Major Player

The **Major Player** is a Bossbot Manager Boss who was introduced as part of the Hires & Heroes Update. He can be fought in "The Musical Master of Melody" found on Tenor Terrace in Mezzo Melodyland after unlocking the Kudos task Let's Dance!. He was first introduced in the Musical Monstrosity Blog Post on the Corporate Clash website.

## Content Sync

Toons fighting against the Major Player will have Content Sync applied to them. They will be synced down to the following stats:

* 105 Laff Soft Cap (111 Max)
* All Gags permitted
* All rewards permitted

## Attacks

(Single)
(Single)
(All)
 Damage
 Accuracy
 Frequency

## Cheats

### General

The Major Player increases the amount of Cogs that can be present in the fight by 2, totaling up to 6 Cogs in one sitting.

The Major Player can only be lured for 1 round.

### Phase 1

The Major Player summons Cogs ranging from levels 10-14 with a unique 'Dance Partner' status effect. Each one of them will be paired randomly with one of the Toons in battle, labeled as either a square, circle, hexagon, or star. Partnered Toons deal **50% more damage** to their partner and **75% less damage** to all other Cogs. Cogs deal **25% more damage** to their partner and **25% less damage** to all other Toons. These damage changes also apply to Lure knockback, but Toon-Up and the Splash damage from Squirt are unaffected.

The Major Player will send in Dance Partners at the end of the first round, and then every five rounds after that. Cog Capacity functions differently for Dance Partners. Despite there being a capacity of 6, Dance Partners only adhere to 5. This means that if there are 3 Cogs in battle (Major Player included), he'll only send in 2 Dance Partners. The max amount of Dance Partners the Major Player can send in at once is 4, and if there are 5-6 Cogs currently in battle, he cannot send in any Dance Partners.

Dance Partners will also come equipped with an additional cheat. They can have one of any of the following:

* **Lure Resistance**: This Cog will be **entirely immune** to being LURED. This also means the Cog is unable to be lured into TRAP. Only one Lure immune Cog may be on the field at any given time.
* **Soak Resistance**: This Cog will take **60% less damage** when SOAKED.
* **Damage Reduction**: This Cog will take **-50 less damage**.
* **Focused Defense**: This Cog will take **50% less damage** from the first Gag Track that hits it each turn (including Splash).
* **Siphon**: This Cog deals **15% less damage**, but heals for **4x its damage dealt**. Guest Verse attacks will trigger Siphon's effect, however this Cog cannot be Overcharged.

At the end of every other round, the Major Player picks one Cog from an audience of 48 Cogs ranging from levels 1-8. Once on stage, they are given the **Rising Star** buff, granting them an additional **425 HP**. They gain an additional **+30 damage** that increases by **+5** every round. They receive the same benefits as Manager Cogs (no Fires/Sues, 2 round Lure Resistance).

Rising Stars will also come equipped with an additional cheat. They can have one of five cheats (these are the same five additional cheats **Dance Partners** can have, shown above).

Defeating a Rising Star Cog grants a permanent and stackable **+15 damage buff** to all Toons for this phase (does not affect Toon-Up). If the Major Player is defeated, all the Rising Stars revert back to regular Cogs, losing their buffs (excluding Lure Resistance and their additional cheat).

The Major Player will allow one of the present Cogs to attack again, unluring them if necessary. Their attacks are given a fixed accuracy base, which is 90% for single target attacks or 80% for group attacks. This cheat occurs every other round. Toons hit by a Cog using Guest Verse will gain the **Viral Sensation** Status Effect.

* **Viral Sensation**: Viral Sensation is a Status Effect lasting on a Toon for **2 rounds**. Toons with this status effect will deal **+60 more damage**, but have **decreased accuracy**. This damage boost effects all Gags besides Toon-Up. The accuracy decrease is dependent on the level of Gag:
	+ Level 1-4 Gags: Accuracy remains the same
	+ Level 5 Gags: -8% Accuracy
	+ Level 6 Gags: -16% Accuracy
	+ Level 7 Gags: -24% Accuracy
	+ Level 8 Gags: -32% Accuracy

The accuracy debuff does not affect Gags with guaranteed accuracy (e.g. Toon-Up, Zap, attacks on Lured Cogs).

