JJBA OCT #8 R1M2 Quality Deliberations

Judge Sloop (Mario)

Ah, Round 1 Match 2 - the traditional newcomer objective match! In a way, the players won’t be the only newcomers here, as this marks my first delib as a mainline judge! And boy, what a match for me to delib - Avery and Jack are both two very promising characters, and their players pulled out all the stops to make this simple boat into something really special! Let’s not waste any more time and dive right into it!

Starting with Avery, there is a clear focus throughout this strategy of making sure Avery is prepared for whatever Jack may throw at him and cutting him off at the pass. Techniques like Battle Mode and targeting Jack’s slingshot with Strikethroughs show a clear prioritization of limiting Jack’s options, and interference options like the Media Push, Media Angle, and Fly off the Presses put solid pressure on Jack - crucially, these techniques aren’t done haphazardly, as good emphasis is placed on focusing attacks during turns, where such interference will have a heightened effect as opposed to the more defensive tactics used on straightaways.

That said, there were a few techniques and gameplans that I found myself raising an eyebrow at for one reason or another. The “Italicized Underlines” as defensive shields are quite good in theory, but given the requirement for underlines to be below the object they target, I find myself wondering whether they could actually be placed in useful defensive positions in practice. Similarly, the Jigglewiggle is a fun “get off me” tech in theory, but with HLN needing to use a new arrow to re-apply an effect and its firing rate of D, I worry the “rapid back and forth” suggested may be a fair bit less rapid than desired. Additionally, Courses 2 and 3 have a tendency to use a lot of HLN effects at once, to such an extent I feel the stand would end up overtaxing itself if not operating too carefully.

Still, I find myself impressed by the general solid-ness of the majority of the plays on display here. The high points of Planning, Counterplay, and Creativity make this strategy an enjoyable read - with a bit more work, I could see this strategy earning a low 8, but right now, I feel comfortable giving out a high **7**. Good job!

Moving on to Jack, I can say right away that this is a very well thought out strategy! All throughout this strategy, there is very smart usage of the beans Jack has available to them - early plays in Course 1 and 2 that efficiently use Red and Stalk beans, Stalks and Beantween Blasts often used as multi-purpose tools to accomplish several goals at once, specifically waiting to use Spring Beans until Course 3 to limit Avery’s ability to adjust to them, and more. There are maybe a few moments where Avery and HLN’s abilities are underestimated, but for the most part, this is an eminently Competent, Creative, and well-written strategy that accounts for everything I would expect it to account for.

And then the Octopus showed up.

I will try not to beat you over the head about this, as the voters already did a pretty good job of that, but I simply can’t avoid talking about this play. In brief; there is no way this would work. Even if a bean could feasibly punch through the C-Dur octopus and directly into its stomach, I’m not convinced that would count as ingesting the bean (you don’t say a person has “ingested” a gunshot to the belly), and that’s assuming the newly made steed would even survive having a hole punched through it. I could go on, but you get my point. I will give you this; it’s a very creative play, and had you found a more convincing way to make it work, I’d be here singing its praises. But as-is, I find it unfeasibly difficult to buy.

This led me to a conundrum; is one dubious play enough to hold back an otherwise great strategy? Because make no mistake, Jack has an incredibly strong strategy overall - he manages his beans well, he pulls out inventive uses of bean stalks I’d never even considered, he carefully considers what his opponent can do and works to exploit their weaknesses where he can, and more that I’ll praise in the Jojolity section. I could easily see a world where I grade this strategy an 8 and move on with my day… but is it fair to do so where there is, to my eye, a glaring flaw right at the finish line?

Ultimately, I ended up deciding that if a play is major enough to have significant effort dedicated to it, then the believability of that play must be a fittingly major factor in the grade of the strategy as a whole - to rule otherwise would be to suggest that a major focus of a player’s time and effort is somehow not worth considering. Therefore, although I debated this decision for a long while, I’m going to give Jack the same grade I gave Avery - a high **7**. Octopus be damned, this is still an eminently solid strategy, and I hope to see more from Jack in the future!

Judge Schooner (Rocket)

Alrighty folks, we are out of the frying pan of M1 and into the slightly different and less experienced frying pan of M2. Both teams do an excellent job of making the most of complex, multi part kits in creative ways. In my opinion both strats score close to an 8 across most delib rubric categories. Up front the planning, readability, counterplay, elegance, creativity and narrative of both strategies leave me very impressed and with little to say. However, there are a few issues in each strategy that lead me to the conclusion that a solid 7/10 is fair for both in quality.

