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The 5 Secrets of Winning Mynci Beach Volleyball!


by feedthefrog

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In many other Neopets games, you need about 40% luck and 60% skill. But for Mynci Beach Volleyball, it is 99% SKILL and 1% luck. That is why many people still struggle to get the avatar (you need a score of 800+ for that), let alone winning a gold trophy. Indeed, on reset day, even those winning a bronze trophy can’t reach this score. And I have found that many neopians with 300+ avatars still lack this game avatar. The reason why people never make it is they don’t know the techniques and tricks of this game very well. You just can’t sit in front of computer hoping for luck in this game because every point, which can last for minutes, is won by hard work. You don’t guess or wait for the high-scoring neggs to finally show up after endless attempts. It’s all about skill and hard work.

Now hopefully you’ll trust me because I have recently won the gold trophy in this game. And I play this game in leisure times a lot just for fun and I can easily post a 1000+ score without much effort. I am not going to talk about the basics here because you can find it elsewhere easily. My guide is different. It is original in many aspects because I am not going to repeat what others have said. (And unfortunately I don’t find most of what has been said very helpful. Most of those writers don’t have a gold trophy in this game. They just barely score 800 after many attempts). What I am going to tell you is the SECRET of this game so that you can at least get the avatar. Indeed, I am confident that my guide can help you get a silver trophy at least. To be more precise, I am going to tell you exactly 5 secrets that you have to bear in mind if you want to achieve this goal.

Secret #1 Getting easy points with your serve

This is the easiest way to win points. If you have a good serve, you can beat your opponent by a score of 12-0 in the first two rounds. Now how’s it done exactly? You toss the ball (up arrow), take a step back (left arrow), and then jump to hit the ball (up arrow). By doing this, you can hit a really “flat” ball that doesn’t have much net clearance. While having less net clearance is riskier than having high net clearance, it is worth the risk because you can hit the ball to the back of the other side of the court (That means red Mynci’s tail) and that’s the most common way of winning point against your opponent. The ball will slip between its tail and the back of the screen, dropping to the floor. This kind of serving isn’t that difficult actually because you start from a stationery position when you serve like this. Since you have to serve whenever you win a point, you can get into the rhythm of good serving without much difficulty. With a bit of practice you can hit 24 “serve winners” in a row to clear the first two rounds by a score of 12-0.While the serve is not as effective in latter rounds, it still pays off and gives you cheap points sometimes.

I know some other people would give you confusing advice on serve: either to hit a SAFE serve (serve without jumping) or GO CRAZY and try to run back and forth before you toss the ball. But actually you can hit a pretty SAFE and AGGRESSIVE serve easily, and there is not point to go either one of the extremes. It is safe because you are tossing the ball from a stationery position and you know exactly where to toss the ball before you hit it. It is still aggressive because the ball goes very flat with lots of speed and lands on the gap between your opponent’s tail and the back of the screen.

Secret #2 Defensive play is always preferred to aggressive play

You should already have the mindset of “not losing the point” rather than “trying to win this point”. I know this sounds stupid. But you do have to realise that once you get into a long rally with red Mynci, he just never misses no matter how hard you try to attack him by hitting the ball to the back of his court. Now let me clarify things first. “Defensive play” means that you should avoid jumping as much as you can. While it is good to play aggressively with your serve by jumping, it isn’t good to do the same when you are in a neutral rally. Your opponent’s defence is very strong after Round 2 and most of your attacks would be in vain. If you always try to hit an aggressive shot, we are bound to make a mistake. It is because when you jump, you get struck in midair and lose time to get back into position to save the ball. So when you are dragged into long rally, be patient and try to defend the ball by just using left and right arrow. Don’t jump! (Don’t use up arrow!). To repeat, you lose time when you jump because your Mynci would “float” in midair for a few seconds and you cannot revert to the defensive position quickly. You only jump when you feel REALLY comfortable with the ball so that you can finally hit it past the net with the jump. You are really comfortable when the ball bounces right above your blue Mynci’s head perpendicularly.

To sum up, most of the times you should focus on saving the ball at all cost rather than trying to attack your opponent, and the in-built speed of your Mynci should be fast enough to prevent the ball from dropping to the ground. Sometimes a point lasts really long (a point can last as long as 5 mins!) in this game. Endurance is really crucial and you build your endurance by defensive play. You should always wait for your opponent’s error rather than go for high-risk jumping attacks that do not reward anything most of the time in latter rounds. And trust me, your opponent would make an error in the end after your insane defence!

Secret #3 Pros and Cons of different power-ups

Now we come to another tricky part: the power-ups. Some guides would tell you that you should avoid getting the Pawkeet. This doesn’t help. There’s no way to avoid it because it pops up suddenly in the air. That’s why it is more important to know how to deal with these power-ups. I’d separate the discussion of power-ups into two main parts so that you can understand how the power-ups works on blue Mynci(your player) and red Mynci(opponent) differently.

But before probing into those power-ups that only affect one of the Mynci, I’d briefly talk about the power-ups that affect both. However, I don’t think these power-ups change the dynamics of the game a lot. “Big net” would force you to play a bit more defensively because your flat attacks wouldn’t go over the net easily. “Small net” power-up allows you to play a bit more aggressively because the chance of the ball bouncing back to your side from the net is smaller. But still you should always bear in mind that defensive play is preferred in general. As for “giant ball”, it allows you to defend slightly easier, but it does not have a big impact.

