The playoffs came to a quicker, but still late finale for Season 23 as #1 seed Danny C. defeated #3 seed Tim to defend his LPL championship. Unlike the two-round final match of Season 22, Danny needed only one round to secure the win. Meanwhile, #1 seed Heather defended her Season 22 B division title 2-1 against #3 seed Dan N. Both divisions had the same first and second place finishes as the previous season, but a different third.
The playoffs got off to a hectic start as TD Heather arrived at the very last minute due to being held up at work in Mt. Pleasant. She apologized for being flustered as she began rattling off the instructions for the tournament. At the end of the preliminaries, assistant TD Joseph sat down by her and declared his intention to forfeit, allegedly to better manage traffic. Heather replied with her suspicion that this was actually intended to allow her to move up into A division as she was just below the cutline, and insisted that as TD she was refusing to allow him to forfeit, although this is not in fact within the scope of her authority as a TD. After some argument, Joseph eventually agreed to play, which was evidently a good choice since he finished third, his highest finish since 2017.
Danny’s journey to the top started with a 2-1 win against #8 seed Peter, the only person besides Tim to give Danny a loss. Danny then swept #5 seed Joseph into the second-chance bracket, followed by his first matchup against Tim, whom he defeated 2-1. He then had his long wait while the second-chance bracket played out.
After being knocked into the second-chance bracket, Joseph went on to win against #6 seed Derik 2-0 and then to achieve a major upset by defeating #2 seed Brian K, also 2-0. This set up a semi-finals match between Joseph and Tim, which Tim won 2-1.
Danny and Tim’s match started with Danny’s choice, King Kong. Danny won, so Tim had next choice and choice Game of Thrones. Tim proceeded to completely light up Game of Thrones, ending ball 1 with a score of about 1.8 billion. Danny had a very disappointing ball 1 and so, in a surprising move, he chose to forfeit the game and move on. The game choice moved to Danny who pulled out his ace, Godzilla. Danny finished close to a billion, and Tim made up a lot of ground on ball 3 but ended up a couple hundred million short, ending the finals at around 12:45 am, to the TD’s relief.
With A division limited to 8 people the past two seasons, B division has become a larger bracket. This season, 11 people played in the B playoffs, giving several players a bye. Heather started out by sweeping #9 seed Linda into the second-chance bracket and then faced off against Mackenzie. In the second game of the match, Mackenzie chose Godzilla and, as player 1, ended with over 130 million points. Heather was lagging behind severely at that stage and had very little set up, but managed to get Mecha and Godzilla multiball on the last ball. During what seemed like a very good Godzilla multiball, Heather was waiting for the scores to come back up on the screen due to believing herself close to overtaking Mackenzie, when the game started to behave strangely, first killing the music and then several seconds later the flippers. It then totally reset, and did not preserve the game scores. Heather called Joseph (as the backup TD) who referred to a clause in the written rules that state that estimated scores should never be used in case of a catastrophic malfunction, and ruled that both players should completely replay the game. This time Mackenzie finished with over 180 million and Heather was once again in a deep hole. Heather proceeded to start three multiballs during her third ball. The first two were merely adequate but the last one, Bridge Attack MB, was stacked with a mode and that was the push that allowed her to overtake Mackenzie’s score.
Heather then played her old rival Dan N. and won 2-0. In the second-chance bracket, Dan played #2 seed Devon 2-1. It was their second match, since Dan was the one who sent Devon down into the lower bracket. Dan won again 2-1, sending Devon home with the third place trophy.
In B finals, Heather led by choosing Tron, and it did not work out for her, as she took her first game loss in the tournament. Heather got another choice and went with Scared Stiff, which she won. Choice went to Dan, who picked Foo Fighters. Heather won the game and thus the B division tournament.
Season 23 of the Lansing Pinball League is now in the books. The post-season split flipper tournament variously known as the Super-Ball or Zen Tournament, a tradition dating back to Season 1, will take place today.