R3M10 Quality Delibs

Judge Espiritu (Logic)

This match was a quintessential “Any” match if there ever was one. A mid-sized stage with a few various materials and some minor verticality means we could put anyone in, and our competitors are some of the best all-rounders in R3. On top of her userbeast statline, Stephanie has minionmancy with ACT1 and object warping with ACT2 (and an A POW punchghost, albeit with low SPD and DUR). Over R1 and R2, Brandy’s kit has developed similar object/terrain warping with the utility of her object transmutation, along with her Plastic/Absorbing man abilities and the fall back option of “I become B DUR metal” making her a capable bruiser in her own right.

As such, both sides have a wide—almost inducing choice paralysis inducing—range of options, but T6’s jurisprudence has rewarded constructivist, presentation of a clear thesis with persuasive reasoning/process. Pick your path then walk it.

Brandy goes for something of a slow start, CATsuiting up and pathing towards the fountain to set up later terrain based play (Planning) before providing clear and thorough explanation of her scaling and dismantling efforts (Logistics). I’ll bring up two techs here that are introduced here and used throughout the strat. First, while CS includes Brandy’s clothes when covering her as a quality of life feature, I don’t think it automatically includes everything girded to her person. The line between clothing and armor is blurry (a kevlar vest vs football pads vs platemail) and the suit is made of multiple pieces so I’m more skeptical that the whole thing would change alongside Brandy, but 4 STR carrying ergonomically molded pieces of stone armor means the main purpose of the armor carries forth.

Second is the Battery form. Brandy’s sheet is a bit messily written, so things do not come through as clearly, but tactics have always been able to be developed and accepted through precedent, here the Taser finisher against Zachary in R2M15. The tech was accepted, citing “the target is treated as if it is made out of the stored material”, 3 Metallurgy (specifying electrical understanding), and CS’s B PRE to suffice as knowledge and ability to form and leverage an electrical circuit, but what was there a finisher is now a bread-and-butter tech used repeatedly through the strat. I’m going to set aside the question of how much of the material’s properties (eg temperature, stored charge) carry over, but I will state that the tech’s efficacy is finite.

Even if only brief exposure to a current (and thus minimal charge) is necessary for damage, there is only so much juice and what makes electricity dangerous is a whole array of factors from resistance to current to voltage that makes finding the exact output difficult. I’m willing to accept its efficacy, capping out at C POW and potentially hitting diminishing returns if overused.

With the first section of the midgame providing the overview of her pathing and anti-scaling plans, the second focuses more on proactive play against minions and rushdown with positioning and combat tactics that make use of the strengths of the Meganyan forms (Competency/Logistics). The variety of attacks and tactics mitigates my earlier concerns with spamming taser attacks.

If I had to give some criticism, Stephanie herself isn’t quite as considered as a physical body, most of the concern going to WA2 when Stephanie herself is a hardy physical combatant with 345 physicals, 5 Parkour, 3 Combat. One might be reminded of my criticism in Nicholas R3M8 (“happy path in not considering opponent’s own positioning despite emphasis on their own”), but this observation isn’t as material a complaint here: WA2 is treated as a major general threat rather than heavily specialized in POW/STR and much of the strat is concerned with fighting multiple opponents at once, but enough that it warrants noting.

While I criticized Brandy’s R2 for being messy in how it bifurcated its midgame on weird conditioning, here the finisher is well setup (once Stephanie has been sufficiently harried and denied resources) and well-split depending on the circumstances: scampering around the map to flood it with water from the fountain plumbing. There’s a universe where I quibble about how much water is available, but given the late game build up, I think such a quibble is just that.

I’ve often said that spanning a space is very difficult, so attempting to set up mass AoE is inefficient so just set up AoE where you need to be. What was an early game tactic to establish space (Logistics) is developed and generalized into lategame oki to pump damage into swaths of controlled and controlled space (Logistics/Planning/Competency). Given that Brandy’s electrical understanding is built around metal, the efficacy of conduction through water or mapping wiring based electrical fires to grass fires might be a little scuffed, especially given the comments on the taser tech above, but I’m more accepting than not. The end effect is the same: a strong culmination of earlier plays now bolstered by space control.

That said, my earlier comments about combating WA2 and Stephanie as physical combatants are repeated here. (Planning/Competency/Logistics) Given her high END, relying on mass discharges might not be sufficient; complementing them with the material body brawling tactics from above (maybe specified for this final showdown) would tie this together, maybe as its own section maybe just with a bit more detail. The finisher falters a bit in the specifics, but the overall plan is sufficiently set up.

