R5M4 Quality

Judge Munkustrap (Snek)

Hello all! This was a very fun match concept, though these delibs will be on the shorter side. Now, let’s see how you carry out this heist, starting with HotR. There is some good here, I think you have good moments of Logistics, ways of pathing around and managing your resources that help you out here. The use of one brave guard kitty keeping one knife at base, and useful for auto-deposit, is good, and I generally like your various pieces of tech.

However, you push against the parameters of this match in a couple ways. While cat armor is funny in a vacuum, I doubt that the cats would obey this as a simple command (they’re still animals, after all), and duct-taping a furred creature to your body would be way more unpleasant for the cats than you give it credit for. I also wasn’t a fan of your finisher trapping the opponent’s bin; while it might be allowable, it goes against the spirit of the heist for a similar reason that guarding the bins would–it’s the act of getting the fish there that is the process, rewarded with finally depositing it in the safe zone. Additionally, you do play a bit fast and loose with whether embedding the knife is sufficient for a teleport. If you had gotten PL to stick them somewhere with its arms, that would have been more reasonable. Combining the good and the bad, I would give this strat a high 6!

As for Evergreen, there’s a lot of good here as well! I like your basic mechanics with the cat scratching to create wounds for Ichi to pop through, and your interference Counterplays with the catfight are very cute. That’s a good way to describe this strategy, a cute and lively attempt strung together with a fun narrative. You use Gioia’s personality and the cats to create ways of dealing with the guards without too much injury, and you generally make sound use of the Backstage as well.

There are still some bumps in the road however. The play with the fish on the boat is a bit odd to me. It’s a massive risk that doesn’t feel all that necessary and whose payout is far from guaranteed. You technically account for the ‘bad situation’ where you sink or lose the fish, but you just give Ichi room to ‘do her thing’, when really, this kind of risk with this steep a cost could have used way more attention. I also think you might be overemphasizing the power of Ichi’s perception–it’s good of course, but it’s not a 5 skill and you are dealing with a lot of small, sporadically moving creatures. It’s not an ineffective strategy, you just overstate it a bit.

Additionally, I could have used more information about where exactly the cats were as well. It’s alright to not put down the exact totals, but you don’t go into much detail about the positions of your helpers and how they assist you in moving the fish. They’re not entirely absent, but being specific about where they are and how they’re helping would have been nice. Still, you do a competent job at positioning yourself and Ichi, adjusting to the various locations of fish, and laying down some good Counterplay. On balance, I would give this a 7.

Judge Rum Tum Tugger (Alpha)

Alrighty-roo, it’s time for another one of these there them there these delibs, specifically, the ones for Round 5, Match 4! The one wherein we have a catty duo fighting some fish punsters!

We’ll start with the Catty duo on E Team!

My brain initially registered your two opening sections as narrative due to the big emphasis on character moments, so in a first look, I’ll admit that I brushed by them, and had to double back for mechanics afterwards. While it does show that there is a very clear narrative throughline, which the strat is married to, it also blurs the line between mechanics and narrative. Given that all moves made in the narrative are mirrored and carried by the mechanics, I’ll say that this is a pliable good and make no further note of it.

After the opening moves, which amount to making as much space and ability for Ichi to act on her stand’s ability as humanly possible, we move onto the big counterplay section. It does neatly fold and cut the issues it presents, so I have no major notes. For the casual reader, however, this is the part where Pink Lemonade’s stunning plays are countered by the pair never directly touching them, spinning nets are rendered moot, and so forth.

The final major piece of this is, of course, opening a big enough portal to scoop absolutely everything into the backrooms while Gioia stands at the ready, waiting for someone to break into it or otherwise all hell to break loose. It’s a good thought, I’ll admit.

Now then, let’s take a bit of a different lens here… does this complete the objective of getting fish? Yes, very much so. The cuts in various places and distractions set up amongst various people, as well as the charisma plays made with those people, and moves made to dodge the oncoming police all point to fish being caught.

Moving a little further ahead here, is this a heist? Of course! Fish are being stolen, people are being messed with, there’s certainly a caper afoot!

As this is, I find the strat to be a bit of an oddly-paced read, though that may be due to the juxtaposing style of its narrative/mechanical start, followed by nearly straight mechanics, leading back into a nearly straight narrative finish. It’s not bad by any means, but it changes gears oddly on paper, leading to a bit of an awkward read for me.

I feel comfortable giving this one a **7**, on the grounds that yes, it does accomplish what it sets out to do, and I don’t have too many negative things to say about it.

Moving on, we have Heat of the Roment, back at it again with another Blake special!

The very first thing I’m going to trip over is the call forward at the end of the first section, in the contingencies. I get it, it’s going to be the next thing I stub my toes on, but why reference tech before it’s going to be used if the base parameters haven’t been set up already?

The first major section is some good tactical glue layered on a bit that I consider ‘open to interpretation’. Is giving cats layered orders (Wait Until/Do This Until/Stay Here And) considered a single sentence if it’s a run-on? I’ve left it to the voters, ultimately, but it feels like shaky ground to tread when it’s the main function of the objective.

Now, to my most major point of contention, we have the spear. Yes, it can be used to trawl and pick up those nets, but there are a few logical hoops that needed to be skipped over to make it possible: Blake is statically on the deck, and the boat has no written height. Assuming that he can reach the water with the nets, as otherwise the objective would be weighed against him, are the nets being spun like a waterwheel in the air, decreasing the amount of time in the water, beneath the ship, increasing the amount of time and decreasing the sightline, on an angle to prevent a good bit of this, or what? Several key factors of physics were brushed over to make it breezy, I understand, but without them, I have only questions.

Then we have the kitty armor. It’s played for laughs a bit, so I’ll let it slide, but it does make a good case for getting to the other side of the map with less overall issues than otherwise stated. It has some good movement and counterplay options available in it, so it’s an alright way to set up the end.

Before we get there though, we have an entire stand I didn’t talk about! Pink Lemonade was used excellently in its capacity to run across the map on its own, given its range, and the serious range of things it can duplicate/use and turn into stunning materials is used quite well in several places. The stinky cheese is a bit of a personal favorite, since I eat a shitload of cheese myself (average of 13 lbs (ab. 5.9 Kilos) per month).

My one gripe here is that the movement options for PL seem to be that the stand can just kind of get places- which it can, its range is the map- and otherwise, it has an open TP spot. I don’t know how I feel about these being uncontested because I’m told they are, but I’ll let it slide on the face of every strat being met on its terms.

So with all of these things tabled, I can see giving this a **6**. While it is written decently in places, there are a few “Huh” and “Hum”s that keep me from giving it anything higher.

Judge Macavity (Extra)

I'll start with Blake and Marali. Frankly, I think this strategy is very optimistic - I don't really buy the movement tech for Marali, considering gravity alone probably isn't enough to properly "embed" a knife. I also think you greatly overestimate how effective Blake's trawling will really be, and how easy it would be to interfere with it. Blocking off Ichi's Stand is also used very frequently for how little of an impact it would realistically have given her awareness 4 skill. There are a lot of points in the strategy that could go very well, but it has a habit of assuming the best case scenario. Given that, I think a **5** is fitting.

Moving to Gioia and Ichi, I do think you overplay Gioia's charisma more than a little bit at times - I'd hope the average guard wouldn't sit around and have a full conversation instead of doing their job, even if a celebrity walked in. Beyond that, though, which acts as a hard cap on the speed you can do all of this, it's a good strategy that covers its bases. A solid **7.**