    Now we’d talk about the power-ups that affect only one of the Mynci. These power-ups change the dynamics of the game much more. SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY when your opponent gets “super jump” and “supersize”. Red Mynci starts missing a lot when he gets these two power-ups. There’s no specific strategy when your opponent gets “super jump”, and you just have to be patient and wait for its error when he makes a bad jump. If Red Mynci gets “supersize”, try to hit the ball to the back of his court (the gap between his tail and the back of the screen), and you’d get a lot of free points, especially from serving. But if red Mynci gets “superspeed”, you are going to have a tough time in this round unfortunately. Your opponent is going to defend like crazy when he gets this power-up. But don’t panic. Like I’ve said before, you can also defend every ball like your opponent with your in-built speed. So you still wouldn’t lose the point. Just be patient and your opponent is going to make a mistake before you even if he has “superspeed”.

Now it comes to the power-ups that affect your player. If you get “super jump”, don’t jump because it is a terrible power-up for you! I have said that you should always avoid jumping even when you don’t have the “super jump” because it would diminish your chance of defending the next ball, and it is even more so when you get “super jump”. If you get this power-up, try to use left-right movement only for the rest of the point, even if you are trying to hit the ball past the net. You can still hit the ball past the net without jumping if you time the left-right movement of your Mynci well. You need a bit of practice to figure out how to make the ball go over the net without jumping. But it is very rewarding because it can reduce the numbers of your jump as many as possible. Usually the correct angle is to hit the ball with the forehead of your blue Mynci. If you get “super size”, it helps your defence in general as it gives you a larger contact area between blue Mynci’s head and the ball, but be careful that you cannot let the ball slip behind your back when you get this power-up. Finally, it is usually a mixed blessing if you get “superspeed”. I think experienced players like this power-up. Why not? It makes your left and right movement a lot quicker. That means you can defend much better. But for some, they think that their Mynci moves too fast and they completely miss-hit the ball. I’d say that it isn’t an issue if you avoid jumping. You only miss-hit the ball when you jump to hit an aggressive attack. If you keep that all-important game plan of conservative play in mind, the “superspeed” power-up is only going to help you with your defence. Still you need to make minor adjustment when you get this power-up. For instance, you shouldn’t press “left” arrow as hard as you did when serving (See Secret#1) because right now your step would become larger with a better speed.

Secret #4 Changing power-up before Serving

Now this is an important but often forgotten trick. What should you do if you get a power-up that you don’t like (for example, the “super jump”)? You don’t have to try to get the Pawkeek again during the point to change it. It is too risky if your mind is focused on getting the Pawkeek instead of defending. You should avoid jumping during the point and wait till your opponent’s error to win the point if you get “super jump”. But of course you would like to change the power-up after you finally survive the point with the power-up you dislike.

This is how it should be done:

It’s your turn to serve because you have just won the point. You should now wait for Pawkeek to show up again on your side of the court. Next you touch the Pawkeek again with the ball when you toss the ball to serve and get a new power-up. It is a very simple way of changing the power-up that you don’t want.

The same theory could be applied to the “watch the turdle” power-up. If there’s a turdle on the side of your court, you should voluntarily get stuck before serving so that the turdle would be gone and not affect your next point.

Secret #5 Patience, Patience and Patience

This isn’t exactly a secret but it is still very important. Techniques are important but you also need a proper tactics and mental approach to the game in order to maximise your potentials. While you should get over the first two rounds pretty quickly, you must be prepared to play very long point afterwards. If you feel tired, take a rest between rounds, or even before you serve for the next point because there’s no timer in this game. Don’t get excited just because you hit an aggressive shot that slip behind red Mynci’s back because most of the time he’d be able to defend it. You should always be ready that the ball would keep coming back to you and that you are required to defend it again (you have to prevent it from dropping again). Be patient!

In the final two rounds, the Red Mynci is very tough to beat and sometimes you make errors before he does. Don’t panic. Sometimes an experienced player like me also has a bad start in round 5 or 6 (I am down 0-2 or 0-3). But I always stick to my original game plan and I sense that the red Mynci would be more merciful after the first few points that he beat me. I don’t know if this is because of how the game is coded or because my tactics simply worked. But I am sure that staying positive and patient always helps. You should always believe that if you do nothing wrong, stick to your game plan and defend very well, there’s no way the red Mynci is beating you. You only need patience to wait for your opponent’s inevitable implosion.

Conclusion

These are the important five secrets that you need to know if you want to master this game. Scoring 800 points is not an easy task if you don’t know any strategies and tricks about the game. It is because scoring 800 points means that you have to complete all 6 rounds without losing. However, if you know the tricks, you wouldn’t only aim at scoring 800. My goal is always to win every single point and play a flawless match. It is possible if you defend well and do not allow any ball to drop on the side of your court. When you manage to do so, you are not far off from winning a gold trophy. Hopefully my guide would help those who still struggle to get the avatar and don’t find the available guides satisfactory. I have no reservation and tell you everything I do and I know to win my gold trophy. Good Luck and Have Fun!

 
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