Scott Macias walked into Captain’s Arcade Showroom on Friday night as the highest California-ranked name on the sheet, and by the time the last ball drained he’d made the seeding look like prophecy. Twenty-eight players packed the Anaheim floor for Season 11’s fifth stop of the Pins & Pirates League, and the man sitting at CA NACS #11 topped four of the five machines his group touched — a clean, businesslike march to first place under the clear 71-degree sky outside.
There was a nice symmetry to the timing, too. While the competition raged across 35 games and roughly three hours of match play, one of the room’s marquee machines was quietly marking a milestone of its own: Stern’s The Mandalorian (LE) turned five this month, still pulling players toward its flippers half a decade after launch. Staying power was the theme of the whole evening — from a 1977 Gottlieb to a licensed LE — and nobody embodied it more than the winner.
Macias Sets the Pace From the First Ball
Group Match Play rewards consistency over heroics: four-player groups, points by finishing position, most points wins. Macias treated it like a metronome. He opened by topping Harry Potter (Wizard), then stacked first-place finishes on Pokémon (Premium), the brand-new King Kong: Myth of Terror Island (LE), and the gleefully absurd Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons — a spread of machines separated by nearly fifty years of design philosophy, all bending to the same player.
It’s the kind of run that fits his shape right now. Macias has taken three of his last five events, and though his peak came back in 2023 at IFPA #57, the recent trend line is pointing back up. In a field whose strongest global name belonged to someone else, he was the rating favorite by the California yardstick — and he closed it out without drama. His group drew organizer and Captain’s manager CC Castaneda alongside Bill Leonhardt and a walk-up named Jennifer Davis, and for four machines it was Macias in front, everyone else sorting out the scraps behind him.
Davis Steals One on the Jungle Queen
Then came the blemish, and it was a beauty. On Jungle Queen — a 1977 Gottlieb electromechanical, the single most-played machine of the night with three appearances — Jennifer Davis reached over and yanked a game away from the eventual champion. On paper it was roughly a one-in-fourteen proposition; on the glass it took sixteen minutes of careful, unhurried play, and when the score reels stopped spinning Davis had the top number and Macias was staring at a rare second-place finish.
For Davis, competing well outside the ranked tier, it was the one game she’d win all evening, and she picked the perfect stage for it. That’s the quiet magic of an old EM in a modern field: no ramps to memorize, no code to exploit, just the ball, the flippers, and whoever keeps their nerve. Macias absorbed it, regrouped, and never lost another game — but for one long minute on a machine older than most of the room, the underdog owned the arena.
Five Years On, the Mandalorian Still Commands the Floor
If Jungle Queen represented pinball’s deep past, the anniversary machine on the floor spoke to how the modern era ages. The Mandalorian (LE) rolled off Stern’s line in June 2021 as a confirmed run of just 750 units, and five years later it remains a genuine draw. Brian Eddy handled the layout and Randy Martinez supplied the art, and the whole package is anchored by that irresistible Grogu sculpture perched trackside like a good-luck charm — the toy that sells the theme before you’ve plunged a single ball.
Underneath the licensed sheen it’s a serious tournament machine, dense with shots: thirteen standups, a spinning target, a thrust magnet, and a middle lane that separates the confident from the hopeful. The scoring ceiling lives in the Razor Crest multiball, and the players who go deep treat those up-the-middle shots as setup, feeding the crest before starting a mission at the scoop so the two stack into one enormous swing. Half a decade on, that’s still the shot competitors chase — proof that a well-built playfield doesn’t so much retire as settle into legend.
Three Names, One Step, and a Career Night in the Middle of It
The resonant image from the back half of the night wasn’t a score at all — it was three very different players crowded onto the same podium step. Second place ended in a three-way tie, and the mix told you everything about how deep this hobby runs. Johnny Modica, the field’s strongest national entrant at IFPA #62 and a 21-year veteran of 538 tournaments, got there by topping Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast and Foo Fighters (Premium). Beside him stood Ku Paik, barely a year into serious competition but already 88 events deep and climbing fast, a La Palma local who ran off first-place finishes on Laser Cue, Transformers, Pokémon, and Jaws before Medieval Madness finally bit back.
Modica and Paik are no strangers — this makes ten tournaments they’ve now shared, a familiar-faces pairing in which the veteran has usually finished ahead, including their last meeting. Friday flattened that gap and set them on the identical rung. And sharing it with them was the story of the tie: Joshua Kuhlmann, seeded near the bottom at IFPA #5934, a player whose recent finishes had lived in the twenties and thirties. He picked this Friday to detonate a career night, winning four of his five machines outright — Paragon, Ice Fever, Black Knight 2000, and Avengers: Infinity Quest (Premium) — with only Star Race denying him the sweep. On any other night he’s a footnote. On this one he outscored his own ranking by a mile and forced the room to learn his name.
That’s the pull of a place like Captain’s: a 4.8-rated Anaheim showroom stuffed with machines from the ’70s to this year, kept dialed in by a manager who also runs the league and steps into a group herself. Classics and new arrivals share the same carpet, and on a good Friday a walk-up can beat a favorite and a longshot can tie two ranked players. The Mandalorian turned five this month, and the whole evening was a reminder of why pinball keeps holding on.
Final Podium — Pins & Pirates League, Season 11 #5
- 1st: Scott Macias
- 2nd (tie): Johnny Modica · Joshua Kuhlmann · Ku Paik