T4R1M21 Quality Delibs

The City That Never Sleeps:
Man, these open-ended matches are fun. They're hard to figure out how people should vote on and we still have some kinks to iron out in the matchmaking process, but they really give players the ability to flex their creative muscles in a fun way.

Punchghost in the Machine:
A short and simple strat here, but that's not inherently a bad thing, despite a point I bring up later! Where Take goes for variety and unpolished excitement, this is a more focused endeavor, setting up  to build to a single focused climax. Stealing the electronic billboards was a neat touch, but I take issue with you just blowing up a car. However, my fellow judges have ruled that with the right precautions (which I do believe you take), you won't be docked for it, and it certainly draws attention. And then you blow up Times Square, which I'm even more sus on, but once again I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for deleting the gasoline before too much significant damage is done and because it certainly is flashy. Finally, it's been questioned whether hacking the billboards as is done here is even possible, and I'll allow it so you can even have a strat, but with the caveat that it will take a while. Still, a few questionable plays, using at least a quarter of your time for setup (which would make a lot of people lose interest in the meantime), and playing a little too dangerously for my taste knocks you down to a 7/10.
Spider-Take, Spider-Take, chains like webs that spiders make:
For me, one of the big things I looked for in this match was variety and that's one area in particular that CFR excelled. You didn't just do one thing, but changed things up and kept doing new and interesting things, which I feel is pretty helpful in your goal of keeping as much attention from the audience as possible. Furthermore, the narrative style played to the entertainment objective very well. Between rap battles against someone who might or might not actually be Uro Sho, stopping muggings, and a climactic superhero battle against a chain monster, the excitement keeps on coming, not to mention all the fun rollerblade tricks involved in just getting from place to place. Bonus points for using your *weakness* skill to your advantage here, something you couldn't get away with in most other matches. In fact, I want to make it clear that in any other match you absolutely wouldn't be allowed to get away with anything like that. This slap on the wrist is the only thing keeping you from a ten, so Take a 9/10.

New Amsterdam:
Dokiro-Chan:

Starting with everyone's favorite malfunctional hard-light projected AI pop idol, I've got to say, there was more contention in this match than I was expecting. That said, your plan to duplicate the flash drives with you on it and insert it into the billboards to duplicate yourself onto them, as much as I liked it, doesn't seem like it's too viable to me. I've scoured for as much about digital billboards as I could find and, it just seems like there aren't any USB ports, let alone ones that are particularly accessible. I suppose you could somehow try to find the place they're controlled from (which I'm not sure how nearby they are), or try to somehow hijack the signal, but the latter part seems unlikely and either way it ends up being pretty time consuming. It doesn't sink your strat or anything, it's more of a ding if anything. Speaking of time consuming, you account for this part taking 30 minutes to an hour. We said we wouldn't penalize for setup for more complex performances, but honestly, you could've like... done something with this downtime that was entertaining. Spending an hour of a two hour match, possibly longer, on accessing not particularly easily accessible billboards without using that time for much other than that seems pretty egregious if I'm being honest.

Whereas I have been kind of critical at that point of the strategy, it mostly serves to announce your big show, and while some of the flashiness factor of the billboards might be taken out,  I imagine some people will attend via your verbal announcement, and the show will still go on, and that's definitely where the meat of your performance lies. I don't think your car explosion counts as an attack persay, but it is kind of dangerous, exploding a car in the middle of times square and all. That said, I suppose it certainly draws some attention,  and the concert you put on with free merch, pyrotechnics, and and a flashy finale is certainly entertaining.
All in all, I'm conflicted about this strategy. I think you had some good stuff here, but time is the main factor that gets me here, and a good portion of your strat either just isn't viable or just consumes too much time, and you only have 2 hours; I think there's a variety of things you could've done to pad out your rather long setup with more entertainment, and overall, I thought this strategy just could've used a little more meat on its bone. I'm going to have to give this one a 6/10. It's a bit above average I'd say, but just feels like it's lacking in some areas. I think some more detail would have definitely served you well here (The billboard thing, despite how much I criticized it and how much of a talking point it was, wasn't a large part of the factor here, it mostly had to do with detail, the amount of entertaining content actually present after prep time is cut out, and whether the large set up actually ended up being worth it.)
Take Warning:

Wow. Any strat that makes me say that right off the bat is off to a good start! Honestly, this is the best possible match for a full-narrative strategy, and it really shone here. Every bit of this strategy feels backed with movement and action, and most of all, it was genuinely entertaining. You start off by harassing Dokiro-Chan a bit and locking her into a shop (which was a good call since she actually does go into a couple shops),  and then immediately swing to the next bit. From cocky quips to fully written out rap battles, taking out petty crime,  helping the homeless... I wasn't kidding when I said that every portion of this strategy is just kind of packed with nonstop movement in action in varied and interesting ways.

Your attention to detail here really did well for you; you don't just say she raps, you write it out, you write all her quips, and you justify well everything that happens.