The Major Player will initiate a unique attack similar to that of Match Game with the Toons, requiring you to mimic his dance steps with the corresponding arrow/movement keys. He will trigger this cheat twice, when he falls below **66% health (2963)** and again at **33% health (1482)**. This cheat goes before Toons' attacks. This attack has 3 waves, starting with 3 notes, then 5, then 7. Toons are given 5 seconds per wave to match the notes.

* **Rockin' In Rhythm** - This corresponding cheat punishes players who fail to input the correct arrows. You will take an additional **8 damage** for every note you didn't reach beyond the first. This cheat will cap at a maximum of **32 damage**. For example, if a Toon hits 3 notes the first round, 5 notes the second round, and 4 notes the third round (missing 3 notes), they will take (3 - 1) \* 8 = 16 damage.

### Phase 2

The Major Player returns to the stage with a full set of health and three Level 12.exe Mr. Hollywoods. He also deals **+5 additional damage (+1 per round)**. The icon for this cheat expands in size every round.

The Mr. Hollywoods all receive a MAJOR health boost, having **898 HP** each, dealing an additional **+10 damage (+5 per round)**. Manager benefits still apply. Defeating a Superstar will grant a permanent and stackable **+10 damage buff** to all Toons. The Superstars will also come equipped with one of the 5 additional cheats, cycling to a different one every round.

The Major Player will make himself and the three Mr. Hollywoods Dance Partners with each getting assigned to a Toon. He will not summon any additional Dance Partners. Dance partners of the same shape deal **50% more damage** to each other and **75% less damage** to anyone else. The Major Player will partner himself with a different available Toon each round if possible. He cannot shift partner status to someone who is currently partnered with a Mr. Hollywood.

Rising Stars have had their damage values adjusted, now only dealing **+20 additional damage (+5 per round)**. They will now also cycle through one of the five additional cheats every round. The Major Player will summon the first Rising Star on the second round, then every round after that. Like in phase 1, they have **+425 HP** and Toons gain a permanent **+15 damage** each time they defeat one. This buff effects all Gags besides Toon-Up.

The Major Player will now use Guest Verse every other round if possible, starting on round 1. The Major Player can use Guest Verse on the Superstars.

* **Viral Sensation**: Functions the same as in Phase 1.

This and Rockin' in Rhythm functions the same as in Phase 1, but the game has had an increase of notes needed per wave. Wave one has 4 notes, wave two has 6 notes, and wave three has 24 notes, with each wave having a 5 second time limit. He will only trigger this cheat once after falling below **50% health**. The punishment has been reduced to **4 damage** per note missed and still caps at **32 damage**. The first two notes missed will not increase the damage dealt to the Toons. The damage from this attack is not affected by the Dance Partner status. If you do not enter any inputs (or fail each first input) in all 3 rounds you will take **999 damage**.

## Strategy

Throughout Phase 1 and 2, all the additional Cogs spawned will come with one of five cheats. While understanding these cheats is simple, it's important to know how they'll interact with other cheats on the board and adapt your strategy to them.

**Phase 1:**
One of the first challenges you'll be greeted with in phase 1 are Dance Partners. You'll want to take out Dance Partners in 1-2 rounds to lift the damage restrictions placed upon the Toons. There are many strategies that can be implemented against Dance Partners, however the simplest strategy usually involves:

* If your Partner is not Lure Immune and does not have Focused Defense, use Trap.
* If your Partner IS Lure Immune, use Drop.
* Focused Defense partners can be defeated with Zap or fired. Low-level Focused Defense partners can be also defeated with Trap.
* Have one Toon Lure, then defeat their partner on the next turn.

It's also worth mentioning that Dance Partners do not have tenure; Firing off all Dance Partners is an option if you'd like.

