JJBA OCT #8 R1M10 Quality Deliberations

Judge CleverRuse -

WIS:

The pirates waste absolutely no time in getting their scaling started for Timbur, Baquil playing pure assist for the opening while the captain focuses on staying safe while digging for that ring. There’s a strong argument here for reaching the higher end of Ween’s power budget in fairly short order, the efficiency of gathering everything worth anything on the beach is very solid, though outside of some food denial it does allow the enemy to also get away with whatever they aim to do as well. The focus is so strong on themselves that I think a bit more interference of their own might have been wise. Keeping their own scaling safe is quite well done: accounting for possible fish spawns with good positioning from Baquil, having Ween act as a wall for Timbur as he does his thing, and the backup Clock Spot all demonstrate pretty solid awareness this early on. Baquil could do a bit more to account for the enemy, however, largely relying on his raw speed and own clock scaling to keep him safe instead of dedicated defensive tech. Side-note, I love how Baquil goes about putting the haters in their place as he moves around the map (ESPECIALLY the shield), great character work on display with each of them.

Specific combat tech that’s listed is all quite solid and makes great use of both Ween’s abilities as well as TImbur’s own skills and bulk. Baquil, again, takes a back seat here; I would have really liked to see him incorporated more into the defensive consideration of the team as a whole. The strat as presented does a good job keeping Timbur safe from most potential outcomes, but still leaves Baquil in a nebulous ‘he moves fast and is suited, he’ll be fine’ state that leaves a lot to be desired. That being said, the big attacks on display use him and his abilities quite well. Layering a Clock Spot with Timbur’s own cannon is undoubtedly deadly and difficult to deal with, though I think the preparation of such a huge attack is a little handwaved. Forcing teleports is a very effective use of Baquil’s potential, turning a 2v2 into a 2v1 with how fast he can rejoin his teammate assuming he remains at full suit.

Overall, a pretty solid showing. Barring a few holes with regards to defense, specifically Baquil, the team demonstrates a solid grasp of both logistical map coverage and technical understanding when it comes to applying their given kits in effective but creative ways. The narrative is a little on the light side but is enough to connect everything in a satisfactory way while also giving some really fun windows into the characters. A solid Seven.

LIB:

Out of the gate, the girls move to change the arena to better suit their own specific strengths while aiming to deny the enemy some resources as they travel. It's a simple thing, but I like the recognition that they, too, can search for the wedding ring and aim to do so immediately in order to deny Timbur a healthy amount of coins, even going so far as to work it into the narrative of the match. Their other denial play is solid if not reading a little on the slow side, and when the enemy team has a speed build on deck this might make things a little difficult to justify. More importantly, it's surprising how little early game aggression is shown here seeing as the enemy team is a pair of scalers; choosing a slower game of setting up the battlefield and engaging late game is risky when the enemy will be much stronger by the time it's all done.

The setup presented is quite robust for how simple the work is to achieve it, terraforming the sand with Rock Lobster and making the grass slick by having Love destroying some water lines. This all serves to keep the enemy speed demon on his toes in any engagement going forward, as well as trip up the Captain should he dare do anything but turtle up in place. Identifying the importance of movement on the enemy side and countering this way is a great demonstration of team planning and technical understanding.

What the girls do once this is all set up, however, is where I think things fall pretty short. They have a great basis for bringing the pain to the enemy, but the offensives listed are a bit underwhelming for the most part, especially when dealing with the captain. The clocked-up Mets fan I think is handled adequately, aiming at his extremely important legs and feet instead of trying to strip away his entire armor set for a more focused effort. This, paired with Lobster’s natural disruption ability with its waves and the manipulated environment gives a fair argument for grounding him even if a lot of the details in how they engage are left a little vague. I should note that the anti-air Shrapnel play tows the line of what's possible with Love, as I find it difficult to believe 5 barracuda can fit in the stomach of one. Finger wag on that one.

