Metalympics 2022 was concluded a couple of weeks ago and two winners were crowned for both the Metalympics League and Metalympics Cup!

Jinjer fans’ team “Wallflowers” and MoonSun fans’ team “Constellations” emerged victorious from the league and cup competitions respectively. And as soon as Metalympics with its new name and format was concluded, it was clear that we have to keep the name and kick the new format out of the window. Even though the new format had a big advantage of keeping every team involved to the very end, it also had too many disadvantages that sucked the fun out of the game. Luckily, the introduction of the Plato Challenge and the Treasure Hunt balanced the fun factor. However, we will return to using the old format (group stages and knockout World Cup style) and ditch the new one next year. In other words, the new format is the new old format while the old format is the new new format.

Here are the standings and some statistics from Metalympics 2022!

Standings

The teams’ final standing was as follows:

Pos.TeamPoints
1Wallflowers266240
2Constellations220570
3Unicooooorns192220
4Bitter Pills109910
5Agonizers60120
6VoA Sailors51020
7Bulletproof32720
8Voices from the Graves10780
9The Butchers9650
10Ocean Souls6570
11Epic Fans5660
12TPR Rocks4790
13Halesquad1780
14Amaranthians1030
15Infected Souls840
16The Resistance840
17Nemesis380
18Diamonds230
19Coilers140
20Monsters20

The Metalympics Cup saw Constellations (MoonSun fans) win with a stunning performance from Benedetta, the team captain who is also a FemMetal editor. Constellations won the final against Unicoooorns who upset the League winners, Wallflowers to reach the final. The final result is below.

Statistics

Total number of quizzes played1,576
Total number of Plato games played100
Highest Quiz Score Sum42,370 by Benedetta B. (Constellations)
Highest Plato Score Sum30,000 by Eliana P. (Unicooooorns) and Vanessa K. (Wallflowers)
First to complete the Treasure Hunt QuestTiia A. (Wallflowers)
First to complete the Asshole Quiz QuestJessica P. (Agonizers)

Top 10 Players

The top 10 players were ranked by taking the total score of each player and multiplying it by a factor decided by the player’s main team finish in each of the Metalympics Cup and Metalympics League.

The Treasure Hunt

As usual, I made plenty of new friends during the Metalympics, especially with the Treasure Hunt. Here are some…

The Treasure Hunt was a set of clues, beginning with one provided on the quests page, and each leading to a page on FemMetal. Four teams managed to solve the Treasure Hunt and find the treasure. The keys will soon be removed from the pages. However, here is the solution to every clue in the Treasure Hunt! If you’re reading this article early enough, you probably can still follow the path of the treasure hunt!

Clue

Solution

Keeping the fact mentioned on the quests page that the clues are pages and articles on femmetal.rocks, “For every question an answer” refers to an interview. “Begins where it all begins” means the key is in the first interview. The first interview on FemMetal was with the French vocalist of ODC, Celia Do. And therefore the next key could be found in the interview with Celia Do.

A “house that can be called” is your house, and therefore, home. As it is built with no walls, it is not a real house. It is the homepage of the website. On the homepage, you need to look behind the “green curtain for when the magic and trees unfold”. This refers to the hall of fame page for FemMetal Awards 2021, entitled “The Enchanted Forest”. On the homepage, a slider advertising the page would reveal next to a page that says “Nothing to Look At Here”. Of course, you need to look at that page to find the next clue.

“Second” refers to the second line of the clue. It also has a second reference that will be needed later. “the door where all things end” refers to one of the four ads at the footer of the website – where the website ends. Then, you need to “Spot” the door, referring to the embed of the Spotify playlist. but, which one of the songs on the playlist? Again, you need a “second”. The second song would be “Back from the Dead” by Halestorm. Now you need to “look for when she spoke”, referring to the interview with Lzzy Hale, where you will find the next clue.