Rising Stars in Phase 1 deal an immense amount of damage, combined with the Major Player's Guest Verse, they can be dealing upwards of 60-70 damage in one turn (increasing every turn), although their accuracy is very low in some cases (for example, Swindlers only have a 40% Accuracy). Because of this, Rising Stars usually need to be dealt with very quickly. It's recommended to focus taking out Rising Stars, even over the Major Player early on. However Dance Partners should still be dealt with first; allow anyone not partnered to focus the Rising Star while others finish off their Partners.

If necessary, Lure can be used to stall or mitigate damage from them (assuming they're not Lure Immune). Squirt/Zap is very effective against Rising Stars, allowing you to take them out while damaging the Major Player himself. If the Rising Star has Soak Resistance, then employing other strategies like Lure/Throw would be preferred. As you defeat more Rising Stars, you'll gain more damage, inducing a snowball effect. Because of this, you'll be able to start shifting your focus over to damaging the Major Player. Once low enough, use a high single target damage combo to finish off the Major Player. Once defeated, Rising Stars will lose their health and damage bonus but not their cheats. This allows you to safely finish them off and heal any Toons in need going into the next phase.

Additionally, any Toons hit during Guest Verse should utilize the Viral Sensation buff by prioritizing damage dealing over supporting. Viral Sensation does effect Lure but it should generally be avoided due to the accuracy debuff that also occurs. While the +40 damage buff is nice, it should not a massive priority if that Toon needs to fill a different job. For example, if that is the only Toon with High Dive while everyone is low Laff, they should still continue to use that. The ideal scenario would involve the person with Viral Sensation to use a high accuracy Gag such as Zap, Trap, or to use Throw on a Lured Cog.

If using Counterfeits, do note that both cooldowns AND Forged Gags will be wiped going into Phase 2. This means setting up Forges at the end of Phase 1 in preparation for Phase 2 is not possible, instead they would need to be used preemptively to save the original Gag.

**Phase 2:**
The biggest hurdle of Phase 2 is the Superstar Mr. Hollywoods. You'll want the 3 partnered Toons to deal with their Hollywood partner as soon as possible, with Dave's partner on support. Remember that they cycle their additional cheat every turn, meaning you may have to switch up your strategy unexpectedly. Trap is very strong against the Hollywoods, it's recommended to use your TNT against them if possible. If Lure Immune, Drop can also be effective. If a Hollywood has Focused Defense, you could have one fellow Toon break the shield through either Squirt or Sound (recommended if others have Soak Resistance) then following up with Drop. Zapping the Hollywoods isn't great but may have some niche uses. It shouldn't be used for its group damage, assuming the Toon is partnered, as the jump damage is extremely minimal. It is however decent single target damage, and can be used to wipe Soak off of the partners, preventing a case where they could roll into Soak Resistance while Soaked (although Zap cannot remove Soak Resistance on the same turn). If partnered, Lure should only be used for stunning and setting up Traps, as the damage debuff will make its knockback near useless.

Once a Toon has defeated a Hollywood, they should aid the other Toons in finishing off theirs as well. Remember that the Major Player will cycle his partner status between the available Toons. If not partnered with the Major Player, aid the other Toons through the use of damaging Gags (Lure for knockback, Throw, Drop, or Zap), and if partnered with the Major Player, support the Toons through other means (Toon-Up, Lure for stun/Trap, Squirt, removing Focused Defense).

Once all Hollywoods are defeated, focus your attention on healing, crowd control, and damaging the Major Player. The damage increase from defeating Stars should make easy work of any additional Cogs, as usual Squirt/Zap is very effective for this. Your team can decide how much they'd rather focus on crowd control or damaging the Major Player. In most cases Major Player can be quickly defeated using Lure with Prestige Throw due to the sustain provided by the latter. However, in some cases you might want to defeat the stars if their damage grows too high.

The last obstacle you should keep in mind is the Major Player's match game. Once he falls below half health (2222), he'll use this cheat at the start of the next round, before Toons get a chance to attack. Given the absurd amount of notes required to complete this (hitting at least 15 notes is required to reduce the damage taken), Toons will most likely be taking the full 32 damage. Because of this, it may be useful to use a High-Dive or Juggling Cubes in the same round. Most importantly, take note of each teammate's health. If they're 32 Laff or below and are going to take full punishment damage, a Unite will be required to save them, and if you use it on the turn that Toon will skip their attack, so you will have to use the Unite either on the previous turn or on the Gag selection screen. If you're looking for methods to try and mitigate damage from this cheat, using a notepad and marking down the arrows as he goes along can be useful.