Their offensive on the captain, however, I feel is quite lackluster. Given that they wait so long to engage with the scaler, deal with the speed demon first, and their own resource denial being a bit slow, it's safe to assume that he will be at full power by the time the girls engage. While a 2v1 can more than even out this disparity, I feel like Coco in particular is left on the sidelines more than she should. The disruptive waves from Lobster doubling as a vehicle for Love’s barracuda is a solid combo tech, but beyond that Coco’s primary role in everything is to… force a seasoned pirate to flinch using a water gun. With how much effort there was put into making the arena the perfect medium for Coco to use her Steady On skill, I was expecting her to be used a lot more once the gloves came off. Sarah does well enough with her own efforts, using the pipe spouts and Lobster to facilitate barracuda spawning from all directions, I think the plan would have been much more robust with more team interaction.

This is a tough call for me, because while the setup on display here is very well done it isn't followed through as well as it should have. Coupled with the fact that the offensive comes so late against a pair of scalers, I think the team more or less breaks even in terms of setting themselves up for a strong late game. I can believe that the generalized in-between combat does favor the girls, but more specific tech (especially teamwork attacks) could have sold that final bit of damage a lot better in my mind. It’s very close, but I think I have to settle on a high Six here instead of a seven.

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Judge DSOddish -

I’m going to start off with Written in Salt here. You guys took a divide and conquer approach to your team’s scaling right off the bat here, with Baqil bolting across the map to collect as many valuable treasures as he can for Timbur while the captain himself searches for the wedding ring, while also using Ween to go off and deny as many of the food resources to Sarah. At face value, this is all pretty smart and uses your action economy and raw speed to put yourselves in a strong position as quickly as possible. You also have some plans for how to pivot if your plans aren’t able to succeed to their fullest, like draining size from any food you can’t steal to reduce its caloric content and spending an excess coins you have built up if Ween is denied resources and can’t reach full size to buff your cannonballs instead. Having solid back ups is always a good thing.

From there, I think you guys take a good approach to combat once things really kick off. Separating Coco and Sarah to turn the fight into a 2v1 is obviously a solid way of going about things, and the way you go about achieving this with Baqil’s Clock Out is actually pretty clever. I’ll say that I think some of your heavier hitting attacks like the Full Mast and Mets-munition, in addition to having very limited ammo, are likely hard to pull off, I do think the individual combat plans you have are pretty solid. Keeping Sarah off balance with Ween’s cannonfire while embiggening Timbur’s axe to grant him a range advantage are both solid ways of making up for the skill difference between the two, and Baqil summoning a clock in the path of his fists to Clock Up while punching away barracudas is a good way of both taking out threats while also keeping his buffs active. At the same time, the Clock Volley is also a potent tactic, forcing Coco into a falling state where she can’t easily dodge attacks or defend herself with her Stand. In general, I think your combat is pretty solid throughout.

Where I think this strat’s issues begin to show is in the Logistics and defenses. Most of the strat’s length is dedicated to how you scale, which isn’t too bad, but when I think that scaling isn’t likely to be as effective or efficient as you make it out, and your defenses during that scaling are rough, that becomes a problem. First off, Timbur is left on his own for a good while as Ween goes for the food and Baqil is off stealing treasure. I understand that Ween is kept in between Timbur and LIB and intends to run interference if they make a move on him, but this still feels a little half baked to me. He gets some more things later like the human shield, and while this is a fun way to interact with Baqil’s 1 skill mission of ruining the Mets haters’ day, I’ll point out that even with 4 Strength, carrying around a limp human body is going to be incredibly unwieldy, will make it difficult for Timbur to carry anything else around, on top of being very in effective as a shield in general. If anything, I think this is a bigger hindrance to Timbur than it is a defensive measure. I’ll give you credit and say that the Clock Spot get out of jail card is pretty smart, with the caveat that it throws Timbur way out of position if he ends up using it, slowing down your own scaling, while also being vulnerable to being destroyed.

