Just what does it take to be barely over 100 days old and finish in the top 3 on your Elimination team for attacks and 5th overall for total attacks for players under 365 days old? Money? Stats? Job points? Chugging energy drinks both in the game and in real life? Well keep reading to find out how I did it.
A few days into Eliminations 2026, I received a private message from a player who was 50 odd days old which actually ended up inspiring me to write this (I did submit as this an article, but Elims has been done to death in the Newspaper so submitting it here instead for karma purposes as it took me too long to write to not post).
At the time, I was sitting top of The Reptilians for total attacks, despite being only 110 days old and having less than 6 million total battle stats. He asked:
They were actually really good questions, because I think a lot of newer players look at Eliminations and assume there's a certain point you need to reach before you can properly contribute. Do you need hundreds of millions of battle stats? Billions? Do you need expensive armour? A huge bank balance? Years of Torn experience?
The timing of the message made me think about it even more, because there I was, barely over 100 days into Torn, massively under-statted compared with most of the people taking part, yet somehow sitting at the top of my team for attacks. So what was actually making the difference? It clearly wasn't battle stats.
By the end of the event I had dropped from 1st to 3rd in The Reptilians for total attacks (658), but I finished there at 122 days old, still with less than 6 million total battle stats, whilst I finished 5th overall for total attacks by players under 365 days old. The Reptilians also finished 4th overall.
So rather than just replying to the player privately, I thought I'd turn the answer into something potentially useful for every other newer player looking at Eliminations and wondering whether they're too weak, too new or too poor to make a difference.
I'm certainly not claiming to be some Eliminations expert after one event. But I do think I've learned enough to answer the question from a new player's point of view. And the first answer is probably the most important one.
There Is No Minimum Battle Stat Requirement
If you are waiting until you reach some arbitrary battle stat figure before deciding you're "ready" for Eliminations, stop waiting. You do not need to be a billion-stat player to contribute. Obviously, having better stats helps. Being able to survive longer helps. Being able to attack a wider range of targets helps. But stats are only one part of it.
Saved you all a stat spy
Eliminations is a mass-participation event, and there are plenty of ways a low-stat player can still be useful. You can hit other low-stat players. You can contribute to pushes. You can use Revitalize weapons to generate more attacks. You can stay active. You can follow orders. You can make sure that when your team desperately needs hits at a certain time, you're actually there to make them.
I went into Eliminations knowing full well that there were players who could probably sneeze in my direction and hospitalise me. That didn't matter. My aim wasn't to become unhittable. My aim was to make as many useful attacks as possible.
Your Team Matters More Than Your Personal Numbers
Before I go any further, it's worth talking about The Reptilians. I didn't want this article to just become a massive "look at me" post, because my own result only happened within the context of a team that repeatedly refused to die. The Reptilians eventually finished 4th overall, which considering some of the situations we found ourselves in was a pretty decent result. There were plenty of points where it looked like we were heading out.
We ended up in 2v4 and 2v3 situations, spent far too much time hovering around the bottom of the pile, and somehow kept finding a way to survive. That was 100% down to the absolute mad lizards in the team. There's an ancient Greek myth about a serpent - when you cut one head off, two grow back in its place. That was basically us. Every time someone thought we were dead, more Reptilians appeared and started swinging.
But for me, the thing that really stood out during the event was our pushing.
Pushes Keep You In Eliminations
Time after time we'd be sitting in a horrible position, the call would come in and suddenly hundreds of people would start throwing everything at the same target. Some of those final seconds were ridiculous with the red and green arrows dancing around the screen like a broken traffic signal. We managed to drag multiple teams underneath us at the last possible moment, and those pushes were absolutely crucial to our survival. Our push tactics were one of our biggest strengths.
We repeatedly survived situations where we were outnumbered and under pressure because people actually responded when the call came. So a massive shout-out has to go to the leadership team, the council members, momma bear KillerCareBear, and particularly the push leaders who spent what felt like their entire lives spamming chat with orders and trying to get everyone moving in the same direction. If you're a new player going into Eliminations, one of the best bits of advice I can give you is this:
Don't just make attacks. Make attacks that matter.
