JJOCT7 R2M15 Quality

Judge Punisher (Ceep)

Starting with Cause for Concern, this is a really delightful strategy. While it’s linear enough in terms of what you do-- Kid going off into Moony doing spookyshit once she has the space and setup. The strategy is solidly built within doing that framework well, with Moony playing around the chaos that Kid (and presumably Evergreen) causes, hammering home control on the edges of the map while Kid handles the center of it.

I think that the interplay between these two strategies really do feed into each other very well. If Kid weren’t causing as much chaos as possible and gathering aggro, Moony wouldn't be as open herself, while without Moony’s actions Kid would run out of steam with the things he could physically get done.

As a sidenote, there’s a lot of great soft counterplay in this strategy-- going for infection on Ouroboros’ gun, the swampy ground messing with their opponents’ use of cars, and other small things. Most of all, however, is the sheer fact that by getting so much pressure on the opponents by knocking out Vigilantes relatively quickly, it puts a clock on Evergreens’ slower team to get things going quickly.

I don’t have a lot to say about the strategy besides describing it. While Kid may have benefitted from having more put into his personal defense, I think that his constant motion gives him some slight protection against being surrounded and picked off before he can do all he needs to do, and having some support from Moony by the time he runs out of stamina is also huge for him. Overall, I think a solid 8 is worthwhile.

For Evergreen, this is a strategy that plays more slowly, leveraging sheer charisma and force of will to set up an overwhelming endgame. I think if Ouroboros is left to cook, his and Honeydew’s choice to lie low pays off with an utterly explosive mid and endgame, and that leaves him basically unstoppable.

As for Ouroboros, I feel that his setup is very solidly done. I don’t think that he ever overreaches with his personal charisma, and everything he does is ‘reasonable’ within the bounds of supernatural charm. His style of buildup I feel works well for the match. Honeydew does a solid enough job at building his big plays up, and again his endgame is monstrous.

One of the weakness for going for a ‘scaling’ strategy is the what-if of some sort of aggressive rushdown, cutting you off at the knees before you can ever get to that point. I feel that despite Ouroboros’ solid utilization, Honeydew felt like almost a supporting cast member in the strategy. Don’t get me wrong, she isn’t used poorly at all and I’m very happy the strategy didn’t overstep on her action economy, but I feel a bit more emphasis on her actions could have helped in midgame.

I think that a bit more preparation around how the vigilantes were handled were necessary for this strategy. If CFC were to hard focus dealing with them, you could be absolutely blown out by the match ending before Ouro can get to his endgame. Choosing to go under the radar early was an obviously calculated choice, but some more support, even assisting or distracting them if needed would go a long way to making sure that you get the time to actually reach where you want to be.

Ultimately, I’m thinking a high 7/10 for this strategy. While extremely strong if it gets going, I feel that alongside the potential blowout issue of the match ending early keeps it from being quite up to an 8. Still, this is great work!

Judge Kickass (Flame)

Tonight’s match is a fun one: an ‘evil’ performance match, with players aiming to control the most territory by the end of a 1 hour period, while contending with unlimited gang works and 10 vigilantes including the surprise 44444 user stat NPC.

Starting with the Evergreen duo, their approach is to and gather supporters, with Ouroboros using his Charisma to convince gangs to get his protection and have Honeydew kill members of those who do not join up, before this ramps up and up into a crusade as they use CFC as a target that Ouro will protect them from. They also make sure to avoid the vigilantes for the beginnings of the match so they can scale up support and have Honeydew damage buildings to be ready to collapse - which they do in order to crush both Vigilantes and CfC alike primarily to kill the former and to bring cover to their last spectacle: claiming that it was Kid who was the killer of Paris and decorating the area to fit that claim.

The strategy as a whole is filled with a great Narrative, usage of their characters’ strengths [Technical Usage], as well as Counterplay for if CFC decide to run interference or when Kid’s swamps become an issue. A solid strategy, although there is one area I am unsure if what is written works as intended: primarily, how much Honeydew has to move around during the first parts of the match—not only is she and her E SPD Stand having to keep up with Ouro, but she also has to destablise the surrounding buildings and then also jump select targets to pressure the rest to join.