## Loot

* Major Player Sticker
* Saxophone

* Solemn Rose

Major Player StickerSaxophoneSolemn Rose

* 38 Gumballs
* 425 Jellybeans
* 2300 Toon Experience

## Music

 Elevator Theme (Unused)
 Opening Cutscene Theme
 Phase 1 Theme
 Phase 2 Theme
 Ending Cutscene Theme
 Victory Theme

## Version History

v1.4.4 BETA
* The Major Player added brighter spotlights to the show!
	+ Dance Partners occurs every 5 rounds instead of 4.
	+ Toon Star Boost: +10 -> +15 per defeat
	+ Only one Lure immune Cog may be on the field at any given time
	+ Viral Sensation damage boost: +40 -> +60
	+ Flat Damage Down value: -30 -> -50
	+ Cogs attacking via the Guest Verse ability will now have 90% accuracy for single target attacks and 80% accuracy for group target attacks.
	+ Star of the Show Starting Damage (Phase 2 only): +15 -> +20

v1.4.0 BETA
* "Major Player is now switching up his show routine."
* The Major Player's attack damage values have been decreased by roughly 50%.
	+ Hot Air: 33 -> 16
	+ Re-Arrange: 37 -> 18
	+ Song and Dance: 30 -> 15
	+ Quake: 30 -> 15
* Rising Stars have had their damage values adjusted in both phases. The Rising Star Toon damage boost has also been increased.
	+ Phase 1: +10 damage (+2 per round) -> +30 damage (+5 per round)
	+ Phase 2: +10 damage (+2 per round) -> +15 damage (+5 per round)
	+ Toon Rising Star Bonus: +5 damage per defeat -> +10 damage per defeat
* Likewise, the Superstars have had their damage ramp-up increased.
	+ Superstar: +10 damage (+2 per round) -> +10 damage (+5 per round)
* All Dance Partners and Rising Stars come with an additional cheat. These cheats can be one of the following:
	+ Lure Resistance
	+ Soak Resistance
	+ Damage Reduction
	+ Focused Defense
	+ Siphon
* In Phase 2, Superstars and Rising Stars will cycle through one of the five cheats every round.
* The Major Player has gained a new cheat: Guest Verse!
* Toons hit by a Guest Verse attack will gain a new status effect: Viral Sensation.

v1.3.0.11 BETA
* Fixed a district reset related to Major Player.

v1.3.0.6 BETA
* Dave's found his tip-top tappin' shoes and is ready to tap the night away!
	+ Last Tap's initial boost now starts at +10 damage, from +5.
* Fixed an oversight that would cause the Major Player's defeat count to go up by 2 each time the instance was completed.
	+ This bug doubled the opportunity to get one of the Major Player's drops.
* Fixed some clean-up issues in the Major Player's instance.

v1.3.0.4 BETA
* Poor performance will now result in a harsher punishment.
	+ Rockin' In Rhythm's maximum damage is 32, from 24.

v1.3.0.1 BETA
(Note: These patch notes aren't actually real, they were put in as a joke due to how nobody fought the Major Player at the time of this version's release)

* Fixed some transparency issues with the GIANT DOO-DRAGON ATTACK!!!!
* Also fixed... actually, nevermind. Too spoiler-y.
* Added a second phase.
* Removed the ant swarm.
* Fixed an issue where the Record Scratch attack would only hit 4 Toons.
* Disco balls now properly absorb 33% of all aerial damage.
	+ No more elemental blasts!
* Minor text fixes.
* Reverted true name to Dave BruBot.
* One of the above changes are real.
	+ The above statement is false.
		- The above statement is false.

v1.3.0 BETA
* The off-key crashing of cymbals can be heard from an all new music hall on Tenor Terrace.
	+ The Major Player was added to the game.