The “cleaver” and “knife” are tools of a butcher. Since the person of interest slaughters without them, we can deduce they are not a real butcher. This is a reference to the Butcher Babies. The next line reveals the identity of which of the two vocalists the clue is talking about – Heidi Shepherd – through the physical description of her “gold mien”. The clue is not done yet.
The “terrible lizard” refers to the dinosaur. Archie – The Metal dinosaur and alter-ego author of Releasesaurus is referred to here. “the day she was born he did speak” refers to a Releasesaurus article released on the birthdate of Heidi Shepherd, that is April 17th. So the next clue is found on the Releasesaurus from April 16th 2022.

“A story of who and why and what” refers to the About Us page on the website which explains what is FemMetal, the reason (why) behind it, and the team members (who).
“Folded leaf” is simply a reference to the word “page”.

“A beast from Surrey on four revolves” is a reference to the McLaren GT car (assembled in Surrey, England). “Fearless” is a reference to a song by the musician “she”. Kat Leon released a song called Fearless that was used in a McLaren GT ad. The path is revealed “when she talked” referring to the interview with Kat Leon, where the next clue is located.

“Appraisal” can tell we are talking about a review. “Visible glory although the title denies” is a reference to the band name that includes the word opposite to visible, invisible. “Chaos” is another reference to the title of the album. The clue points to the review of Invisible Control’s album “Created in Chaos”. invisible Control is fronted by Daniela Serafim.

“Cross 49” is the +49, the dialling code of Germany. “From the West, cross 49” refers to a band from the West of Germany. Another clue to who this band is is revealed in the second line “She Killed the Sun” capitalized pointing to a release by that band. German band Xandria’s debut album is called Kill the Sun. “A voice with which she was born anew” refers to the new vocalist of Xandria, Ambre Vourvahis. The key is in her “introduction”, which is her artist card feature on FemMetal.

The key in this clue is the first letter and last letter, which are actually the greek alpha and omega in their lower case. This is a reference to Epica’s album “Omega” whose first song is called Alpha and the last is called Omega. The album’s topic is also related to the words of the clue (uncertainty, all we know). On the recap article leading to the album, the M symbol would be found. When clicked the symbol will open an Instagram page of an account named “Magnum Thesaurus” which is Latin for “Big Treasure”. The page’s bio reads:
“You’re close, not quite there yet
There’s yet one path left for you
Embrace yourself for what’s ahead
Send a message for the final clue”

After sending a message, the player would receive the last clue.

“The hall” is a password-protected page on the website that can be opened when you say “Key” – that is the password.
On that page, you would find a door that when clicked leads to another page called “The End”, which is also password-protected. On the hall page, you can also find a “map” that is a grid of squares with some coloured differently.
The rest of the final clue will help you fill in these grids and find the page’s password.
“Seven across the path you took” refers to the 7 musicians that were key to solving the clues. In order of the clues, they would be Celia Do, Lzzy Hale, Heidi Shepherd, Kat Leon, Daniela Serafim, Ambre Vourvahis, and Simone Simons.
“But eight will make it to the final book,” the clue continues. Upon examination, you can find that the Magnum Thesaurus Instagram account follows 8 people, seven of which are the aforementioned musicians. The eighth is Alissa White-Gluz.
Now, “the time and place matters not” is stating that the order in which these musicians were found does not matter. Beneath the clue is 8 numbers. When you switch the order to follow that of the numbers you can fill the map to get the final result.

The shaded letters read “SHEISPOWERFUL” (She is Powerful) – that is the password to the final page which will give you the treasure certificate that would have won your team 100,000 points!

Metalympics 2023

What can you expect to see in Metalympics 2023?

As mentioned earlier, we will go back to the original World Cup-like format. So there will be groups with two winners from each that will compete in knockout rounds. The number of groups and teams in them has not been decided yet.

As the Plato challenge was a successful test, there will be more emphasis on using that app developed by Plato Team Inc. Similar quests to the Treasure Hunt and The Asshole Quiz can be expected plus the usual smaller quests that can help teams earn some easy and smart points.
Of course, trivia will always be the main factor of the games, however, the questions will be more fun to answer.

Finally, the most significant difference between Metalympics 2022 and Metalympics 2023 is that the latter will happen in 2023.

See you then!

Mirk Wood

I love good music and write about it sometimes.