The league night of March 12 was our fifth of the season, meaning that Season 12 is officially over the hill. Time to go buy some black balloons from Party City. It was also a surprisingly short night, finishing by 9:30, despite high attendance.
We played bank Calliope, themed to “adventure” (yes, it’s a vague theme). Calliope was the designated backup bank, but we hadn’t needed to switch out any games so far this season. Star Trek: The Next Generation is now in this bank, replacing Getaway, so it made its first appearance as a league game. Originally I had announced that we might not be able to play it, because it was locking balls when lock wasn’t lit and lighting locks when they shouldn’t be. Derik really wanted us to be able to use it, though, so he put in some work on it over the weekend and it was working fine by league night. Actually, I think it did have a malfunction: it was sucking balls to the outlane and refusing to let me do anything. I think Derik needs to give it a stern talking-to. There’s also the weird fact that my ST:TNG score for the night was almost exactly the same as my Game of Thrones score.
Lexi returned to the league after being away a season or so. Reports were that she had some very good games; Lupe told me, “I think she might be a natural.” Our turnout was 19 people, the most this season. If we ever crest 20 we’ll have to take some creative measures, since the league format isn’t designed to accommodate more than that (five games with four players on each one). My plan is to add a sixth game and then take each player’s best five results for the night. That way players who can’t stay for an extra long league night can leave after five games, making their sixth optional.
I had a great Lord of the Rings game (after complaining heartily about having to play it) but the rest of the night was a downhill slide, starting with a mediocre Game of Thrones and ending with bad games on everything else. Meanwhile I was trying to grade (halfheartedly) and chatting with Lupe about WPPRs, those famous “invisible Internet points.” Actually called World Pinball Player Ranking Points, they are what gives every player who has played in an IFPA sanctioned tournament or league (like ours) a world ranking. They qualify people for the state championship as well as a separate world championship (and the Women’s World Championship, which I played in back in 2017). Love them or hate them, they shape the pinball landscape, especially here in Michigan. Lupe wanted to know more about how the system works and I explained that our Smackdown tournaments are a way of raising the “value” of our league from the IFPA’s perspective, in addition to having become a popular tradition. Lupe was very eager to know where she could go to mine more points. Uh oh.
During the night I posted a poll to determine the composition of our miscellaneous bank. Now that we have 26 games we needed a new bank with our new Munsters plus four more games. The bank is called Polyhymnia (the Muse of religious poetry; her name means “many praises”) and its composition will be decided by a new poll each season. I voted for Indiana Jones, which we were about to play as part of bank Calliope, and then I wished I hadn’t because I played it awfully. I could have changed my vote but I decided to stick with it and it won a spot. I hope I don’t regret that tonight. For some reason, several sick so-and-sos voted for South Park and we’ll have to play that too. (I think one of those sadists was Lupe, who isn’t even going to be there tonight because she’s on vacation!)
We had a Smackdown game on Kiss, with the Undercard playing off on Deadpool. Danny won the Smackdown and Tim was the Undercard winner.
I’ll be seeing you all tonight at 7 pm for our sixth meeting of the season!