Undocumented Changes
* The +10 damage boost from Last Tap, as a result of v1.3.0.6., has been reverted back to 5 damage.

## Trivia

* The Major Player's real name is a reference to Dave Brubeck, an American jazz pianist and composer.
* When viewing the Major Player's profile on cogs.ink, his ID comes up as 00$200 as it is intended to be a hint towards the Treekiller's password.
* On the cogs.ink website, the Major Player's username is "brubotdave" and his password is "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
	+ The password was revealed by standing in "Syncopation Corporation" in Tenor Terrace long enough to collect some note sheets and then auditing them by some 2D props in the playground. Doing this would give the player the password to a text file located within the game's phase files which contained the Major Player's password. The username was revealed through prior knowledge of the Major Player's real name.
	+ This password is also the Youtube video ID for the music video of the song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley.
		- He can be seen doing one of the dance moves from said song as his neutral animation.
* All of the Cogs summoned in this fight have both white gloves and a shining emblem. They are only removed in the first phase when the Major Player explodes.
* The Major Player is the only Regional Manager shown to explode, compared to the other ones that have theirs unused.
* The Major Player is credited as a composer for some of the songs found throughout the game, including the Cog Building themes and themes found within his main location.
* In a blog post discussing the new Cog Building music, Major Player reveals that some Cashbots call him a "monster". He says this is because his work on the Cashbot building's music was so incredible.
	+ In the same post, Major Player also reveals that he has eaten 20,000 cogbucks in quarters, which he claims has nothing to do with his previously stated nickname.
* The Major Player was the first of the 16 Managers revealed for the Hires and Heroes update, in both appearance and design.
	+ The latter was revealed in a Q&A Twitch stream with Smirky and the Corporate Clash Crew.
* The Major Player's 999 damage punishment for failing the rhythm minigame is perhaps the strongest Cog attack in existence due to how quickly it can deal such damage.
* While it is unrealistic to reach this point, should the Major Player attempt to summon a 49th audience member with his Star of the Show cheat, the game will crash.
* The Major Player's voice clips were made by converting the normal Cog voice clips to a piano MIDI.
* When phase 2 begins, the Toons and the Major Player swap places. The Toons are now standing facing the audience, while the Major Player faces away.
* Attempting to access this Manager's fight without the requirements will result in the following message: "You hear swing music blasting through the elevator, but the show isn't until tonight."
* The Major Player originally only referred to the player with the nickname "Baby Blue", both in his own cutscenes and the one before High Roller's fight, until version v1.4.0. In this update he gained a new line of dialogue which uses the term in reference to one of the Cogs on stage.
	+ This is due to his writer changing between the MAYpril Toons 2023 event and v1.4.0's release.
* A major player is a very involved or important person in an activity or organization.

## Gallery

* Official Artwork
* Screenshots/Misc. Images
* Renders

Official art of the Major Player from the Hires & Heroes key artThe Major Player on an album cover in the Pacesetter's room

Medley MonstrosityThe Major Player's profile picture on cogs.inkThe Major Player's SilhouetteThe Major Player shown dancingThe in-game popup announcing the first Toons to defeat the Major PlayerA Valentoon's Day card from the Major PlayerThe Major Player featured in a teaser for the 2023 Summer UpdateImages from the opening scene of the Major Player's fightThe Major Player using his Guest Verse cheat on a ConveyancerThe Major Player returning for Phase 2The Major Player and his Mr. HollywoodsThe Major Player winking at the end of his fightThe Major Player reaching out to a Toon at the end of his fightThe rose left behind at the end of the Major Player's fightThe 24 notes attack being beaten by a community member named PippyGroup taking -999 for missing all inputs during Match GameThe login screen shown during MAYpril Toons 2023 featuring the Major PlayerThe Major Player and the Duck Shuffler being introduced in the High Roller's fightThe Major Player about to transform during the High Roller's fightThe Major Player in the High Roller's audience despite being on stageClose up of the Major Player

The Major Player's neutral animationThe Major Player's death animationRenders of the Major PlayerThe Major Player with colored Silhouette's that inspired the High Roller