The mechanical chimes of Gottlieb’s 1979 classic Count-Down rang out like a definitive verdict across the tournament floor. In a tense, four-player opening round, unheralded local contender Tom Shelley methodically trapped, aimed, and dropped his way to a first-place group finish, leaving national powerhouse Johnny Modica looking at a tie instead of the outright win. Outside, a clear Anaheim sky and a balmy 80°F evening offered a serene Southern California backdrop, but inside the Captain’s Arcade Showroom, thirty-two competitors were locked in grueling Group Match Play combat.
This dramatic opening clash set the competitive tone for the third installment of Season 11 of the Pins & Pirates League on June 12, 2026. Organized by showroom manager CC Castaneda, the 206-minute pinball marathon forced competitors to navigate a treacherous, forty-game overall gauntlet where every single placement point mattered. By the time the final flippers powered down, the tournament delivered a historic, three-way deadlock at the absolute summit of the leaderboard.
Five Years of Beskar: The Mandalorian’s Enduring Pull
While the vintage drop targets of the late 1970s tested the field’s physical nudging precision, modern technological marvels anchored the active forty-nine-machine showroom lineup. Center stage belonged to Stern’s The Mandalorian (LE)—a Brian Eddy masterwork celebrating its five-year anniversary this month. With only 750 serialized units in existence, stepping up to the machine’s anti-reflection glass feels like a main event in itself. Half a decade after rolling off the assembly line, its deep code and punishing geometry remain an elite competitive filter.
For the thirty-two flipper assassins trying to pull a bounty out of the anniversary table, survival came down to executing three golden rules of modern match play:
- Finesse the Plunge for the 750k Skill Shot: Do not full-plunge this machine. Use a soft, controlled touch on the plunger to drop the ball directly into the top right lane. This feeds the motorized, pivoting upper mini-playfield; trap the ball immediately with the upper flippers behind the exit up-post to lock in a completely safe, zero-risk 750,000-point skill shot before the lower playfield ever sees the ball.
- Never Play a Mission “Naked”: In a tournament, raw mode points won’t save you—stacking will. Your primary chore is to carefully pick off the three standup targets directly beneath the hanging Razor Crest spaceship to light Multiball. Do not start it yet. Instead, hit the left scoop to trigger a mission, listen for the late Carl Weathers barking orders at you as Greef Karga, and then cash in the Multiball to safely complete your mode objectives behind a shield of multi-ball chaos.
- Treat the Center like a Sarlacc Pit: Brian Eddy layouts are famous for baiting you into lethal center shots (think Attack from Mars). A slightly bricked shot at the Razor Crest targets will send the ball screaming straight down the middle. Mitigate this by living on the left ramp; the diverter will safely carry the ball up to the mini-playfield, forcing the game to slow down and giving you a moment to breathe. When the lower playfield does get out of hand, keep your palm hovering over the lockdown bar to snap the Action Button and trigger your Beskar armor ball-saves.
This immaculate blend of unforgiving 1990s-style fan layouts and deep 2021 code captured the showroom’s atmosphere perfectly—proving that even with a custom Grogu sculpt watching over the glass, a competitive player’s only true ally is a well-timed trap.
The National Juggernaut and the State Standouts
The field gathered inside the Anaheim establishment represented a terrifying slice of the modern competitive pinball landscape. Twenty-four IFPA-ranked players answered the call, led by Johnny Modica, a touring juggernaut sitting at #56 in the national rankings who previously reached a formidable career peak of #25 in 2017. Riding an absolute tidal wave of momentum, Modica entered the showroom boasting two outright tournament victories and two top-three finishes across his last five competitive appearances. He backed up that elite status early by capturing a commanding Round 1 win on Stern’s 2025 release, King Kong: Myth of Terror Island (LE), banking seven points while outclassing Laura Stoddard, Tom Shelley, and Matthew Yi.
