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Iron Maiden - Qualifying run - Chicago Pinball Expo 2025

Walt Wood Pinball·video·25m 11s·analyzed·Oct 17, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Walt Wood qualifies on Iron Maiden at CPE 2025 with 612M, placed 11th.

Summary

Walt Wood, an IFPA-ranked player (rank 51), plays a qualifying round on Iron Maiden Premium at Chicago Pinball Expo 2025. The video features detailed gameplay commentary from two experienced players discussing Iron Maiden's complex ruleset, including death blow combos, mode stacking, and the Cyborg multiball. Walt scores 612 million, placing him 11th in the qualifier standings.

Key Claims

  • Iron Maiden Premium at this event was running hybrid Pro settings (center still catches, mummy started like Pro, tomb wards on right instead of left divert)

    high confidence · Tournament official commentary explaining rule modifications: 'This is Iron Maiden Premium, but it was uh the rules the settings were changed a little bit. So, it kind of plays like a hybrid pro.'

  • You need 10 out of 11 tomb treasures to reach the wizard mode 'Run to the Hills'

    high confidence · Commentator explaining end-game requirements: 'There are 11. You need 10 to get to run to the hills for the tomb treasures.'

  • Death blow is the termination of a combo at the mummy target, with values from 1x to 6x multiplier based on combo length

    high confidence · Chat correction and gameplay explanation: 'The death blow is the termination of a combo... if it's blinking and you hit a mummy, you get a death blow and you can go up to six.'

  • Walt Wood waited approximately two hours to get his first game on Iron Maiden at the expo

    high confidence · Host commentary: 'he had to wait, you know, probably two hours' and 'Waited for two hours probably and uh now sitting pretty.'

  • A 612M score on Iron Maiden at CPE 2025 qualifiers places around 10th-11th, just above Zack Sharp's 609M

    high confidence · Final leaderboard discussion: '612 does put him at uh 11th place just above Zack Sharp. Coach Zack with 609.'

Notable Quotes

  • “So you basically treat it like this is your one attempt, which is really unfortunate.”

    Host (discussing tournament format pressure) @ Early in video — Illustrates the high-stakes nature of single-qualifier format at expos where limited machine access creates pressure

  • “He's a showman, but he's also got the skills to pack it up.”

    Co-commentator @ Mid-game — Character assessment of Walt Wood as both entertaining and competent

  • “It's almost nicer to play with no pressure. Who cares? It's Walt.”

    Co-commentator @ During multiball — Reflects Walt's reputation for skilled, style-focused play without anxiety

  • “I would be surprised if it wasn't [top 10]. I did say I'm feeling a 600 mil wall game. Just saying.”

    Host (prediction validation) @ Final score reveal — Shows commentator correctly predicted Walt's score range despite not knowing final result

  • “Every little point matters now. And, you know, at this level, maybe he needs uh, you know, 50 more mil just to climb another point.”

    Host @ Late in game — Illustrates how competitive the qualifier leaderboard is, with minimal point gaps between positions

Entities

Walt WoodpersonIron MaidengameChicago Pinball Expo 2025eventZack McCarthypersonLogan HendersonpersonJosh SharppersonZack SharppersonMelissapersonZMAC/Zach McCarthypersonNick Campbellperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Chicago Pinball Expo 2025 featuring competitive qualifying rounds with documented leaderboards and high player participation; appears to attract elite and mid-tier tournament competitors

    high · Multiple named competitors with IFPA rankings; detailed leaderboard; two-hour queues on machines; video documentation of gameplay

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Iron Maiden appears to have high variability in scores (612M to 1.8B range in qualifiers), indicating strong skill differentiation and complex ruleset that rewards mastery

    high · Leaderboard positions: Logan Henderson 1.8B (3rd), Zack McCarthy 1.5B (2nd), Josh Sharp 813M (6th), Walt Wood 612M (11th), Zack Sharp 609M

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Iron Maiden ruleset features complex combo-termination mechanics (death blows), mode stacking, and wizard mode requirements that reward skilled play and strategic decision-making

    high · Extensive discussion of death blow mechanics (1x-6x multipliers), tomb treasure collection (10 of 11 required), and Cyborg multiball stacking

  • ?

    product_strategy: Iron Maiden Premium at CPE 2025 running hybrid Pro settings (center catch retained, mummy started as Pro, tomb ward positioning modified) rather than standard Premium ruleset

    high · Official explanation: 'This is Iron Maiden Premium, but it was uh the rules the settings were changed a little bit. So, it kind of plays like a hybrid pro.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Expo qualifier format limits machine access; players may only get one competitive attempt due to queue backlogs, creating high-pressure single-shot scenarios

