Tournament strategy for the 25 most-played pinball machines in Minnesota

We track tournament games across Minnesota, and that tells us which machines people are drawn on. A small group of games does most of the work. The 25 in this series account for 15,023 tracked tournament games at 11 venues.

Each one now has a strategy guide written for tournament play: three balls, no extra balls, a group of four, and points for where you finish. The guides are short enough to read while you wait for your round.

The guides

Sorted by how often the machine has been played. The upset rate is how often the lower-rated player in a pairing finishes ahead, and the average across all machines is 35.5%.

Numbers are from late September 2026. The list covers machines that are still on a floor somewhere. Sinbad, which would have ranked 13th, left the lineup at Blainbrook early in 2026 and is not included.

The one-line version of each

The names in this list link to each machine's own page, with its leaderboard, high scores and playbook.

Games from the 1970s and 1980s

• Eight Ball Deluxe: Drop targets and the 8 ball from the left flipper, the orbit from the right, and multipliers once the first rack is banked.
• Comet: The playfield multiplier is 2x, 3x and 5x on balls one, two and three, so the last ball is worth the most.
• Paragon: Shoot the inline drops up the left side and get the bonus to 20,000 on ball one.
• Hot Tip: The one at Blainbrook is electromechanical, and Double Bonus comes only from the top saucer.
• Nugent: Nothing carries over. Multiplier first, then the spinner, then the collect.
• Silverball Mania: Shoot the hoop, and relight the kicker every time it fires.
• The Amazing Spider-Man: Light the inlanes on the plunge and keep passing the ball through them.
• Firepower: The multiball has no jackpot. Light the spinner.

Games from the 1990s

• Bride of Pinbot: One ramp from the right flipper does nearly everything. Ask how the billion wheel is set.
• The Getaway: Shift when the game tells you to, and get to Redline Mania.
• Attack From Mars: If the saucer sends the ball back safely, attack it. If it does not, play for Total Annihilation.

Modern Sterns

• Metallica: Load several items onto one repeatable shot, then start a multiball.
• The Walking Dead: Keep completing the drop targets. Blood Bath is what keeps you alive.
• Game of Thrones: The most reliable game in our data for the stronger player. Build the multipliers before you collect.
• Ghostbusters: Finish one ladder of scenes and play the multiball it lights.
• Iron Maiden: Spell REVIVE while the ball save is on, then play modes deep.
• Deadpool: Battle first, multiball second, weapons all the time.
• Jurassic Park: Paddock first, multiball second.
• Stranger Things: Four chapters for Total Isolation, and protect the bonus.
• Godzilla: Start the battle before the multiball. Pick Gigan.
• James Bond 007: There are two different Bond games in Minnesota. Check which one you are standing at.
• Foo Fighters: Upgrade the van before you start a city.
• Venom: Pick Eddie and hold out for a three-ball Mayhem.
• JAWS: Finish every encounter at the fin.
• The Uncanny X-Men: The rules are still changing. Much of the advice from its first year no longer applies.

Three posts that go with the series

Which machines produce upsets? We ranked 97 machines by how often the lower-rated player wins. Old, short games favor the underdog, and long modern ones favor the favorite. The gap between the top and the bottom is 19 points.

Does play order matter? In 21,331 four-player games, the player who goes first wins 26.5% of the time and the player who goes last wins 24.2%. The effect is small, and machine choice matters far more.

How to play classic games in a tournament. Eight habits that carry from one older game to the next: play for the bonus, know what carries over, treat the plunge as a shot, and nudge in single bumps.

How the guides were put together

The rules in each guide come from published rulesheets and tutorials: Pinball Primer, Bob's Guides, the Pinball Rulesheets wiki, manufacturer manuals and code notes, and tutorials from tournament players. Each guide links to the sources it leaned on. Where sources disagreed, or where a rule depends on a setting or a code version, the guide says so.

The numbers come from our own tournament data. Every guide ends with the same table, and the terms mean the same thing each time:

• Tracked tournament games is every game we have recorded on that machine.
• Typical game is the median time from the start of a game to its result being entered.
• Upset rate is described above, and explained in full in the upset rates post.
• Difficulty is the score out of 100 shown on the machine page, which combines upsets with game length.

Player records are for players with at least 20 tracked games on the machine.

Using the guides with the rest of the site

A guide tells you how a machine plays. The rest of the site tells you how you play it.

1. The scouting report takes a venue, you, and up to three opponents, and lists the machines where you hold an edge and the ones to avoid. The scouting walkthrough explains the routine.
2. Every machine page has a playbook tab with tips and videos, a scores tab, and a leaderboard. What a machine page tells you is the tour.
3. Every venue page shows what is on the floor now. The venue guides cover each room in depth.
4. Your own record on each machine is on the machines tab of your player profile.
5. The head-to-head tool shows your record against one opponent, machine by machine.

The whole series is filed under machine strategy.