Grand Finals.

NEW: Fantasy Grand Finals is now live! Pick 4 teams you think will do the best at both Team and Individual contexts and win prizes to the NPC locations of your choice! The two highest scores will win, as well as one lucky player who entered. Click here to fill out your roster now.

Update: September 9th: Thanks to Tuckers NH and Mitchell Lighting! They have sponsored Grand Finals and are making it possible for us to bring to you Grand Finals broadcast live on Twitch! We will be live at twitch.tv/TheLowerPlayfield . Join and cheer on your favorite players!

Our stream sponsors have boosted our prize pool to $2000! Revised payouts are below. Our thanks to Tuckers and Mitchell Lighting for their support of The Lower Playfield and NPC!

Confirmed Attendees/Teams:

• Pinball AF: Ben Scott, Matt Turner, Chris Wachtel, Selwyn Wilson
• Capital Pinball: Joshua Moran, Tim Pelletier, Curtis Rossi, Kris Spaulding
• The Drome: Ben Bloomstein, Noah Crable, Joe Lemire, Wyatt Winters
• Dusty Planet: Chris Cardaci, Bill MacDonald, Quinn Miller, Mike Renzi
• Gamecraft: Ryan Belisle, Jason Corrado, Alec Kehrhahn, Connor Mulberry
• Slam Tilt: Nick Alex, Zach Blanchard, Zach Giroux, Ryan Lazzarin
• SNHPC: Michael Corbett, Matt Guay, Matt Lemoine, Chip Morton
• The Lower Playfield: Chris Brunette, Mike Desmarais, Cody Gamache, Zheanna Murray
• Tokens Taproom: Shawn Chastney, Dan Nieves, Jill Towne, Anne Whipple

Update: September 12: The first four rounds of matchups have been drawn. Video at: https://youtu.be/B9aZD22_Urk – CSV download link below.

September 22: Fantasy Grand Finals winners: Derek Carroll (1st), Ashley Carroll (2nd), Derek Beam (random draw) https://youtu.be/cfYSeyGOBTM

Grand Finals for Season One of Northeast Pinball Challenge will be held at The Lower Playfield on Saturday, September 13th. As TLP is a private residence, detailed location information will be provided to the 4 confirmed finalists from each location on the week of finals. Players will be responsible for a $10 house fee (payable day of via cash, Venmo, and Paypal) at Grand Finals to cover free play, snacks and beverages. The finals information e-mail will be sent out to registered players on September 10th. If you have not received this e-mail by Thursday, September 11th, please reach out to derek@npcpinball.org.

Doors will open at 9:30 for check-in and practice. Grand Finals will begin promptly at 10:30 AM. If you are not present at the start, you will be removed from Round 1 and given 0 points. If you are not present before Round 2, you will not be able to play at Grand Finals.

The short version:

• 8 Rounds of 4 player games, switching between short play and long play games.
• Your points for the first four rounds will be added up with other players from your location to determine team score.
• After 4 rounds, we will break for team finals before continuing on to the final 4 rounds.
• At conclusion of qualifying, top 16 will play 3-game, 4 player groups with the bottom two players eliminated.
• Top 16 players will also take home cash prizes.

The much longer version:

Grand Finals qualifying will take place over 8 rounds of match play, alternating between the fast-playing and long-playing games at TLP. The pairing will be different for the qualifying rounds 1-4, and rounds 5-8. The first 4 rounds will also determine the two teams competing for the Team Finals.

All qualifying games will be scored 7-5-3-1.

TLP Game and Setup list (will be updated prior to finals with setup changes).

Grand Finals Rounds 1 through 4

Grand Finals rounds 1 through 4 will be paired via a manual pairing process under the following constraints:

• Groups will have no more than 1 player from a participating location.
• Groups will be re-paired each round.
• Participants will play one game in each player position (player 1, 2, 3 and 4).
• Participants will play in the first 4 groups against players from at least 7 of the 8 other locations, and
• Participants will not play the same opponent more than one time in the first 4 rounds

Due to the complexity of this pairing, these groups will be assigned prior to Grand Finals and manually created in Match Play software. I will be using this script (Github Link) to create the pairings prior to Grand Finals once all players are known. This will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube to ensure there is transparency on the output of the draw — I will strive to have that uploaded the week of Grand Finals.