Topics

Iron Maiden ruleset and gameplay mechanicsprimaryTournament format and competitor pressure at exposprimaryCompetitive pinball skill and technique (nudging, shot selection, ball control)primaryLeaderboard standings and scoring competitivenesssecondaryRule modifications and hybrid Pro/Premium settingssecondaryPlayer personalities and playstyle (Walt Wood's showmanship and skill)secondaryWizard mode progression and end-game challengesmentionedMultiball stacking and mode strategymentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Enthusiastic commentary praising Walt Wood's skill and entertaining style; excitement about competitive depth and leaderboard standings; genuine appreciation for Iron Maiden's complexity and playfield design; minor frustration expressed by players about difficult shots or timing-dependent moments, but overall celebratory tone

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

Let's see. Oh, don't you know? 176, folks. Ooh, we're in for a treat now. Oh, the old Walt Wood. The the infamous Walt Wood, the animated man himself. Here he is live on camera. He's going to be talking to us. I don't I can't read lips, but yep. Salute. He's talking to you, chat. Looking right at you. Here it comes. Uh, I you have to annunciate that as Nick Campbell. Yeah, that's the name, folks. Ask my grandma. Do not wear it out. Ask Ask my grandma. So, this is Walt's first game on Iron Maiden as well. He did not play much last night. He played a little bit, but I also was a victim. I chose not to play it. I didn't think it through. And then he's in the same boat where he had to wait, you know, probably two hours. Yeah, this is a high pressure sitch for everybody. Um cuz there there's going to reach a point in the night where if it's your first time playing it, you might not get to play it again. Yes, true. So you basically treat it like this is your one attempt, which is really unfortunate. Look at this. Look at Walt is already hands off. Some moves going. Walt is uh Watch out. Incredible nudge. He just needs to No hands. Hands off. Breathe. Breathe. Oh, little clap. He's like doing magic tricks. Incredible. All right, one shot away. He'll have uh the dark. Nice and loose. All right. All right. Probably going to just Yeah. Nice. Oh, he got the uh honestly way worse feed, but he handled it well. When it falls to the left there, it's so scary. The loop feed. Watch out. Nice. He's probably going to try to get Mummy basically one or two away right before. Oh, nice free hit. Nice. Okay, so I would if I'm him, I'm going to try to not That's Walt. Not nice. Whoa, he scooped it just perfect. So now he'll probably drop catch. Drop catch on the right and then just rip. Okay. Oh gosh. All right. Survive. Feed there. Nice. All right. Dang. All right. The stack is here. He's thumbming up and he's also shooting shots. Left ramp into right ramp. Maybe get some get some double value. The style points are high with Walt. The uh intentional double drain. Yeah, I think he was hoping I think he may have tried to tap pass it over there just so he could get it. He wanted to take a shot I think at the right ramp, but cheeky. I like it. Unfortunately gets one spin there. So he'll have to shoot another purple shot before he lights the spinners again. All right, this could be valuable mode here, folks. There it is. Almost two half ramps. Let's get some control. This is timed. Let's go. He's ripping the spinner. No, he tries for the super spinner. If you get both spinners uh moving at the same time, they like So the spin value I was going to say the spin value stacks, but it also takes like the doubled value as well as um the right ramp will double it as well. So it can be crazy valuable. Yeah, you could. And Walt knows this. He's going to try it. There it is. He might try to bump one over and right ramp again. Yep. Incredible. Okay, now he wants to get two on the left here probably. or the up and over might. Oh, he timed out. We weren't even paying attention. He That's why he kind of looked disgruntled there. Oh man. But left ramp will be an out of ball for him. He's fine. Everything's fine. He's just getting started. We're going to be see see a I think we'll see a big score here. What's the overunder here for for Walt? I'm I'm feeling this is like probably a this is a 600 mil Walt wood game. All right. He's got style points. He's got the handsoff modes. It looks like he's in, you know, he's having fun. He's pointing at the camera. Yeah. Walt, he's a showman, but he's also got the skills to pack it up. That's true. Nice under over there. All right, upper loop. Close. Close. It's always so funny watching these uh insanely talented players make that upper uh flipper loop look so easy. That's such hard. If I hit that like once or twice in a game, I'm so happy. And it's never on purpose. Watch out. All right, Walt. Nice. Okay, Dom, can you explain to me and the kind folks here in the chat what the heck a death blow is? So, I believe as you're building a combo, like after you have