Paragon pinball tournament strategy: one lane up the left side and a bonus worth protecting

Paragon was Bally's first widebody, and it looks like there is a lot to do. There are four flippers, two saucers up top, a bank of drop targets, a spinner, letters to spell and a pit in the lower left corner with a pop bumper in it. In a tournament, most of that is scenery. The game is decided by one lane on the far left and by how much bonus you carry out of each ball.

It is the third most-played machine in our data, with 860 tracked games across Blainbrook, Northstar Pinball Collective and LITT Pinball Bar.

The short version

1. Get the ball under control first. A drop catch on the lower left or the upper right flipper is the start of almost every good shot.
2. From a right flipper, shoot the inline drop targets up the far left side.
3. Hold the upper left mini flipper up as the ball comes back, so it stays out of the Beast's Lair.
4. With all four drops down, lob the ball softly into the saucer behind them for 5x bonus.
5. Get your bonus to 20,000 on ball one, and stay away from the center target while you do it.

The bonus is the score

Bonus starts at 1,000 and climbs 1,000 per advance, up to 49,000. The multiplier goes as high as 5x, so a full bonus pays 245,000. Draining is the only way to collect it, and a tilt cancels it.

Two rules shape the whole game.

The first is the super bonus. If your bonus reaches 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000, the game keeps that amount for every ball that follows. A player who reaches 20,000 on ball one is paid for it three times. Bowen Kerins, in his PAPA tutorial, treats that mark as the goal of the first ball.

The second is that the multiplier resets every ball, and it only comes from one place.

The Valley of Demons

Four drop targets stand in a line up the far left side, with the Treasure Chamber saucer behind the last one. Each target you knock down scores 1,000 and advances the bonus. The third one lights 2x and the fourth lights 3x. The first time the ball reaches the saucer on a given ball, the multiplier goes to 5x.

Both right flippers can make the shot, and each has its own aim point. A backhand from the lower left flipper is possible and hard. If the ball is on the left flipper, a tap pass across to the right is the usual way to set it up.

The saucer itself wants a soft touch. A hard shot gets rejected by the guide around the hole far more often than it sticks, so once the drops are down, lob it.

A second saucer visit on the same ball awards the extra ball and resets the drops. Whether that matters depends on the event, since many tournaments turn extra balls off or score them as points.

The other shots, ranked

• Spinner. Immediately right of the inlines, from the right flippers. It pays 100 a spin and advances the bonus every five spins. On a machine where it spins freely it builds bonus fast, and it is a good choice when you are a few advances short of 20,000.
• Golden Cliffs. The top left saucer starts at 2,000 and grows by 2,000 each visit until it reaches 20,000. The value is kept between balls. Plunge for it, and nudge while the ball sits in a top saucer so the kickout falls back into one.
• Right lane. Above the three drop targets on the right, from the left flipper. It carries the ball back to the top saucers.
• The three-bank, the PARAGON letters and the specials. Strong players skip all three.
• The center target. It advances the bonus, and it sends the ball straight back down the middle. Leave it alone, above all when you are one advance short of a super bonus and tempted.

Three ways to lose the ball

The scissor drain. The two right flippers are stacked, with a gap between them that a ball can slip through. Holding both up opens it. Quick taps are safer than holds, and the lower right flipper is a poor place to try to trap.

The Beast's Lair. The lower left corner has a pit where the outlane would be, with a pop bumper inside. The ball can come back out the way it went in, escape through a gated passage to the left flipper, or fall through a gap to the drain. Returns from the inline drops head that way, which is why you hold the mini flipper up after every shot at them. If the ball does go in, shove the machine so the ball rides over the hump and into the escape passage before it reaches the bumper again.

The right outlane. Its opening sits higher up the playfield than you expect, and shots from the mini flipper tend to find it.

The cabinet is heavy, and gentle nudges still move the ball. There is no ball saver. Work out how much the tilt allows before you need it.

What the tracked games say

Numbers are from late September 2026. The Paragon machine page has the live ones.

The upset rate is how often the lower-rated player in a pairing finishes ahead. Paragon's 37.2% is a little above the average of 35.5% for machines with enough games to compare, which fits a game with this many ways to lose a ball early. Favorites still win more often than they lose here. The upset rates by machine post has the full ranking.

The record at the top is lopsided. Luke Nahorniak has beaten 77% of the opponents he has faced on Paragon across 43 games, the best mark among players with at least 20 games. Adam Turgeson, Bryan Moen and Trevor Klungseth each have 85 or more games on it with winning records. The scouting report will show how you compare with your own group.

Where to play it

All three venues with tournament history on Paragon still have it on the floor.

• Blainbrook in Blaine, 532 tracked games. See the Blainbrook guide.
• Northstar Pinball Collective in Savage, 197 tracked games. See the Northstar guide.
• LITT Pinball Bar in Minneapolis, 131 tracked games. See the LITT guide.

Each copy plays differently. The exit from the lane behind the right drop targets can feed either flipper, a slingshot or the center, depending on the machine, so watch where it goes on someone else's ball before yours.

Before your next game

The Paragon playbook has player tips, tutorial videos and rulesheet links, and the scores tab lists the best games on record. For the full rules we leaned on the Pinball Primer guide, Bob's Guides and Bowen Kerins's PAPA tutorial.

Paragon is one of several bonus games near the top of our list. Eight Ball Deluxe and Silverball Mania reward the same patience, and how to play classic games in a tournament covers what they share. The whole series is in the machine strategy guides.