T7 Semifinals M2 Quality Delibs

Judge Britney (Logic)

Pastebin won’t let me say the b-word, so I suppose we’ll have to settle with “bad bosses” instead.

This match iterates on the Dynasty Warriors R3M7 - Blake vs Calabasas, charging players to come up with general tactics to deal with a threat, here a pair of NPCs with strong area attacks, terrain shifting, and crowd control. Angelino has higher ordinance between his A POW and support options, but needs to fuel it and is vulnerable to the bosses’ using NPCs as fodder. Dawn lacks the raw output, but has developed ample versatility in how she uses her kit.

As an aside, I think both strats could have subdivided each phase a little better, as discussing how they deal with the bosses, support each other, and the unique elements of each phase kind of all blended with each other. (Formating) Some of this more nebulous phrasing is because the map is more abstracted and thus imposes less structure, so consider this a quibble.

Angelino’s strat adequately addresses the challenges as presented, focusing on his positioning and leveraging his mass and stats (also known as his “mats”, trademark pending) to match the high ordinance options Binay and Apollo throw at him. (Planning, Competency) Much of his support of Dawn is by opening up space with these tactics, making for a very honest strat.
I find myself with little to say, but in a match that asks such immediate questions, maybe that’s not a bad thing (Elegance): [7/10]

Dawn takes to the match with a noted eagerness, taking the more aggressive option wherever possible and supporting it with the usual beetle-based tactics to build a brutal blueprint of moves to bruise these bullies’ egos. (Planning/Competency) Dawn’s terraforming has been a hallmark of her kit from her first encounter with Apollo, and the specificity and the creativity in how it's applied here puts her a cut above (Creativity/Competency). While the strat reads a little long at points, the thought in how these techs apply to new situations earns this a solid [8/10].

Judge Cherry (CPU)

Quality

Starting out with Angelino, and there’s a lot here that works very well in the match. He has a consistent understanding of what he’s here to do. Angelino goes through phase 1 with a solid plan for the case where Dawn both does and doesn’t actively work with him, and has decent plans for dealing with the vehicles; taking out other vehicles as viable points for Binay to work with are all well conceived. I find myself with remarkably little to say here, as Angelino does a lot of ‘expected’ things here, though that absolutely isn’t a bad thing!

Moving onto phase 2, he has a fairly solid plan for putting pressure on Binay, sighting him as the main point of weakness and the one he has to constantly harass. He handles the various traps the duo can set up fairly well, and I didn’t see anything wrong in his strategy. I want to give special note to figuring out where ｢Friday Night Guru｣ is and how it operates via its behavior, which I think pays off well in section 3.

As for section 3, this is a very solid, layered plan for finishing off the duo, starting out with feinting Binay and diving in on Apollo, then cycling back to Binay; taking all of the aggro to free up space for Dawn. This is really well handled and solidly conceived, and I don’t have any complaints with it. All in all, I think the strategy is extremely honest and well written. A low 8/10 from me here.

With Dawn I have comparatively less to say besides, You Cooked. I think that Dawn really effectively shows off her kit in so many ways, from terraforming to bouncing beetles around to setups that stuff Binay’s offense. There really isn’t anything left on the table here, and all of the tech is very well conceived to handle these particular opponents. While everything here is good, I want to especially shoutout the detail and thought that went into section 1; I felt that it was an absolute dismantling of the bosses that shook me. This deserves a 9/10!

Judge Jenny (Alphamon)

Quality
Oh boy, another match hot off the presses brought to you by committee! Let’s see what they’ve cooked up this time- oh, it’s a duo bossfight without a strat! Let’s look at that beautiful, delicious text wall and figure out the mechanics of this here- oh, I’m not stratting it? Right, judging!

Both strats present a three-step plan (because there’s three stages of the fight) to totally win the absolute shit out of the overall battle (by contributing more to it)! That’s all fine and dandy, of course, because someone has to, and by golly it better not be Binay or Apollo!

There’s a small, goblin-like part of my soul that wants to score it by overall contribution (thus dropping the point cap from 20 to 10), but that’d nuke strat scores and present several archival problems, so I won’t listen to it.

So we’ll start with Angelino! This wonderful wall-busting boy in this corner over here- man, can he smash stuff- had me scrolling and nodding with every little broken piece of chair, smashed furniture, car door ripped off and general destruction had- what? Catharsis-by-proxy is totally fine!

To get down to brass tacks, and avoid me doing my usual shtick of giving out a four page delib, I’ll go over the abstractions. A lot of the overall writing and work put in exists on the same spectrum of ‘good fundies’ I talked about last round. The people behind Angelino’s strat here certainly know his kit, how his kit plays well with Dawn’s, and how to take, take in stride, sidestep, parry, or tank the additional information.

Overall, good fundamentals is knowing your kit, your opponent’s, the match objective, and how they play together.

Moving on, as this strat isn’t predicated on that point (or set of them), there is a bit of, not redundancy, but odd speed-bumpery in terms of how some sections are handled. There are dividers where it seems that the plan is still moving before and after, so I find that to be a bit eyebrow-raising, though it’s not pressing so much as distracting.

That said, I did enjoy my read-through, and I do believe the overall level of quality-of-writing, contribution to the match, and the story behind and throughout it deserve an **8**!

Moving on, we have another strat brought to us by the people at I.M.P.A.C.T., featuring Dawn! This crazy marble kid is over here chasing down psychiatrists like a mad dog, and even squishing their birds with her bare hands! My gah, is someone gonna stop her!?

Again, to avoid the long slow scrawl of my delib notes, I’ll be working mostly with abstracts here.

Once again, good use of fundamentals in and outside of your kit; Dawn’s strats are always laden with technical uses of every one of her bumper-bugs abilities, from the flippers being able to selectively cause damage down to the opening up at different sizes or angles on command, and every time we see your bag of tricks there’s always a few new ones sitting right at the top!

Touching on this further, there’s good use of match mechanics and your opponent’s kit, but a couple of scratchy bits I spotted exist on ‘how many steam shields can Angelino reasonably produce’ (he can use a max of 3 at maximum fuel capacity, and in your strat he aims them at a swathe of NPCs) and ‘Apollo’s mental END drain only comes up in the final section’, but both of these are relatively minor nitpicks.

The included breakdowns of used bumper beetles are welcomed, the tech notes for various circumstances that may occur across section 2 are well thought out and decently implemented, and overall, I don’t have the most to say about it outside of, ‘good use of fundies as presented.’

I can reasonably give this one an **8**!