I’ve praised AP’s Planning/Logistical work before (Electra R1 comes to mind), but it’s been a matter of fine tuning and consistency. There are some notable (but not structural) prioritization/tactical hiccups mentioned above, but for its exceptional clarity in navigation of the numerous threats and benefits on the field, I’m happy to award AP an 8 on balance.
Stephanie spends Section 1 defensively, refusing to let Brandy engage and creates armor and tools from the shattered fountain, the most immediate source of a lot of stone. My only real comment here is that creative multiple parts in series may take more time than expected at D SPD, so prioritizing/simplifying parts might be helpful.

Section 2 attempts to end the match in one engagement with a sudden leap towards her opponent, the tactics depending on Brandy’s use of CS (softbody vs hardbody vs tool). I don’t think this is a bad framework; the choice of tactics used is well considered, and this framework can be brutal depending on how the stat-matchup is leveraged, but I think the execution is too ‘happy path’ and underestimates Brandy. (Planning/Counterplay)

In its current state, each framing is depicted as a flurry of high-commitment moves resulting in quick defeat where damage is granted only in so much as a necessary cost that only leads to further benefit. Beyond the initial conditioning and granting of Brandy’s 4 STR, there’s little consideration for what Brandy is capable of, which is concerning when Brandy can change her body composition at B SPD between the forms, so the engagement’s circumstances can greatly change. For example, the strategy against softbody is to hard-commit to grappling and mauling as much as possible, but if Brandy switches to her Battery form, as seen against Zachary R2M15, then Stephanie/WA2 are in the worst position possible.

Although we actively avoid saying “you should have done something substantively different,” I’m loathe to leave just criticisms and no points for improvement, so allow me to put on my strater’s hat. Granting the decision to do some initial scaling, rushdown is a smart way to deal with any scaler, especially a utility scaler who gains unpredictability as she gathers items such as Brandy. Rushdown puts one’s opponent on the backfoot and pushes them into defeat, reacting to and cutting at your opponent’s options—there are ways of ending the fight quickly without throwing oneself into the engagement. Pressure with options of increasing commitment (eg going from pokes, minions with simple swarm orders as WA2 scales to grapples and using WA2 proper) and weave in the direct tactics and targeting currently used so that you incorporate your opponent’s options and counters into your plan without crossing yourself up from them.

Many voters considered this strat to have countered itself by throwing Brandy into the fountain, but I think that’s immaterial to the issues with this strat. It goes for a high commitment CQC play without accommodating the suite of strengths and tactics its opponent might use, least of which being the difficulty of quickly cracking through a B DUR body even with A POW. As a result, I think the strat has notable structural defects once it enters its main phase, leading me to give this a low 6.

Judge Mr Moon (Cory)

Opening with Brandy, this strat jumps right into one of my favorite kinds of tech (Armor stuff) that I dig a lot as I read it. I might raise some eyebrows at the electricity tech, but I think that it works by and large how you want it too. A fairly unremarkable midgame leads into the finisher, and what I think is this strats biggest singular flaw:

Throughout these procedings, I think that the one big miss here is the failure to acknowledge Stephanie's body. A 345 Combat-skilled userbeast is hardly something to sneeze at; while strat space is very much spent on dealing with her minions, and dealing with them well at that, I worry that your methods of dealing with her don't take into account just how much force she's capable of projecting your way. I wouldn't call it a critical misstep - at the end of the day, you're still getting a 7 - But it's basically the only thing keeping this from a higher score.

Onto Stephanie, the setup of this strat aims to take Brandy down with one massive coups de grace after denying as many materials as can be managed beforehand. To truncate myself a bit, i think that this framework is more than workable, though the execution leaves a little to be desired. The setup of different finishers based upon which type of defense Brandy fields is really fun, but I feel like each isn't really long enough to properly consider the threat Brandy brings forth or really counter it.

Your max character length gave opportunities to either go for depth in terms of each offensive option here, or a breadth of different options covered with about as much space dedicated to each as you already have right now; as is, you went for an awkward middle ground. Still, I believe that what you have is more likely to work than not, and were there more of either option mentioned above than I'd be pretty confident in giving this a 7. Still, a 6 isn't too bad, and all in all I think you did good here!