Minus Auction II is the same as first Minus Auction played in second season with two changes to the rules:
- Players can use their garnets to pass on cubes only when they have no chips left
- Now there are 2 cubes taken out of the auction. One stays hidden through the game and the second one is sold at special garnet auction in the middle of the main match. Winner of the special auction gets to see number on second cube and decides whether to discard that cube or put it into auction rotation.
Kyunghoon having picked up a lot of garnets in the last 2 games (seven from Yeonseung and a several more for taking the fall for Dongmin's team) is leading. His strategy is to use his garnet advantage. To that end he keeps using chips until he runs out and then starts paying with his garnets, he also continues to make deals with other players during the auction to recover some garnets back.
Jinho takes -34 from the start and builds his strategy around it. When -33 and -35 appear nobody can afford to take them and Jinho passes them around several times collecting a lot of chips in the process to offset the initial damage of taking -34.
Kyungran takes -24 and -27, it is a risky play because there is a gap of two cubes in between and if one of them is discarded she won't be able to connect them.
Special auction comes up and Kyunghoon wins it unopposed for just 1 garnet because he is far and away leading in garnets. He is shown the number of one of the discarded cubes. Afterward he says it was -20 and because Dongmin targets this number he wants to talk to him privately and discuss whether to keep it or discard it. Something seemingly falls through in there and he discards it.
-32 appears and Jinho once again gladly passes it around several times extorting everyone of chips. Dongmin is fed up with it and puts an end to Jinho's racket, taking -32. This, however, seemingly dooms him to last place.
But then -20 comes up and this exposes Kyunghoon's lie. The cube he saw was not -20. Kyungran who only needs -26 to complete her middle -20 streak asks Kyunghoon if it was -26 after all. Kyunghoon swears it was not -26.
Junseok doesn't believe this, he thinks Kyunghoon and Dongmin are working together and this also explains why Dongmin took -32 previously because he knew of -26 and that Kyungran will lose because of it. He advises Kyungran to take -20 here because even with missing -26 this move will damage Dongmin's total and with her chips she will still be ahead of Dongmin by 1 point while he will go to Deathmatch. However Kyungran doesn't want to come off as too aggressive so that Dongmin wouldn't pick her as retaliation and she doesn't do it.
Game ends and -26 never shows up, it was indeed one of the discarded cubes and this ruins Kyungran's streak. Jinho wins the game.
Kyungran goes to Deathmatch and decides to pick Dongmin anyway "because it wouldn't be too shameful to lose to a good player". They are playing "Gyul! Hap!" and seemingly she should have an advantage here because she already played this game against Jinho in season 1 finale.
However Dongmin shows that he has studied this game extensively and convincingly wins the Deathmatch. Kyungran, the last female player of The Grand Finale, is eliminated.
Tropes:
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Dongmin explaining his technique he developed to "break" "Gyul! Hap!"
- Curb-Stomp Battle: it is painful to watch Kyungran trounced so thoroughly by Dongmin in "Gyul! Hap!"
- Obvious Rule Patch: "Gyul! Hap!" is modified so now a player can call Gyul right away after successful Hap guess. Previously players intentionally didn't call the last Hap so that that opponent wouldn't say Gyul next and take 3 points. If both players have solved the board, they just do nothing and keep passing turns until someone gives up and take the last Hap.
- The Stinger: reveal at the very end that Kyunghoon did indeed saw -26 and lied to Kyungran's face saying it wasn't.
