New Showdown Strategies
© Brooke E. Smith
For years, people counted on the top five boxes to establish the team score. Now the number has shifted to six. Players in the No. 6 spot need to see themselves as team members and go along with the Top 5 on Pyramid and Final Strategy rounds if the location is to achieve its maximum average.
2. Multiple boxes still allow the best chance of maximizing scores.
Although it is still possible for a location with excellent players to do consistently well with only a handful of boxes, most teams do better hedging their bet by getting as many boxes in play as possible. This approach allow splits on the deadly Pyramid and Final Strategy rounds as well as provides insurance if other boxes stop functioning in the middle of the game (which unfortunately is beginning to occur more frequently now that many of the DITV boxes are no longer new). While one of the current leaders of the Premier Division, National West Covina, might well have that position even with fewer playmakers, their 40+ box bank provides more chances for putting six boxes on any particular answer. Other teams will also benefit from having as many boxes as possible.
Caveat: multiple boxes become an asset only to the extent that a person can play each as well as he/she would a single playmaker. Unless the multiple boxes are needed to make up the 6-box team, it's easy for players to start dropping points when they are frantically scrambling to punch buttons on multiples. Under these circumstances, cutting back the number of multiples is advised. However, most experienced players can learn to handle two boxes well so as to end up with identical scores in the absence of splitting, and others have mastered the art of keeping up with many more.
3. Organized splits are less effective on Final Strategy than under the previous format UNLESS there are sufficient boxes to put six automatically on each answer.
Under the previous format where players had 30 seconds to come up with their Final Strategy answer, teams had time to prioritize their choices. At least one team that didn't trust its members to follow splitting patterns would even physically remove boxes from individual players in order to consolidate them under a single player. Player #1 would handle boxes 1 through 5, putting in the best answer; Player #2 boxes 6- 10, putting in the second best answer, etc.
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