The next portion of this strategy is just... great. You manage to even pack your low Electronic skill into the entertainment, destroying billboards (I was iffy on your usage of this for the turnstyles and New Year's ball, more on that later). Your finale of acting like you were struggling to fight against being a monster was really entertaining and ended up as a great finale to your entertaining strategy.
I had to think long and hard about the score I was going to give this strategy. Honestly, I don't have many criticisms that particularly come to mind: it met all the criteria of the match with flying colors. Most of the stuff you did was within the realm of reason of your skills and your stand, You swung around New York like a genuine superhero, using your stand for entertaining and neat tricks, as well as in several portions like the bit where you were struggling with being a monster as well as the New Year's ball drop, You use your skill in rollerblading quite well, and even manage to squeeze some use out of your negative electronics skill, which is actually pretty darn impressive. Finally, you use the environment of Times Square to your advantage of all times, using the buildings to swing, the advertisements to ruin, and the tourist attractions as flashy bits to your finale. There was not a dull moment in this strategy, and it fully entertained me. My only criticisms, which are that there's a couple questionable usages of Electronics 1; you can't really just go "She's so bad at electronics she somehow miraculously triggers the mechanism on the subway turnstyles", and similar occurrences like the New Year's ball. I appreciate the attempt to use your negative skill for something useful, but I felt like you could've just gone with her messing up with the billboard and left it at that with Electronics 1.  I'm going to give this a solid 9/10. Great work.

The Big Apple:
The other judges gave more holistic delibs, so I’m going to run through the criteria one-by-one and end with a few words on each strat.

Feasibility:

Honestly, I think both sides satisfied the requirement well enough, but some boundaries were pushed. Much ado has been made about billboards, Doriko-chan does push the description of the skill from “glitching out” to “outright control,” but “AI: 3” and the fact that she’s uploading a copy of her programming into the billboards is enough to keep me from docking too many points. However, I do partially accept the argument that billboards can’t be hijacked with a simple USB, which I’ll get back to later.

What I find interesting is the lack of discussion of the fortuitous use Electronics 1. Take’s “electrical ineptitude” glitches open the turnstiles and literally triggers the New Year’s Ball drop. I’m willing to read some of it as fluff (she should have hopped the turnstiles like a real New Yorker), similar to my treatment of Doriko-chan, the notion that Take is “just inept enough to set [the ball drop] off by complete accident while trying to climb a pole” pushes on abusing rather than mitigating a nega-skill. Cheeky, but the precedent is be mechanically unacceptable.

All in all, a sus on both houses for different reasons, but one done in roughly equal measure.

Stand/User Use:

I’m rolling these together since they’re very similar. My misgivings of most of the use of Electronics 1 aside, Take very much impresses with the litany of ‘tech’ she shows off, even making use of Freestyling 1.5 (although I’d probably call it a 1, given that performance). Doriko-chan gets up to/uses the billboards, talks to some civilians, makes some merch and pyrotechnics, and throws a concert*.
This match is defined by the particulars and Doriko-chan doesn’t quite match up. Players were told that “skills do not provide an automatic advantage by merely existing and must be woven into your strats, as per usual,” and fleshing out this section would have helped, especially when the SWV banks on Dokiro’s repertoire and Idol (3) experience “to keep people occupied for as long as it takes.”

Environment Use:

Doriko’s usage of the nearby shops and cars is clever, but Take makes exceptional use of the various locales associated with NYC: the subway, the buildings, the crime, various landmarks, the street food. I don’t have much else to say.

Efficiency:

This is the most minor category and one I see as a “tie-breaker” if anything. I see it as a tie, maybe leaning in Doriko’s favor. Part of my issue with Take’s strat may stem from the fact that it’s written narratively, but it seems like it could be done in 30 minutes, tops. I understand that Take’s general movement is also part of the show - especially given the understanding that she has to go and find some of these things - but that is a lot of empty time.

Doriko’s scaling strategy is something that was explicitly made viable by the rules, but I have two things to comment on here. First, to bring back the USB discussion, I’m willing to view the obstacle of accessing the billboards as ultimately possible, but one that will take trial and error given the mistaken approach, which will cost time. While the 30-60 minutes of prep-time do work in the strats favor in this aspect, the setup is otherwise rather utilitarian. Dokiro-chan could have, for example, easily entertained while setting up.
To wrap this up, many of my delibs are matters of expectation. Doriko had a good albeit standard strat that could have done with more breadth and depth, especially in going in on the more manic, almost-unhinged nature of the performance in a Eric Andre esque fashion. Interactions like the one with the driver would have significantly improved your score, especially if a wide variety of [Two Time]d props were employed. 6/10, for “good.”

I don’t quite share the same awe as my fellow judges, but I’ll give Take Warning a high 8/10. While a strat need not be perfect to earn a 9 or 10, my concerns keep this from reaching those same heights. Make no mistake: this remains one of my favorite strats in T4 thus far, for taking SpiderTake and giving us Jojo’s Bizarre Spiderman Trilogy.