a two or three-way combo, you can turn it in. I don't know, is it the mummy target? I guess I don't know because I don't typically do the death blow, like the crazy 5x death blow. Is it like a Led Zeppelin sitch? Like you combo and then and then lock it in like a I think it's just a final value fighter UFO kind of. I don't think you lock something in. I think it's rather a collected value based on your combos. But someone in the chat can absolutely correct me. I do not know. Okay. Cuz I just learned there's a combo light in this game. Yes. And that's how you can tell if you've if you're doing like your fiveway death blow, the super death blow thing. Is that a thing you need to do to get like the super wizard mode? You could tell I uh don't get that far in the game. Truly, I'm not sure, but maybe Walt will do it and show us. Meanwhile, Walt's still in multiball. Nice. Okay, he's got he's got to shoot basically all of the hard shots to get his next attabol, but his mummy super will be lit after this last captive ball hit, which is great. Nice. Now up the middle for his super. And getting that out of the way early feels so good. The super. Yeah, cuz if he's playing for Nice. That was such a Doesn't matter. He got a super. That's fine. So that was So he got it. He got his mummy card, which for someone like Walt really matters cuz he's probably playing to try to get, you know, all the way through the game. Yeah, he wants that. Okay. I mean, 70 mil ball one, that's fine. It's a good set cuz we saw we saw Nick do, you know, 34 mil after a ball and he ended at 380. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you can get a ball 75 feels great. You can get a ball moving on this and for someone like Walt like I've seen him have billion point single balls. So that ball was a practice ball. Yeah, he's just he's just greasing the uh greasing the old engine. IFPA rank 51. Incredible mode. Yep. I think he's trying to get that last drop target. Yeah, probably hold the flipper. Oh, nice. He just hit it. He flipped at it. That was so much cooler. Baller move, but he's unfortunately he's kind of in the Yeah. Yeah. Just take it. He's uh Well, he's in the multiball mode, so he can't uh I wouldn't lock any right away. Dude, the style I think it was that may have been a half dab. I I don't I don't know all the terms. Getting the sixway combo lights a tomb treasure. So, yeah, if you're playing for the end, you need all the tomb treasures. You need to go all the way the tombs, too. How many are there? There's a lot. There's like 15. Yeah. Shoot, man. It's like from beating the modes, getting the shards, um, and all the other things. I mean, if you miss one mode, are you screwed or are there other ways? You have to loop back through, I believe. Yowser, what a what a game. Nick is in tune with the youths. Yeah, that's true. Oh yeah, dude. I'm hip. I'm dope. I'm You're so hip. You're almost pelvis. Remind me to stretch. Me, too. All my old man stuff. Me, too. How's your leg feeling? Better. I'm sitting, so it's fine. Okay, good. It's good to see. All right. He's in the ramp part of this mode. I believe it's ramp and then center. Twox. No, he's got an he's got an add ball, but I don't think he'll get it in time. That's fine. He's out of this mode. He's probably going to try to light his next one so he can play Icarus with multiball stack. There are 11. You need 10 to get to run to the hills for the tomb treasures. There's 11. Okay. And you need 10 total out of 11. Correct. Ref. This is Iron Maiden Premium, but it was uh the rules the settings were changed a little bit. So, it kind of plays like a hybrid pro. Yeah, the uh the center still comes up to catch the ball, but the mummy is started like a pro and the tomb wards are on the right as well. Typically, the left would divert. Ball two locked. Ooh, nice catch. What's he going to do? Is he going to take it? No, he's going to set up his mode. need that right ramp or another left ramp. Excuse me one moment. I'm just going to uh quickly tell them. Nah, I'll wait. I might I'm I'm almost up on Star Wars, so I'll pop back in afterwards. Are you um are you waiting on a certain one? I'm waiting on just the Star Wars comic. I just got to put something together. I have 700 mil, but I would love to double that. That'd be nice. Is um you you have a Kong recommendation. What which one I should play? I I truly don't. I played the left one and I had a decent game, but I saw someone right next to me put up a billion while I was doing that. Okay. So, I would just unless there's something fatally wrong with the game, I try not to even like worry about what people are saying if that like if a feed's going down the middle. Yeah, that matters. Yeah. All right. Walt starts gives the camera a look of appreciation. Uh he starts his multiball with Flight of Icarus. So, it's a little bit of ramp time. He's got his 2x to ready to go. Oh, is that Or did he just light three? That'd be even better. Yep. So, he's going to ramp and then probably try to combo. Nice