Welcome everybody. It is episode 7 of Wizards and Warriors. I am one of your hosts for Scope Pinball, Hottie. My co-host right here. Joe, Jay Land, what's going on? Not much, man. Welcome back. It's been a couple months since we last talked. We saw each other at Starfighters, hung out, got an Airbnb with our friend Jeff Teolis and his buddy. It was a good time. And, you know, life gets in the way, work gets busy, but we will try to be a little more consistent as far as time between episodes. But, you know, it's been fun. There's been a ton of competitive pinball to go over. Oh, yeah. So it's going to be interesting going through those. How have you been? What's been going on in your life in the competitive world? And then after this, we'll get started because this is a very special episode. If you've watched Episode 6, we interviewed and did an in-depth analysis with Zach McCarthy, ZMAC, for InDisc. And this episode, we have a special guest as well, and we'll reveal that in a little bit. Yeah. Thanks, Adi. Yeah, it's been good, man. we just finished hosting or running a Virginia's first mega match play 20 rounds of games you know biggest kind of whopper hall in the state of Virginia and it went really well got our good personal friend Carlos that was there that came out and was able to play and meet a lot of folks here in Virginia that he hadn't met before so that was really cool to see and yeah, just moving on to some more tournaments. Got a lot of stuff to cover. I know, right? The tour of Lowe's, Laser Lowe's continues. I'm glad his world tour stopped by your stomping grounds, but that's awesome to hear. The bigger tournaments are happening everywhere region-wise. I know every state is trying to find their own good sort of fit for attracting people to get those juicy Whoppers. We're having the Titan, the 2025 Titan Pinmasters Regional in Texas. They're trying to make the Whoppers bigger than TPF, which happened while we were gone. Whoa. So we'll see, because PPF's a big one. But like I said, we have another special episode here. We're going to recap a ton of tournaments from late February to the present and recap the 2025 Pinmasters with your winner, Raymond Davidson. That's going to be our special guest. We'll talk to Ray about his pinball life, thoughts on competitive pinball, his approach, and kind of go in-depth with his strategy and analysis on winning that illustrious 2025 Pinmasters title, as well as both the main and classics title at the Starfighters Pinball Festival. He got the double belt in Arizona. It was fun watching him compete and you and I competing. Quick side note Both Joe and I reached pro rankings this year Which is awesome to do Joe got it after his awesome performance At InDisc And he Made the pro rankings Which is cool because I know that was one of his goals And I had a really decent Starfighters I placed third in the Sunday Strikes which was over 100 people And we both kind of finished In the same area at the main and then classics. I think I was like top eight qualifier, but I got knocked out in the first round, as it happens. But I had a good time. So I think I got as high as 237 for pro rankings. But I think we're good. This is the last episode of Wisdom. But congrats to you, and I'm glad we could do it. So hopefully this lends a little more credence to what we're talking about. I know I don't always get everything right, Um, little faux pas there. Uh, and you know, it was a good time. Uh, I do want to give a shout out for star fighters, uh, everybody that ran it, everybody that helped, uh, all the volunteers. Um, it was a really, really fun tournament. Uh, shout out to atomic age pinball on Twitch. Make sure you go check them out. They streamed it. It was a really, uh, quality stream to get that Stern Pro Circuit event, get some footage for it, because they didn't have a lot of it in the years prior. So what did you think of Starfighters and some of the other stuff that has been happening since we've been last here? Yeah, no, Starfighters was great, man. It was my first time out in Arizona to play pinball. The new location, apparently new location, or I guess it's kind of renovated recently for the Starfighters Arcade was great. The space, there's a lot of space for people to kind of hang out, and, you know, they have the nice tables outside to kind of lounge in. Plenty of room, and, you know, the games all play great. So, overall, great tournament. Got to check out the Electric Bat Arcade. That was fun. Shout out Cale and Rachel. You know, that was a really cool spot. You know, legendary arcade, I feel like, even in terms of pinball. Just crazy that they're open every day, like 6 a.m. until like, was it 2 a.m. or something? Yeah. It's just such a cool spot. It is unreal how good of a location that is. And they have some really good pins there. They had a band going when you, me, Teal, listen. Oh, yeah. What's his name, Shane? I forgot. Shane, yeah, Shane, Shane. Yeah, so from Manitoba Pinball, it was awesome. Like, we got to walk through and just explore kind of Arizona. You guys got to take in a spring training game. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It took a while, right? Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, we both kind of buzzed it out of finals on Sunday. It's like, all right, we're just going to go hang out in the sun. I think when I left D.C. back in February, it was, like, snowing. And then, like, we were just wearing shorts and a T-shirt every day when we were in Arizona. So it was so nice. It was great. Like, kudos to you for getting us that Airbnb, and it was a good location. It all worked out. I'm noticing now in tournaments, if I'm traveling, I'm starting to – you're going to always see a lot of the same people, and it's cool to kind of help the cost go down by sharing an Airbnb if you can, or, you know, if you're sharing a room, splitting the cost. And it worked out because if you don't do well at a part of the tournament, you can go see the area. And a lot of these tournaments are in places I've never been before. I'm headed up to, we'll talk about this, Yagpin next week. So I'm excited to see Edmonton. I'm sure I've been there. I feel like I went there for a fraternity formal or something, or when my dad took us from California to Canada to see everything. But really good time. I think the time from our last episode to now, there have been so many big or bigger tournaments and newer ones like the Whopper Chopper in Wisconsin. So we'll get to those. We can talk a little bit of pinball news here. Again, this is a competitive pinball podcast, but I might as well talk a little bit about it. So we've got a ton of new releases. Pinball is like at an all-time fever pitch for variety, availability of new stuff. TPF happened in my town of Frisco, Texas and it was a great great festival as it always is a little more subdued you know issues with people traveling getting here plus also there wasn't a ton of new pinball to play but the tournament itself had a new format change we'll talk about that and yeah just a good time so new releases King Kong making its way from Stern Pinball, Keith Elwin and crew. I got to play it and stream it last week. One of his most unique layouts. Have you played it yet? I forgot to ask. No, you're good. We haven't gotten any on location yet, but, yeah, what did you think? It's really, really good. The code is pretty solid for the initial release. I know a lot of criticism has been leveled at CERN for some of the incomplete code that consumers have categorized. I don't know. I played X-Men at TPF for like five hours. I was trying to get on the leaderboard, and I really enjoyed it. I understand the engineering issues and some of the stuff that people want to see, especially for owners that have owned it for a long time now. I had a great time. But King Kong, really unique layout and very, very well fleshed as far as code for now. I think the art package in person looks a lot more subdued. I still don't agree with the approach. I wish they would have done more Congo style. But I get that Zombie Yeti has a palette and style. And I've loved his work on the pins that I have. I have AIQ Venom and Godzilla, and those are all really well done. But overall, the package is a winner. I think it's going to be better than Jaws. I don't know if it will be better than Godzilla, which is a tall task because Godzilla is so phenomenal. But, man, it's got a chance to be a great tournament pin. And the shots that I was going for, making, and some of the strategies, super cool stuff. The main multiball is not hard to get to. You just have to sweep the drops twice to get to the subway, multiball and subway car. And, yeah, it's going to be interesting. The log diverter is a really – people are going to be forgetting to hit the action button to hit that log diverter so you can get up to the upper left flipper. but yeah really really good good release and we've got something else that's coming up soon but before that Dune released from Barrels of Fun I know that the code is really early there but man that looks like an insane shooter it looks like a really big step up from Labyrinth and I don't expect anything less from a company that wowed on its first release making such a crazy world under glass as they call it. What did you think of Dune? Yeah, it looks great. I know a few of my friends that went to the Allentown show most recently got a chance to play it and had some good things to say about the game. I'm excited for it. I mean, I really enjoyed playing Labyrinth and, you know, like you said, I got a lot of faith in Barrels of Fun. You know, I wish them nothing but success. So, yeah, I hope they knock it out. Yeah, another Texas company. they got Bowen Kerins and Phil Grimaldi on code for that and the rest of their crew so I can't wait to get to play I think they're yeah they're definitely having one at Yagpin and I expect them to just wow us and what's really cool was that back LCD behind the playfield and how like when you hit certain shots and certain mechs like explosions happen in that area. It's localized to those regions. So it adds a little more immersion. Super, super, super cool. Yeah, I can't wait. But the big one, which everybody was told to hold their money for, Harry Potter. Probably in a couple weeks from JJP, it's going to be the biggest license in a long time as far as intellectual property. What do you think would be bigger than Harry Potter? Pokemon? Like, just magnitude of license. What else is there? Mario, I guess, maybe? But I don't think... I'm just trying to think of a demographic for pinball players. It's older gentlemen. I don't know what, I mean, Back to the Future is big, but I don't know if it's bigger than Harry Potter. Yeah, no, that's like a whale of a license. I don't think we have many big whale licenses left. So, I mean, Star Wars. Star Wars is the only one that I could think is bigger, which is next rumored Stern title in the fall. Hopefully before that we get the Walking Dead remastered, my favorite code of all time. Rest in peace, Lyman. You grace us with some great work. So Harry Potter, next couple weeks, we'll see what happens and what it looks like. I don't think it's... I don't, for me, I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but I know the franchise is so big as far as content that they have to pull from. I wish they would split it into two pins, like films one through three or whatever, and then four through seven, four through six for the second pin, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. Merlin's Arcade got released from Turner Pinball, another Texas company. I got to play that, talk with Chris Turner. Looks like a lot of fun. It's got a tap pass button. Oh, no way. Yeah, so you know how. Easy button. Yeah, yeah. So now on the side, you know, like P3 has a separate button and some other. But it's got, it's called, I forgot what it's called, the flipper pass on whatever their special name is. But it's a tap pass button, so. No way. It's a cheat code. Yeah, right. So, yeah, that's going to be on location. It'll be up to 2025. Titan Pinball Pinmasters here in Azle, Texas, towards the end of May. I'm sure you'll get to see all the footage, gameplay, impressions from everybody on all these pins. Make sure you check out your Twitch pinball channels, the category, and go from there. I will more likely, no, we already did that. make sure you go to Frisco pinball dot com as we transition into this next segment or discussion. That is where my Twitch page lands on my Twitch page. There's also a QR code with a link tree that has all our socials, which is our side note. So we've been streaming on the pinball network. I've been a part of it for a few years now. We used to do weekly consistent streams on Twitch and YouTube. but the pinball network has sort of outgrown itself. There's a lot of great content creators, Triple Drain, The Pinball Show, Zach and Dennis, Silver Ball Chronicles, you know, Teolis has his final round. So it's kind of grown to something where everybody has their own pages. So we're not doing weekly streams there, which means that they're not going to be actively putting out new content. So all the stuff that you would see on the Pinball RSS feed for podcasts like Spotify, Podbean, and Apple Podcasts are not going to be updating anymore, which means that you will need to catch Wizards and Warriors on Spotify on its separate podcast page, and the video versions will still remain on YouTube at Frisco Pinball. So YouTube.com slash Frisco Pinball, and then I'll link everybody to the new Spotify page and Apple Podcasts, all that stuff. But just go to FriscoPinball.com. All the links will be there. Go to my YouTube, and you'll be able to catch us there. But the good news is the video format will be on Spotify now and if I can get it on Apple Podcasts as well. I do want to thank the Pinball Network for all the years of supporting me as a streamer and supporting our podcast, Wizards and Warriors. Zach, Joel, George from Don't Panic Flip. Everyone at TPN were always happy to help me grow from a simple virtual pinball streamer three, four years ago to what we have today. But, yeah, kudos to them. It's been a really good ride. but make sure to reach out to us at wizardsandwarriorspodcast at gmail.com. If you have any questions where we're at, if you want to highlight your upcoming or recent tournaments, have any questions about competitive pinball, we'll still have the TPN logo on our screens and this podcast, but everyone's doing a good job, like I said, growing their own channels. So it made sense for TPN to kind of wind down. That's our little spiel there. Just for an update, thanks for listening. Let's get on with Episode 7. Right now, we're going to do a quick review of the winners of the most recent tournament since February, since Starfighters in February, since that's when our last episode happened. We've got a lot to go over. We've been away for a bit, so if you're watching this video, you can see all the other winners. We're just going to highlight who won and their whoppers versus list 10 people like we normally would. So let's get to it. We've got a viewer request, Drew Syke, out in Canada, right? Yes, Manitoba. Yes, all right. So he emailed us and asked us to highlight the Manitoba Pinball Championship this past week. Excuse me, a couple weeks ago, April 25th, 26th, 27th. They had two certified events, one pump and dump, one match play, and he asked us to talk about it. So, again, Wizards and Warriors podcast at gmail.com. Joe, why don't you take it away with main event number one? Yeah. Event alone, we got a certified championship, which I believe was the Pump and Dump. The winner there, Jack Tadman. Shout out, Jack. Taking home 98.36 Whoppers. Yeah, that's really good. Hey, there's Luke, number two. So, yeah, the Herb event. And then we had the Match Play. Main event certified on April 26th. Sean Russell picked up 95.06 points. Congratulations to you there. Again, if you want to see these on screen, I'm going to make it a little bit bigger so you can see them. Just watch the video of this podcast. And your final four, it looks like we had Drew, Sean, Phil, and Luke. So we've got to get to the recent tournaments. I'll let you handle Starfighters if you don't mind. Yeah, sure. Looks like we've got the Classics tournament here. I know we just mentioned, but, yeah, shout out Ray Day. Raymond Davidson won that one. to give him a massive 193 floppers there. Yeah. Yeah, that was awesome to watch. A good time, right? Yeah. And then for the, let's see, sorry, the main event, Starfighter's main, again, Ray Day took that one as well, with over 200 whoppers there. Sure. Another massive weekend for him. That is 393 Whoppers in one weekend. That is, how many do I have total? I think that's like, that's well 80% of my total. So after that? Yeah, after that we've got Lumberjack Johnny's Whopper Chopper. Yes. So that was a big event out in Wisconsin, Appleton, Wisconsin. Yep. Pretty close to District 82. That was a hybrid. that's right, yeah, it was a hybrid event so, is it the first I think it was the first hybrid event they'd run in that space, maybe that's right I think last time, on our last episode someone mentioned in one of the discords that they had run their first hybrid event and went well but yeah, this was Tom from Fox City Spinball was promoting this one and this was the first you know, decent sized one, at least in Wisconsin yep, so yeah Shout out to the fifth guy, Dominic LaBella, for winning that one. Just over 100 whoppers there, so that's, you know, pretty awesome. I did watch the finals for that, so that was a really, really nice finish with him from him there. You took on Andy, it was like Nathan Zalewski and Jason Werdrick in the final. So what is, do you know the specifics of what a hybrid event is? You know, I haven't looked it up closely. I think it's like limited entry, right? And it depends on how many games are in the main bank. You get, like, X number of entries per game. But, yeah, it's just to kind of reward efficiency, right? It's all about efficiency. In pinball. Yeah, I know, right? And they gave away a new in-box Stern, Stern Pro. They did, yeah. I think it was Ryan Egg who won that one. That's right, that's right. I think he got a Jaws. Great call. All right, we got the Emerald City Cup, March 2nd, right after, no, same weekend as Whopper Chopper. Emerald City in Seattle, Washington, TD Jermaine. And the results for that main winner was David Johnston. 