Moving onto CFC, who go in the opposite direction of prioritising that they are feared. Kid runs off to act as a distraction for most of the Vigilantes by beating up the first one he sees and then going on the run causing as much chaos as he can while trying to protect himself with a car shield. After some consideration I don’t think that this goes against his First Round Warrior stat (especially since each threat is approached and brutalized), although I am somewhat unsure of using the 1 End character as bait - that said I don’t think it's a major issue, and likewise is the only concern I have with this strategy. As for Moony, she goes straight into spooky mode, scaring off all the customers in the shops as she gathers supplies to infect either for use as puppets (such as stolen mobile phones to use as scouts and spray cans to mock their opponents) or to be assimilated into Act 2 (such as knives and tools). She then terrifies the occupants of one of the apartment buildings, where she hopes to meet up with Kid so they can together take down and trap the vigilantes chasing him.

This they hope will bring out the “Big Guy” (who judges have begun calling The Decimator), who Kid goes out to tear apart and flood a warehouse to attract the remaining vigilantes. Moony then intends to follow them, infecting their equipment and then through that, them. While Kid handles with the smallfry Moony hounds the Decimator into a corner and rushes him, infecting him with a couple of puppets before going in with Act 2. The duo then terrorize the rest of the area as they move into their finale: tossing one Vigilante stored away onto some powerlines to electrocute as a last show of control.

Both strats were really good! Again, I only found one issue in either of them: however, after some consideration I have come to the conclusion that these barely affect the strategies if at all, and while I do consider Evergreen’s to be a bigger misstep I have decided that both teams will be getting an **8**. This was a fun match to read and both strategies really work well both for the match and surprisingly each other.

Judge Crow (Yuri)

Hi! Judge Yuri here! This is one of those matches where any potential bias in delibbing I could have gets canceled out - I love pretty much every character in this match to bits. I had a feeling this’d be a highlight of the round (if not the tournament), and I sure do like being proved right. Let’s get into the strats!

Starting with CFC since it’s the first one I saw. Your opening stuff is pretty solid, and I don’t really question any of it - but I do like your commitment to stated positioning. It’s a recurring pattern throughout the strategy that we’re never not aware of where CFC are at any given point.

Honestly I don’t really have a lot to say about the micro here. This is a very broad strokes match, so it makes sense to talk about the strat in the broad strokes. It’s quite good! Both characters and their skill sets are utilized well, and there’s a real sense of care put into planning everything out in terms of movement and coordination. It’s a focused, well made strategy. Nothing that blew my brain out of my ass (mechanically, at least, more on that later), but it reads like a breeze, and it all checks out - an **8** for you!

Onto Evergreen! I do always like mundane plays that seem relatively obvious in hindsight but can wind up being a complete game changer, and just putting Ouroboros in a car is one of those plays. It’s a simple thing anybody could do, but not many would think to pull, and it makes a lot of this strat a lot more buyable.

I’ll take a similar broad strokes approach here. I think there are things in this strat that could be reasoned as stretches, but they didn’t wind up grokking that way to me. Sure, even with a four skill in charisma, it might seem a bit difficult to believe Ouro could get this much of a following in such a short time. But the use of his immortality to intimidate people into following him because “who knows what else he could do” is a clever move that instantly made it more believable. Combine that with the clever shows of force through Honeydew throughout the strat, and yeah I buy it. He could pull that shit off.

Similarly, I’ve seen concerns about Honeydew’s movement, but the mentions of her slingshotting around using her Stand’s high power make me less worried about that. Stand power is used well here in general. While I think Honeydew probably could’ve done a bit more, I also wasn’t disappointed with what she did end up doing, and it fits for her to be a shadowy stagehand rather than a mainstage player.

This strat reads like a breeze and is wonderfully entertaining, and I think it plays its cards pretty damn well, presenting a fairly absurd plan and making damn sure it winds up working out in the end. It’s something Evergreen has done great with in the past, and it does them good here, too. You get an **8**!