But I won't just bellyache in these individual sections, as there is more good to highlight than opportunities for improvement. Starting with Avery I think that his individual tech is, for the most part, airtight. I think you have a strong conception of both your strengths and your opponent’s weaknesses, and that showed in the practicality of your plays. Where I do think that you slip up a bit is in your macro management of resources and positioning at points in the match. While you are not sluggish, at points it feels like you are overstressing your resources a bit, and I can see it leading to gaps in your offense, defense, and general mobility at different points in the strategy. I think more carefully considering where and when tech is used and putting some characters into prioritization could have lessen this to a degree, and that considering what hits you are willing to take, or offensive opportunities you are willing to let go, could have allowed for the plays you do make to have higher impact across the strategy.

I also want to give some big props for your narrative throughout the strategy as well. While not as mechanically incorporated as your opponent, it was both charming and enjoyable and undeniably enhanced the quality of your work as a whole. With a little more focus on resource management and timing this could have scored higher, but as it is I think that you have put out something to be very proud of.

Moving onto Jack I think that we see a strategy with both higher highs, and a few lower lows for individual plays than Avery. I think your stronger consideration of the other competitors gives you a stark advantage over your opponent, and the way that you take relatively low resource techs and adjust them to varying situations is both elegant and efficient. While your macro is strong, I do think a few plays do stick out as a little shaky. I doubt I will be the only judge to bring up the kraken stomach shot as unlikely to be successful and an overestimation of your stand power. I also think that some of your plans about shooting beans into the water also won't play out as quickly as you would hope, and a few of your fart-based mobility plays feel like they might eat away at Jack’s endurance more than you seem to think. At this moment though, I will apply the same thought process in what I will call “The Arsenic precedent”.

In short, when a piece of tech is poorly conceived and is unlikely to work (even hilariously so, which does not apply in this case) if the rest of strategy is well conceived enough to cover both the time wasted and negative consequences of the move then it should not result in egregious loss of points. While some of your techs seem unlikely to work, the strength of the rest of your tech and some inbuilt redundancies means that I don't see it causing a big issue. There are enough slip ups to keep you from an 8, but with what I see here I think that we can expect great things from Jack and WiS going forward!

Judge Dinghy (Stream)

Avery

I think you did a great job of covering all your bases throughout the match, providing pretty comprehensive plans for both offense and defense, with consistent and repeatable techniques that are employed well in each race.

It felt like you provided a good balance between pressure and being attentive towards projectile defense in a way that, mostly, didn’t tend to overstep the bounds of your precision or speed. There are some places where I felt it might be pushing it a little bit in the worst case in the later races, but I felt like overall it seemed very manageable.

Tech like BATTLE MODE provide inexpensive but effective ways to mitigate and more proactively deal with Jack’s various effects, and I think your Underline ability was consistently the star of the show in terms of defense. Underline was also used in some pretty creative ways offensively that I didn’t expect!

In general, I felt you navigated the obstacles of the courses themselves fine as well. These went about as expected, and it didn’t feel like they posed too much difficulty for you. The octopus in race 3 is obviously the most dangerous of them; the JIGGLEWIGGLE seems like a solid response to you getting grabbed, and HLN provides plenty of defense in a more optimal scenario.

Overall, I felt this strategy had great fundamentals, nothing too flashy or over the top, but applied your ability in creative ways that showed a good understanding of your opponent’s capabilities and how best to navigate the map. 7/10!

Jack

Right out of the gate I think you have a lot of creative usages of your Stand. You use pretty much all your beans in tandem to provide yourself with some great boosts to your mobility, and solid defenses for your ship. We see these again a lot throughout the course of the match, and I think you continue to expand on them and adapt them really well to the changing conditions and threats of the later maps.

Much like I stated for Avery, I think this strat shows solid fundamentals, and a great understanding of both you and your opponent’s capabilities. You do a bit more to incorporate the NPC racers which I liked, and carry out a lot of good interference as well.

While I don’t really think the Octopus-Drawn carriage works as stated, I think I concur with my fellow judges that I don’t think it really sinks the quality of the rest of the strategy. It does bring it down a bit from the heights it could reach, but I do respect the audacity of the play and like the energy.

Overall, I’m also giving Jack a 7/10 here.