If you're throwing 25 energy into a random player at a random time while your team is screaming for hits against someone else, you're not helping nearly as much as you think you are. When the push comes, listen. Hit the target. Then hit them again, making sure to time it just right, and pray the Torn servers don't lag and screw you out of the one ticket that might matter.
Activity Is Your Biggest Weapon
If you're a low-stat player, activity is probably the biggest thing you can control.
You are going to get hospitalised. A lot. Accept it. Your objective is not to avoid being hit. Your objective is to make the absolute most of the time when you're not in hospital. Being active means you can pop out and immediately start attacking again. It means your natural energy bar is continuously regenerating instead of sitting full while you're offline. It means you aren't wasting hours of Xanax cooldown. It means you're there when push leaders suddenly start screaming for hits. It means you can react.
During Eliminations, I was probably online an unhealthy amount. Sleep became more of a suggestion than a requirement. Coffee became a strategic resource. But the numbers added up. You don't need massive battle stats to press the attack button more often than someone else.
"Jeeze - get a life already"
Desktop Is King
This might annoy the mobile players, but if you're a low-stat player trying to maximise your hits, I genuinely think desktop is the way to go.
Tabs are your friend. When you're being hospitalised constantly, speed matters. Having multiple targets already open means you can come out of hospital, immediately attack and potentially get several hits completed before you're put straight back in again. On mobile, you can spend valuable time navigating profiles, searching for targets and loading pages.
When you're weak compared with most of the competition, your time outside hospital will be measured in seconds rather than minutes. Use those seconds properly. For me, desktop made a massive difference.
Listen to Leadership — Even When You Question Them
This was probably one of the biggest lessons for me personally.
My ADHD went absolutely mental during Eliminations. I wasn't just looking at the leaderboard, I was psycho-analysing it. Tickets. Lives. Targets. Pushes. Other teams. Who was hitting who. Who was allied with who. What we should be doing next.
Pretty much every order that came out had me thinking: "Is this actually the right call?"
And yes, I was probably a little too vocal with my opinions at times. Sometimes leadership took notice. Sometimes they didn't. And that's fair enough. I was going into my first Eliminations at just over four months old, so I wasn't exactly bringing years of experience to the table. There were quite a few occasions where I'd PM leadership with an opinion or suggestion and then, shortly afterwards, an order would come out doing exactly that. I'm not suggesting everyone was sitting there going: "BullHitter has spoken. Quick, change the plan."
They'd almost certainly already reached the same conclusion themselves. But from my point of view, it was reassuring. It meant that although I had no previous Eliminations experience, I was beginning to understand the event and was generally thinking along the same lines as the people actually making the calls.
One of my MANY messages pestering The Reptilian leadership
I also wasn't privy to everything happening behind the scenes. That's important.
It's very easy to sit in chat staring at a leaderboard and question a decision when you aren't seeing the diplomacy, private conversations and planning happening away from the main team. So even if you think an order is wrong, follow it. A team of hundreds of people following one slightly imperfect plan is far more effective than hundreds of people independently doing what they personally think is best. If I do Eliminations again, I'll definitely be putting my name forward for something more involved, whether that's council or another role where I can contribute more to that side of things.
Equipment Can Make a Huge Difference
One of the questions in the original message to me (if you can remember it after getting this far) also asked what armour a new player should use.
The honest answer is: the best equipment you can reasonably get access to.
My faction was a massive help here. Access to good weapons and armour can make a huge difference, and my faction must have one of the best-stocked armouries any player of my age could realistically have access to. For most of Eliminations, I was using a 21% Revitalize MP40. Revitalize gives you a chance of having the energy from an attack returned. More returned energy means more attacks. Simple.
My MP40 didn't exactly love me back during Eliminations. Despite being 21% Revitalize, it only actually proc'd for me at around 14%. But even that made a significant difference. Every proc was effectively another attack I could make without spending another 25 energy.
I was also using some EOD armour. Before Eliminations, my faction leader had acquired a lovely new pair of EOD boots. Naturally, I offered to break them in for her. I couldn't have her getting blisters, could I? I wasn't actually expecting her to send them. She did, along with some EOD pants.