122 Whoppers for your win at the Emerald City Cup. I swear, Washington has, like, the most and best Whopper, like, size. You got Jermaine out there. he's like the Whopper mastermind. Yeah, right. He will come up with, you know, whatever format it takes to get to, like, the maximum amount. It's crazy. I'm so jealous of them. And then after that, we've got the IFPA NACS, the North American Pinball Championship. Huge, huge tournament. A lot of fun to watch. Held up at the Rochester Pinball Collective in East Rochester, New York. Make sure you check out the folks at the Slam Tilt Podcast. Bruce and Ron, Bruce, one of the operators, many operators at the RPC. This was their inaugural NACS and pin masters there, and they did a phenomenal job. Your winner of the 2024 IFPA North American Pinball Championship, because it runs on a previous yearly cycle, is none other than Jason Zoller. Congratulations, Mr. Zoller, for continuing to dominate. I'll give you your top four there. It was Zoller, ZMAC, Luke Nahorniak, and Donovan Stepp in your top four. Zoller took home the coveted title and 96 Whoppers. But on the same weekend, we had another big tournament. Which one is that? Pin Masters. Got some pin golf. Yeah. And that one, yeah, huge tournament. Quite a lot of points there. Ray Day took that one down with over 200 whoppers there, 206. That's great. Yeah, that's great to watch. And like we said, Ray Day is going to be our special guest. He's going to go over in-depth with analysis of each match, each pin during the finals, and he's also going to talk to us before that just about his pinball life, career, and some of the things that some of his thoughts on pinball. Plus, stay till the end. We did a final quick rapid round with him with some interesting answers there. After the pin masters, we had the Texas Pinball Festival, my favorite pinball show. A little biased because it's in Frisco, Texas, hence the name Frisco Pinball. But new format this year. It was limited entry for all the previous years. They had a main in classics. The scrutinizer was still there, but this year it was a two-day match play event. And it was ten rounds, six rounds through the first day, and then seven, eight, nine, ten on the second day. I think it was five and five or six and four. But it was two games per round, and then top 32, I think, made the playoffs. Really much better format. It allowed a lot of the participants and competitors to actually go enjoy TPF because normally you'd be stuck in the queue waiting for your turn to get all your entries in to make sure you qualified for main and classics. No classics this year, unfortunately. I was a bit bummed about that. Really, really nice job, Kevin Stone. TDing that along with everybody from Texas, Lewis Marks, the Dronettes, and I know I'm forgetting some other people, Garrett. Carpool Pinball helped out with Clark and Keith. So thank you all for a really wonderful TPF tournament. I did okay. Honestly, through like eight, I was like eighth or tenth place, and then the last two rounds I just completely bozoed and fell out of the playoffs. No! Yeah, not the ideal performance, but it's a lesson learned. I was playing with Bob from Atomic Age, and we both needed to do well on that last round to make the playoffs, and he did what he had to do. We played Roadshow in Congo, and I think I got second on Roadshow, but screwed up on Congo. But anyways, what are you going to do? So that's one of the – Oh, sorry. I do want to quickly shout out one of our local young up-and-coming players, Nolan Mitchell. He won the kids' tournament. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, which I think was just the best score game on Roadshow, and then it was like maybe a top four kind of final. Dude, that's awesome. His dad – so he – his dad is the one who posted the mega match play. Shout out, Mike. But he took a picture of Nolan with a trophy, and it was just this massive trophy. I think it was like as tall as he was. And they flew out to Texas, so he had to kind of break it down to take it onto the airplane. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I saw the picture of the kids with the trophies, and I was like, dude, they got hooked up. But congratulations to Alan. That's super cool. You never, as a kid, man, there's a great feeling about competing. And even if it's a smaller tournament, whatever sport you're in, but, man, to come to Frisco, compete and walk home with some hardware, that's got to feel great. Kudos. Kudos. Thanks for mentioning that. But, yeah, so your winner of the 2025 new format TPF, Texas Pinball Festival Wizards Tournament, was Texas' own Preston Monclub. Man, he was on a tear. He was killing it. Jack Revenue was second. Garrett, our current state, or excuse me, from last year, He was last year's Texas State champ. I think Colin won it this year, was third. And Nick Mueller, who was in Pinmasters, too. So just dominating, was top four. Yeah, we got a lot of great players on that list. Come watch the video, and you'll see them there. What's next? Nice. Yeah, next up we've got the Mid-Atlantic Pinball Opener, MAPO, out in the lavish Delaware Pinball Collective. Yeah, that's true. Run by Chad Hastings. So the winner there. We've got Jason Zoller. Big surprise. It took over 100 whoppers there, 106. I'm not sure if that even made his card, but shout out, Jason. Just call it the Jay-Z Pinball Collective. He dominated that arena. After that, we've got the IFPA Women's World Championship, which was also streamed. I believe it was streamed. Oh, man, who was it streamed by? Backhand. Backhand, yes. Great job, Backhand. He also streamed The UK Open and a ton of other tournaments Really great quality, just like Fox City's Ipin Mark He does a great job Of putting on Quality content And footage of these tournaments So thank you Mark But your March 30, 2025 IFPA Women's World Championship was Carrie Wing Really good job Playing Carrie, didn't she come back I feel it wasn't. It was like the reverse sweep. She was down, was it 0-4, and then 0-3 and then 1-4 straight. It's incredible. You want some good play, you know, and you need some extra content or extra footage to watch. Watch the Women's World Championships. Watch any women's event. They had a really cool one in Texas recently this year with a ton of little tournaments for kind of like District 82 used to throw. But, man, it was awesome. You got Kaylee, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Gieske, Cassidy, Sammy Bacon. Look at those names. They're all great players. So kudos, ladies, for the amazing pinball play, and congratulations, Carrie. Up next, we've got the Past Times Mega Match Play. Happened April 6th. Bondo Zappa won that one. Oh, nice. 178 whoppers. Yeah, shout out, John. Um, nice job. Oh, I forgot. Carrie got 189 women's whoppers for the women's. Sorry about that. That you're good. Um, did you go to this one? I can't remember. No, I was, I was signed up, but April 6th was, I think my wife had a, a girl's trip. So I can't really say no because I get to go to so many other things where I have to kind of like pick and choose. And rightfully so, she's very patient with me wanting to participate in these tournaments with two little kids. So if she's got a girls' trip, I am on daddy duty. There you go. Yeah, but I do want to get up there. Yeah, I know a lot of my kind of local Virginia players went up for this one and, you know, got to experience past times for the first time and, you know, had great things to say about it. It's just such an incredible collection. You've been there. But, yeah, I was at one of the mega match plays, I think it was late last year, and then they just announced another one happening, I think it's in November this year. We'll sign up later, maybe in a few weeks or months, but definitely on my radar. We should sign up for that one, Howdy. Yeah, I should. I'm looking at it now. Dude, look at all those Whoppers. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. If you got 15th, you'd get 66, which is like... Oh, yeah. That would be at least third or second on my card right now. Wow, man. And it's a really, really nice location, right? Rob Burke's place? Yep. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of space. In between rounds, you can play, you know, any of the games in the main collection outside the tournament room. And, yeah, really good milkshakes. It's like that is reason enough to get up there. That's awesome. All right. Congrats, John Del Zappo. Really, really cool to see you win that one. And Ohio putting on some more big, big tournaments. Like we said before, I think this year in the middle of the back half of last year, you really saw a lot of regional stuff, regional tournaments that really were able to get big whoppers. And it's great because everybody doesn't have to go to one spot for the opportunity to earn these points. So now there's so many different options. And I think that is a good result of the way the IFPA has evolved. And we will have Josh Sharpe on here, hopefully next episode or in the coming episodes. I asked him at Indisc if he'd like to come on, just talk competitive pinball, how everything started. Like we talked with Ray about his time coming up on the scene and playing with Keith Elwin and all those guys. So that'd be fun. But I think the results are showing for themselves. So after that, we got the Max Value Classic Challenge in Seattle, Washington, April 6th, 2025. John Robinson, your winner, with 96.99 points. Ashley, Ashley Weaver, second, 76 points. Nice. Yeah, shout out. It's another germane tournament. I'm actually kind of copying that format and running a tournament here in Virginia Memorial Day weekend. So we'll test it out, see if the players here like it. Are you kind of getting your bearings now that you've done enough and seeing what works, what doesn't work as a TD? I think so. Yeah, I think so. You know, it's nice to, you know, I'm starting to help with our local pinball league, so kind of keeping sharp with rulings and, you know, the IPA rules. Have you had any that have sort of thrown you for a loop rulings-wise or not yet? Nothing too crazy. Mostly it's like, you know, there'll be some kind of malfunction on a machine, and you kind of decide on, like, how to proceed. But thankfully, I mean, there's so many experienced TDs in the area that we can kind of help each other out. Yeah. You know. That's awesome. Yeah, I hope one day I can. My retirement goal is to open a barcade or just a pinball arcade, and then I can run tournaments. But, you know, kids are expensive, so. One thing at a time. Yeah, exactly. So up next we've got the Silver Ball Rumble at Pentastic. This is Pentastic's main tournament up in Marlborough, Massachusetts, run by Jim Swain and team. And Jason Zahler won this one, got over 186 whoppers. I do want to shout out Liam Bradley, who's in the top four. He had an insane run. I don't know if you kind of saw the bracket, but I was following along in real time. He knocked out Bowen Kerins in the first round, 4-0. And then I think it was like Julian Town in the next round, another 4-0. Like, he didn't lose a match until the third round when he played Jason Werdrick. Wow. And also knocked him out. Yeah. And he played Carlos and took Carlos to seven games. Yeah, the Bradley kids are really good. I've played against them at Indisc and with them at Indisc, but also against them at TPF last year. their dad, I forgot his name. He's Michael. Yeah, and then their mom, Reggie, I think her name is. I've talked to them, really nice people, and their kids are so good and so just model kids for, you know, just being competitors and soaking everything in and just really talented. So good job, Liam. Always nice to see that. Yeah, exactly. Future pinball right there. And it's not easy because at that age, I was a terror. I would have lost, like, if I didn't, like, qualify, I probably would have been like, all right, I'm never doing this again and thrown a chair. WWE style. All right, after that, we got the IFBA European Pinball Championship, the EPC, April 13, 2025. Michael Tripp held in Belgium. I can't, Middle, Middle Kirk. So I don't want to butcher that location name. Timber Anglebin, your winner with 178 points in Belgium. So our friends across the pond are hosting their own awesome tournaments, and kudos to you. Nice. Up next, we've got the Concord Open. This is out in Concord, California. This tournament is run by Jared Garvey. Shout out, Jared. and looks like Sean Irby took this one down with over 116 points. Nice. Yeah, Sean. Then we got the debut of King Kong by Keith Elwin and Stern Pinball. Pinball at the Zoo. That looked like a lot of fun. The whole festival. April 19th, they have their own tournament, but Pinball at the Zoo, perhaps as it's affectionately known, had a ton of people, a ton of new pins to see. But King Kong was the star. People got their hands on it and it's selling well. But your winner for the main tournament at Pinball at the Zoo, Matthew Stacks, 152.31 Whoppers. So you can get points everywhere. Kalamazoo, Michigan, TD, Alex Harmon, the main tournament, a lot of fun. And I watched some of it. I didn't get to see the finals, but a lot of familiar names there. You got Tom Graff, Steven Bowden, Preston Curry, Andy Rosa. But your winner, Matthew Stacks. Nice. All right. Up next, we've got a little local action here. I got the repping the Penn Baltimore shirt today. There it is. Yep. Yeah, I don't think the main results have posted yet, but shout out MJR, Peanut, Matthew Richardson. He won the main tournament on Sunday, and I believe Lewis Evans got second. We've got the results posted here for the Rat Race, which is one of the side tournaments. Lewis Evans won that one. And I think he also mentioned that it was the same weekend as Pinball at the Zoo, but there was like 200 people in those first two warm-up tournaments. So it was like on a Friday. It was crazy. He posted that picture. I was like, dude, that is awesome. That's crazy. I think, I mean, at least this was the third time I've been to Pinball at the Zoo. That was the biggest turnout that I've seen. I'd be surprised if that wasn't the biggest turnout they've had, but I could be wrong. And then the Baltimore City Women's Championships, shout out Candice Selby for winning. She gets 67 points out of that one. And, yeah, well on her way to being, if not the top player in Maryland for women's division. I'll let you do this next one. It's near and dear to your heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mitchell's Mega Match Play. the first and biggest mega match play event in Virginia. So that happened a couple weeks ago, April 26th, 27th. Brian Henson, myself, and Dave Hubbard, we were the TDs for the event. But shout out Brian. He was kind of the main TD for that and kind of getting everything organized. And Dave Hubbard won that with over 100 points, 102.69 points. That's awesome. There was a thrilling tiebreaker in the end to decide who won. And, yeah, it was really fun to watch. Stoller got second. Stoller Schiltz. Shout out Stoller. He's another up-and-coming young player in Virginia who has been really killing it lately. Awesome. Yeah, I see your name right there. You got 12? Oh, yeah. I was in there in the mix, you know, got a pretty good qualifying day, and then buzz it out of finals. Hey, 21 points. Not bad. More than I've made. Yeah, that's like three of my last performances, so that's not bad. After that, we got the LPA Open, April 27, 2025. Jan Nilsson in Sweden ran this LPA. They've got the Lund Academy there, I believe, and your winner, no surprise here, you got Arvid, Arvid Flager, They're at 179.72 Whoppers. There's Vigo there as well, Peter, Linus, Paul Engler, all in the mix. Congratulations, gentlemen, for another successful LPA. That's a lot of Whoppers, so kudos to you. And, yeah, that'll do it for a recap of recent tournaments. I'm sure there's one we missed. There was the Toad Suck Shootout here in Texas hosted by Ken Kemp. It's always a good time. They throw it every year. Every year it's for charity. I believe your winner was his son, Austin Kemp. That was a lot of fun. I got to play in that. But, yeah, if you have a tournament that you want us to highlight, no matter how big or small, as long as it's not you versus your kids at your house, your own collection, like I was trying to figure out, hit us up, wizardsandwarriorspodcast at gmail.com. We would love to highlight it. If you want to come on and promote it, please feel free to do so. Just reach out to us. You can hit me up on Discord. I'm Frisco Pinball Everywhere. Hit up Joe. But, yeah, definitely email us. We get your emails, and we would love to hear your feedback or help you promote your next tournament. And with that, talking about upcoming tournaments, we do have some upcoming ones. So a big one next week. What do we got? Oh, yeah. Let's see. What do we got? next week is Yagpin. Yes. Man, how are you going? Yes, first time. Last year I went to the UK Open to wet my feet in leaving the country for the first time. I've driven through Canada to go to the Beast. I've been to Canada before. But I wanted to experience Yagpin. The guys, you got Derek Thompson, the Stinchcomb Brothers. They've always been so nice. I love talking to them at all these tournaments. And all the Canadians at Starfighters were just so cool. Like, I love that they had a big contingent come down, just like you were talking about having to leave cold Carl Weathers. Man, they were so happy. Yeah, they were talking. Chialis was talking like, oh, yeah, you know, you got a little snow, because we had some in Texas before that. He was like, oh, what is that? This is real snow. And then he shows you pictures and videos. But I'm excited not only to compete. They're going to have a really good show And I can't wait to hopefully do well But also to see everybody up there And play with our friends from the north You can't forget the north The north never forgets I know Derek Oh sorry I know Derek Thompson is there at Starfighters So he was kind of talking it up And they run a great event every year So I'm excited for you Hope to make it there someday Yeah I'm hoping to see you there too The Whoppers are great. It's the third pro circuit event. I think it's one of those tournaments you've got to do at least once just to go test it out. I know it's got not controversy, but it's got some, what's the word? It's pretty polarizing. Yeah, yeah. They set up their games a little different, but I'm excited to play on them. I got off the wait list. I know there's some other people going. that we talked to in Discord. I think Roland was on the wait list and Anil from Hot Mudge. I don't know if they're signed up. But it's going to be a great time. Starts next Thursday, May 15th. Runs through the whole weekend. And, yeah, Edmonton, California. Or California. Canada. After that, you got the amazing pinball race in Ostrander, Ohio, May 23rd through the 25th. And like we were talking, there's something every week. There literally a big tournament every week And I so happy to see that You can look on the footage of the video podcast right now We got the image up and you can just see the Stern 2025 pinball Stern Pinball Pro Circuit And this is just the pro circuit. There's also the regional mega match plays, the different themed events that you can go to where you can earn a ton, a ton of whoppers. This weekend, as the Eggpin Golden State Pinball Festival out in, where is it? North Cornea. Lodi. Yes. L-O-D-I. So I went to this event last year. Sad I can't make it this year. Incredible event. Along the same lines as, like, up in Baltimore. Just a lot of fun. They have a whole campground set up. Highly recommend you guys check it out. if you're in the area. Yeah, it's a great time. You did pretty well at that tournament, right? Last year, yeah. I finished fifth in the main tournament. It's actually a very similar format as the new TPF this year. So there's two qualifying sessions, top 16 from each session, make it to finals. So there's a field of 32. And then, yeah, it's great. That's super cool. Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. I remember I've wanted to go there. Being from California, I've always wanted to play at a big one other than Indisc. I mean, Indisc is the king of the mountain as far as tournaments. Just you can do well at Indisc, man. You've really, really done well, kind of like you did at this year's during the match play. But, yeah, I can't wait to see the footage from that. and in our next episode we'll probably recap Yagpin just because it's so big and it's such a really nice tournament so you won't have to wait too long for the next episode after I get back from Yagpin hopefully we can record the week after or the coming weeks so just a couple weeks and then before Pinburg which is happening at the end of July and then we'll probably get a June tournament maybe a June episode in there as well But after that, we've got the Sweeper City Open. Kudos to Galvin. I love seeing his posts on Facebook, promoting it. And Gregory Kennedy, I think, is helping with it maybe. And then maybe Jack Nebraska. I don't know. Okay. But, yeah, so Sweeper City Open, not on the pro circuit, but I don't remember if I watched it. I read about it last year. People were telling me about their experience. Looks like a lot of fun. And then the Brisbane Masters, home of Escher-Lapka. Just kidding. But Brisbane Masters, July 19th through the 20th in Queensland, Australia. You get to see Escher play there, I'm pretty sure. And then we get into June. Excuse me. Before that, we've got some June tournaments, but July is going to be huge because it kicks off the end of July. We've got Pinberg, which is back twice as big. And I'll see you there. And, yeah, from there we've got the Beast Northwest Pinball Championships, the Papa World Championships in September. So I cannot wait. And you can see the image on the podcast. It doesn't have the dates, but, you know, we'll go from there. So that is the regular portion of our episode seven. We're going to go now to the in-depth interview with Raymond Davidson, your 2025 Pin Masters winner, stern pinball coder extraordinaire. If you don't know who he is, he has worked on many of your favorite pinball machines, Foo Fighters, Avengers, Rush, Metallica Remastered. And he was just lead on Metallica Remastered with John Borg, the designer. And I hear he's got here. He's proven his worth to Stern. He's probably got a big one coming up, which is all him. and I could not be happier to talk to him about Pin Masters 2025. I do want to apologize to him. We were talking about Foo Fighters and the extra ball value. I shouldn't have questioned him. He was like, $10 million. I was like, no, it's $15 because the announcer said $15. But I forgot that they hit the bot award, which was $5 million, which is why it awarded $15. It was $10 plus $5. Never question the code or so. So mea culpa, I apologize, Ray. I didn't mean to fight you on that. But stick around for the rest of the episode. It's awesome. It was really cool to talk to Ray. We don't want to just talk to the winners, but if you end up winning a tournament and you want to come discuss your thoughts on your performance, the rules, we would love to have you. It's fun for us. What were your thoughts before we move on to the interview? Yeah, no, shout out Ray. He's great to talk to. I haven't really got a chance to talk to him really in depth before this. So grateful for the opportunity and enjoy. Yeah. All right. And enjoy the rest of the episode. As Joe said, we will be back after this episode to talk all things Yagpin probably. And good luck. Have fun. Enjoy listening and see y'all later. See ya. Welcome everybody. This is episode 7 of Wizards and Warriors. Thank you so much for being here. I know it's been a while. I know you've missed us plenty in our amazing, short, concise episodes. But it's been about a couple months since Starfighters in late February in beautiful Arizona. And for good reason. We have a very special episode now with us. not only the winner of the Starfighters main and classics, but also a recent pinmasters winner, as well as many other competition winners. We have Raymond Davidson with us. My co-host, Jay Land, Joe, is here. And I'm happy you all are joining us. Joe, what's going on? Hey. What's up, Hadi? Good to see you. Yeah, it's been a minute. It's been a very busy month of April and, you know, excited to keep going, keep playing some pinball. Exactly right. Raymond, thank you so much for joining us. How are you this evening? I'm great. Yeah, thanks for coming on. I'm really happy to have you here. It's great to pick the minds of people that have been in the competitive pinball scene and pinball in general for a long time. So thank you so much for joining us. We are going to just ask you a few questions, just like we did ZMAC on the last episode. and then for everybody else after that, we're going to talk about Pinmasters and your victory there. Do you still remember it, or is it now too far gone? It was kind of a blur when it happened. It was like a weird dream. I don't know. Was that your first time at the RPC? No, I've been there quite a bit. Friends of mine are there, and it's just a quick flight from Chicago, So I've been there a few times. It's a great, great location. Yeah, and they've recently expanded it. I know the guys at Slam Tilt obviously are big into it, Bruce and Ron, and then they have other partners. Zach is there. Do you ever drive there? Is it too far? Is it just quicker to go? I have driven there once, maybe twice, actually. It takes like 10 hours, but it's doable. Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I heard it's a great location, and they've got like Stomp there, and obviously they were excited to get nationals and pin masters and it turned out to be a great absolutely great competition uh fun to watch pin golf is obviously a different different sort of animal to tackle you're really playing against yourself and your competitors but different to a different extent so before we get into all of that um i wanted to ask you just some basic questions about, you know, your pinball career, competition, how you got started, all that. So how did you get introduced to pinball? I know I heard in another interview how you got introduced into sort of the corporate side. You know, you're working at an app or a startup app and doing some things there. And then you eventually found your way from coding. I know I think you said you were doing C Sharp, but not as much as at the app. and then you started doing more C-sharp at Stern, something like that. I could be wrong. But how did you get introduced to pinball? Sharp plus, what's the difference? Yeah. So how did you get introduced to pinball? Did you have family in it? Yeah, I mean, originally, I guess my grandpa had a Gottlieb 1976 Pioneer, which is the two-player version of Spirit of 76, an EM from the 70s, and that was the game my dad kind of grew up playing because it was in his parents' house. They got it for the kids growing up, and then it became for the grandkids. And so whenever I visited my grandparents, I would always be in the corner playing the pinball machine instead of the – they had a pool table, air hockey, a swimming pool, but I was always playing the pinball. You mean you could have been a competitive pool player or the next Michael Phelps? Pinball robbed you of the – we took you from those other hobbies. I just liked the pinball machine. I liked how there was a goal to it in mind, and it felt like something you could get good at, and you get rewarded. I felt like the feedback was really good, especially on those simpler machines where you physically hear the bonus counting down. Yeah, that's awesome. So we're happy to obviously have you in the hobby. Did you play more into your teens and into college, or did you kind of forget about it and just do other things, or were you always, you know, playing and competing? I was kind of always into it. It kind of started getting more and more snowball-y when I was able to get online and I started looking up rules for games. I learned about the Papa World Championships I was like, man, that'd be so cool to go to sometime I found local tournaments but there weren't very many because you had to be 21 so I ended up just playing at a go-kart place that had a Terminator 2 I'd ride my bike to after school and just play that game and that game helped me get really good because you have to do very specific things to get points so I wanted to get those replays and I felt like that really helped me develop my fundamentals of, okay, it's really important to have a focus when you're going into a game to really, you know, be able to get those jackpots. But, yeah, I mean, eventually there was a Northwest arcade show, pinball and arcade show in 2008. That was kind of my first big one. Actually, it might have been 2006. Oh, 2006, there was a smaller version of it, and they had a tournament, but it was kind of before IFPA-certified tournaments were a thing. I think it might have technically been IFPA-certified, but only the people who made finals got included in the rankings, so it's not on my IFPA thing. Wow. Yeah, it was a wild time. Yeah, it was 2006. I think Pirates of the Caribbean had just came out. I was super excited. I'm like, whoa, look at this cool new pinball machine. It has like 34 shades of orange in the DVD. And, you know, I played in that tournament, but it was just a simple, like, you played Attack from Mars and Elvis and the top, you know, 12 scores made finals, and that was it. But the real big tournament was in 2008, and that was the Northwest Championships, which then turned into the full like seven game unlimited qualifying with finals. And that was my first tournament. I think it's actually my first on my IFPA card as well because they asked if I wanted to play in the open or the novice. And I said, well, I want the ranking points. I want to be in the open. That's awesome. So you've seen kind of the whole evolution of IFPA's early days and the competitive scene really blossom. And was Washington still one of the biggest competitive scenes back when you were first starting up there? Because I know now it's absolutely huge. I don't know how it was back then. Yeah, when I first started, like I said, it was only a couple events a year, and they were in bars. Like the Shorty's annual tournament was in a bar, so I couldn't go to that. And then the Northwest Pinball Championships was the one I could go to, and that was kind of it. Like you had to wait the whole year before you did anything. But then, yeah, pinball kind of started exploding, and pretty soon there was more and more tournaments, more and more locations. It kind of kept growing. Yeah, no, that's amazing. Terminator 2, you're right, it's such a good one to learn on. Every time I see it in a tournament, I feel hopeful about it, but I also dread because I know there are very certain things you have to do, and you've got to dial in that lock shot up the middle, and it's not always an easy thing to do. Yeah, it's kind of all or nothing a lot of the time. Yeah, and I always thought whenever I see people, like, going to the side of the pin, looking at the cannon on where it's going to hit, like on ACDC2, I'm like, man, I've got to really learn how to dial that head angle in E2 as well. Yeah, there was also Dracula was one of my early games. that was, I bought it, so it was used as a tournament game in 2009 at the Northwest Championships and then I ended up buying it. And so that was another game I had early on that kind of kicked your butt and kind of forced you to learn how to do things. Yeah, Dracula's amazing. And so I kept kind of cycling through games. I guess the first game we got for the home was Black Rose. That was from the Red Robin that I actually played it growing up when I was a kid, and that was cool because we were going to buy one online, but it arrived and it had shipping damage. The glass was completely shattered over the entire play field, so we had to send it back. But luckily, my dad just called. He's like, hey, can we just buy your Black Rose, the one that you have in Red Robin? They're like, sure, why not? We got the one that we actually kind of grew up playing. That's awesome. Is that why you have a soft spot for Black Rose? I know you mentioned it in your history. Yeah, I mean, it was like my first game, so I went all in on that. You know, I read up all the rules and played it a bunch, and I think it's a great game. How many pins do you have now? I've been selling and trading and stuff. It's always kind of in flux. Right now I just have a James Bond, a Jaws, and a Doodle Bug. and actually back home in Washington I have a Dirty Harry, but I've had a lot more. I've just been kind of selling them as, you know, when I moved here I'd sell a bunch of games and I kind of just rotate games here and I just have a small apartment so I can only hold like two at a time. Yeah, that makes sense. So when you obviously, you know, you're in college, work in or get out, work, find a job and then you get the job with Stern. And so Stern was clearly the catalyst for moving from the West Coast to Chicago. What were your thoughts about, you know, making that big move and making this your career? Excited, nervous, you know, what was going through your head in making pinball an even bigger part of your life? Yeah, I mean, it was it was all those things. I was excited, but I was also nervous. I thought, you know, if this works out, this is kind of a dream scenario where I get to do programming, but it's for pinball machines because I always kind of just, you know, worked to make money so that I could go do pinball things. And now it's like I get to be in pinball to make money to do pinball things. Yeah. You can't ask for more than that. So on the competitive side, as the scene grew and, you know, you're seeing more opportunities to play, Have you seen it kind of grow to where you thought it would and as a good thing? Or are there, you know, places where you think competitive pinball can still grow? Or, you know, based on what you saw in the early days, are you happy with the progression it's made? Yeah, I think it's great that there's just like an infinite supply of local kind of weeklies. I mean, depending on the area you're in, but most metro areas have any day of the week you can find a pinball tournament. And then the proliferation of these big events means every weekend there's a big event. It kind of makes it a little overwhelming, honestly. But, you know, it kind of, I feel like depending on where you're at in your journey, it's kind of clear which ones you want to prioritize. You know, once you're in the top ten of IFPA, you kind of need to go to the certified plus three-day, you know, long, big tournaments in order to make any ground. But if you're just starting out, you know, go into your local show or your local, you know, bar that's having a monthly or something. You know, there's just so many opportunities. Yeah, it was funny. as I was preparing for this episode, seeing all the stuff we've missed. It's only been two months, but there's literally every week there's like a giant Whopper opportunity event going on, Whopper Chopper. You've got pin masters going on. Yeah, I'm excited to hear the rest of this episode. It's probably going to be pretty long, huh? I told Joe, I said, you know, maybe this episode we don't list off like the top people. We just say who won because there's so many going on. But honestly, I feel like maybe this is the one area hobby that I've seen where too much isn't always a bad thing here. I love the excess because coming from the COVID days where a lot of people got interested and entered into the hobby, it was basically District 82. And if you wanted real points, you had to go there and, you know, some other decent events. But now it seems like the spread of available Whoppers like you would get at District 82 with four tournaments on a week or weekend is now available to the masses. And I think that's a great thing. One, because it's really hard to get to District 82 if you're not local like you're in Chicago. You can drive. You've got to fly into, you know, one of the airports. So I think it's a good thing. so you know that's a good look into your competitive sort of history and going into it do you have I guess not within the last five years but do you have one like a first tournament that you won that really sticks out one that you remember like yeah this is a memory I can always go back and look on and say I really enjoyed my time there is it one from Washington maybe in one in the 2010s? Well, I mean, I didn't win. I got second to Keith Elwin, but that first, or second or third, I think maybe the third Northwest Pinball Championships in 2010, that was I got second and I got this big brick of cash. It was like $2,000. And I was just like, holy crap, this is like crazy. and I used that to fund my trip to Papa. For the first time going to Papa, I used that money. I spent all of it trying to qualify, did not qualify. It was kind of a disaster, but I didn't give up. I ended up going back the next year and then I kept qualifying ever since. But that first, you know, top two finish at Northwest Championships kind of kick-started everything. and then that kind of culminated in the when I won first place in IFPA Worlds in Denmark in 2015 I think, 2015-2016 and that was against Kaylee in a best of nine and Kaylee was kind of the person that got me into the pinball in Washington he was the guy running Northwest Championships he was the guy I kind of looked up to, helped me practice so then facing the final boss in Denmark ten years later or whatever it was pretty cool That's amazing. Yeah, I was going to ask. I know