Board Thread:In-game event-related activity/@comment-9890645-20130911002938/@comment-9890645-20130911010322

Final Rank: 65th. I was 64th (which I wanted) until the last five seconds.

Final Score: 62,730,330

Deck Power (Pre/Begining/End/Post): 15476 / mostly 23.7k until final hour magic got me to 26k / 16490 pre-MTMing Ironhide to see if he surpasses Cliffjumper for the lone R4 slot now in the mixed deck

Money Spent (and currency): ~US$200

Coins Spent: 3500 - 1 loop and 2 tiers of the character SB: SS bot, SS bot, Megatron alt and SW bot, SS bot, SS alt, crap x2; 1000 - 1 loop (I guess?) of the Weapons SB: SW, SS, SW... lucky me; 13400 - CUBEZ (of course)

Battle Cubes: LOL Let's not go there.

Energon Cubes: Same. Wanted to have ~200 left but I'm closer to 150 probably. I don't want to know.

Ruby Pulls: With the help of a SW bot from a silver medal, my ruby pulls were exquisite, as I had achieved my goal of 6 Shockwave easily - the last two were both on double pulls (I got impatient waiting for three both times LOL). (Why 6? It's coming.) A mass pull of rubies on the 150-coin bridge at the end indicated the ratio of SS:SW was around 2:1.

Medals: Ep Shockwave bot on Silver; A bunch of R4s, including some I needed to complete my pair of MTM of each Elite (need Trypticon alts badly) and, on the last day... both halves of Episode Megatron. I wish I had pulled the bot first (see below) but I am NOT complaining. For the record, all of these R5 raid pulls are the first such pulls for me in all episodes they were in. Weapons medals pulled: Zero. I had 99 weapons in base much of the episode.

Liked: The rollercoaster ride of this episode. My allies, who were absolutely amazing this episode, especially the chat room crew and some of our new friends both from here and other sites. What a job, folks. So many to thank. Congratulations and a HUGE Thank You to all of my allies and friends!!! :D I often say I couldn't have done it without them, and that's been mostly true, but this time so much more so I cannot even begin.

Disliked: The rollercoaster ride of this episode. And the usual suspects (DAT LAG is getting worse, yo, and come on with the base size, increase it already)... And "that other dumb stuff..."

Other: Since I started finishing in the top tier, I had always said I would sit out of T1 in any episode in which Optimus was the top prize. A man of my word, indeed. ;)

I figured I would bridge a little at the start hoping I'd just get an early MTM SW to keep me charging on Day 1 so that I could then choose how serious I would be for T1 this episode as it unfolded. The half of Megatron that I ran all episode was a huge help, as it dealt MUCH more damage than the Shockwaves were! My early jump convinced me I might be able to make the T1 run. As I built my Shockwave army, I noticed that the SW without signature weapons on the soldier line were rather fragile, and half Megs took half the hits my SW's on the leader line were. Thus, I stopped at 6 SW and ran Nemesis Prime (lived as long as half Megs) and Wild Rider (1 hit more). In hindsight, I probably could have put the SW with the sigs in front of him and fill out with SW, but, I didn't. Probably not the worst decision.

The rollercoaster ride of this episode was intense. I did feel the anchor of my half Megs weighing me down the rankings slightly. Then I went to sleep Saturday night in the mid-60's and woke up Sunday morning at 102. I made my usual charge up the board and got back around the 40s... Then back to work on Monday saw me slip a little, but I was confident I could maintain T1, so I rose back up a little and felt fine.

I was quite happy earlier today at work in the 60's, but, as the rush started, my rank started sliding, as I can't be full active in game during work. I ran to my car and sped home, walked in and turned on my iPad and I was in 89th with five hours to go. So of course I went crazy, as I didn't work at this all this week just to lose now. It was a brutal climb, but, by 90m left, I was in the 40s and holding. Then, twenty minutes later, Episode Megatron bot made his appearance in my frantic gold medal pulling. I had joked to myself all week that I'd pull him with one hour left, and sure enough. Had I pulled them in the opposite order (I got the alt from medals during work today, very frustrating at the time, I pounded my desk LOL), I would have had a much easier afternoon.

But, I'll be honest. I've always maintained a high enough position in T1 in all my previous events that the last few hours were more about where I wanted to finish and how many allies' seeds I can help drop. This was my first time experiencing the fight to win this closely (I was as low as 94 at one point), and... I'm not doing it again LOL.

Of course, I also said I'd never bother winning Optimus. So, whatever will be...