G'day everyone!
I have decided to not join the fifth stage until the very last day. I will be provided with the 10m UFO pass from the Ads Quest, but nothing more. I will also not be provided any other passes. My starting booster inventory is almost empty, meaning I have to purchase the affordable colour bomb pass.
Preliminary
I have made a post that references all of my previous posts concerning my All Stars progress.
After a gruelling all-nighter slog that ended in an unfortunate fate, plus a much more hectic software development schedule next week, I have made the decision to take this week up to Good Friday as a bye week to replenish on my ads. I have decided to not start All Stars until Holy Saturday 00:00 Zulu Time.
Thus, my session will last at most thirteen hours. Assuming I can crush 3.5 episodes in an hour, with each episode scoring 2000 points on average, I should finish with 91000 points. However, it would not protect me from the hex0rs.
Tournament
I entered the tournament on the very last minute of that Friday in Zulu Time. I missed the window to obtaining two Daily Stamps in one day; hence Daily Stamps are collected upon the completion of a level, not when you are starting a level.
I will start with a Double Candy Royale (Tier 2) alongside a Double Candy Bomb.
First Sitting (8:00pm)
I entered the tournament with just thirteen hours to spare. My leaderboard was remarkably small, at seventeen players including me.
At the end of the first sitting, the top player was Ashlie, at 27115 points, but she played nineteen hours ago with eleven hours remaining, is a relative non-threat. Éole, a French player, played six hours ago. The most concerning player at that time was Peanut, who was playing now.
Kim and Éole had high winstreaks at the time I checked up, at 59 and 61 respectively. From the levels won in the last seven days, it is evident Éole is a hex0r. Since the start of the last phase is only seven days ago, it is consistent that Kim is also a hex0r.
Second Sitting (3:00am)
I decided to take a short nap so I won't start my week badly.
There is no large-scale hexing, but I still have to cover a 25k point deficit within five hours. I have climed from twelfth place to sixth place with less than four hours to go, and I am moderately confident I have enough time to overtake Éole for the entire night (it is already afternoon in his zone). The number of screenshots I have is relatively limited as my focus is solely on completing the slog, keeping watch of Éole.
Kim is repelled (6:30am)
Much of my time in the five-hour second sitting involves me chasing Kim, playing now from 3:00am at the earliest until 6:30am under a 8k point deficit relative to her. It is evident Kim is attempting to overtake Éole.
Éole returned to the game for a short time. Eventually, Kim left the game, One down, one to go. I also passed Peanut and Sahid, both at the 20k range. Kim has a final win streak of 238; she did not lose her win streak in the run. However, Éole did.
I have roughly two hours to cover a 12k deficit. Best case is of Éole did not return. Worst case is if Éole returns and deploys another hex to secure the lead.
Second Hex (8:00am)
With one hour remaining and just barely enough for my projected progress to overtake the hex0r, I saw the "playing now" on him with a 8k deficit (requiring five episodes to catch). I am now time-bound, as the time remaining is not enough for me to hex up my All Stars run. If I lose, I lose all my hexes. I immediately pressed the nuke button, and made a 33k run out of it. Éole was vanquished with forty-eight minutes to spare, with a score of 42k.
He completed an episode, and score 7834 points in this run. It is evident that he had to hex after being overtaken, but eventually he relented.
Next phase
The run was quite negative, at a net loss of 250 gold bars, rounded up, across twenty episodes. The slog is thus comparable in length to the previous slog, which was actually gold positive. I had to spend around 55 gold per episode. Unfortunately, I had to use another hex, this time in a trailing position to overtake a French player who returned to the game in the very last hour.
I will have to replenish gold for the rest of the weekend. I will still be able to start with the Daily Stamps pass, but only for the second half of the run. I should also start the very last stage with a Double Colour Bomb.
Anyways, with only four out of six hexes left, and also that the very day conflicts with my schedule, I will again likely decide to join late. This could also mean I will not be able to become a ffinalist even if I finished first in the finals.
Projected score
Assuming I can crush four episodes per hour, with each episode averaging 2000 points, and I have four hexes:
- 40000 points per hex
- 160000 points during hextime
Assuming I can crush three-and-a-half episodes per hour, with each episode averaging 2000 points, for the rest of the hours (22 to spare):
- 56000 points per eight hours
- 112000 points per sixteen hours (if I played continuously after my workday)
- 154000 points if I use up all twenty-two hours, in theory
This means, a score of 250000 points is very attainable, provided that I kept my Double Colour Bomb throughout (and did not lose to losing a life or through unusual methods). I have already lost 80000 points from the hex0rs at the end of the slog; if I had all of the tokens, I would score 240000 points during hextime, and possibly 400000 points if I use up all twenty-two hours.
As a reference, last year, we saw a score of 6453823. However, this tournament did not feature hex tokens, and the tournament is semi-farmable. Purple candies collected from new level wins scored thirty points instead of one point. His score would be 215127, which is still outrageous as that equates to 8964 candies per hour, or 4.5 episodes per hour! You have just thirteen minutes to complete an episode, meaning on average, you have just 53 seconds to complete a level including the unskippable transition cutscenes! Therefore, your crushing average per level is just forty seconds! Maintained over all twenty-four hours!