you've played with a lot of these guys, and now you work with Keith. Do you guys ever – I'm not saying that you sit around a campfire and share stories, but do you ever, like, you're talking to them, you're like, oh, I remember that back then, you know, when I came second to you. Do you ever share war stories still, or are you just like, all right, let's get through the day. Let's get all our jobs done, and we'll talk about it later. Yeah, not too much these days. now. I think we've kind of, there was a time where I would be in the final four with Keith so often and always finish, you know, below him. He started calling me his wingman. I mean, that's not a, that's not a bad place to be. At least you're always in the mix. I'm learning that now if I don't, if I don't qualify for like the playoffs or finals, I'm like, I could have been resting today. I didn't even think about it. So it's one of those things I I've got to learn to control my emotions about it. Joe, did you want to ask a few questions, and then I'll continue? Yeah, yeah. No, it's funny you mentioned Kaylee's name. I feel like he's been such a staying force in pinball, and, like, you know, mentioning him running stuff in Seattle and, you know, being kind of a mentor. I feel like I've seen that as recently as, like, Papa this year, even in disc. You know, he's, like, still kind of teaching these younger players, you know, how to play and, you know, his kind of secret strategies and stuff. So that's really cool that you mentioned his name. Yeah. If you're still fierce to ever have to go against in a competition, especially on any Valley Williams, you're probably in trouble. Yeah. So, Ray, would you say that you have a goal for yourself this year? Not really, no. I'm kind of just enjoying the ride at this point. Nice. Do you have any, like, pregame rituals or meals that you do before you play? uh no i probably should have something because i do feel like sometimes i i jump in and i'm doing good and other times i have a really slow start um i don't know i need to get better about getting in the zone i think i i feel like i a lot of my you know it's like a momentum is what a lot of people call it you get pinball momentum and once you have that you don't want to let go of it. Yeah. Let's see. How would you say that you handle kind of pressure in Mirrors? Like, would you say it's an added pressure to defend a title that you already have? Or do you think that helps you kind of fuel yourself to play better, knowing that you've already been there before, you know? Yeah, it helps, because you're, I mean, if you're ever in a chance to defend a title, it means you're doing well and you're in the finals. So I I always feel good when I'm in the finals. You know, even if it's against Escher and Jason, at least I'm in the finals and I have a chance and, you know, I can make something happen every once in a while. Nice. Cool. And how often would you say that you play for, like, for fun or for practice? Or, like, when you started working at Stern, would you say that that affected how often that you play? I don't think it affected it one way or the other. I'll play my games here every once in a while especially if I get a new game I'll play that a whole bunch or do my insider quests or what not but I don't play a ton it's mostly just in the competitions themselves but every once in a while I'll go to an arcade and flip around or if I want to learn a new game You know, got to get some experience on it a little bit so I'm not totally blind. Although I don't go into them as deep as other people haven't, you know, Travis Meary party tricks, he calls them. You know, I just like to know the basics of, you know, where's the multiball and just kind of roll with it, you know. And it sometimes somehow works for me, I want to say. Like at Papa, you know, I didn't really know Jaws that well. I just kind of knew the basics, and I just kind of flipped and played it, and I happened to get more points than the people that were, like, you know, surgically extracting every piece of value and machetes and whatnot. But I've gotten better at learning those things, and I think the key is just ask questions, right? Ask the people that know, you know, like, hey, how did you get that big points thing? Like, what did you do? Yeah, that's a good transition to – I was going to ask you, what's the best piece of advice you could say you've received about competitive pinball or maybe just pinball in general, if you can think of one? I know you've probably been given lots of advice over the years. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think the pinball momentum is big. You know, take responsibility for your drains is big. Yeah. You know, there's usually something you could have done different. Just try to learn from things going wrong. And what I like to tell people is always have a plan, have a goal. Even if it's just start a multiball or start a mode. Or if it's, you know, I'm down by a billion, I need to get to this wizard mode. You know, have some plan or else you probably won't go anywhere. So if you're trailing, do you have like a go-to strategy to make that comeback? where you just, obviously a lot of it is pin specific, you know, what's going to maximize points per second, basically. Do you generally look for the safer shot, or are you trying to risk it for maybe the mode? Well, it depends on, you know, sometimes I'll have these games where I feel like I just don't do anything, like balls one or two, and then in those situations it's like, okay, I just want to start my multi-balls so I can get comfy, and then we'll see what happens. So I don't really have a full plan at that point, but I have the plan of, like, just start at the multiball and then reevaluate once that's over. But other times, if things are going good but the other person is – they're just going better, I usually have a pretty good map in my head, you know, when I'm done with a ball. I'm like, okay, well, at least I still have these opportunities available to me. So then next ball I'll try to go for those. No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I generally do a prayer to the pinball gods when I'm at that point. I'm like, please, just let me start New Orleans on Foo Fighters so I can hit a couple purple shots and pray for that. What do you think about, since you've been in the scene for a good amount of time, what do you think of pinmasters as a format, sort of the golf approach, as opposed to, you know, traditional match play or card format? I think it's fun in theory, but very aggravating in practice. It's just so annoying knowing that you can just totally blow up, like, horrifically. Like, normally getting a last is bad enough. You know, you get zero points out of four. But now it's like almost double or triple that because you get ten points instead of three or whatever. so I'm not a fan of that aspect of it but it's a fun style. I like how it's different and it feels really good when you turn that potential 10 into a 5. That feels good. Even though you didn't have that good of a game you did what you needed to do to not have a total disaster so that part's really cool. Do you think it's tougher to play against yourself or other players? Yeah, I feel like it's kind of the same. You're always playing the machine, so you're always trying to do good on that machine. The other players are usually not too relevant, but sometimes it can come into play. But more often than not, you're just trying to blow the machine up. Yeah, that's a good answer. So kind of switching gears for a question related to your current employer. You know, you work at Stern. Everybody knows that you've worked on a lot of great games. You've done some coding for some recent hit titles. If you were to tell somebody this is the pin that embodies what I'm about in pinball, like this is the code I've worked on. This is what I really am not happy to put out. But this is kind of what I was looking for. which pin would it be, like, where you've had a significant portion of, where you've worked on the code for a significant portion? Like, Foo Fighters, you obviously helped Jack get that to a really good place. Metallica remastered recently. You helped on Avengers, Led Zeppelin. Is there a pin that you would, like, one pin where you would say, hey, I really want you to play this, not that I'm the proudest, but this sort of embodies who I am in pinball? I mean I really liked how Foo Fighters turned out and Rush I think was really good I think both of those kind of have a lot of my signatures of sort of you know wanting you to hit different shots and having different perks and boosts and things but not I never want it to be over complicated I just want it to be like you know, I want a reason for everything. I don't want, I'll never, you know, I'll try not to anyway. I can't promise anything, but I hate to have a game where there's, you're in a mode and there's no reason to be playing that mode, right? So I really try to make it so, you know, like on Rush, the modes weren't timed, so time, you know, you can't time them out, so you might as well try to beat them, because that's what you want to do. You know, Foo Fighters, sure, the modes are timed, but you have to beat them to get to the wizard mode, so timing them out doesn't really help you there. And just, like, you know, when you get to a multiball, like on Foo Fighters, if you get the super jackpot in Overlord, that helps you get to Foo Bot. You know, you have the upgraded Foo Bot parts, so if you do really good in, like, Sonic Radio, then your right orbit is doubled for the rest of the game. Like, I just love making sure you have a reason to do whatever thing you're in. And so my favorite rule sheets of all time are like Iron Maiden, where there's the ten tomb treasures, and you have to basically, everything's important. You know, when you're in a mode, you need to beat it. When you're in a multiball, you need to get the super. Although I like to have a little more leeway. Like Iron Maiden only has one leeway, which is the six-way combo. Otherwise, you have to do all ten things. I usually like maybe ten out of twelve, ten out of fourteen. I mean, Avengers, you know, there's, you need 24 trophies, but there's 32 that you can get. Metallica is a little harder. There's 12 unforgiven tasks, and you need 10 of them. That's, you know, that's kind of my jam. I like that sort of thing. That's awesome. So is there, like, a mode you're super proud of, like 72 seasons, something new that you think you introduced, not novel to the scene, but something that you were kind of proud of, like Combotron, is an amazing mode on Foo Fighters. I love it because of the auditory cues that sort of escalate as you're increasing the combos. Is there one that you can point to maybe recently or that you always look back and say, yeah, I really crushed it there? Yeah, I really, I mean, Combotron was really fun to work on. And I like the Cygnus Book One in Rush where you're going through the different planets and trying to escape the black hole and the music that lines up with it really well. It just feels very intense. So that wizard mode is really fun. And then also the Foo final battle was really fun to work on, too. I think I was like two shots away still, and then they moved the pin on location somewhere else. I'm like, I was so close. You just got to pick yourself up a cheap premium. Yeah, no, the pricing now is great, and that is one I always go back to. and it's funny because I remember playing the pro and I was like okay my area 51 is a little different I have to dial in that right ramp versus maybe getting some shots spotted up top on the upper play field it was a blast I'm super happy with the time that I did get to play it but like you said with pricing now you can pick some of these titles up at a great great cost now and you should probably I don't think it's always going to be that way because it's in the vault So eventually they'll run out. People start keeping them. They're not going to always run these. So, folks, if you are looking at ones that aren't being produced at a constant rate, you might want to go pick these, especially Foo Fighters. And I know Rush is a darling amongst its owners. I think Rush has already started kind of on the upswing. I haven't heard it ever being, you know, mentioned in Josh's market trends or whatever. You know, it seems like that one's been kind of a sleeper hit. I feel like people are starting to appreciate Rush more and more. Oh, yeah, definitely. And you can see it. I always look at the LE pricing as a good barometer. And if it stays above 10K, that means it's holding its value very, very well. And I just saw one got listed for 10K down in Florida. So it's always an option. Florida is also like always $1,000 or $1,500 less than everything. Florida is like this haven of, like, great pricing, but it's because it's in the middle of nowhere where you have to buy it and travel down. They're like, oh, we got freight shipping, $4.50 to you. Well, yeah, of course. I'm not driving down there. But, Joe, do you have any other questions before we get into Pinmasters? I don't think so, man. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you again, Ray. I appreciate the time for taking your time to answer those. Hopefully we got some people out there who will listen, get some good nuggets, and maybe get some good advice. And for now, we're going to move on to the 2025 Pinmasters held at the Rochester Pinball Collective up in Rochester, New York. I hope so. Otherwise, we're there. We're basically in Rochester, New York, but yes. Okay. The beautiful RPC, as Bruce and Ron call it on the Slant Tilt Podcast. They hosted the, is it the 2024 IFPA NACS because it's last year's championship? Yeah, I think so. Okay, and then they also hosted Pinmasters, which has a top prize of a new in-box Stern Pro machine, some great cash and a great trophy. And we are going to go over this tournament with Ray for good reason. So let me move this over right here. So here is the video that is playing, and it's just going. Hold on, let me turn that off. So, Pinmasters format, before I move on to that, I do want to give a shout out to Backhand Pinball on Twitch and YouTube. We are using their footage of the stream from the 2025 Pinmasters. Please make sure you go give them a follow, a subscribe on YouTube, hit some likes, do all the things that will help boost their social media presence and SEO. Joe, thank you so much, Backhand Pinball, for getting up there and putting on amazing tournament content. It's not easy. You see guys like Carl at IE Pinball, Fox Cities, Carpool Pinball here, Backhand, Geek Gamer TV, all the people that put on tournament pinball. It's just not easy at all, and they're spending a lot of time and money, so we thank them. So with Pinmasters, Joe, you want to explain sort of how it works, and then we'll get it started on the first game. Yeah, we can do a quick overview. So there's a course of nine holes. I believe all of the holes on Pinmasters are score-based objectives. Sometimes in pin golf, I know you can do, like, an objective instead of a score, but these are all score-based. It looks like, I believe Jason picked the games for the group here as the highest seed. So he picked holes one through four. So there are four holes total that the four finalists played. And, you know, golf scoring is the lowest scores here will kind of get you through to the finish. So, Ray, how was qualifying for Pinmasters? Did you see anything there that you kind of thought would help you in the finals when you made it? or were you just happy to be in the finals and just get it started and go? Yeah, nothing really seemed super, super comfortable, but I did end up settling because I don't think I had any buys, but I had tops, or maybe I had a buy because I got to choose the games twice, so I must have been like fifth seed or something, or fourth seed, because it was Monopoly, Foo Fighters, and what was the... It might have been like Little Chief or one of the safer EMs. And those three worked pretty good for me, so I just kept picking them. Were there any surprises as far as pins you've never played or since you've been playing for a while, you've seen kind of everything and anything there? Yeah, I mean, nothing was too crazy, I don't think. All right, man, no bones about it. If you've kind of seen everything there, it's really hard to find one. Like, you didn't see a joust. But first game we have up, Jason Pickbank was countdown. No, I was not excited. I suck at countdown. It kills me, like, every time. And you can watch my first two balls. I don't even think I touched the ball. And I'm just like, yep, that's what I knew was going to happen. Yeah, as we go through the notes, you can pull up the outline if you'd like, and you'll see my notes on your first two balls. Well, that was a quick one. But countdown, you can see on the screen right here, there's drop target banks. And essentially, once you clear those, you're awarded a multiplier for your bonus. and then the drops are worth $5,000 each once the light is turned on after you clear it. Is that correct? And it advances your bonus? Yeah, it's kind of devious because you want to hit those green ones first because you have to hit them in order, right? That's the 2X. But the green ones are so deadly because they come in at that side angle, which the center post doesn't help. And so it's really a dangerous game to get going on because the stuff you need to hit first is the most dangerous. Yeah, and they were saying on the announce booth, you can knock down the other. So it goes green, yellow on the top right, red bottom left, blue bottom right. So 2, 3, 4, 5X. And then you can knock down the other target banks, but it won't count until you've knocked down its predecessor in order. So if you hit the three, if you hit all the yellows, you won't get your 3X until you've cleared that green target bank of drops. And what's funny is everyone was saying during the announcement, like, is he going to backhand? Because that rightmost drop for the green bake was just death for everybody. They couldn't really get a handle on it. I saw somebody hit it from the right flipper. But if you're trying to backhand it from the left, it's nuts. And just like Ray said, a lot of the feeds were coming sort of to the side of the center post. So you really weren't trusting anything because it was slipping through. at the time. So the max multiplier is 5X. The bonus value, I think, is 20K. And we had targets. If you get 5X, you got the target. Yeah, exactly. So your target score here was 150,000. And for six strokes, it was 120 to 149, 790,000 to 119. Eight strokes was 60 to 89, nine strokes 30 to 59, and then 10 strokes, 0 to 29.90. So really, with the