Swinger - During pinburgh qualifying I dumped my last ball as P1 from a trap to get a 15K bonus. Secured the win. You don F around with 15K in hand on swinger 
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A few weeks ago I was in a tournament final where 4th place got to pick game or position for the following game. I was bus driver for game 1 and won that. Six Million Dollar Man was picked for game 2. I promptly house balled ball 1 and then decided to phone it in rest of the game to get game pick back for game 3 after falling way behind everyone else. Didn’t like having to do that in order to regain back a game pick. But at the same time not giving my “best competitive effort” for this game was the sacrifice in order to give my “best competitive effort” for the totality of the round due to format.
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Sounds like your best competitive effort to me
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But what is the line from best competitive effort to sandbagging?
In Olympics badminton some teams where trying to lose to get easier matchup in later rounds.
Purely based on intent. TD ask you if you were trying your best to win, you say yes or no.
During 2018’s Battle at the Sanctum, the center target on Frontier was notorious for triple-registering. I won a game on it by focusing down the center target and cashing in 30k/45k a shot on an otherwise tough machine.
It’s how I learned that shot is actually safer than it seems as well!
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There was a game plan Captain Hook at the LAX tournament a few years back that did the same thing. Free.
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My weird strategy: going first when given choice of player order. Advantages: intimidation factor after a strong first ball, and as first player you will get the game in its freshest state particularly on ball 1 (i.e. the coils will be no cooler and thus no stronger for the other players).
I was just about to mention Wild Fyre and the intentional drain for 5x……I did during a tourney on Saturday night in Delaware……it was a strikes tourney and figured that bonus would get me far enough ahead and it did!
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It’s definitely situational. I used that actually in the final round of 2018 Sanctum to take a win on Mousin’ Around thanks to fresh flipper coils. There’s also other games like non-competition Toy Story/Guardians of the Galaxy where physical locks can play into a strategy and playing first gives you access to them.
Also on JJPOTC you might choose first to make sure you get the character you want.
Side note: JJPOTC is used in a local tourney that the TD insists every player chooses character by random. At first I really hated that, but now I take it as a challenge to win even with a poor character!
Secret trick. Player One scoring reels on EM are generally more reliable than the other players. Later players more commonly miss points.
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On the other hand if it’s a higher place thats sticky like the 1ks, it might give you extra 10ks Gotta know what type of scoring there is on the specific game
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Since it’s on the mind: intentionally failing to get Super Jackpots in Hedge and Sanitarium Multiballs and intentionally failing to start House Multiball on Halloween. I assume the same applies to Ultraman.
The House, assuming the center ramp is working, is a very reliable source of scratch points (on mode start) and a safe feed to the scoop for mode starts/blood redemptions. It is disabled once you start multiball (or get a super, idk).
Speaking of supers, once you get a Super Jackpot in a multiball, it is permanently disabled for the rest of the game which hurts more than it helps.
Permanently disabling a feature after earning it once? Oof. There’s got to be other games that have done something similar, but yikes
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I haven’t been in a situation where I’ve completed House without a super so I can’t confirm that one, but pretty much Supers lock you out of multiball modes.
So yeah, hard avoid supers unless you need the points pinch.
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Playing Godzilla, was in King G tier 2 with a few seconds left, and right-outlaned ball 3 with a big cashout at the scoop. Shortoplunged the oxygen destroyer save to a roll up the rt flipper and had split second choice to shoot the building or backhand the scoop.
Chose the scoop. Fled. OD timer does not stop. Cashout cannot be blown off. Got my points. Game over.
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odd when lot’s of games make you get Super Jackpot to enable wizard / other modes
Now I can maybe see once per MB but once per Game?
Another “dodging jackpots” strategy I’ve used is on ToTAN - specifically using the Multiball to get lamp spins on ball 1/bonus X whenever. Extra credit if Bonus X is currently being held. If you avoid scoring a jackpot you can go for the rematch and play for Jackpots after that.
Getting extra wishes is also great to clean up the harder jewels and fish for Collect Bonus.
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If you don’t get a double or triple jackpot on whitewater, NEVER shoot the jackpot, just shoot rafts then take the restart after.
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