JJOCT7 R2M2 Quality

Judge Dune (Arch)

A test of endurance. A hardy challenge presented by the very mountain itself! Only a warrior of extreme bravery could ever hope to take this challenge head on. And who are our contenders? Muuru "Lil' Drè" Saviragowda, that kid from Evergreen? And… Stacatto? The penguin from I.M.P.A.C.T.? Well, they’re not conventionally tough, but don’t let that fool you. After all, it takes a lot more than brute force to worm your way through a cavern filled with… well, worms. So, how do our participants do?

Starting with Muuru, we have an aggressive approach to the problem of endurance. He wastes no time in running interference with Stacatto, firing his Runway Blaster towards buoys, making setup difficult at best, and making a proper mess of the cave as well. However, this mess benefits him, allowing him to move around using the combination of Wheelz, You May Die, and the aquatic air generated from the buoys. This makes Muuru a slippery foe, much like Stacatto. Muuru deals with his opponent head on all throughout the match, making sure the penguin stays on his toes, cutting off many potential traps his opponent might’ve had in store for the kid. A sound strategy for dealing with any potential interference is interfering first.

As for his approach for dealing with the worms, Muuru not only makes use of their nature, he downright exploits it. Using aquatic air to strike and eat the worms is a fascinating play, not only because of the visceral method of execution, but the regeneration properties it provides as well, creating a cycle of eating the worms and then firing more Wheelz. Combine this with the layer of paint he’s accumulated and he’s got a sustainable source of protection, which is a crazy thing to have in an endurance match.

Overall, Muuru employs an impressive display of endurance, using means that are equally aggressive, sustainable, and unpredictable. Thus, I’m giving this strategy an 8! Well done!

Onto Stacatto, we have quite the messy, though colorful approach to survival. At least, it appears that way. Throughout the match, Stacatto makes great use of his Aquatic Air to swiftly maneuver around the cave while collecting nests and detonating buoys. Against the worms, Stacatto utilizes some clever defenses, including his preen and yeet strategy, using his paint as an extra layer of skin to give him the opportunity to nab the little critters off of his body before they can do any real harm, then tossing them over to his opponent. His use of tap dance trickery is also commendable, given that care is taken not only to fool the worms with his rhythm, but to take advantage of their confusion too. Of course, once he sets up his Infinite Ping, the worms are as good as done, creating an effective loop of vibration, worms go to vibration, worms get taken out by detonation, repeat.

While he’s mastered the art of worm defense, he still has another obstacle to deal with, Muuru. Stacatto takes a distant approach, using his mobility throughout the strat as a means to avoid the wrath of the Wheelz. And while he has contingencies for the other parasites, a good bit of it is reliant on the paint scaling. While risky, this is a solid, scaling strategy from the seabird, all the same. Keeping both defenses in mind, I’m giving this strategy an 8! Well done!

Judge Sand Serpents (Alpha)

Let’s give a warm welcome to IMPACT! Before I get into the meat of the strat, I’ll address a relatively minor point.

When I last delibbed for Staccato, I’d made particular mention of almost neglecting the presence of your opponent, and this strat makes that same trip on the steps up the stairs the last one did. Thankfully, this is a less directly confrontational match overall, though the point still applies.

Speaking of, every section once again serves the same purpose, they’re all playing into the setup on how Staccato ultimately achieves his objective of coating the entire area in paint and usable tools to destroy the incoming waves of bugs.

We have a truck getting painted, pushed, and ultimately turned to rubble to draw the buggers in, infinitely pinging egg nests to do much of the same, and air-swimming tactics and open beaks to fill in the gaps where such things may exist. The tech on display is very solid, and the writing and formatting around it is quite good!

To touch on what I meant in the first paragraph, I’ll admit that the opponent and their four parasitic stands being relegated to contingencies and the final section, especially when most of their activation conditions are automatic, rests somewhere between unhelpful and actively detrimental.

Generally speaking, between the tech on display and abilities used, I can see giving this strat a **7**. The narrative touches and flow help drive the general point home, and it doesn’t  feel overburdened by itself.

Moving on to Evergreen, we have a lot of moving parts. I mean, like a lot of moving parts. Like there’s five stands in front of me a lot of moving parts.

The Wheelz are the most actively used tool in the kit, being used from the gate constantly on through the strat, using themselves to coat the arena in… themselves… and also consume their way through the objective, often while being covered in paint to protect themselves.

Muuru mimics this on his own terms, both being covered in paint and eating the objective. Regardless of where gravity may take him, Muuru manages to keep a constant pressure on his opponent from the beginning to the end, eating worms all the while.

At the crux of this lies the use of these tools. Wheelz are constantly being made and scattered, coating the arena and making more of themselves, often while covered in paint for extra protection, and continue to ‘consume’ matter while continuing to make more of themselves. Andre 3000 is here to help Muuru eat worms, which is a sentence born right out of an acid trip, which plays into his own opening with You May Die, which he creates by actively throwing himself into engagements and ripping himself out of them with the use of that mask.

With that tabled, Muuru’s strat is very engagement heavy, and it builds on coming out of engagements positively. The stand parasites also work together very well to force this positive engagement as they pile on top of each other, forcing the battle to slide in the direction Muuru wants it to.

Finally, we get to my gripe. While I understand a lot of the inner workings here, I feel like some time spent on polishing the formatting or the writing (outside of the narrative pieces, mind) would’ve done wonders for readability. Text changes size at odd places in my reddit view, and even if I can bob my head along with it, readability is still king.

I can easily give this a high **7**.

Judge Tremors (Extra)

I am currently getting suplexed by good old influenza, so I'm for real going to keep these somewhat brief.

Starting out with Staccato, I can echo some of the concerns of other judges; more concern for your opponent would have gone a long way, especially when Muuru's Stands are all practically designed to be consistent nuisances. Beyond that, though, there's a lot of fun stuff on display, making the most out of the worms as a stage hazard by making them as hazardous as possible to your opponent. Mildly detrimental to this, however, is that throwing the worms at Muuru can be a blessing as much as a curse. While it can be disruptive if he's already overwhelmed, it also puts the sandworms directly in his path, and when the objective is to "handle the sandworms better," quantity can make a difference. On the whole, that's not a major consideration, since detonating buoys on them does a solid chunk of the work before Muuru can get a finger on them, but it is something worth considering. On the whole, this is a solid **7.** The work you do on your own is excellent, but leaving your opponent as an afterthought in a match where interference is practically free is hard to overlook.

Moving on to Muuru, it seems he intends to engage in precisely as many shenaningans this round as last. Fortunately for him, they're much less physically questionable. He heard "eat or be eaten" and took it in the most literal way possible, proving once and for all that "flight" (technically swimming in the air but. Same difference) is superior to burrowing when it comes to hunting. The interference here is top-notch, leveraging Muuru's advantage of immediate pressure to limit Staccato's ability to apply pressure of his own. That said, it does still run into the issue of You May Die being much less effective at high speeds; it doesn't matter if you can see the best path if you can't react in time to change your course. Muuru has an easier time of it with his street skills, but there is definitely a general but consistent overestimation of his efficacy. Muuru can definitely *do* everything he says he can, and he can do it well, but it's hard to have so many things going on, all at the same time and all at ludicrously high speeds, while staying on top of and reacting to everything that's going on. That minor overestimation is, however, just that: minor. That said, I feel comfortable with a high **8.**