However, the visiting giant faced fierce resistance from a heavily armed contingent of twenty-seven state-ranked California grinders. Glendora’s Scott Macias carried the banner for the locals, entering the fray ranked #11 in the California NACS race with an impressive 403 WPPR points and three regional wins across ten events this season. Macias arrived in terrifying recent form after capturing three victories in his last five tournaments, and he showcased that pedigree by winning group games on The Walking Dead Remastered (LE) and John Wick (LE). Not to be outdone, seasoned veteran Robert Potter brought his #62 state ranking and 150 season WPPR points to the floor, drawing on a vast reservoir of 223 career events and thirty-eight recent tournament wins to dominate the early groupings on Pulp Fiction (SE) and Mousin’ Around!.
Shelley’s Breakthrough on Classic Glass
Despite the heavy national artillery operating all around him, the evening ultimately belonged to the astonishing career breakthrough of Orange County’s Tom Shelley. Entering the tournament ranked #8,153 globally, Shelley had competed in twenty-nine career events over seven years without ever taking home an outright victory. Yet, something magical clicked on the Anaheim wood as Shelley put together a masterclass of composure, putting up the absolute top score on three of the five active machines he faced.
Shelley’s path to glory required directly confronting Modica across completely different eras of physical playfield design. While Modica utilized his modern shot-making rhythm to best Shelley on the ramp-heavy layout of King Kong, Shelley exacted brutal revenge when the draw shifted to vintage solid-state glass like Gottlieb’s 1979 classic, Count-Down.
Surviving the wide-open, punishing geometry of these late-70s tables required competitors to adhere to a strict classic survival guide: First, players had to rely heavily on the “dead bounce,” leaving the flippers down to safely absorb the chaotic, lateral speed coming off the game’s banks of drop targets. Second, they had to proactively nudge the cabinet high up on the playfield before the ball ever reached the slingshots, keeping it safely away from the era’s notoriously cavernous, ball-draining outlanes.
Shelley executed this physical, risk-averse style flawlessly. He captured crucial group wins over the national standout on Totem and Bally’s 1980 classic Frontier, ultimately finishing ahead of Modica in three of the five individual games they shared throughout the evening. This brilliant placement performance allowed Shelley to gain major ground in their ongoing rivalry, proving that elite local determination can topple touring royalty.
Paik’s Silent Surge and the Undercard Battles
While Shelley and Modica traded high-profile blows, La Palma’s Ku Paik engineered a silent, lethal ascent up the group match play standings. Ranked #1,094 globally and #76 in the California NACS race with 109 WPPR points this season, Paik relied on mechanical consistency to shred the middle tiers of the tournament draw. He secured vital first-place group finishes on Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast, Frontier, and Count-Down, systematically out-flipping tough group assignments that included Jack Fleener and Evan Malanosky. Paik also exerted absolute dominance over Fleener in the micro-matchups, finishing ahead of him in four of the five games they shared.
Crucially, Paik’s sustained excellence allowed him to directly challenge Modica’s historical stranglehold on their personal head-to-head rivalry. Entering the night, Modica had finished ahead in six of their ten shared career appearances, but Paik closed the gap by matching him blow-for-blow to force a deadlock at the top of the leaderboard. Across the rest of the showroom, intense regional rivalries settled the minor undercard placements with razor-thin margins. Glendale’s Jason Solomon put on a defensive clinic against tournament director CC Castaneda, finishing ahead of her in all five of their shared tournament games. Meanwhile, Michael Kostolnik secured a hard-fought fourth-place overall tie by outlasting Amanda Little and Elena Kingston in four of their five mutual contests, while Scott Macias locked down his top-four finish by edging out Kane Mejia in three of their five shared games.
A Skimmable Summit: The Final Settlement
After 206 grueling minutes and forty completed games of relentless four-player group action, the Anaheim atmosphere reached a definitive climax. The high-stakes format rewarded pure placement consistency across the generational divide, demanding that contenders master both the deep modern missions of five-year-old anniversary staples and the punishing geometries of classic 1970s wood. When the final tabulations were verified, the physical endurance and mental fortitude of the top competitors left nothing to separate them, resulting in an extraordinary three-way split of the evening’s highest crown.
Every single flip on the showroom floor ultimately built toward this historic settlement. Here are the official podium results from the third event of Season 11 of the Pins & Pirates League:
- 1st Place: Ku Paik (Tied)
- 1st Place: Johnny Modica (Tied)
- 1st Place: Tom Shelley (Tied)
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