My crazy Elims 2026 Load Out
There is something incredibly funny about having around 20,000 defence and having a 100-billion-stat player hitting your feet with an explosive round only for the EOD armour to absorb it and show them a beautiful 0. I would have loved to have seen a few of their faces. And the pants gave me actual balls of steel too, as shown by the groin shot below:
So if your faction has good equipment available, make use of it. Speak to your armoury team. Ask what weapon bonuses will actually help you. For a newer player trying to maximise attacks, Revitalize is obviously incredibly useful. And decent armour might buy you those extra few seconds you need to get another hit in.
Money Helps — But You Don't Need to Be Rich
Torn is Torn. Money helps. There's no point pretending otherwise.
Energy drinks cost money. FHCs cost money. Xanax costs money. Good weapons cost money. Good armour costs money.
But there's a big difference between saying money helps and saying you need to be rich to compete. You don't. My displayed networth of $1.5bn is slightly misleading. Around $1 billion of it doesn't actually belong to me. It's faction collectibles sitting in my display case for the merit. That meant my actual personal networth during Eliminations was somewhere around $500 million.
The difference was that during Eliminations, I stopped caring quite as much about protecting every dollar. I wanted to contribute. So I spent money on cans. I spent money on FHCs. I used Xanax. Most of that spending ultimately came back to the same thing: More energy = more attacks.
I also received support along the way. Once people started noticing the effort I was putting in, I was sent cans and FHCs, and KillerCareBear also donated $50 million towards the cause. Every bit of that went straight back into attacks. So if you're a newer player and you've got some money available, don't be afraid to invest some of it into the event. Just don't bankrupt yourself trying to chase a leaderboard position.
Effort Gets Noticed
One of the reasons I was willing to invest so much into the event was because I knew effort could potentially be rewarded.
Sugarvalves gave out a considerable number of prizes after last year's Eliminations for things such as top hitters under 365 days old, top hitters within teams and the best-performing younger players. I knew that if I genuinely gave it everything, I'd potentially put myself in contention for some of those (and the latest Elims article confirms there's prizes for these categories again this year). I'll let you know if I receive anything after publicly calling him a tit. That might have been a tactical error.
Sugarvalves dusting the cobwebs off his wallet following Elims 2025 to dish out prizes to top hitters
But even without prizes, people notice effort. Your faction notices. Your team notices. Leadership notices. Other players notice. You don't need huge stats to build a reputation as someone who turns up and contributes.
So What Was My Biggest Lesson?
If I had to answer the question from the DM with just one thing, it would probably be this: Give a shit.
That sounds incredibly basic, but it's true. There will always be someone stronger than you. There will always be someone richer than you. There will always be someone with better weapons, better armour, more boosters and years more Torn experience. You can't control that.
You can control whether you're online. You can control whether your energy is being used. You can control whether you listen to orders. You can control whether you turn up for pushes. You can control whether you keep hitting when your team is sitting at the bottom and everyone else has already decided you're finished.
I didn't finish 3rd in The Reptilians for total attacks because I had incredible stats. I didn't do it because I had unlimited money. I didn't have job points. I didn't have Easter Eggs. I didn't have Halloween Basket treats. I just had a huge amount of determination, far too much coffee and a slightly unhealthy obsession with hitting people. And apparently that works.
TLDR; The Noob's Guide to Becoming a Top Hitter
Be active - The more you're online, the more opportunities you have to attack.
Keep your energy moving - Don't leave natural energy sitting capped and don't unnecessarily waste Xanax cooldown.
Use desktop if possible - Multiple tabs and quick access to targets can make a massive difference when your time outside hospital is limited.
Use the best equipment you can access - A Revitalize weapon can generate more attacks, while good armour can occasionally keep you alive long enough to squeeze another one in.
Listen to leadership - Question things privately if you want, but when an order comes out, follow it.
Turn up for pushes - Those are the attacks that can actually keep your team alive.
Spend what you can afford - Money helps, but you don't need billions. Don't bankrupt yourself.
Use your faction - Armouries, weapon loans, advice and support can massively increase what a newer player is capable of.
Don't be intimidated by massive battle stats - You're not there to beat every player individually. You're there to contribute to your team.
And most importantly: Give a shit.