I think Baqil plays a little too cocky and risky in the face of enemy threats, too. He seems very confident that his clock armor will protect him from chip damage Love’s barracudas, and while A Durability is obviously incredibly strong, that can be whittled down with enough damage, and each individual barracuda has B Power bite force. While not quite at the level of A, that’s still going to be a major threat to your armor that I don’t think Baqil properly respects. Similarly, you kind of undersell how easy it will be to work against Rock Lobster’s currents at its higher stages. The currents are A/B *Power* in Boulder and Landmass Forms, not Speed, which means it’s going to be a lot harder for Baqil to just fight his way through with his low Power/Strength.

I’ll also note that I think you overestimate just how effective your early game resource gathering will be on Baqil’s part. In just his opening run, he intends to steal 14 bottles of alcohol from the bar, 2 wallets from rich people, and (ideally) half of the 8 paintings from the hotel, all in one go. I won’t bother commenting on the wallets since those are easy, but it is going to be very difficult for Baqil to carry around all of those bottles and paintings all at once. He puts the bottles in his bag, sure, but that still means his arms are fully occupied with the paintings (likely two in each hand). Consider how hard it would be just to move around while carrying all of that in real life, let alone at incredibly high speeds, and then factor in that even if Baqil did find a way to hold it all efficiently without sacrificing maneuverability, he still only has a paltry 2 Strength. What this comes out to is Baqil is either going to need to sacrifice some of the things he intends to carry (turning this into something that requires multiple trips, slowing you down), or heavily tax his own Endurance (which is also undesirable). You guys also run into some order of operations weirdness in some of your offensive/defensive measures here and there. For example, you cite Timbur being able to defend himself with a large shovel (which can’t happen until after Ween’s initial food run), or the human shield (which can’t happen until after Baqil’s initial trip around the map), or how the Crustacean Clash requires Ween to be in its smallest form (meaning it can *only* be used in the early game before it builds up resources, at which point Ween isn’t even near the Captain).

All in all, I think I’m going to give you guys a **6** here. I actually like your combat plans a lot, there’s some potentially devastating plays and good teamwork on display here. However, I just wish more attention had been paid towards making your set up phase beforehand a little more watertight, as I think there’s a fairly good shot you two end up taking much longer than you intended (potentially letting LIB reach their own endgame state before you guys), or taking unnecessary damage in the lead up to when you’re actually prepared for combat (which still grants an edge to LIB). I’ll note that I think this is a high 6, mind you, though a 6 nonetheless.

As for La Isla Bonita, I’ll comment that I think you guys do pretty well on keeping yourself safe while you set up. Sticking together means your resource gathering is going to naturally be a bit slower, but it also means you’re less likely to get caught off guard by your opponents. The repelling barrier generated by Rock Lobster’s currents in tandem with Love’s barracudas to jump out and smash any clocks lying around are both good plans to keep yourselves safe. I’ll also note that using the currents created by Rock Lobster as spawning grounds for barracudas is a really good display of team synergy to address one of the weaknesses of Sarah’s kit. Making the decision to focus on denying the wedding ring, the most valuable individual treasure on the map, as soon as possible is also a good play since it makes it more likely than not that you’ll find it first, stopping WIS from using it to power up Ween. What I think really is the most brilliant thing on display in your set up, however, is the pipe destruction. It allows you to really manipulate the terrain to your advantage in a way that’s hard for the enemy team to see coming, slowly turning the entire stage into an irrigated wetland that you can use to spawn barracudas, as well as make the ground slippery and hard to walk safely on. Given enough time, I definitely see this heavily shifting the match into your favor.

As for the rest of your strategy, it's all pretty decent. There’s some good enough plans for further resource denial (trashing the paintings, drinking the liquor, scattering the change in the fountain to make it harder to gather), and your combat plans are all solid enough. There’s some good target prioritization for Baqil by going to either destroy his helmet and expose his head or ripping the wheels off his skates to slow him down, and I like that you have separate plans for what kind of terrain you’ll have to fight him, be it on the ground or in the air. Your plans for fighting Timbur are a little thinner by comparison, but it again has some alright target prioritization like shooting his limbs to make it harder for him to wield his weapons while barracudas target his or his Stand’s legs. You intend to only fight him once it’s a 2v1, so I think I can buy the admittedly less developed tactics being likely to win out in the end once he no longer has Baqil around to back him up.

