During the months of April and May, upperclassmen participated in the annual Assassins tournament. For context, Assassins, also known as Senior Assassins for some areas, has been played since the early 1980s and has become a beloved game for students nationwide. In order to participate, they must come up with a team of five to six players. These teams are pitted against each other as they compete in a bracket breakdown until there’s a final winner. It is known as Assassins because you have targets. Your target team has their own target team they must kill and so on. You must “kill” your target team by shooting them with a water gun or “weapon”.
By the end of every Saturday night in the duration of the game, the team with the most players still standing wins the round and moves on to the next. The common strategies are either offense or defense. One can also gang up on either a single person or teams can go against each other head on. Every player must contribute $20 to participate where it is all then placed into a pot system and the winning team receives $500 each while the administrators receive $2,000.
There are many rules, but some of the most important rules are:
- Players on the opposing team are not allowed into other players’ houses unless otherwise invited in by a family member.
- If they are caught attempting to escape via car, the attacker can place their hand on the vehicle for up to half an hour where they are “trapped” and cannot leave.
- If nothing happens within that half-hour, the “hostage” is automatically eliminated.
One team had been doing well all week until the last day when two players claimed to be careless and got shot. It seems the two won’t be free of teasing from their teammates for the foreseeable future.
“[We got out the] second round because those two [Nash and Jacob] were careless and stupid and got shot on the last day,” junior Collin Kamper said.
Another member of their team, junior Jacob Anderson, admitted to being one of said players.
“Me and Nash, we were pretty careless and just waltzed out of our houses and got shot,” Anderson said.
Nash Roster explained how he was eliminated.
“Yeah I got shot when I bent over to get my shoes from my trunk. It hurt.”
More on the teams’ game plans and strategies, there were two that stuck out in particular. They would either wait for others to come to them or ambush their opponents.
“Our strategy was mainly to play defensively the first few games and attack people’s houses really early in the morning,” Anderson said.
Junior Brady Vaughan said they only made it to the first round because they were up against the team that had won second place last year. Their team had struggled in the beginning, seeing as they had three team members eliminated the first day. Vaughan was one of the few in his team to make it to the last day of the week.
Another team, took a different approach by simply winging it. Their only strategy was to shoot players when they came to them at their houses.
“We lost, made it to the last round, death by the [team] Sugar Squad. We lost Brynn because she tried to attack Harsen, and Sam shot her. After that, we just gave up because they camped out,” senior Caden Solomon said.
The rules and guidelines for students can sometimes be hard to follow. Many have prior engagements outside of school such as sports and work. Senior Bella Romzek finds some of the rules to be important to students success in the game.
“You have a five or 10 minute grace period after work if you need to get to your car and go somewhere urgently. They can’t shoot while you’re driving, but you can hold them hostage if you place your hand on their car,” Romzek said.
It seemed apparent that several players will be returning to play next year.