bonuses, unless you got five house balls, you should probably get better than a 10 here. But knowing me, I'd probably get that 10. So did you play this a lot during qualifying in the playoffs or no? I mean, I just played it once in qualifying and got like a 7 on it or something horrible. Like, yeah, I was not looking forward to it. Yeah, this was, again, as Joe mentioned, Jason's pick. So ball one, I'll just kind of go through it and we'll remind Ray of the stuff that happened here. Zoller had a good ball one. Again, the target score, 150,000. So he ended up clearing his first set of green drops to get that 2X. And by the time his, oh, and they played this two players. Was that because of a tilt-through, or do you remember? No, they always, yeah, the solid states, they like to do two players. Okay. So that you don't tilt through. Yeah, so here you can see on the footage, Zoller was rolling on this. He did win the 2024 IFPA NACS this weekend, so he was already... That is the benefit of playing in the NACs, is that you get practice on all the Pinmasters games. I was there, but I could not play because ZMAC won Illinois, and he decided to show up. But he didn't play in Pinmasters, so I thank him for that. You know, that's a good compromise. If he's going to win Illinois for me, stay out of Pinmasters. Good compromise. Good guy, ZMAC. I remember you were asking at the Discord, like, hey, I heard he's not coming. Is that true? Because I'm here. I could take his spot But yeah so Ray exactly right you getting practice during NACS on these machines But Zoller you can see from the footage there he was one red drop away from clearing his target score I think he just got a really, really solid multiplier. He ended up with 136,000. Collin at Calpine steps up, and you can see the footage right here. He's going for that green drop target, and he's at about 12,000. And he has a boom right there, falls right through this little slip. Do you have any tips or thoughts on countdown that you would want to share while we look at this footage before we get to you? No, I wish I did. I mean, you can ignore the multipliers and just shoot, like, the lower banks for 5,000 and hit, but I don't know if that's getting you anywhere. Yeah, I haven't seen this in a lot of competitions. I kind of like what I see, but I also, that's looking from afar, so maybe the grass isn't always greener, and I get to it, and I'm like. Oh, actually, look at it. Jason is actually, well, I guess because he knew he only needed anything, so he was shooting the lower targets. Yeah. He has progress on those lower targets just because he wanted anything. Exactly. He was so close. He was 14K away. So by his ball two, he was just, he got the final 20K, finished with the two. Good way to start off. Again, 10 strokes is the max. And he initially gets on the scorecard with the two. So Colin steps up again. Players one and three only. So Zoller and Colin were going first, and then Nick and Ray would go. and Colin ends up here with, on his ball two, just another bad angle on the center post. You can see him plunging off there, and he only gets, so ball one, he's got 23,000. By ball two, he's got 36,000. So we'll fast forward the footage a little. Eventually, on his ball three, he finally got to flip and clear out those drops on ball three for the 2X, cleared out the 3x on the right but immediately after he did that I think it's coming up right here it's almost like I see this a lot in pinball where you've started something or you've done something and you just want to get control and then something happens and you're like great there goes the ball you don't even get a chance to do the magic Joe have you ever played countdown? I don't know that I've ever seen it in person before but I mean I like the rules I know you were talking about the bonus advance very similar to like Sinbad or Joker Poker where you have to clear those banks before you know in sequence where you get that bonus so he's deciding whether to go for so he went for the 3x he missed and I don't think he gets the ball back oh he's gonna yeah he gets a couple good bounces and like on his is this his 2 or 3 I think oh this is his 4 so yeah he He's at about 122. And it got squirrely at the end. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it got a little squirrely, but he didn't tilt. And he was like, okay, I got enough in bonus. And it was right there. But, yeah, so Colin finishes with four. And so then we have Nick, Nick Mueller. You've played against him before, right? A little bit, yeah. Yeah, I played with him. And I think he was at Papa. He was in my group in the classics, maybe classics, or, yeah, I think so. But he was another state winner, I believe. They were saying on the announce booth. I forgot where he was. I think probably Louisiana. Okay. Or maybe not Florida, but one of those south-southern states. Nice. Okay, so we're going to watch Nick play, but there is one thing I wanted to show. So on his ball one, he makes a great save. So we're going to let that play for a second. It's working. Let's see if it pops up. It was a quick little tip. It's hard to – the replay is really good because it goes so fast, but it basically comes screaming down from the center pop, and he just, like, flicks it. Unfortunately, I wish I could have put that in slow motion. I know they do the replay, but he has to drain. So that center post was friendly to some and not friendly to others. But he did max out his bonus on ball one. Yeah, it looks like he was going lower targets until he got 20K, and then he switched to upper targets. Yeah, I see that red. So every drop is 5,000 once you've cleared it. Yeah, there he is. He had a really good ball one right there. And I think they're going to replay and watch a countdown. He only got the 2X, but like you said, he was hitting those drops. And I know some people say that's kind of – there it is. Here's the replay. It would have been at 146. Still green? Yeah. It goes in, comes in the center. Right now. Boop. Just a little tip over to the right. Great vision. Here comes Ray. Look at that. It's flipper delivery on the practice line. I know. And that is – He should just bump it up. You're nailing the joke on us That's what I wanted to Go ahead I didn't even get any points either I wanted to highlight this Because this reminded me of the Avengers movie Where Thanas is like everything's perfectly balanced Because you even tried to give it a nudge And move it over But it wouldn't move And here comes Josh to the rescue you but um I didn't want to tilt through on a game that you're plunging two and four that would be embarrassing exactly so uh your ball one um you cleared out the yellow drops immediately but you didn't get to the 2x to activate that 3x so uh do you remember anything about ball one or you just like you ended up with 17,000 yeah I wasn't I wasn't good I I think it outlaned I I think it just kept finding the out lane, which is so rare on this game. Yeah, you had a shot to the pops, and then it went straight down the middle without hitting that center post on your first ball. Look at that. I cleared all three of those yellows. All the yellows in this one. Yeah, look at that. And then right here, it comes right there. How does that not bounce back up? It was so straight down the middle. Literally, you said the same thing in the video, too. Like, how does that? And how was it going like 100 miles an hour? Like that whole ball, the ball was just – I was hitting what I wanted to, too. That was crazy. If you're going to clear a bank, it's not bad to clear the yellows because I think if you're able to do that and then get the greens, you've got your two and three right there. I was impressed I cleared it with two mini flips. I got all four yellows. So your ball won. You end up with 17,000. Again, target score 150,000. Nick is on his ball, too. and he gets a little tit flip. Yeah, he screwed up right there. He drains out quickly on the left out lane. So he only gets 14,000 on his ball too. So he was close. He was 40-something thousand away and then unfortunately makes a little bit of a flipper error and then we watch you here plunge again to the... Let's see, is he going to do it? I thought it was. but you have here a ricochet to the left out lane I think it's unfortunately quick here but don't worry folks we have a yeah right there I managed to not hit like anything I don't understand don't worry folks this story has a good ending I promise it's not the way to begin it but that's these older titles I think when we're talking about pinball advice I've heard the Lefkoffs say and a bunch of other people say you know if you get a house ball you get a house ball. Can't really do anything about it. Just move on. Did you see that house ball? Joe plunged it and it went straight down the middle. That's the thing with this one. But you have to kind of just pick yourself up however you can. So this is his ball three. And he clears his yellows, gets some 5Ks. And I think when you were saying the strategy in the beginning of how he was going for the drops, I think he was just so close here that he's like, I just got to get the points wherever I can and not try to get cute. But yeah, so with his ball three, Nick clears the target score. So now it's going to be two, three, four, because Colin got his in four. And then Ray, we'll get to you right now. And you are on your ball four right here with 33,000. You picked off your last green drop here nicely. You can already see the two X is activated. You do get the 3X. There's one. And then eventually, there it is, the ricochet off the pops. That was sweet. Yeah, it was a nice one. You get an amazing center post rebound. You were one drop away here from the 4X. You see on the left, you have one red sort of near the top. I think the red is, oh, the red is 4X? Yeah. Oh, did that not go down? Oh! How did I save that? Yeah, that was a nice center post save. It was a diagonal center post save. So the great thing about this is they did do a replay of it, so let's watch it. Once it counts down, they do the replay, and here's the audio. I must have screwed that up. I guess I didn't realize that red was next in line. Yeah, red was on the bottom left for your four. And I just needed that one target? Yep. Here's your save again coming up. Oh, yeah! Yeah, I didn't realize that red was next. I thought, for some reason, I didn't realize that one target would have got me the score. Hey, you learned something here on Wizards and Wars. Yeah. When I was watching the replay, I was half expecting you to backhand it when it was, like, rolling up the left flipper. I think I was just so focused on the bright green circle on the top left that was worth 5,000 a hit. Because I knew I just needed, look, I needed two more targets, right? Two more 5,000. Yeah. But I think that one red might have given me another. Well, it would have been close. It might not have been. You would have got the four stroke. According to the announcers, and I think the way it added up, if you had hit that red drop, it would have been your 4X, and you would have got your 150. You had 139 by the end of ball four, and I think your bonus was more than 11K at that point. So you definitely would have cleared it. But, hey, you know, now you know it's on the bottom left. You had a screamer straight down the middle on ball four, and then right there you finished with the five-stroke with a quick 11K to get to the target score. Any thoughts on countdown and what it gave you there? Yeah, I guess just pay attention to your X's. For some reason, I always thought red was last, but I guess it's third. So you want to go in order, but I guess if you have one target left, you almost should just go for it no matter what. Get it out of the way, and then it resets the bank for 5,000, so it's good either way. Yeah, especially if it's the one right after, if you haven't hit the preceding one. If you've got the 4X down, you really want to get the 2X, but you're not going for the 3X right away. Right, yeah, exactly. Unless they're next to each other, then it doesn't make sense. But, yeah, here's the scoring on the current for the Pin Master scorecard. Again, it's golf-based stroke format. I will remind everybody this podcast is in audio and video form. I would strongly recommend, especially for our interview and also seeing a lot of the footage that we watch, that you go check out the video format on my YouTube page at Frisco Pinball. You can always email us at wizardsandwarriorspodcast at gmail.com if you have any questions or if you want to know where to get all this footage and where to see it. So that's game one, four games. The next game in the bank was World Cup Soccer. I love this pin. I think it's one of the best. I do kind of like how there's four games per round. It seems like all tournaments, there are usually only three games per round, right? Is that normally what you've seen for, like, golf-based stroke formats with just three, or is this the sort of? Golf, I've seen both. I've seen three. I've seen four. But, you know, pop-up format is always three. Yeah. Yeah, very true. Pinberg is four Yeah I think I Just played in one that was Oh no we were doing two game banks And then the playoffs were three I always like when they increase it by a game Give me a little more action to play And I don't feel like I'm getting Knocked out right away World Cup Soccer A darling of the tournament scene I understand why Joe your thoughts on World Cup Soccer Yeah It's a great game from the commentary and from what people were kind of saying in the game, it looks like the soccer ball was juiced. Oh, and it's going backwards, too, yeah. And it's going backwards, yeah. So it was like putting some crazy spin on the ball and, you know, making it super chaotic. Yeah. Yeah, it apparently had one of the Infinity Stones powering it with quantum energy. It was just shooting everything everywhere. How did it play, Ray, when you were there? Do you remember anything special about it? I'd actually, it played pretty fair, yeah. Just, you know, you could hit the shots, and, you know, it was always dangerous traveling around the left orbit like that, and then missing the goal was scary because of the soccer ball. But if you could just focus on locking your balls, hitting a couple jackpots, getting cities in multi-balls actually pretty good, because then you don't have to worry about the, you know, the feed killing you. And since you only needed $500 million, just kind of surviving was kind of the name of the game. Could you give us – And don't tilt. Yeah, especially. That bonus is huge if you're, you know, hitting some of those awards. Would you like to give us a quick sort of primer on how to play World Cup soccer, things you were looking for to get to that $500 million target score? yeah I mean you just hit the lit white shots that are the build your 5 S's strength, skill, speed, stamina, strength and you get all little S's and then that lights lock hit the scoop to start multiball and then in multiball you hit the goal and then the ramp to relight the goal and you can relight the goal with the cheat button once for multiball but yeah if you get to multiball you're probably going to have at least 350 and then it's a question of how do you get that extra 150 and you can get it from some ultra modes which you start by getting regular goals outside of multiball or you can travel which you get by hitting the top lanes in the left orbit or the ramps. So usually as you're hitting those white shots to build your S's you're also lighting your traveling. That's why it's actually better if you can alternate the ramps, you know, hit left ramp, maybe, like, left ramp twice, then right ramp, then striker, then left ramp is kind of the perfect way to start a game of World Cup. And I actually might start off that way on this game. I think I might. I can't remember. I don't know if I think. I probably don't start the multiball, but I think I. Maybe that was a different game. But that's, like, the best feeling ever, where you plunge and you literally don't miss a shot. You just, like, ramp, ramp, ramp, scoop, scoop, ramp, ramp, and you're, like, multiball. Yeah, your – There was a sequence – oh, sorry. No, go ahead. There was a sequence when you went ramp, ramp, and then I think it was, like, Striker Awards, and it was, like, pretty nice to watch. It was very smooth. Yeah, your first fall was not that, but we'll get to your – Okay, yeah, first fall – oh, I think first fall I missed. I just brick-drained, yeah. Yeah, no. So here the target score, as you can see on the screen, is 500 million to make par, so to speak. Six strokes was between 400 and 499. Seven, 300 to 399. Eight, 200 to 299. Nine, 100 million to 199. Ten strokes, zero to 99 million. Again, five-ball game. The bonus can get pretty nice. So if I'm playing this and it's me, I'm probably hoping I don't get worse than a five. Just because of the multiball width. the first goal and then you get the cheat button so you don't have to hit the ramp to activate the next country to beat. So you should have about $50 million there in jackpots plus whatever else you've hit along the way. Yeah, I mean, you can also start the TV mode, which is good points. It's just kind of hard because you've got to hit that scoop. Oh, it looks like sliding your kickback off the bat is, because it looks like it starts off on this one, which seems kind of brutal. Yeah, and how do you get your kickback? you have to hit that little kickback target on the left after rolling over the right in lane. And what does your left in lane award? Is that your TV award or no? The left in lane lights the right target to relight your magna save down the middle. Oh, gotcha. Okay. And then the TV award, the strike award, is based on how many goals you've hit? Yeah, every four goals it lights a TV mode. It looks like the TV mode starts lit, though. Yeah. So Colin chose to go first here. He had an unfortunate in-lane bounce to the right out lane. He ends up with 18 million. Zoller is up next. He has a quick ball. He gets a fast drain on the left out lane. And to recap right now, after game one, Zoller is in the lead with two strokes, then Nick with three, Colin with four, and Ray at five strokes from their first game of countdown. So now we're on to World Cup soccer, game two. and you can see those striker awards. One of them is, I don't know, what's that, the ABC mode where it's 15-15-15? The TV mode. Yeah. He landed in the scoop. And I want to, oh, the back door killed him. I guess they have that false save turned off. Normally if it's back door, you get it back. Was there anything different with that left out lane? Did they open it up somehow? They were mentioning it on the announce booth. I don't know. Yeah, well, normally if it falls through the exit, you get the ball back, but they have that turned off. Yeah, so here, again, amazing players, just not able to find a good start. But Nick? It was also interesting watching Jason's decisions there. He shot the left ramp and then held up the left flipper instead of trying a striker or a ramp shot. So he likes key passing to get control. And it's interesting Colin chose to go first. I think that's so that he gets more skill shots because if someone else locks a ball, then you don't get a skill shot. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, if they lock a ball and don't start multiball. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. So, like, Nick locked a ball here. And now if he drains, the ball will still be there for me, which means when I lock a ball, I don't get a skill shot. Gotcha. Yeah. So he had a really good start. He got his 30 million penalty shot, had both ramps to start. and as you see right here, he takes his first shot and it's really hard for most people to aim and get it right in that scoop but here he goes right there, starts his multiball which is, again, getting it into the goalie for the first shot then hitting a ramp to activate the next country to beat and then your jackpots are again at the goal. So he had two jackpots but then his multiball drains out. He defeated Morocco, and I think he gets Austria too. No, the goalie is insane here. And then he fumbled it, and then. Yep, so he ends with about. He got a last second jackpot. Yeah, he got a last second one, so he's about $209 million. So almost halfway just off that one multiball. So here he shoots the left orbit coming up, and it's going to unfortunately drain to the left out lane after his ramp shot, but his ball one ends up with about $263 million. I know we're waiting for the feed right here. He does the ski pass. I saw a lot of people doing the ski pass and bump over. Was that the move to get it under control on the left? It looks like it. Yeah. Oh, it misses the orbit and then drains down the death hole. But, you know, it was kind of a well-deserved drain, right, because it came from a miss. So it's not like – and I guess that's what they're doing when they turn off those ball saves. It's just more ways to punish you when you mess up. Yeah, it's one thing to get, you know, maybe a bad rebound or something, but when it's your own brick shot, that's when you take accountability. So here comes Ray. I wanted that kickback, but I missed it. Oh, I get it off the swing. I get a goal, and now I start deeper. Oh, I missed this spinner so badly, yeah. Woo! You got your ramp? This is where I die right here. Oh, no. No, you get your, you're just, you're ripping. You got to your striker and then you got your penalty kick coming up and you'll get the. This might be where I die in the orbit. Right there. Yeah. And that's why you ski pass. See, I didn't learn from my other players. It's just so risky taking a shot when the ball is moving because the timing is a little bit different. And you saw that when I missed, I died. Whereas if I would have ski passed, at least I would have had the ball stopped and I could have had a better chance of a timed shot. But, you know, I risked it. I'm a risky player, I guess. Living on the edge, yeah. So that's the thing with this one. It's great to know that little info about the ball save, but everything that was going out the left was just death because people weren't getting some of the grace that they've normally been given in the past. So Colin steps up for his ball, too, but he ramps out here for the most part. He does get a rebound. Oh, God. Yeah. He's got that right out lane on lockdown. Yeah, it was off a goalie save, too. Wow. He's at 43 million. Zoller comes up. He qualifies his multiball, starts it, and he's just going. So right here, he's got. Yeah, he's got one. What's annoying about this game is me and Colin, you know, we were hitting shots and then we died, but we have 40 million, whereas if somebody was just missing shots but longer, you'd actually get more points because the stand-ups give you a lot of points, the goals give you a lot of points, the random, like, stuff happening, whereas actually hitting the multiball shots themselves don't actually give you very many points, so you've got to start the multiball if you're going that route. Yeah, so is that, I'm imagining somebody bricking shots but they have ultra goalie on, And so I'm getting, like, extra points here. So Jason, with his multi-balls, very impressive. He ends up getting to Austria, I believe. I think he probably gets the hole-in-two here, I imagine. He did, yes, because he got about seven or eight jackpots. Yeah, he gave, like, $1.5 billion or something. Yeah. It's stupid. Yeah. He doesn't show you the score while you're in the ball. His head's bobbing. Yeah, it's crazy They were talking about how your score doesn't show Until the end of multiball So you're kind of just like You have to know the map a little bit But if you're at 65 You can go, okay, 65 plus 60 That's kind of weird, they don't draw the score On the screen anywhere Yeah, but He does get a 2, he has a very impressive multiball His last I think it's coming up Here, but he's just Yeah, there's Australia. Excuse me, not Austria. I think he beats Australia, and then he says, you know what? I think I'm almost good to go. And he's at 719, so he just hopes to see it eventually. But he finishes with about, you know, over a billion, as you said. You're getting like 2 million every time you hit an orange target, and then you get 10 million for hitting all the, you know, spelling strikers. So that's how you can kind of see some of those points manifest. Do you think $500 million is a fair score for pinmasters on this? I think so, because I think you basically have to start multiball. You could do it without multiball, but like I said, you'd have to be surviving a lot. But it's just over the hump of what you can do without multiball. That's another reason they take the scores for NACS, right, is to set the pars for... Right, yeah, they try to see what people are getting. All right, Nick. Yes. Just ramping out. So he has a solid start, but right there. He fails the catch on the right flipper, center drain. He got a spinner for some solid points. A ball two, he had 263. Here he's at 329. So you are about to step up, and I think the beginning of this ball is really interesting because it shows how fast this was playing because it was really frantic right here. But we'll watch it. I'll let the audio play, and we'll watch it. Well, your first ball is great, and your next two are not. Right. All right, lock is lit. Oh, wait, no. Got a safety in the left out lane. Yeah, I hate that feed when it goes backwards. I think it's after the lock is lit because you're trying to trap up for this multiball. That's right. That's a good idea. You seem confused about that. Here we go. Okay. Nice. Wants it. It can be backhanded. I'm a trap. With the rubbers being what they are, it's so hard to get a full cradle on these balls. Let's go. All right, here we go. It's funny, watching the video, it actually didn't take that long, but I remember that being like an eternity. Like it felt like pinball. I can't believe that just happened in like 10 seconds. It felt like it was like 10 minutes. Oh, that's hilarious because I was watching it, and it was just so funny because once you had your lock lit, I was like, all right, he's going to ski pass, bump over, maybe try to backhand it or hit the left ramp and then go from the left flipper or try a one-timer. But it was just, it wouldn't go, you know, you couldn't drop catch it. It just kept going. And when you finally made it, when you caught it and then trapped up, made that face, I was cracking up because I was like, he finally got it. I'm so mad that I don't get the goal here. It's so stupid. It felt like I was a lock to get the score, and then I just fall short, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, you end with about, no, here. Like 380 or something. I think you actually get it here. Yeah. You got your goal? I don't know. I don't think so. I think I'm short. Oh, were you short? Okay. Let's see. I thought you had, because you were at 620. Yeah, your bonus. Oh, a bonus. Yeah, you had 654 at the end. You were at one ultra spinner shot here. I think gets you over the edge because you're, you know, you have it in bonus, but like they say when you're competing, never trust your bonus. but right here I think you there's like one ultra spinning it actually I don't think I have it yet I don't think I have it ok now the free gold that gives it to me without that I think when I was in that weird state where I wasn't hitting anything I'm pretty sure I was live for not getting it well did you have enough in bonus? no I don't think so now I do because you don't get much bonus unless you do those ultra modes? Yeah. One ultra spinner shot got you close. You got it in regulation, but I think when they count down right here, you're at 485, you get your ultra ramp for another 10 or 5, and then your total is 10. Then you're looking, you're looking, you're at 497. You're like, I'm there, I swear to God. Then you walk away. But, yeah, I don't think I had it because I had 467, and I don't think I had 30 million. Because if you look at the bonus, I only had two goals in two cities. It would have been, yeah, I don't think I would have had it. It would have been close. You ended up with a nice, healthy 654. That ultra spinner was huge because I think you got a lot of bonus there. But your total bonus, 130 million. Congratulations on the two. So you were sitting pretty. Colin gets up, starts his multiball, gets a few jackpots, ends up with about $288 million after his multiball is done. So when you get that two, are you calculating the strokes in your head or you're just like, all right. Well, I think I got a three, right? No, a two. A two, yeah. Oh, yeah, I guess I was happy that I improved for sure. I was worried that Jason was still kind of untouchable, but at least I felt good that I'm keeping up a little bit. But I had that five, so I kind of still need some more twos or ones. Were you happy with your performance in qualifying as far as getting comfortable with the pins, or were you sort of seeing places you could still improve? Do you remember, you know, when you were competing before the playoffs? Yeah, I mean, I was still kind of scared of them because they're all set up really hard, and, you know, it's very high stress, but I was slowly kind of getting used to them. Nice. Yeah, so Colin on his ball three beats Sweden, gets there in three strokes, so you've got a 2-2-3-3, and Nick is now on his ball four, plunged, left ramp to lock, Starts his multiball, and he ends up finishing with four strokes as well. With the first two games down in the 2025 Pinmasters, we had both Jason and Rady get a two, Colin MacAlpine with a three, Nick Mueller with a four. And I do want to mention our competitors here. I should have done it in the beginning. Colin out of Texas, amazing player. Jason Zoller, top-tier talent, top three. Really nice guy If you've ever seen him Just know you may have to wait a few seconds For him to go up and play Which was funny at last year's Worlds Nick Mueller And we mentioned him And obviously our esteemed guest Raymond Davidson Ray Day Employee at Stern Pinball And a great competitive player So game three is a game Ray knows all too well It is his darling baby As he called it No, just kidding. So we have Foo Fighters Pro. This is the third game. The target score is 80 million. What do you think about that target score, Ray? Is that a good sort of barometer, especially with the different modes you can go through, you know, get through one quickly, maybe shots to get the multiplier? What are your thoughts on that 80 million? Yeah, I felt it was pretty fair. Yeah, how did that copy play? It was pretty forgiving. You could move it. You know, 80 million wasn't that high of a score. A lot of people were getting holes in one in qualifying for sure. Yeah, no. But it's not a gimme either because, you know, if you miss a shot, you're in danger. yeah there was no ball save right there's no ball save but there is you know valid play field shenanigans I guess yeah so the six strokes were 64 to 79 million 48 to 63 million 32 to 47 million 9 strokes was 16 to 31 and then 10 strokes was 0 to 15 million so you should hopefully get you know here I would say in 5 balls hopefully 6 to 7 at the worst, just based on trying to get to Overlord and starting that. Did you have any strategies that you were thinking about? Obviously, you're very in tune with how the game plays, the code, since you worked on it was there. I think just, you know, beating two modes probably would get you there. Since it's a pro, you know, and this copy, you could hit the right ramp pretty good. so Area 51 was a good utility to kind of get going at some point Did you want to give a really quick rundown of how to play for the people that don't know? Yeah, you've got to hit the white arrows, light your van letters they spell van and that lights the mode on the left and you can choose whatever mode you want I think New Orleans is pretty popular because there's always lots of shots lit and it's pretty simple And then Los Angeles is popular because it's just ramps. So if you want, you can just hit the left ramp. If you want more points, you can combo the ramps. And then you want to bring in your multiball, which is hitting that alien ship up there enough times to lock a ball and then hit it to start multiball. Yeah. You can kind of do those together. It's kind of usually the plan. But you can also do them separately if you want. You can play your multiball without a mode and use it to juice up your van mods. And then that way when you do start the mode, it's going to be super good. And I know Josh Sharpe, he always plays this for van mods. So he won't even start a mode until he has something close to the red, you know, almost max level. So he'll just wail on those drop targets and hit the paddle. And in pin golf, you know, that's not a bad strategy because one mode that's super souped up can be, you know, 60, 70, 80 million pretty easily. Oh, yeah. When I first started playing it, that's how I was playing it because I was like, oh, I can get to the wizard mode by just juicing up the shot that spots mode shots on the van. I was, like, trying to go for that skill shot, the bomb shot or whatever it was. And then I would start a mode and I would need, like, just two shots. And obviously, as you get through the modes, it requires more shots. But I was thinking, oh, well, if I have, like, you know, even if I have 30 seconds, but I only need two shots, that's not bad. So I can see why it would be a viable strategy for pin golf or even just competition because your mows can get really juicy if you finish them fast. And then if you're also able to maybe hit a multiplier on the shafts, you're looking at a good, solid chunk of points. And for pin golf, 80 million, that's not bad at all. So here you go. There's your first ball. You want to see that again? Oh, my God. It started off pretty squirrely, and I even used left out lane save, which, you know, Josh would have set that to off, but I think I confused him in the settings because it says overdrive instead of left out lane ball save. So that got left on, luckily, and I used it right away. And then, whew, look at that face. That's an emote request. Heartbreaking. That is a good emote. Yeah, if you want the e-book, Joe copied and pasted it in our outline. But, yeah, so you had a Taylor combo. Again, the band combos I was noticing were good points. Yeah, I tried to make those valuable. They were $5 million and like $7.5 million, $10 million. Yeah, I saw one of the players hits one. It's like $10 million. And when you're talking about an $80 million target score, you're an eighth there just off the band combo. I love the center spinner to the lower left loop shot where you have to hit it like two or three times. I forgot which band member it is. Yeah, the Nate is a hard one. Yeah, that one I love. I just love the way it flows. I usually always go for the center spinner, right, left ramp, and then up the center spinner again, left ramp combo. But, yeah, so first ball, you end up with $13 million. Colin's up, and he has a much worse ball, as you'll see here. We'll watch him. Unfortunately, Colin goes for the Overlord and no ball safe. I'm surprised he didn't catch that ball because the tilt wasn't that bad, but it was just so fast, and he drained the same way I did, basically, just missing the Overlord. Yeah, they were saying they think he moved it the opposite way he should have. But he ends up with 381K. Zoller steps up and eventually he steps up over here. Zoller has like the first bad ball of his entire weekend. Yeah. Yeah. So when he steps up, choosing his song, he does get a quick like right there, gets one of his Overlord stand-ups, and then gets the lock ready, and boom, he is ready to go because he locks his ball here. Now, how does it go wrong? Well, you'll see in a second. He goes for this. No, it's the next one. It's coming right here. On the same drain. All three players drained from hitting the left target on the Overlord. Yeah, the left target would then scream right down the middle, and there was not enough time to move the machine. I think they had the play field waxed and the flippers drawn. It was definitely fast. So Nick steps up, and we'll get him. He starts his New Orleans, so he's rocking and rolling. This is the only ace of this game. I was going to say the whole round, but you guys have a really good game four. But he starts New Orleans and Overlord multiball to get the nice stack. He got the add-a-ball from the targets on the left. Yeah, he started Overlord instantly because he got in one shot both of the targets and then in one rip and then locked it. So he got the pat combo for $10 million in the middle of multiball. And he's got double scoring going. that's something people might be short plunging to try to advance their double scoring and right now it really matters because at every point you're trying to get look at that Pat combo that's 10 million right there exactly so I'm going to let the audio play because he is going through his game right here and then I want to show the ending of this because he finishes his he's at 66 million right now and then he's got 75 and he only needed one more shot to finish New Orleans. And he already has it. Let's hear this. I think he sees the score. Or not yet. He's about to. He just wanted to do that. He's looking. He's looking. Oh, now he knows. He goes, F yeah. He was like coming off the four on World Cup. Exactly. So he gets the hole in