June 6, 2019
Maybe you’re new to the league and you’re not sure what Summer League is all about? We’ve prepared a list of questions that you might have and answers to those questions!
We’re a team-based pinball league, we get two teams of (normally) six to ten people together on Sunday nights throughout the year to play games of pinball against each other. Normally the teams pick themselves and the bar they represent, but during our Summer season we randomly assign people to teams and those teams will play against each other at bars in the league. We play on Sunday nights, though you don’t have to make it out every week. The Summer season is shorter than our regular seasons and it’s formatted differently from our other seasons, mostly because it’s more about hanging out than playing actual competitive pinball.
It’s free to sign up! The only thing you will pay for are the individual games on the machines that you will be playing.
Not necessarily! You can sign up with a friend and you’ll be guaranteed to be placed on the same team together. You’re still gonna meet some strangers, but you’ll have someone with you to make it less awkward if you’re feeling weird about it. Most of the pinball people are pretty cool, though, so no worries if you’re flying solo. Each team is going to have a captain or co-captains assigned before the whole thing starts so somebody will be there to guide you through the whole thing.
Yup! The teams are structured in such a way that you only need a certain number of people to show up in order to have the teams play. In addition, teams can bring substitutes in if they can’t find enough people to play (which, side note, bring your friends! They can play too!) If you’ve got to miss a week because you’ve got some cool summer plans then feel free to skip a week or two. Your team will understand!
Absolutely not! We’re all in this to get together and have fun. Trust me, nobody cares about winning or losing during our Summer season. This is a great opportunity to get your feet wet with competitive pinball without it being…you know, actually competitive. Also, you’re going to have a couple pinball experts on your team that you’ll be able to learn the ropes from.
We’re having a draft party at QuarterWorld Arcade on July 16th, with a charity raffle and side tournament benefiting The Trevor Project starting at 3:00 PM. The actual draft will take place around 6:00 PM, in case you’re interested in that. Don’t worry if you can’t make it, we’ll reach out to you either way after the draft party with more information about your team.
The Fall and Spring seasons are our “normal” seasons, where people pick their own teams and represent a single bar. Those seasons are ten weeks long, plus three or four weeks of playoffs following that. Every team makes the playoffs, and there’s prizes for the teams that win. During the Summer, none of the teams represent a specific bar – you and your team will play at different venues each week.
There’s four rounds of play, the first and last rounds are called “Doubles” rounds and the second and third are called “Singles” rounds. The doubles rounds are two versus two from each team, and the teams play a four-player game. The teams add the scores up at the end and whichever team has the higher combined score wins and receives two points. The Singles rounds are one on one from each team, and the players play a two-player game. The person with the higher score wins and receives one point. The team with the most points at the end of the match wins. If there’s a tie, a tiebreaker game is played to determine the winner. Also, just in case you’re really brand new to pinball and not sure how the two-player or four-player games work – you can put multiple players in on a game if you have enough credits in the machine. Each player will take a turn playing, and the next player will play once the person before them loses their ball.
Yeah, there’s a number of rules that govern the matches. Don’t worry too much about it right now, it will all be explained to you once you show up to your first match and someone on your team or the opposing team will always be able to answer any questions you have about the nitty-gritty of it.
You can sign up here, all you have to do is fill out the form and you’re good to go!
We’ll email you once before the draft with more details and then again afterwards with more info about your team. As we mentioned before, the draft party is being held at QuarterWorld Arcade on July 16th, and the season runs from July 23rd – August 20th.
Best way to get in touch with us is through our Facebook page, but you can also send a message to us through our contact form and we will get back to you as soon as we can!