and I was able to bounce it off the left post and do this nice little, I did this little triangle bounce and forced it back into the in lane and it gave me danger, danger. And I could hear the tilt bob clacking around like it was that big of a move and I thought for sure it was done. But I somehow, someway did not tilt and I was able to make like a couple more shots drained without tilting because at that point I think I had it in bonus and I did. I think it was absolutely, you know, I, I recognized approximately, you know, I, I was, I was not going to, um, have enough bonus points. I needed a couple more shots. So I was not going to have enough bonus points. I needed a couple more shots. So I think it was absolutely, you know, I recognized approximately I could count on maybe 750,000 in bonus. And I knew I was not there yet. So I just gave it the biggest shove I could. And it somehow saved it and it somehow didn't tilt. And I was able to force the The tiebreaker. So I had eight points, Kaylee had eight points, going into the final tiebreaker game and I got to pick because I was higher seed and I picked Dialed In. So I got to play first and I, you know, I think I got a nothing, nice big nothing ball where I shot the lightning dude and drained. You know, that's what you're signing up for when you pick Dialed In, is, you know, you gotta hit that one deadly shot to get the ball rolling, and then Kaylee did exactly the same thing. And so we're going to Ball 2 with, like, a thousand. Both of us tried and failed to do the hurry-up strat where on Dialed In, at the beginning of the game, the inlanes will be lit either left or the right inlane, The game is a 10K plus hurry up. So at the beginning of the game make sure that right in lane is flashing. If not, change it with the flippers. Full plunge, go over that in lane and shoot the left ramp. It'll give you 10,000 and then you hold up the left flipper and pass it over to the right flipper and shoot the left ramp again. It'll give you 11,000. And repeat. You can go to 12,000 and so on. And unfortunately, if you miss, it's all over and, you know, me and Kaylee, we both missed. But, you know, we had the right idea. It would have been cool to have a hurry up competition. But nope, we went into ball two, started modes. I accidentally started, I think, Singularity. You know, I was trying to start flash fires because flashfires will alternate between the left ramp and the bob targets and when you hit the bob targets it will light your kickback which was necessary because the kickback started unlit. But I think I misflipped and started singularity instead. You can actually choose what mode you start by using the flippers just like Lord of the Rings. I have to actually plan one flip ahead. It can be a little hard to grok sometimes, but it's definitely worth it so that you avoid things like EMP, which is the mode you never ever want to play because it activates all deadly magnets. Anywho, Singularity Mode basically, as the name suggests, you only have one shot lit at a time and it just moves around the playfield. It's like left orbit, left ramp, center, right ramp, left orbit. I was like I completed it which is great and then I locked a ball and this is a decision that I get criticism from often which is once I beat in a mode and lock a ball I deliberately do not cancel the ball lock because you know normally when you lock a ball you can hit both flippers three times in a row and it will basically cancel that ball lock or it'll it'll kind of put it on delay a little bit. A
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    0 E 2 n 0 1 3 7 0 50 1 3 I didn't get any lucky bounce-ins into the SIM card hole, unfortunately, but shortly after Multiball, I did actually just kind of nail it in. Like, it was this weird once-in-a-lifetime center shot upper flipper straight to SIM card. I couldn't really believe it when it happened, but anyway, I got my SIM card, rocking and rolling. So from that point on, you know, I just want to play another mode because now I got 2X. I'll be playing with the Lightningning Dude. I start Alien Invasion, hit a couple shots in that, get some nice points who act up on the board. I think I end up with like maybe 400,000 or so. Kaylee puts up maybe 100,000 or something. Nothing special. But then ball three, I walk up to the game and I was like, huh, I'm kind of in jail. Like nothing's really lit. What do I do? I was playing a pinball and as soon as I plunged the ball, the game told me, lock is lit. And I was like, oh yeah, I can just play another multiball because all you have to do is alternate left and right ramps and when you plunge, it counts as a ramp shot. So I was able to plunge the right ramp, shoot the left ramp, lock the ball. And apparently it wasn't on virtual locks, which was weird, because I was able to lock the ball and then again, Plunge the right ramp, shoot the left ramp, and lock ball too. Plunging the ramp to get your lock progress is super nice. I really like that. You can also use that strategy for certain modes where the right ramp is lit in a mode. You can strategically time it so that you lock a ball and then use the plunger to get the right ramp as your mode shot. This only works if the game is on real locks instead of virtual locks.
    47:24
    So, you know, your mileage may vary, but it's kind of a neat little life hack using the plunger to spot your right ramp shot.
    47:33
    Anyway, Ball 3 I play multiball and then I end up going for Bob and lighting Big Bang during my multiball. I'm a fan of the pinball. Those are the two things I was really focusing on. And I was able to get my bob all the way to the two-bob multiball, which is like the third or fourth bob award. And I wanted to not start it. I wanted to just finish my multiball and then after my multiball start the bob multiball. But instead I accidentally stacked both of them together. The reason you don't want to stack those is because during the Bob 2-well multiball you can actually work towards your electric guy progress. Otherwise in multiball you can't. So a little tidbit, you definitely want to play the Bob multiball by itself to try to work towards your electric dude to get your modes. At least as far as I can tell. I don't know if that's changed in a recent revision, but since the last time I played, the bob multiballss would let you do basically anything. You could start modes, whatever. Anyway, I ended up with seven hundred and something thousand, and now I just had to sit and watch Kaylee. It was really nerve-wracking. He played mode after mode, started multiball, got his way up to about three hundred thousand, and then the game finally I said no more and I think a right out lane Drain ended it and I won the tournament with the win on Dialed In and I got this sweet cup and yeah, it was great. So thanks a lot to everyone at FlipFlipDingDing here in Seattle, Washington. That was the name of the bar that we were at and Jermaine Martiol for organizing the Closed captioning provided by the Amara.org community That's about it for today. Thanks for listening. Hopefully you can do and not die. Get trophies. Good stuff like that. Alright, see ya.
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