Conclusion of Round 4 and Team Finals

At the conclusion of round 4, players will be on break. The accumulated points earned by each player will be added to those of the other players from their locations to form their Team Points. The two locations with the most Team Points will then play in the Team Finals.

In the event that teams are tied on the bubble for participation in Grand Finals, a game of Grand Prix will be played with each team member playing a single ball. The team with the highest 4 ball score will advance to team finals (this will be a 4 ball game). The tiebreak, and the team final, are not IFPA sanctioned so this tiebreak format is allowed, and will not impact any players’ individual standings.

We will endeavor to stream the Team Finals, so game selection will be restricted to the 18 games in the basement so the stream rig can get to them. Team Finals will begin with the high seeds from both teams removing a game (or “banning”) from selection. Both teams will then select a game to be played. Teams can determine which players will play which games, submitting those selections to the TD in secret without the other team knowing. The team that picked the game will play as players 1 and 3, and the team that did not pick that game will play 2 and 4.

The lowest scoring player on that game will be removed from the duration of the team finals, and then drafting will begin again with banning, game selection, and player selection. Games banned and played in prior rounds will not be eligible to be picked again. If only one game is to be selected as there are only 4 players left, the game selection will be with the higher seeded team.

At any point, if a round ends with a team no longer having an eligible player, the Team Finals will be over and the team with remaining players will be considered the Team Champions. Following the conclusion of Team Finals, Grand Finals rounds 5-8 will take place.

Grand Finals Rounds 5 – 8

When qualifying resumes, all player pairings will be tiered swiss for the remainder of the qualifying rounds. At the conclusion of round 8, the top 16 players will be qualified for finals play. Tiebreaks will be automatic, except for any ties for top 4 positions and any ties for 16th place. These ties will be broken by a full game on a randomly selected A group (fast-play) machine.

Finals Play

The top 16 players will be paired in to groups of 4 by seed order and will play match play in 3 game sets. Each game set must include at least one A and B group (fast play and long play) machine. The third game can be anything that satisfies that group constraint. The top seeds in each group will draft in group order game 1 from the available arenas. That specific game will not be available for selection from other groups in that play order position. The second highest seed will draft the second game in the set in the same manner, starting with the highest seeded group and continuing until all second games are selected. Round 3 games will be selected by the high seed in the same manner.

Play order for game 1 will be selected in descending seed order: the highest seeded player will have choice of player 1-2-3-4. The second highest seed will then select from the available orders, and so on until all selections are made. At the conclusion of a game, the player who finished last will have first choice of player order on the next game, continuing with the player who finished 3rd that game, and so on.

Finals Play games will be scored 4-2-1-0. In the event of a tie for advancement, a full game will be played on the game of the higher initial seed’s choosing that has not been played during this round.

Rounds will continue with the top 2 players from each round until the final four will crown the NPC Season One Grand Champion.

Prize pool

The NPC Grand Finals pool from the 9 participating locations was $1,520. We have elected to add $200 from the admin fees to make the total prize pool $1,720.

Thanks to Tuckers NH and Mitchell Lighting! Our stream sponsors have boosted our prize pool to $2000! Revised payouts are below. Our thanks to Tuckers and Mitchell Lighting for their support of The Lower Playfield and NPC!

Team Finals:

• Winning Team: $300 ($75 per player) plus Team trophies, and a trophy for the winning location.
• Runner Up: $100 ($25 per player)

Individual Awards:

• 1st: $300
• 2nd: $250
• 3rd: $200
• 4th: $150
• 5th through 8th: $75 each
• 9th through 16th: $50 each

The top 4 Individuals will also be awarded trophies.

Just Play. Compete. Challenge.