one. Ray steps up to his ball two. He's going to restart New Orleans here. He started it, but there's your short plunge. You're going to go up, get your van, back to New Orleans. You've got a couple shots ready. you lock your ball for the overlord full plunge all around and then you're going up the hit your overlord once but you're going to have a shot here where it goes with just not enough juice and you got your radio ready for an award if you hit it again but here comes the halfway center spinner down the middle I just didn't shove it I think I just didn't think it was going to drain. I would have shoved it more, but I thought I had a piece of it on the left. Yeah, for some reason, I thought your shot was more than powerful enough, but for some reason it just lost steam, and then it just came up the center spinner and down. So you're at 19 million. Colin is going to step up, lock his balls for Overlord. Dicey started to activate his van mode. He had two dangers. I think he's calming down right here. But he starts Los Angeles with his Overlord multiball. I think that's a great decision because you can advance. Yeah, you get all the auto plunges up the side ramp. Yeah, and you can advance towards Area 51, right? Right. So you're doing a lot of things at once. You get your first shot and then maybe hit the right ramp to get your second consecutive combo shot. You're getting more points, plus you're advancing towards Area 51 multiball. So Colin's taking a little time. There's his double danger right there with about $3 million, but I'll move him along. He's about 70% done with L.A. here. He gets a small time bonus. He's trapped up in his Overlord. Is that $39? Oh, I remember what happens. This is tragic for Colin because he basically had this hole-in-two in the bag, and something horrible happens, and it turns into a four. Yeah. It's very unfortunate for him. Yeah, he had done exactly what we were talking about, prep area 51 with L.A., and he did it, right? But he was one shot away and he ends with about 49 so it coming up soon And so he going to get it on once this multi is over I think it ends very soon because yeah there goes your ball save Area 51 is almost there. Yeah, he's holding up. Colin likes to gather himself. Do you do that too, you know, when you're sort of playing a little squirrely? I usually don't wait this long. He's got a bot award lit on the right target, too. That's like a good, I guess it would be $5 million right now because he's got five bots, or maybe two and a half. I can't remember. Yeah, he had five right there. So he's got his ball. He's ready to do the thing of, do I go to my next city and get my van lights, or do I go for that Area 51? I think the smart move here was exactly that. All right, it's ready. It's ready. And there it is. Oh, that's right. Next ball is the ball that what happens, what I'm thinking happens. But, yeah, he had a sling rebound to the left out lane, which was unfortunate because all he needed was to start that, and he probably would have got very close for finishing it in two strokes. So Zoller is next. He locks his overlord. Wow, must be quick. Yeah, Zoller just kind of, all of a sudden, Foo just, I couldn't believe how mean it was being to him, because he usually, he loves this game, and he's always solid for, like, you know, a billion on it. Yeah, he locked his Overlord multiball, and then you saw right there, he got a slow roller out the right out lane. So, in competition settings, the ball, if you lock it, you have to re-lock it in Overlord? Right, yeah, because otherwise, you know, it's different. It wants to be consistent, so you have to lock it and then hit the ball to make progress. So if the ball's not there, you've got to put the ball back in there. But it's not the end of the world. Wow, I almost just died right off the point. But you did lock your... It's not the end of the world, because when you re-lock it, you can just plunge it again, you know. It's not that hard. But you do get your lock for all my life, and then you're going to get another hit here. Interesting I did that instead of backhanding the van. I guess I just really wanted to make sure I got multiball, except then I did it too soon. You shake your head because you had van ready and you wanted to start your mode before you start your multiball. But you start your all-my-life multiball. You're at $25 million. You end up getting a couple shots in, you know, nothing too crazy. I got the right ramp a couple of times for Area 51. I got some jackpots. Things are going decently. Yep. Get some M-Odds. Yeah. Ball save's lit now, and you're out of multiball there. But I got my right-out-lens save. I started a mode. Yeah, so you're going to start L.A. here. Right, because I already did some on New Orleans, and I knew I was close to Area 51, so that was my plan, was just combo ramps. Yeah, and this was a very good decision because you are hitting your shots when you're in L.A., And the nice thing is the points on the extra ball were super healthy for this competition. Yeah, 10 million. I think it was 15. So 15 on this one because out of 80, you're looking at almost a quarter there. But during your Area 51, you activated it, and I think it's coming up eventually. You've got your sling there. And what's great about watching this footage is we saw you at Starfighters, and this was also in the finals at Starfighters. Yeah. I remember watching it with you, and we were watching Walt play, and it was just great hearing all the commentary from everybody because Walt was doing some unorthodox things when he was playing. But you started your Area 51 jackpot. You're already at $60 million. Your extra ball is lit right there along with the ball. Oh, I have a 2X in lane going right now. You might see that in lane. Okay, it's gone now. Oh, I got my add-a-ball. You're at 66. And then right here, extra ball. You're already at 85. You're good to go. Right, because I had 10 million extra ball, you can see there, and then 5 million, I think, bought a ward. Oh, that's what it was. Okay, yeah. So you got the extra close to 20 million with things going on at the same time. You got your 90 million finish, so you finish in three strokes. Nick had the one. You had the three. and then Colin and Zoller will step up, do their thing. Colin starts Area 51 for real this time. He finished – he had picked Seattle before, but they end up going – Oh, now what happened? Oh, on his ball three, I'll show you. So he was on Seattle. Right, this is where he was about to get the score, but then it doesn't – The most half-ramp, half-ramp I've ever seen. Yeah, watch this rejection. It's so, so ridiculous. So he's going to get eventually control, I believe, on the left flipper. Because he's in Seattle, your shots start on the right. And then, remember, he only needed one more right ramp to start Area 51. And missed the Seattle shot, too. Exactly. He would have counted twice, and he goes right here. to be fair he did he did miss the shot if you follow the ball path he was early so the ball actually kind of snaked its way up that's why i didn't have full power but um man the left outlaying feed i've never seen that before that was yeah the right yeah you don't generally see the right outlay to the right ramp reject to the to the left outlay so let's let's uh let's hear the audio of that. This game does incentivize you to shat because of the targets that are in there. Oh my god. I feel so bad for him because it looked like a great shot. But you're right. You just was hit a little too early. So Colin doesn't start area 51 on ball three. Zoller starts his overlord multiball on his ball three. He does get a flip. Like you said, this one sort of this food was not treating him well but right when his uh multiball ends he has a little bit of a flipper from where is he at right now four million so he ends up with about 20 um let's get through the all my life and we'll show the yeah there's a move right here he ends up with 21 million um but he has a very quick all my life multiball he's so good at control too it was crazy to kind of see this happen. He goes center there. All my life ends. And then right there. Oh, yeah, what a weird drain. Yeah, I'm surprised it drained on him like that because he's so good at control, clearly demonstrated by his top world ranking. But, yeah, it was just a fortunate flip or fumble, and he is still at three or going to four. So Colin, for real this time, starts his area at 51. and he's going to be rocking and rolling. He only needed to grind out $20 million to get the four. He's already at $68 million. Ball save is lit. You're right right there with the $5 million for the bot award, $71 million. And finish it off, Colin. There you go. He gets his tailor for $7.50. So Zoller steps up. Zoller starts New York. New York is one of my favorite van modes. not only for the amazing call-outs, but the ability to move the double shot target with the center spinner shot. I like moving it to the overlord. If I can get it stuck there, then try to bash the overlord to finish the mode quickly. So Zoller's going to step up, start New York. He finishes New York, and he tries the shots to get the double points. He doesn't get it, but he does start New Orleans and a few center spinner shots there. Remember, he was at 21 million, so he needed 60 million here. A spinner alone gives it to him here. Yeah, so a few center spinner shots. Wow, look at that big shot, 4.9 million. And that was it. That was all she wrote for him. And now he can breathe easy with his four. And he's got, was it, I wonder why he was still going, just getting a few shots in. Yeah, he's good there. So he gets the four. We've got a 10-11-8-8. Jason and Nick Mueller, after three games, tied Raymond in second with 10 strokes and Colin right behind him at 11. So going into game four, what are your thoughts? I need the one? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I thought I was basically, I was just trying to knock it fourth. So I was just trying to beat Colin. And then, of course, Colin goes first and gets a hole in one, and I'm like, crap. Yeah. What did you think about Foo and your first three games overall? And thoughts before we get to the last game, Demoman? I was pretty happy I got the, aside from countdown, you know, I got the score in par, especially in three or less balls. I'm always happy if I get the score, you know, three or less. And countdown felt okay because that one could have been worse because I got like a seven in qualifying. So getting a five, I felt, you know, at least it wasn't worse. I remember watching the stream back. I think even the chat was like, I think this is like a two-horse race right now. Yeah. I mean, especially a demo listen man of all games. The score on Demo Man was pretty low. You could do it in one quick multiball. Yeah. Yeah, so Demo Man, where it's coming up, we have a target score of 500 million. And six strokes was 400 to 499, 7300 to 399, 8200 to 299, 9100 to 199, and 10 strokes 0 to 99. Now, normally, as I've said in the episode already, you know, you should be, there are enough things you can get in five balls where you should, you know, hopefully get a five or nothing near a 10. This one was crazy. Do you want to explain sort of a quick primer on Demoman? Yeah, I mean, it's really important to plunge and use that upper flipper to hit that shot right there, because that feeds your in lane, and the right in lane lights the left ramp to lock balls. So you really need that shot to feed the right in lane, and then you've got to combo the left ramp. And you can also hit the right ramp to get access to the claw, which will either lock, it'll either light multiball or start multiball. And I always like, especially in this format where you only need five or a million, I like to start multiball. So I like to light multiball with the in lane and the ramp and then go straight into starting multiball with the right ramp. Because if you start multiball from the right ramp, you get an extra ball in play, as opposed to if you started from the left orbit, you'd only get a two-ball multiball. So that's kind of my opener on Demoman. But some people like to save the right ramp for multiball, too, when you need to lock more balls because then it can light your multiball. you know you don't have to lock two balls because to light the right inlay you actually have to hit those yellow stand up targets which obviously is pretty dangerous do you ever make use of the gun triggers or the the I used to I don't do it anymore it's just not worth it most of your bonus doesn't come from combos it comes from claw wards and And so that's why I rushed the claw right away. The claw is just worth so many points, and that's the right ramp after, you know, you hit the left-in lane and then it lights the right ramp. And if your left-in lane isn't lit, you've got to hit the bumper lanes to light your left-in lane. So what is the advantage of using the handles? More points on the combos? Yeah, you get an extra million per combo. Okay. So in bonus. So when you drain, you get, you know, if you had 10 combos, you'll get 10 million in bonus. But if you did them with the trigger, you'd get 20 million in bonus, which it can matter if you're all in on it and you're getting lots of bonus multipliers and you do it early on because it holds throughout the whole game. But you've got to be pretty committed with those triggers. It's kind of awkward. Sorry. Yeah, they were saying in the commentary booth that Luke, the Horniac, will play using the flipper buttons, and then he'll switch to the triggers in between the shots just to hit the bonus for the combos. That's true. You can kind of trick it into giving you the trigger combo. Oh, that's funny. So did you, when you saw which bank and which games were picked, were you breathing a sigh of relief after Jason's picks? Or, you know, were you? I mean, they were okay. I didn't like Countdown. No. The other three were fine. I think I aced Demoman in qualifying, so I was feeling good about that. And World Cup, I think I got a three or something in qualifying, so I knew that it wouldn't be, like, super hard. That's good because I was going to ask would you have preferred, you know, to end on Foo or, you know, to end on something else. But it ends up working out for you. So as you described, the strategy in playing Demoman, it's interesting because it just seems like there was a lot of bad luck for the first two players on this game, other than you and Colin. We had Nick come up, and he's going to step up, and you're going to see exactly how mean Demoman can be. So he's going to launch. He's going to take a big breath, go up. That left ramp seemed really hard to get up to because you had a few rejects on it, and I was like, what is going on here? Was there just not enough power? Yeah, you really got to nail it. Yeah, so he's going to have a right there. Yep. Just never got control. Yeah, and they were saying that he could have maybe moved it a little more to get under control. But when they were doing practice, I noticed the move. It was guilty. Yeah, I don't think he could have moved it. Yeah, it looked a little tighter than expected. So Nick is going up, Zoller, Collin, and then Ray. so Zahler is going to step up eventually I think I'll just move the footage along until he gets here here he comes I believe but Zahler is not going to have a good ball just like Foo Fighters was treating him poorly let me get here press launch he doesn't even need a hole in one he just needs two At worst, he needs two for the win because you can only get a one right there. Wow. Yeah, it's not coming back. It was a bricked ramp, sent it straight down the middle. So he's at $11.6 million. And as Joe put in the chat and as the announcers were saying, they were like, yeah, Colin and Ray are happy right now because that was a quick ball. And if they get a hole-in-one, they are looking somewhat decent. So Colin steps up. He's going to get a very nice quick ball save. See how that – Oh, I can't believe that because Jason did not get a ball save. Yeah, that was some crazy spin to go to the out lane. And then he gets the ball save. He does eventually start his – is Fortress Multiball the one on the – which one is that? That's the first one. that you get from locking. So he's going to probably go up the middle or left ramp. Yeah, middle, because he needs the right in lane is what he needs. This gentleman was kind of particular because the middle would never feed your upper flipper. So if you didn't get that side shot from the plunge, it was a pain in the butt to try to get it. There we go. There's the left feed. Okay. So now he can hit the left ramp. That'll light lock. He'll hit the right ramp to start multiball. Oh, I don't know what that shot was. Maybe just early. yeah it looked like a little bit early so he's going to you know take a second but he does get to so he starts his multiball only a two ball but it means his next multiball he can light from the right ramp in one shot so it's kind of a win win yeah he's got and these jackpots are great you know 20 million he's already at 76 and again 500 million target score another one and it's over so he's at after his multiball ends and there's the secret jackpot super jackpot was lit he's already at 173 after that first multiball he's going to go to the claw here once he does your computer awards are those the mystery awards? yeah for combos Gotcha. So the reason we're watching these balls sort of play out in real time is because we do get a very good finish for both Colin and Ray. And we'll watch Ray's ball in full. He's at 190. I'll try to move Colin along a little because he's stopping a little right there. And there he gets his museum. Museum multiball to start. 