This isn’t perfect, though, and in addition to your combat not being as fleshed out in some areas as I would have liked, the biggest problem I have with your strat is how slow it all is. You spend a *lot* of time on scaling before you get ready to move into combat. Dedicating a full minute right at the start to tracking down the ring is good at denying WIS that one resource, but it also locks you down on one thing for quite a while, letting WIS do other bits of set up relatively uncontested. And that’s just the start of the setup. There’s still trips to the hotel, the bar, and the fountain to be done before you actually get around to fighting your opponents, leaving you in a place where I think your decision to work as one unit the whole time hurts more than it helps, as a bit of divide and conquer would have let you reach your ready state faster. As it stands, I think WIS are probably able to reach their ideal end state before you guys do. I’ll note that I do think your defenses are still pretty solid, and you do continually generate favorable terrain for yourselves in the case of an earlier confrontation than desired, so it’s not like you’re totally screwed in the long term here, but a little more urgency put towards reaching your endgame would have likely been for the best.

I’ve waffled back and forth on what I wanted to give you guys here, but ultimately, I think I’m content giving you guys a **7**, albeit a low one. If you do reach your end state with the burst pipes all over the field and Sarah stocked up on loads of calories to keep the barracudas constantly spawning, I’m confident you guys have a solid shot at coming out on top, but the long set up time it takes to reach there (as well as some weaker combat plans) holds me back from giving you anything higher. Beyond that one major issue, though, I think most of what you guys do is competent and well planned, so I think it justifies keeping you guys out of 6 territory.

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Judge AtomicPeace -


Written in Salt -

This strategy is a pretty straightforward gameplan for a couple of scalers, dedicating much of your early strat to how you zoom around the map, gathering your materials and trouncing Mets haters. I thought you did a fairly good job of prioritizing Ween’s scaling as well as having Baquil to play both interference and scaling denial on your opponents.

I think while your prioritization on scaling from early on is sound, I think your plan for how you went about it was lacking at points. I found the amount to which Baqil and Timbur separated during the scaling left them in danger of getting isolated, and while they are both formidable enough to hold their own, it’s still a definite danger in a 2v2 scenario. While I think you do dedicate a fair bit of the strategy to Timbur’s defense during this, it feels like you overestimate the effectiveness of certain elements, such as the human shield, as well as underestimating the offensive capabilities of your opponents.

When it comes to the actual meat of your offense, I thought it was a bit stronger. You have a lot of cool plays in the final section, and overall Timbur and Baqil work quite well together as a duo in combat. Unfortunately, I feel like it’s hampered a bit by the logistics of how you get there making it feel like it won’t really pan out to its full potential.

I’m going to give this a 6/10. Solid offense and understanding of your capabilities, but needed better tactics in the scaling phase to ensure both of your safety.

La Isla Bonita -

I think right off the bat you two do a pretty good job putting early game pressure on your opponents, with an early focus on resource denial and arena control. While there are no crazy rushdowns or anything, you do try to nip some of their scaling in the bud and put out some great terrain manipulation.

Offensively, while I do think you lay out some pretty comprehensive plans for taking care of Baquil, your plans for Timbur are comparably lackluster and rely on some pretty major assumptions that you’ll take out Baquil first. While target prioritization is all well and good, I would have liked to see much more versatility and adaptability in how you approach the targets, both individually and as a duo. Combined with how much time you spend earlier in the strat on resource denial and your own scaling, I find it hard to believe you’ll be able to pick them off as reliably as you want to.

I think you set yourself up for success early on but don’t capitalize on it as much as you could, spending too long in the midgame on further resource denial and attempted scaling, and not enough of it on active interference with your opponent. Overall, I think this works out as a 6/10 as well.