R3M5 Quality Delibs

Judge Agatha (Logic)

This is a gauntlet race match with a few more steps lest it become a question of who rockets off ahead. While leaving first is a primary objective, the emphasis on leaving in one piece and on interference provides texture to the match, requiring robust management of the stage hazards and each other.

IMPACT displays their usual Technical/Creative prowess, terraforming the stage and enumerating tech to form the foundation of Dawn’s offense, defense, and utility as she maneuvers through the stage—which lends itself to Competency as well. While I might ask whether the floor paneling is necessarily 2x2 (a map square isn’t necessarily a tile square), the opening is well organized and well met.

From there, the strat develops these initial techs to manage particular situations, be it grappling animatronics while bounding down the hall. As a quick Formatting point, the modular interference against Helena deserves particular note as an iteration of Dawn’s R1 strat—not to say IMPACT hasn’t used such modularity elsewhere, but the two points of Dawn’s run act as milestones of the team’s improvement.

From there, I don’t have much to say from a delib standpoint: the management of the stage hazards and Helena is robust (Planning/Competency/Logistics/Counterplay) and any losses due to time spent rebuilding resources is more than recouped by the cumulative design of the tech. I think an [8] on balance is well earned.

LSM’s strategy coheres, adequately addressing each axis of the objective and the stage hazards. (Planning/Competency/Logistics) I don’t find myself with much to say, as while they may not build on themselves to arise to higher orders of interaction or account for interaction effects from match elements (Counterplay/Logistics), each individual tactic addresses each concern as it comes up. Of note is the Elegance of the strat despite the various bespoke elements--matches are designed with 20k as the expected strat length, after all.

Helena’s (and Dawn’s!) narrative is worthy of comment, especially given my emphasis on “mechanical salience of narrative.” Both strats present an arc with respect to the character’s mindset, but arcs don’t uniquely intersect with the gameplay actions—somewhat happening in parallel to them. They certainly help both team’s scores, but don’t drive my conclusions. With respect to LSM, adequate performance in all the axes earns this a strong [7].

Judge Malak (Archerous)

We’ve got a fun, not-at-all-life-threatening race on our hands. In the first corner we have murder aficionado, Helena Beats from the Lotus Street Manifold. In the second, we have park ranger Dawn Hu from IMPACT! This track is admittedly quite perilous, but both teams brought their running shoes. How do their running strategies hold up?

Helena starts with a rush, both to attack the animatronics with Cemetery Drive and to boost herself with the biomass gained from these attacks. She comes out the gate firing in an aggressive bid to out-pace Dawn. From there, Helena uses her limbs to platform over difficult, dense terrain filled with animatronics and beetles, using this combination of tools to increase her mobility throughout the race, making her hard to stop once she’s started. In terms of Speed, It’s a solid strategy, but we’re looking into two other distinctive categories for this trial. How does she do?

For Integrity, I think Helena makes a proper effort to ensure she takes as little damage as she can. She’s constantly looking out for Dawn and any traps she might be setting up, but vigilance alone isn’t enough to protect yourself. That’s why she also picks up scraps of metal to act as makeshift armor under her clothes, to protect her that much more. I do have some questions about the viability of splint armor that isn’t at least fastened, but I do note it as a creative use of the environment all the same. In terms of integrity, I’d argue Helena is coming out with very little more than some bruising from the metal.

In terms of Interference, I find this strategy to be a little lacking. What it does do is effective, certainly. Attacking Dawn’s beetles when given the opportunity is a good form of resource denial, and creating limb traps are quite effective in stalling an opponent, but I feel like more attention to Dawn’s own mobile potential would have been preferred.

All this being said, I’m going to give this strategy a 7! Despite a few nitpicky areas, I think it gets Helena from point A to B in a very efficient manner. Well done!

Moving onto Dawn, she opens with a barricade setup to immediately slow down Helena (while potentially throwing her in the way of deadly animatronics. She then equips herself with bumpers to increase her mobility and defense. Then, once she has her rope set up, Dawn slings herself throughout the match, keeping pace with her beetles and yanking the ones that can’t keep up. Dawn plays cautiously, setting up bumpers around pillars, clearing out paths for her to land, but its worth it once she sets her machine into motion, with her in it. Much like Helena, once she gets her mobility going, its hard to stop her, which bodes well in a race of Speed. Unfortunately for Helena, this setup allows for more than pure speed.

Dawn has quite a defensive strategy despite all the movement she’s doing. Equipping herself with bumper hats to headbutt problems away, springing away from danger that she can’t, and even carrying a few beetles on her person for support. She is prepared to avoid conflict at any costs, even going so far as to fling that conflict over to her opponent, which is a good way to segway into her Interference plays. I talk about both Integrity and Interference in the same section because they’re kind of interwoven (an argument can be made for Speed and Interference as well). Using her pinball prowess, Dawn is able to both slow down Helena, as well as pull danger into her way, keeping Cemetery Drive busy. She even makes sure to keep resources from Helena by not killing the animatronics, a small gesture, but one that could pay off given the rest of her setup. Add her offensive ball bearing attacks towards Cemetery Drive’s gravestone, and Helena is most certainly getting debilitated by Dawn’s efforts.

With all that said, I’m going to give this strategy an 8! I think Dawn is able to achieve all three merits remarkably well with this strategy, with the added bonus of being able to weave these aspects almost seamlessly together. Well done!

Judge Bierce (CPU)

Starting with LSM, I think this is a solid overall showing for Helena! Everything does what it needs to do and is well adapted to the situation at hand; knowing when to rely on speed boosts, and when to make use of the skeletal limbs for platforms was a little note I very much appreciated. Your interference is again well adapted for who you're fighting, and there's very little wasted space in the strategy. Everything is trim and well paced, which I think deserves a lot of props, and the narrative is well told as well!

This is a strategy that does absolutely nothing wrong, does a lot right, and does so in a svelte package. I don't have all that much to say about it besides “good job”. While I might be mean and give this a 7 because there wasn't quite the higher order engagement I'd have liked to see, fundamentally this is so eminently solid I can't help but give it an 8/10, and I'd recommend that people read this carefully for a tightly done quality strategy.

As for IMPACT, again I was very impressed. Your strategy is longer, and has to work to justify that length. Fortunately, I think you do very handily. Again, this strategy is tightly written; nothing feels out of place or extraneous. You start out really strong with good use of your Stand units and a strong suite of options to knock around Helena and keep you safe while you set up.

The Barrier setup is really well done to keep Helena off her game while Dawn gets her few key materials set. From Herr is a masterclass of integration and detail, with Dawn knowing how exactly to use everything around her, what she can spare to threaten Helena with, what she can use to protect herself, and a bevy of well used tech perfectly suited to your situation. It's a strategy that skates just on the edge of overextension and holds itself back from that point expertly. I read over Dawn's sheet very carefully trying to catch you on any overestimating of your user Skills or Precision, and everything coheres.

Back in Round 1 I gave you an 8, and I see an immense amount of growth here. This is a really expertly done strategy, and I'll give you a 9/10 here. Amazing work!