When I think Death Save . . . something like this comes to mind 
IFPAPA will be adding a paragraph explaining these āAvatar type of situationsā. It will be considered bad game setup and not a player conduct issue.
Indeed. Just a bit of tweaking and this isnāt possible.
Iāve seen it done in our local league on more than one occasion.
Which makes you wonder how this happened. Maybe game bringer wasnāt a nudger? I wouldnāt expect setup guy to catch this unless may heād seen it before.
At least we all know to look for it now. I wonder if you can lock a ball in the jail during switch test? It would be easy to test if this is possible.
Not certain, but I think thatās happened to me on a hard sling drain without any nudging. So in some cases, it wouldnāt even be player-caused.
Actually Bob, the other 3 players in your group independently told me that they saw some nudging, so unfortunately itās a DQ! 
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Two things - if players learn of such an āexploitā is it their responsibility to tell the TD (after they get a nice qualifying score 
) once they discover it in the spirit of fair play or just chalk it up as game knowledge?
Also on the death save side of things remember the Rock Star at PinMasters two years ago had the kickout that would, if you left the left flipper up, hit the metal on the drain and jump back into play pretty regularly - sounds like this is fine.
Another related situation is that I often kick up my left flipper on a fast left sling to right outlane drain just in case it was fast enough for a potential lazarus - is that OK since I am not actually Death Saving, rather being proactive about a potential lazarus situation?
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I discovered at Pinburgh (from a fellow competitor) that although a lazarus return is ok, you can only get away with it once per game. Was news to me, may be news to others too. Itās under the beneficial malfunction rules, although there is some wooly wording around it (my emphasis)
āAny beneficial malfunction which results in a player being able to continue play of a ball that normally should have ended is normally allowed once per game. Examples of this would include an unexpected software ball save, a ball that bounces back into play without player action, or a ball that comes to rest on an unlit kickback in the outlane. Any such behavior shall not be allowed if it repeats, meaning that tournament officials may require players to allow the repeatedly-saved ball to drainā¦ā
Lazarus is a special snowflake and not a beneficial malfunction:
In the event that a drained ball bounces back into play without deliberate player action, such as in the case of a ālazarusā, this is considered the mechanical nature of pinball and the ball may be played. If this situation occurs repeatedly, and there is question as to whether the lazarus ball was naturally occurring or induced by the player, tournament directors may end the game in progress and award a score of zero.
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If weāre talking personal opinions here, I think it is super BS to make any ruling that relies on judging player intent as much as the proposed āno nudging after the ball drainsā rule does. If a machine is set up with an incredibly loose tilt to the point where you can do the ānudge for free X hitsā trick, then you canāt reasonably expect a player to not exploit it because they could very well accidentally trigger it in the process of trying to save a ball from an outlane drain (like I once did with Well MB during a game of TWD, which my opponents were not too happy about). Apart from the fact that itās practically impossible to enforce for that reason, I also feel that itās a totally valid play if the machine is set to allow it. Itās very easy to set a game up so that you canāt do that, and if tourney directors canāt be bothered to even do that, thenā¦well they have bigger fish to fry.
I honestly donāt even think death saves should be illegal, just impossible due to game setups. Bangbacks (to me) would be covered under machine abuse and the āwe donāt want a player suing us when they break their wristsā clause that every tournament I run has. 
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and their handā¦ 
Yeahā¦ so, why is that illegal, again? (For real, not ābecause itās illegal.ā) Iām not kicking any legs or hitting the lockdown bar, both things that would reasonably qualify as machine abuse.
This is my point. The āassisted death saveā should be in the same category as the death save. Either both should be allowed, or both should not. The question is whether or not players should be allowed to do stuff after the ball has drained (and by this I mean past any center posts or scoring features).
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From the rules:
āBecause the effectiveness of these techniques varies from machine to machine, and because of the risk of injury to either player or machine, these techniques are banned from tournament play.ā
YOU may be able to pull it off ājust fineā, but if itās available for players as a legal move, youāll see plenty of people doing it poorly and failing at it, and thatās reason enough to make it illegal to save the headaches for TDās to have to deal with.
Let me be perfectly clear with my opinion because yours seems to be a little ambiguous Bowen.
First you called what Zen did a āDeath Saveā, and my opinion is that itās definitely NOT. My opinion is that a Death Save is what Schober said, involving resurrecting the drained ball back into play, full stop. The fact that Joe and I agree on this MAKES IT FACT
Now, Iām totally fine if you want to call Zenās move an āAssisted Death Saveā (i.e. something ELSE that isnāt a āDeath Saveā), and then argue that āAssisted Death Savesā should also be an illegal move. That would involve an easy paragraph explaining what āAssisted Death Savesā are, and then explaining that the move is illegal (thereby making it explicitly ILLEGAL - and seriously things are illegal if itās written that the move is illegal, because thatās what rules are for)
Ultimately I simply disagree with you that the move should be illegal, and the biggest reason is the ability for TDās to enforce the rule. The move itself is just a nudge, and the timing of the nudge is now called into question of when a move is legal or not legal, and to me as a TD, I want no part of dealing with that (just personally).
See Bob Matthews post of āmaybe I didnāt nudge it, I donāt know when I did but Iām fairly certain it was while things were legalā . . . NO THANKS for me as TD walking up to that sh*tshow and making a determination that the move was done āin timeā or not.
Further ultimately (is that a term?) the ābush league-nessā (is that a term?) of the action I think is true no matter when you pull off the move, and thatās coming from a person that thinks itās legal!
If I lose because Zen shakes a 12mil double super after not being able to hit the shot while the ball is either above or below the āfair/foul lineā, it bulls*it either way . . . the dude didnāt hit the shot.
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When you anticipate a legitimate lazarus, as I often do on Target Pool, how careful must you be to not subconsciously help it? I donāt think I nudge when I see one coming, but Iād only know for sure if I watched myself on video. I never intentionally death save, even when practicing, so I āshouldā be clean ā¦ but am I? Whereās the nudge vs. death save line?
Itās like golf Bob . . . we rely on players to do the right thing.
(See Dustin Johnson and the US Open issues with him āgetting his ball to moveā on the green - was it through his influence or not?)
At some point, our sport becomes exactly THAT, especially when the game isnāt under the camera and there is no TD watching.
Ultimately if Iām a TD, I will ask you if you think you influenced the lazarus or not, and expect you to answer honestly, the end.
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I think this is what makes me want to legislate it out of existence. Imagine someone winning a title from that. Didnāt happen this time but it could.
I definitely agree this would be difficult to police, and weāre probably better off not having a rule about it. But man!
Believe me I do too . . . you just CANāT, because itās ultimately bad game setup by the TD.
The only solution is to make sure these kind of āproblematicā games are set up in a way that renders this behavior impossible (or close to it). Whether that be no tilt warnings, virtual locks, etc.
If ānormal gameplayā CAN cause this to happen (like Kevinās example with the Well Walker), then youāre stuck, because you canāt judge intent of what that nudge was.
We live and learn as TDās and players, and rest assured anytime we use Avatar for IFPA going forward, itāll be set to no tilt warnings just to ensure nobody wins a title āthis wayā.
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Are you sure you werenāt playing World Cup 78?
So you are saying an assisted Lazarus is illegal?