Preparing For The Altador Cup

Every year, Neopia is completely taken over by the largest phenomenon it has ever known. A sports competition of epic proportions. The Altador Cup.

For those not in the know, where have you been!? This is a worldwide competition where each land sends a team of representatives to compete in a series of activities to earn points, hoping to bring home the gold. The main event is called Yooyuball, where the famed petpet Yooyu is turned into a ball that is passed around a large court. Whoever can score the most points within the time limit is awarded victory and earns the largest chunk of points for their team.

But Yooyuball, while it is the feature event, is not the only one. In past years we have also had games like Make Some Noise, where you have to scream as much as possible to cheer on your Yooyuball team. We've also helped out in the cafeteria with Slushie Slinger, making sure all the fans are keeping cool with a nice, icy drink. And then the newest addition was Shootout Showdown, like a condensed version of Yooyuball but it's just you against the goalie.

While these events have historic precedent, there is no telling if they will appear again this year, or if a new event will also show up. What we do know though, is that you'll need to start endurance training. If you want to take home the gold for your chosen land, you'll need to put in a LOT of work behind the keyboard and score a lot of goals in Yooyuball!

Scout Out A Team

Before the games begin, you'll have a shot to pledge allegiance to the Neopian land of your choice. If you are shooting to be the winning team, you'll want to scout around the boards a bit and see which teams everyone is joining and which seem to be the most popular. There are a lot of complicated equations that go into the Altador Cup, so it isn't as simple as "the most popular team will win", but a team being popular is a good indicator that it will have its fair share of dedicated players submitting max scores every day.

Looking at the history of past Altador Cup winners will show you that it really is anyone's game. One year a team will win, then the next they will place in the bottom of the ranks. The leaderboards are constantly changing so it's very hard to predict the winner.

The best you can do is to fight as hard as you can and score as many goals as possible. Achieve personal glory and rank up your own self, that'll help your team more than anything.

Training

If you want to be good at anything, you have to train for it, and the Altador Cup is no exception. They say that if you want to master any skill, you need to invest 10,000 hours of practice into it. That seems like a whole lot but you might be getting close to that number by the end of summer!

But before the cup starts, you can practice with other games. The most similar game to Yooyuball would be Deckball. Deckball is a classic Neopets game that involves two opponents going head to head to score a goal in the opposite net. The different balls all have different functions, like varying speed, which is kind of similar to how the different Yooyus perform. While it's not an exact replica, it is close enough that you'll get plenty of practice watching a ball fly back and forth and trying to get it into the goal. It is quite a hard game as well, a little harder than Yooyuball, so if you can master it then you'll breeze through the coming competition.

If you'd like to practice for all the button mashing of Make Some Noise, take a shot as Tug 'O' War. This game requires you to mash specific keys as quickly as possible to yank your enemy into the river. This will strengthen your finger muscles so you can make that Techo scream.

Slushie Slinger requires you to move back and forth across the screen and capture all the slushies. This is somewhat similar to Wocky Wobble, a game featuring a Wocky trying to catch as many falling objects as possible. Though Slushie Slinger doesn't require you to balance anything, Wocky Wobble will help you practice racing back and forth across the screen to collect random objects.

Finally, we have Shootout Showdown, which can also be practiced for with Deckball. It is just a condensed version of scoring goals. But if you'd like to change up your training routine, go play a few rounds of Wingoball. Wingoball is all about scoring goals in as little time as possible while avoiding terrible obstacles.

Get Your Pets Ready

Are you going to have time to paint, customise, and feed these guys while you are trying to take home top honors? No way! It's best to get your Neopet checked into the Neolodge early, it might crowd up at this time of year with people traveling for the tournament. Try to get any last minute details on their outfits out of the way too, you won't be able to go shopping during the cup because you'll be too exhausted. Speaking of exhaustion, that brings me to my next tip.

Rest

The Altador Cup will sneak up on us at any moment, it's best to be prepared but it is also important to rest now. Once the competition is under way, you may not have time to sleep if you want to win!! And even when you do fall asleep, you'll see Faerie Yooyus racing through your dreams and wake up in a cold sweat fearful that you just spilled a slushie all over yourself. It's extremely important to practice but also take some nice rest time to prepare.

It'll be here before you know it, so be prepared! Re-read this guide if you need to and get ready for the nonstop cheers ringing through Neopia for the next few weeks. And don't forget to stop and enjoy it all and load up on merch from all the tournament shops!