Game of Thrones pinball tournament strategy: the favorite's game
No machine in our data is kinder to the stronger player than Game of Thrones. How house selection works, how the two multipliers stack to 25x, how to start Blackwater Multiball without wasting it, and what 500 tracked games say.
·6 min read·Tilt Stats
We can compare 97 machines by how often the lower-rated player wins, and Game of Thrones is at the bottom of that list. Underdogs win 27.4% of their pairings on it. On the machine at the top of the list they win 46.6%.
It has 500 tracked games, 341 of them at Northstar Pinball Collective. If you play there and you are the strongest player in your group, this is the pick. The rest of this guide is about why the game behaves that way and how to play it.
The short version
- Make sure the game is not in casual mode, then choose your house on purpose.
- Plunge softly and get the ball under control.
- Hit a green standup in the lower right to light a lock, then lock the ball at the left ramp. Three locks start Blackwater Multiball.
- In multiball, make the five main shots for jackpots, then hit the battering ram for super jackpots.
- Before any large collect, build the playfield multiplier at the ram.
Why favorites win here
Points on Game of Thrones are multiplied twice, and both multipliers have to be built.
The playfield multiplier comes from the battering ram, the bash target in the middle. Three hits qualify it, the next starts 2x, and every four hits after that add another 1x. The combo multiplier comes from making different shots in sequence.
Both are capped at 3x to begin with. Collecting a sword at the right ramp raises the caps to 4x, and a second sword raises them to 5x. The two multiply together, so the ceiling is 25x. Both run on timers and both reset when the ball ends. On a competition install there is no playfield multiplier at all until you have a sword, which puts the right ramp first on the list.
A player who shoots a mode shot at 1x and a player who shoots the same shot at 12x are playing different games. Getting to 12x takes a run of controlled shots on one ball, and that is where practice shows. A few very large collects make up most of a big score.
Choosing a house
Before the first ball you pick one of seven houses. Each changes the rules, and most give the action button a power.
| House | What you get |
|---|---|
| Stark | 10M more on Winter is Coming hurry-ups. The button finishes a running mode for 5M. |
| Baratheon | Starts with two advances toward Wall Multiball. The button lights both outlane saves for a short time. |
| Lannister | More gold. The button buys the next playfield multiplier with it. |
| Greyjoy | Its own mode is already done, and it takes the power of each house it beats. Modes need extra shots and cannot be stacked. |
| Tyrell | One inlane is always lit for an extra combo multiplier. The button is the Iron Bank. |
| Martell | The button adds a ball during any multiball. |
| Targaryen | Its mode is already done. The button freezes timers for 12 seconds. |
Do not look for a single right answer. The well known guides recommend Tyrell, Martell or Baratheon, and all of them were written before the last major code update in 2019, which changed what several houses do. Pick for the way you play. Martell's added ball in multiball is easy to use. Baratheon's outlane save covers a mistake.
Two warnings. If the game is set to casual mode it forces Stark on everyone, and holding the right flipper for three seconds before you start overrides that. And competition settings weaken several houses, Lannister and Targaryen among them, so a power you rely on at home may be smaller at a tournament.
Blackwater Multiball
The two green standups are low on the right and are shot from the left flipper. Hitting one lights a lock at the left ramp. The first multiball needs one target per lock. Later ones need both.
Three locks start a three-ball multiball. The five main shots pay jackpots, and once you have them, the ram lights for 20 seconds of super jackpots you can hit again and again.
The common way to waste it is on the third lock. If a Winter is Coming hurry-up is running on the left ramp while lock three is lit, the shot starts Blackwater with no chance to pick a mode to run underneath it. Look at what is lit before you shoot.
Stacking a house mode with Blackwater is the standard plan, and Greyjoy, Lannister and Tyrell are the modes guides suggest for it. If you do not know a mode's shots yet, play one mode at a time.
House modes and what they lead to
Shots around the playfield belong to houses: the left loop is Greyjoy, the left ramp Lannister, the right ramp Stark, the right loop Martell, the green standups Tyrell, the drop targets Baratheon. Repeated shots to a house qualify its mode.
The guides suggest passing on the first mode start, qualifying a second house, and then starting two modes that share shots. Finishing three houses lights an extra ball where those are on. Finishing four starts Hand of the King, a four-ball multiball with a large hurry-up at the ram.
The plunge
On a Pro, a hard plunge into the lit top lane scores 500,000 times the ball number and adds a bonus multiplier. A soft plunge drops the ball into the right loop and down to the flippers, which gives you control sooner. On a Premium or LE there is no skill shot, and a hard plunge feeds the upper playfield.
Where the ball drains
- The five gold standups between the main shots rebound toward the outlanes. They are the riskiest targets on the game.
- The Dragon lane, which is Castle Black on a Premium or LE, ends in a kicker that fires the ball back, sometimes down the middle.
- The drop targets sit right above the left outlane.
- The outlane posts ship in the hardest of three positions.
The ram is a safe shot. So are the left loop and the right ramp when backhanded.
What the tracked games say
| Tracked tournament games | 500 |
| Tournaments it appeared in | 298 |
| Players with a game on it | 234 |
| Typical game | 17:36 |
| Upset rate | 27.4% |
| Difficulty | 31 out of 100 |
Numbers are from late September 2026. The Game of Thrones machine page has the live ones.
The upset rate is how often the lower-rated player in a pairing finishes ahead. At 27.4%, against an average of 35.5%, Game of Thrones is the lowest of all 97 machines we can compare. The full ranking is in upset rates by machine.
The leaderboard agrees. Luke Nahorniak has finished ahead of 81% of the opponents he has faced on it across 38 games, one of the most lopsided records on any machine in our top 25. Keith Hanson, Andy Fleming, Luke Mutchler and Marshall Hilgemann follow, each finishing ahead of about two thirds of their opponents.
If you are the underdog and someone picks this against you, play for one good multiball and do not take risks on the gold standups. If the pick is yours, take a short classic game instead. The scouting report will tell you which.
Where to play it
Northstar Pinball Collective in Savage has the only copy currently in tournament play in our data. The Northstar guide covers the room.
The Pro has two flippers. The Premium and LE have four, with two on an upper playfield, and a few of the awards move to different shots.
Before your next game
The Game of Thrones playbook has player tips, videos and rulesheet links, and the scores tab shows the best games on record. For the full rules we leaned on the Pinball Rulesheets wiki and the Pinball for Mortals guide.
Steve Ritchie also designed The Getaway and Firepower, and all three games pay for fast, repeated shots. The whole series is in the machine strategy guides.