209. He probably gets it in this multiball, I would assume, or in bonus at least. So he's at his second multiball. He ends this one with about, I think he's going to get one more jackpot and finish with about 360 million. Yeah. Yeah, so it gets his quick freeze. There's some modes, ACMAG and Simon. Are you choosing ACMAG for a reason, or is there any reason? Yeah, I mean, it's the easiest mode. You just go up the middle, and you get points. Okay. So, yeah, the bonus on this was really nice and healthy. Colin is well over halfway to... Look at that inlay. Yeah. His ACMAG right there is building. The score is building. He's just got to shoot the center again. I noticed this when I played it recently. I was always shooting late, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't hitting that center. I call it the spatula. Yeah, and I realized you have to shoot a lot earlier than normal than I would expect. Did you play these games? You played in the Pin Masters? I didn't play this year They have a demo man locally I would like to play in Pinmasters I was trying to justify it But there was so much That I had just Done or was going to We had Starfighters And TPF March was pretty crazy Pinmasters, TPF Cactus Jax was right after So it was It was not in the cards but I would like to make it I was hoping to go to this one because I wanted to see the RPC so Colin starts his Simon mode which is what three shots yep do they all stay lit or does it go away when you looks like you can hit anything three times gotcha so he's already wow he did it there it is do you prefer this or Judge Dredd I think I like I don't know. Or Johnny Mnemonic of the three. For the movie or the pin? Pin. I think maybe Demoman probably has the best layout and rules in general over all of those. Yeah. But it's close. Yeah, I like this one a lot. So here you are. I started off the way I wanted, which is, you know, side scoop, left ramp, right ramp. So that's the perfect start. I can get my three-ball multiball. Unfortunately, I blow this by hitting the shot I need twice, three times, without hitting the center. Okay, now I need to hit the side shot, and of course I can't. So I should have used my secret jackpot to spot the middle. Instead, I use it to spot the side scoop. But now I need to hit the left ramp. What is the secret jackpot? You hit all the trigger buttons to spot one. Yeah, unfortunately, I just never can hit that left ramp, which is a shame because that would have lit my super jackpot. I go for some last-minute shenanigans here. It doesn't work. And now I'm just kind of stuck in this eternal up-the-middle battle. Just hoping the ball will eventually feed my upper left flipper. yeah it was kind of you had a lot of shots up that left ramp near the end of this too see right there yep I'm just trying to get combos just get any points at all try to get my claw because I know I've got bonus multiplier and your claw has 10 million in bonus so with the bonus multiplier you want to get more claws yeah it was Does this have a max multiplier on the bonus? 5X, yeah. Yeah, see, look, I'm already filling it up here. Yeah. So, yeah, I really need a claw here. Here we go. Claw's ready. I nail it. So that shot right there was probably about $40 million. Nice. Now I can light my lock. Or, no, I do ACMEG. Yeah. I believe. So, yeah, you start ACMEG. You had about, where were you at here already? I think you were already 360-ish. I forgot. Your bonus was over. Yeah, that left ramp just all of a sudden disappeared from existence. Yeah, that's three straight shots right there. Just all coming back down. But you're getting healthy points from ACMAG and everything else right now. Yep, look. It just won't come back. But again, you've got your ACMAG almost done. You're getting $10 million up there. Yeah, I mean, I'm just focused on what the game has given me. The game has given me bonus multipliers, so I'm just going to keep taking them. Yeah. Boom. $46 million total for ACMAG. $11 million. So I got, yeah, $11 million. That was for completing the top lanes when bonus is maxed. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, so it gives you points. You're already at $320 million right there. $12 million. And then now... I just keep sending it up there because it's giving me points. Are you thinking that you already have it because of the bonus or no? I know I'm pretty close. I need, like, another claw would do it, so that's why I'm trying to hit that stupid left ramp, and it just is not happening. I guess I could technically hit the eyeball shot. I've never even thought about that. But you could hit that eyeball shot to feed your left in lane. Ah. And what is the eyeball shot spot you would give you? It's just like points that you see how it says retina scan. Actually, it would be worth $25 million right now. Gotcha. The bumper. So, actually, that would have been the play, especially with that left ramp not working. There it is. Oh, there we go. Okay. I knew I could get it eventually. Oh, look at that second chance. That's what makes or breaks a good pinball player is what you do with those second chances. Yeah. Sometimes the gods giveth, and you've got to take advantage of it. So right there, once I made that shot, I knew I was golden. So no more tilting. Yeah, because you start Simon here, and there's this car chase. or I saw, yeah, Simon captured 25 million, 469, cryoclaws active. Boom. Man, I really wish I would have done that. I wish I would have just trapped up and nailed that eyeball shot so everyone would be like, what the heck? And then they see I get 25 million, lights my claw, shoot the claw, and then that would be sweet. Yeah. I've never actually tried the eyeball shot, though, so it might be actually really hard. I have no idea where that shot is. Yeah, there is your ace, your hole-in-one. Two hole-in-ones, which is crazy because, as we'll see, you were up on Colin after three games by one stroke. So anything less than a one there because of his ace, you would have had to go to a tiebreaker. So now, you are at 11, Colin is at 12. Nick and Jason cannot get worse than a three because that would mean they don't get the tiebreaker. So this is ball two. Nick Mueller is stepping up. And I don't think just from like the first ball, I think he was I don't know if it was affecting maybe his outlook on it because it was just a bad break. But here he has a catch that I don't think he would normally make. you'll see it come here and right there yeah just a bad read and a bad catch I didn't expect that to drain on him but it's that small little it's almost like he thought he had ball save because normally you would bail out like after you make a bad catch you try to flip it but he just kind of watched it drain so I'm not sure yeah I thought it would give it back to him but man that was a quick ball save so he's at 60 million Zoller is going to step up and he is here at $11 million on ball two. So now, Nick, the best he can do is get it in the next, go for a tiebreaker on the next hole, on the next ball, ball three. And Jason here, if Jason gets it, he wins. Yeah, exactly. But he gets the sling to the left out lane. So no matter what, the best anybody can do for Ray is get a tiebreaker with him. And Joe points out in the notes, Andy Bagwell said, that was your most unorthodox 500 million ever in Demoman. He said it in chat. It was kind of funny. So Nick is up, or he's going to be up eventually. He's got to plunge everybody out. And the smile was, I think the ball gave him like the ball save real quick, and he was like, come on, that's what I should have had on that last ball that I had. Yeah, this game has a really weird ball save. I don't understand it. Is that something that's set up for competition, or is it just... Well, I mean, they turn it off if they could, but I'm guessing you can't turn it off, so... Yeah, it's turned down. Turned down, okay. So here Nick is stepping up for ball three. This is to get a tiebreaker at the very best. And he's got $16 million. He finally gets the ball up in the pops, gets his 2X. And he's going to get really mad soon because he just wants the ball back. Give me the ball. Give me the ball. Nope, no dice. He was yelling there, please just give me the ball. I mean, I guess that's why I just kept throwing it up the middle, because there was less side to side, right? If you're going up the middle, just – that's why whenever I kept half-ramping the left ramp, you know, I just – I kept trying because it wasn't really killing me. Yeah, no, and that's – You can do stop lanes too. Yeah, exactly. That's a great point. Like, going up the middle, because this one was moving so fast, you might as well at least get it up there and then maybe get some control or at least a one-timer when it's coming back down. Joe, have you played this a bunch in tournaments? We used to have one on location. It was one of the first games I kind of learned how to play. Gotcha. Yeah, it's a great one. Enjoy it. Nice. So, yeah, so ball three, Jason Zoller, you have to hit the target here, or our special guest, Raymond Davidson, Penn will win the 2025 Penn Masters. Out of nowhere, because, like, I was not expecting. I was losing. You know, I had five. I was down by, what was going into that? Going into that, you were down by two strokes. So the standings here could have completely flipped after demo, which is crazy because it just takes one bad game in Penn golf. I know. I was just saying how I don't like that, but it worked out in my favor. It definitely did. So I'm waiting for Zoller to come up here. If you're listening on audio, we are watching the footage. I strongly recommend that you go to the YouTube page and watch this podcast in video form so you can follow along with us. Here Jason goes. He has a double danger coming up, I believe. He's where he's at about. Yes, he's moving it. Right there. Oh, wow. I thought I was done. I thought as soon as he didn't tilt that, that he was going to go all the way, because that's usually how it happens. But it would still be a tiebreaker if he did go all the way. Yes. Even if he made the 500 target here, at best he can get a tiebreaker with you. But I think I know what that feeling or that mentality, because he's so good. I've seen so many great players like yourself. Once they make a big move and they're stuck on two dangers, Then they just, it's ice in your veins and you're hitting every shot. Do you think he kind of sent the ball over there with the upper flipper? That was kind of weird. This was a brick left ramp to left out lane. Let's see if I can watch that. It looks like he tried to flip it into the ACMAG even or the scoop. So it's coming back right here. We're going to get the double danger again and we'll watch the footage. So there's his double danger at $34 million. and he's trying, I think you're right, Joe. So he's going to take his time, let it settle. Brush the hair across. I get it. I've done it plenty of times. My long locks. Yeah, I think he hits the left ramp target, upper left slipper, right out lane. So he's thinking, and here he goes. Come on. Boom. Nope. Oh. Yep. It was just a bad. Oh, he was going for the multiball start, and he hit below the upper flipper. The left orbit. So that would seal the victory for our guest, Raymond Davidson. Congratulations. Hell yeah. And then we get this awesome montage of Nick and Jason just absolutely getting destroyed, and it's hilarious. They both take a nine. Yeah, that is crazy because they do end up with a nine. And I was going to the footage because I was going to go here. Actually, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to this because I wanted to say congratulations. Let me turn this on, and then we're going to turn this off. But here we go. There it is. Here's our happy winner. Congratulations on your 2025 Pinmasters. do you have any sort of final thoughts I will ask you a question about it but just your overall experience this year compared to other years yeah I mean I'm always just happy to qualify and it's it went pretty smooth my worst thing I got like a 9 on Alien Star in qualifying which was so disappointing because you know it's just literally like one shot to get the score, and I just couldn't do it in five balls. But, you know, after that game, I guess I just, I don't know, I focused up and I was like, well, I just got to try to get the score from now on. And luckily the nine just kind of went out in the wash with the other eight, 17 games. So it's definitely a marathon, not a sprint when you're playing in pin masters. You just got to just keep trying your hardest. And you never know what will happen, especially in finals. Yeah. We just found out. That was a complete flip of the standings. And I was going to ask for you for any advice you want to give anybody out there about a competition like this. And I think you just said it really well. You're never out of it. And anything can happen, especially in pin golf. Did you get to pick the new inbox? What was your prize? Let's explain to people what the prize was. Yeah, you get a new in-box Stern Pro. So I got a new in-box Foo Fighters. Oh. What was the reasoning behind that? You just wanted to get one in the house again? Well, actually, I worked out a deal and was able to send it to someone who was looking for Foo Fighters, and they just sent me money. So I actually just got money, which was even better. I was going to say, you've had enough time on Foo Fighters. Let's figure out a way to cash that in. That's awesome. Cash is king sometimes. Thank you for joining us on that review. Joe, do you have any questions for Ray? Yeah, no. Was that your first Pin Masters win, Ray? Yeah, I mean, I don't even know. I don't think I did make Final Four. Pin Masters was my other best finish. I got fourth. That was against Jason Escher, and I don't remember who was the fourth. But unfortunately, I got fourth in that. I remember it was on Godzilla, I had a meltdown, and Escher and Jason pulled through. So I had another chance where game four I could have won Pin Masters, but this was a good, like, way to avenge that, I suppose. But other than that, I usually don't have many expectations going into Pin Masters. I kind of just do it because, you know, it's fun and it's a big points opportunity. If you do win, the prize is great, and it's a circuit event, So, you know, you get those circuit points, and it's just, yeah, it's just a good time. And you get to see all the national winners, so it's kind of like a family gathering again. You know, you see everybody, and it's just a good time. Have a lot of the faces changed or remained the same throughout your? I mean, there's always new faces, but, you know, you usually see kind of the same people, especially the people that are kind of fly enough to go to different states to make sure they're all qualified somewhere I didn't do that I went to Illinois because it's 15 minutes down the road at Interium and I got plowed by a ZMAC train just didn't lose a single game in Illinois which was crazy but yeah it's fun this whole Nationals and pin masters thing, and it leads to a lot of great stream because it's head-to-head for nationals, and then you get this cool golf format. It's a good time. Yeah, no, it was great to watch. Congratulations, man. It's always fun watching you play, competing against you. I'm glad to have met you, Joe, and everybody since I've started this competitive journey, And it's always interesting to hear top players' kind of thoughts and what they did and what they should have done. And it's awesome to see when you're watching it and you're talking to us, you're like, I should have hit that damn eye shot, the retina shot. I'm always looking for different things, you know. And, you know, countdown, I didn't realize I could have gone for that red target. Yeah. World Cup, I probably should have ski-passed instead of taking that on-the-fly death shot. So, yeah, if you ever do get the pleasure of being on stream, it's good to go back and watch. I should do it more. I kind of usually don't, but I should. There's a lot of footage of you, so get cracking. So we are going to do our rapid-fire round. Just feel free to say the first thing that comes to your mind on what your answer is. Joe, if you want, we'll flip-flop and switch off. What do you think is better, flipper skills or nudging skills? Joe or me? You. Oh, that's right. Yeah, right. I don't need to talk. Me and Joe talk about it. I think probably flipper skills because it's both accuracy and recovery, whereas nudging is just recovery. All right. Yeah, classic EMs, DMDs, or modern LCDs? It depends. For tournaments, I guess the DMDs. For home use, I like the LCDs. Nice. Favorite non-pinball arcade game? I like Galaga. I'm pretty good. Well, I'm not that good, but I don't know. I can sometimes get the two ships going at once, and it feels really good. And Ms. Pac-Man, when it's going really, like, they have the fast ROM or whatever. That's fun. Nice. Least favorite pinball machine ever? Least favorite? I guess I'll say Algar. That game kind of sucks. Oh, Algar taking shots from nowhere. Favorite city for pinball tournaments? Ooh. It's hard to beat Seattle. Seattle's pretty solid. Yeah. Banjo or Kazooie? Ooh. I mean, you've got to go with Kazooie. She's way more funny. But Banjo is definitely, you know, he's a lovable honey bear. I kind of relate to him. But, yeah, why would you make me choose like that? That's the name of the game. Favorite or best Rare game? Oh, I think I usually, I've been going with Banjo-Tooie lately. I think it's the best of everything. The more filled out world with funnier characters and more to explore and do. Yeah, I'm also partial to Diddy Kong Racing. Because it was my first video game. Love that one. Nice. it's fine or bozo. Oh, I love bozo. I think that's more trendy. I think it's fun to say. I have a special bozo emote just for you. Yeah, like, you know, when you squeeze something up, you're like, oh, that was a bozo move. Yeah, exactly. Well, that is our time. Man, do you have any final thoughts? We also want to make sure that we thank you. And again, say congratulations. Very happy for you. Happy it all worked out. A good flip of the standings on game four. It's always an amazing pleasure to watch you play, talk to you. And aside from your competitive side, you do great things in the world of pinball. I love playing the pins you've coded. I've got some here. I'm looking forward to hopefully one day having my own little corner. and make sure you check out Raid A at twitch.tv slash Raid A Pinball. Any final thoughts? Anything you want to plug or say? Yeah, I mean, I'm Raid A Pinball on YouTube, Twitch. I think I even have a website still, raidapinball.com. But yeah, go play some Rush or some Foo. Some Metallica Remastered. Yeah, I'm Just I'm happy to be here. I love pinball, and it was fun talking to you guys. Thanks, Joe. Any final words? Sorry, I forgot to ask you. No, you're good. Yeah, I appreciate it, Ray. Me and Hadi as being fellow members of the 30-plus community, we're always glad to root you on, especially in these major tournaments. So keep up the great work, man. It's always fun to watch you. Thanks. All right, guys. Thanks again. This is Episode 7 of Wizards and Warriors. Our special guest, Raymond Davidson, the 2025 Pin Masters champion, competitive player extraordinaire. And we will see you all later. Bye. Bye. See ya. I'm not all that, Mr. Target Light. I'm a little bit too much, we're in control. Pinball, we just, we got the soul. I'm not all that, Mr. Target Light. People think it's easy, they all change their lives. But we fight in my every command. In this pinball kingdom, I make my stand. Little all warriors, we're ready to fight. I'm not all that, Mr. Target Light. I'm a little bit too much, we're in control. Pinball, we just, we got the soul.