little style points. He shhats to like that. That's cool. So, he could ramp here and it'll be uh very fatty very soon. Yeah, triple value for ramps. You better hit some ramps here before you time out, Walt. Let's go. Oh, he's missing like it's the pressure. He knows everything's everything's there right in front of him. 3x. Let's make some money. That's nice. Okay, the staged upper loop just to show off just cuz he can. Gets the add ball. Okay, he's kind of ignoring the mode, but you know, whatever. He's just having fun. It's almost nicer to play with no pressure. Who cares? It's Walt. I mean, he did try the ramps a couple times that he's like, "Yeah, maybe he's like, I'm not feeling it. I'll do Uhoh." All right, start the juggle. Oh, the is Oh, I was going to say that is a legal trick. Oh, no. We might have missed it. Let's see if we captured that one. The old the old double triple drain. So, we lost two there. And then, uh-oh. What's up, Mr. RLM? RLM Amusement's coming and saying hello. We love that guy. All right, Walt is back. He's at 215. He definitely uh definitely wants to uh up this score, but he doesn't have anything. So, anything is great right now. Yeah, I What's he the uh the death blow is the termination of a combo. So, if you have a combo going Yeah. that is um essentially where do you terminate it? At the mummy. Yes. Okay. So, if it's blinking and you hit a mummy, you get a death blow and you can go up to six. 6x would be the the big one. It'll let your two much treasure. Okay. Boink. Whoa. Just leave the flipper up wall. Some new moves. I am going to head over to Star Wars. I'll be back after this game hopefully with great news. Win big, baby. Thank you. We will miss you. Thank you, Dom, for joining us. Thank you, chat, for being here. Ending a combo by hitting a certain shot. Step blow it scores points based on the length of the combo. Death blow blah blah blah blah blah or 3x value of a standard death blow. Okay, thank you for that, Neil. Appreciate it. Always learning. It's amazing play these games for this this many years. Ellen's first game still learning uh some amazing rules and ideas that are in this thing. Let's see what he does. He's in um Hollowed, right? Yeah, Hollow could be where some cash. See what he does. Goes for a loop. That's tough. One danger, folks. Even Walt's like, "How combo ends when you hit anything that isn't still the combo." So you you get it. You don't have to terminate it. It sounds like, but you do have to hit something. Okay, nice work. Go for some mummy. Watch out. Great moves. He's proud of himself on that one. Frankly, so am I. Wall. Incredible. Putting a game together, folks. He's also got one away from completing uh his power modes. We now have 2x. We now have mummy. We now have be hollow still running. Where's the timer on that? Okay. Rhyme. So that's uh mode is over. Should have known that. Um it does have still I think five orbits and I think ramps power mode is lit. So he's probably going to want to save that. Try to double double it up or uh he's already got two so going to try to triple it up. Three orbits left. He's going to want to try to finish this while he's in mummy. So, we can come out of here and go right into Watch out. Go right into um two left. Two orbits left. One orbit left. Looks like he's going to actively go for it. Nice little juggle there. Yeah, ramps are done but still in the bank. Goes for a super sling tomb treasure which can add up. Get a little multiball going. If we get trooper, I think we'll see some super slings action. Watch out. 2x with the shots. Cyborg. So, he completed all his power modes. He's pumped. He knows there's money here. He's going to basically hit all the shots. You got to hit a a target. You got to hit a loop. You got to hit pot bumper. I think you got to hit a ramp. Orbit. Basically fill up that pyramid again. Looks like he needs ramps and orbits. 2x is running out and it's out. That's all right. Still got ball save. He's in a ramp. He needs an orbit. Got an orbit. And his first uh jackpot is lit. Let's see if he can hit it. Boom. Ah, a little bit of a reject. It's a little tougher on the premium cuz it's a it's not just a target. It's like a captive ball kind of sitch. All right. Nice patience. Good backhand. 8 mil. 8.7. So now do it again. Get out a ball. Get a little ball save. Hit your shots. He needs ramp. And it already he's back at another power mode. Let's see if he does it. Misses it. Nice catch. Hit it. Boom. 2x. One more add a ball. A little bit more ball save. After this, you don't get the add ball and you don't get the ball save. You're just down to multiball. So now once this light runs out. Oh, he's got four balls. Let's go. W get the high, boys. Just got to get the high, boys. What's up, Dalton? Dalton's floating around here somewhere or he's uh taking a nap waiting for his game. Look at this. Look at this. Trying to get that ball across. Can he do it? No. He gets even tighter over there. He's trying to juggle it over. All right. He needs an