Middle Race II (Memory Maze)
, Memory Maze — The Magic LabyrinthAs usual for late season game, this game is played with guests.
- Yeonjoo brings musician Lee Jangwon of "Peppertones"
- Hyunmin invited Son Mintak, fellow KAIST student
- Yeonseung brought Lee Jebin, management consultant
- Dongmin has MBLAQ's idol Mir
- and Yuhyun's guest is Kim Gayeon — Yohwan's wife who came as a replacement because Yohwan was busy.
After introductions and usual "chinguya!" ritual from Dongmin, Bandage Man shows up on a screen and announces that Middle Race is back, causing groans from everyone. They still remember the cluster the first Middle Race turned into. It goes double for Yeonseung because he struggled in that game immensely and was nearly eliminated.
To address criticisms producers revamped Middle Race, changing rules and old roles (for example — Union ability is not passive anymore) and added new ones.
Guests work as partners for players that invited them and guest's win also means their player's victory. This changes team dynamic compared to first Middle Race which was more free-for-all. New introduced roles are "assists" that are only meant to prop up their partner and solidify their victory through team-play.
Each player and guest is represented as a token on a track with 30 spaces. To move they use set of "move cards" with 1 to 4 on them. Players are given 4 move cards at the start and when they run out they "reset" and are given a new set of 4 cards.
Various roles decide players' abilities which can activate on each turn or on some condition, like on being moved by other player, on resetting and so on.
The goal is to finish 5th or 6th. Everyone who finishes off that mark loses the game and winners (5th and 6th) decide who goes to Deathmatch. Elimination candidate then picks his opponent among other losers.
Yuhyun decides that it's a good idea to team-up with Dongmin and Hyunmin today. It is Dongmin-Hyunmin-Yuhyun+their partners alliance against Yeonseung-Yeonjoo+their partners minority team.
Players draw lots to determine the order of picking roles. Yeonseung and Yeonjoo score 1st and 3rd picks. Yeonseung takes Copy ability rightly thinking it to be the most versatile one because it can work as any other role. Yeonjoo takes Silence which she can use for defense to block other players.
With the most powerful roles already taken, Dongmin's team picks the among the rest. Yuhyun gets Gravity role and it becomes the cornerstone of their strategy to pull players they want back or forward. However Gravity mostly gets Silenced by Yeonjoo while her teammates continue to scatter other players around them solidifying their 5th and 6th placement.
Minority team led by Dr. Yeonseung dominates the game but they miscalculate the final push to victory which allows Dongmin to steal 5th spot. Yeonseung comes 6th. They win the game and pick Yuhyun for elimination. He picks Yeonjoo as his opponent.
Deathmatch is the same Memory Maze as the last time. Yuhyun who sent Ahyoung home in that game just last week feels confident. However Yeonjoo uses a clever strategy: instead of trying to find a path from her side, she moves towards her opponent and in several turns manages to find a path to his starting cell. Once there, she can just stay in place and let Yuhyun do the path-searching in the Maze for her. This frustrates Yuhyun and his game falls apart.
Yeonjoo gets to the goal and wins, unexpectedly eliminating Yuhyun.
Tropes:
- Anti-Magic: Yeonjoo's Silence ability.
- Best Served Cold: Most of the people who made Yeonseung suffer in the first Middle Race have been eliminated since, only Hyunmin is left. Yeonseung wants to take revenge on him and even the score. Situation is similar too: Hyunmin, again, has Push and Yeonseung's partner has Union 2.0. It's a rematch of Push vs. Union.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Yuhyun gets visibly uncomfortable when Yeonjoo steps onto his cell.
- Power Copying: Yeonseung's Copy ability.
- Rivals Team Up: first time Yuhyun tried to work together with Dongmin and it fails
- Stop Copying Me: Yeonjoo's strategy in Memory Maze is to come over to Yuhyun's side and once there to repeat his (successful) moves, forcing him to trailblaze the path for her.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Dongmin and Yuhyun just don't gel together at all
