> Mine went according to the strategy I set up, so it worked for me. Unfortunately, I got screwed by someone running the "I'll do nothing through all the preliminary rounds only to power up all my characters before the qualifying round" strategy. Very frustrating to find myself in first place one round, and then eliminated by someone playing a gimmick game the next.

Yep, that happened to me, too. I always thought that was a bit of a false strategy, because the amount of money gained from losing was not as much as someone winning and spending on upgrades, then trading them all in for better ones on the qualifying round. But obviously, it seems to work. I was running in the top five through most of the preliminaries, so as you say, very frustrating.

It would be interesting if, say, a block was put on an account that didn't update for five days.

Bea"More discussion on this is imminent, I feel"sty