orbit. Oh, he tries it. Kick it over. Oh, that's so dangerous. He's going to do it again. And I don't think he's going to try to separate. He's just going to leave those three balls over there. Incredible patience. He says, "Nah, I don't need I don't need four balls. It's just getting in the way." Bounce over. Nice. Or into an orbit. He does does need to get that flipper down. So, let's do a little stage. Get a little See a good example of staging here. So, he's got the blower flipper and he hits it. So, now uh the jackpot is lit. He's going to do a little backhand and uh let's see if he's a little bit more patient now that he's out of multiball. He's out of add. Oh no. Down to two balls. You kind of want this at least fourth one. Like this is where the points start getting nuts, right? You cuz it's four times uh almost 14 right now. Watch out. Nice nudge. So you know another jackpot it's another over 50 60 let's see four times 40 50 some 50 60 mil so he needs an orbit and he's out [Music] the orbit. it. Nope. Nope. Like a second too late. A half a second too late. 80 mil. Nothing to sneeze at. That puts him top 20. Let's look. top 15. So, you know, every little point matters now. And, you know, at this level, may maybe he needs uh, you know, 50 more mil just to climb another point. Let's see what he needs. Four 50. Yeah, like every 10 20 mil, you're going to move another point. Bam, bam, bam. So, keep a game face on. Game's not over. He's probably the last time he's playing this one until uh finals. Nice juggle. Looks like we got some mummy movement. Good nudge. The old wind up and the pitch and the super nudge. We're saving that. I mean, while he is just so happy and proud of that nudge, folks, we have to watch this. Like, this was gone. This was this was in the Steve Bow and Dirtnap area all the way in the ground. All right, this is his last mode, so he could uh get the uh the final wizard mode for completing the modes here. Two minutes to midnight, I think it's called. I don't know all the a lot of the names. I mess it up. Oh, look at this loop. Two big loops. Still piling the points on, folks. Super slings are still running. You can see every time he hits a sling, the power goes out for a slight second. So, that's uh quite a lot of points there from slingshots ever since he started it like 10 minutes ago. Oh, okay. He was trying to hit those uh mode shots. Okay, now it's down to one shot. Starboard shot one. Down to one ball. He's got a revive lit. Walt is still playing. Incredible. Uh-oh. How did it go, Boo? Uh, I got 1.2. Not terrible. Yeah, I had 700 mil, so I was able to up it a bit. I made a bunch of silly mistakes, but I can't be upset. It was It was an increase, so a substantial one. I was hoping for a Billy, but uh I drained as soon as I started lightsaber with 20x lit and was sad instead. So, what have I missed? It looks like I missed a cyborg. A couple other modes. Yeah, he's on his last mode. See, it looks like he may be trying to get I was going to say he's probably trying to get 3x cuz he knows next up is 2 minutes to midnight. Yeah. Yeah. And a 3x 2 minutes to midnight would be massive. He's no Zmech though, so he's not going to drain out. Zach would have been out of this already. He's got everything prepped. Oh, and then and then unless he proves me wrong here. Oh, he took the 3x. Okay. Oh, weird. I mean, he might just be playing this long term or he doesn't want it to potentially go to waste, you know, if you if you're holding out for 3x and you don't end up getting to use it. Yeah, I know what you mean. But at this point, yeah, I guess it's it's like that. It's got a James Bond vibe to it. Yeah, 600. You know, 600's top 10 maybe. I would be surprised if it wasn't. I did say I'm feeling a 600 mil wall game. Just saying. You did actually almost nail it. So, sixth, whatever it is, is somewhere around 10th place, maybe 11th. Awesome. Very good. That another one, another example. Two games in a row. Waited for two hours probably and uh now sitting pretty. All right. So 612 does put him at uh 11th place just above Zach Sharpe. Coach Zack with 609. Coach Zachie. Uh Josh Sharpe currently has the sixth place with 813. We got Zack McCarthy second place with 1.5. Logan Joshua Henderson with a 1.8. Josh Sharpe currently behind us eating a salad. Sorry to dox you Josh. It's like I don't even All right, Melissa stepping up. She has been waiting as well. I don't know if she has played Iron Maiden yet, but she was not here yesterday, unfortunately. So, she has been cramming entries in today. Nice. I don't think she's played it. Let's see how she does. She knows. Um I actually play with Melissa every week uh in Michigan. She's a great person, great player. So, she knows what to do on this game. I've seen her have great teams. Oh, it's good.
Dom
person
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany

high · Commentary: 'he had to wait, you know, probably two hours' and 'you basically treat it like this is your one attempt, which is really unfortunate'