The High Score Challenge at Fake Nats 2.0

The generosity and support of the laser tag community is really quite remarkable. Last night we held a very successful side event as part of the Fake Nats 2.0 tournament going on at The Fun Warehouse in Syracuse, NY. Take a look at all the laser tag players from across the country who participated in Tag 4 A Cause and donated in support of the Doreen Katz Memorial Cancer Foundation!

The idea behind Tag 4 A Cause is simple: donate to our designated cause (in this case a wonderful charity that helps the children of cancer patients), laser tag the distance of 5 kilometers in ANY arena and earn your achievement medal for doing so.

I arrived and set up a space to promote the laser tag 5K challenge as well as the side event we had planned for later in the night.

The nice thing about tying into a three day tournament is that every one of these players had easily accomplished their 5K of laser tag before I even got there! I estimate it to be an average of about ten games to reach that goal, so all these players had already completed step two. When they made their donation they received their medal along with entry to the special mini high score challenge that I hosted with the support of The Fun Warehouse staff. As you can see, players were enthusiastic and very generous about helping the cause!

Once the tournament rounds were completed we held a three game contest for the Tag 4 A Cause participants to have a shot at winning the custom “golden phaser” trophy.

The rules for the high score contest were simple. Players would compete in two rounds of Masters for the chance to be in the top ten and play a third game of solo, non-color ranked Free for All. Whoever had the highest score from among any of those games would win the trophy. If there were any ties they would be broken using accuracy. This is where things got intense!

The first game was won by Kodama on the green team with Noob and Beanz tying for first place on the red team. The second game I had everyone switch pack colors and Odin’s Fist and Jackal led the charge on red with other placements too close to call without comparing scores from both games. We took a break so I could tally and determine the top ten scoring players from between the two games (by individual score, not average). I returned with a list of the top ten players moving on to the solo finals round, BUT (and this is important) we reiterated the win would go to the top score from any of the rounds. At that moment the score to beat was Odin’s Fist sitting at 10,852. I had expected the highest score might come from the solo round, but that was far from being a given. Everyone went in, played hard and gave the crowd in the front lobby a real nail biter game to watch!

Nobody can argue that Beanz is a solid front runner in most arenas, but no question that is especially true in his home arena, so in the final seconds of the game everybody was watching the showdown between Beanz and Odin’s Fist. However by the final 60 seconds it was more a question of Beanz versus the clock. The score to beat was still 10,852 and he was inching up on it one tag at a time. Then in the final 20 seconds while his score was leading the game at 10,703 he was tagged out twice. All it would take was two tags to narrowly beat the high score, and then…the clock ran out! Odin’s Fist from Sacramento is the high score winner with his preliminary score!

That was a hard fought battle and those final few seconds were edge of your seat laser tag to watch! Thank you to everyone who participated! Here’s a shout out with my sincerest thanks and appreciation to these Tag 4 A Cause participants representing Laserforce players from sites across the U.S. including Southern California, Detroit, MI, St. George, UT, Loveland, CO and of course, Syracuse, NY!

Beanz

Jackal

Wolfman

Disco Stu

Fireball DK

Noob

SuperMarioBros

Ragnar

Stealth Elf

Soy Boy

Dill

Alex Felt (or Boxes as the case may be!)

BladeZ

Terrell

Fenrir

MYLILPONY

S1MPLY0K

Dr Feelgood

Axman

Bagel

Fox

Kodama

Jerome

Bromatized

Odin’s Fist

You all rock and really made a difference last night!

Let’s call this the official kick off to this quarter’s Tag 4 A Cause, which will continue to raise funds for the Doreen Katz Memorial Cancer Foundation all the way through September. Just a reminder that the next Tag 4 A Cause night is planned to take place September 18th at Loveland Laser Tag in Colorado. If you can join us there we will have another high score challenge, but if not you can still take on the laser tag 5K challenge at any arena and earn the medal. Find all the info at https://www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com/to-benefit-doreen-katz-memorial-cancer. Thank you for helping us Tag 4 A Cause!