Louvre:

Quality

At risk of giving too much away, Red Carpet Regalia has some great plays and tech on show but are lacking some structure and focus, so let’s get the bad out of the way first. The players do a very good job in predicting and working around potential barriers put up by Jack and Laz in regards to the shrines, accounting for many different applications of their gravity fields and changing their method of approach as necessary. However, my major gripe with the strat as a whole comes into play here, in that there doesn’t seem to be any clear outline of timing, order, or pathing at all during the entire strategy; methods are given to how shrines are defaced or destroyed, but there is no detail in which ones are prioritized first or how the pair move around the area in the limited time available. I have little doubt that they will be able to get to all 7 in the time allotted, given how efficient the methods used seem to be, but even a simple outline or list of each shrine hit would have made things significantly clearer and less up-to-interpretation. What makes matters worse in this regard is the lengths to which the player pair go to do damage to Jack, reading more like a deathmatch than an objective match, and the same lack of descriptive pathing and logical flow to the plan is present here as well. Bert and Dread both seem to simply be wherever they need to be at all times without any description of where they’ve been or what they have been prioritizing beforehand to lead them to this position. The strat also makes quite the assumption that Bert will simply come across the sword where he expects it to be and retrieves it with no issue or counterplay, further playing into the idea that retiring Jack became a bigger focus in the end than the actual goal of the match. A more minor point than those above, but much of the strat is reliant on decoys and misdirection to get Jack out of position or even to have him do some work for them, but with the ghosts chasing the true Bert and Dread at all times once they have damaged a shrine, hiding themselves could prove difficult.

All that being said, I am ultimately a big fan of the flavor and setpieces of the stat. Bert bulking himself up is an unexpected application of PH and makes Jack’s efforts to retire him quickly much more difficult than expected. Dread simply makes herself almost completely unapproachable by Jack without risking infection, and furthers this risk by creating a bevy of blood-spewing minions to do her dirty work for her. The use of minions is effective throughout, and while I would have liked to see more melee-oriented goons used to infect Jack given Laz’s natural ability to deal with projectiles, the ones created are varied enough that I can see them working well enough through unpredictable angles or simply sheer volume. Netting off doorways to keep Jack guessing is very clever, paired with the infectious blood flying around at all times it’s easy to assume he’ll get tagged eventually. The one piece of descriptive positioning that is in the strat is used very well to prevent offensive efforts from Jack, sticking close to shrines to risk collateral damage from any offence from the D Pre boss. This is also used to very creative effect with the Fake Bert ploy, sticking effigies into his hollow body for Jack to destroy himself by mistake and attract a ghostly army to be a help for the duo instead of the intended hindrance.

The structure of the strat may be quite shaky, but there are more than enough good ideas and plays here to still demand a solid showing. 7/10
The boss team wisely sticks to the objective in their strat, correctly realizing they only need to delay the enemy team as long as possible to secure the win and not going too hard for the double Retire. A single retire, however, is exactly what Jack aims for out the gate, looking to pick off Bert as soon as possible to deny Dread his support. I’m not entirely sold on this early knockout going as planned, as even though the player pair do split up early on and catching Bert alone is reasonable, the approach is quite straightforward and generic without much in the way of setup or positioning to really sell it. A bare minimum, at least it scares the creature away from securing the sword early on before moving on to keeping Dread away from his shrines. I absolutely love the idea of walking on the ceiling to avoid direct conflict, it makes the ranged attacks from Dread’s minions more difficult to land, not only needing to fight against Laz’s gravity but Earth’s as well. The threat his presence alone gives is enough to keep Dread wary of sticking to any one shrine, Death Letters coming at odd angles from above are aimed to maim instead of murder in order to reduce her mobility and efficacy in dismantling. While some effort is put forward to using rubble and assorted objects from the area in his ranged efforts, Jack does rely on his sledgehammer for quite a bit of offence against Dread, which may not be the best idea given that it only takes a few drops of infectious fluid to eventually render the hammer useless.

My favorite factor in this delay-based plan came much earlier on, with Jack’s clever prioritization of the sword over the shrines. He correctly predicts that a dedicated effort to find the sword is not really implemented by the other team, meaning that simply hiding the important object is enough to cause them to waste potentially minutes just finding the thing, especially with the few instances of him straight up lying about its location in dire situations. The finale is fought under the T-Rex, and if the duo haven’t run out of time yet with Jack’s shrine zoning and hidden sword, I can easily see this final effort eating up the last minute or so. Even if they approach as a team, Jack locks the skull of the dinosaur out of a sneaky approach with a strong gravity field. At this point late in the game, Jack eschews personal safety to keep the gold sword away at any cost if it’s present, even going so far as laying his battered body down over the skull as a final barrier to delay just that much longer.

Excellent positioning and prioritization, varied and creative use of a broad stand ability, and clever prediction of enemy strategy makes this a very strong game plan that I can easily see eating up 5 minutes of time. The only real weaknesses to rag on would be a general lack of defensive effort, relying on Temporary Ground to keep bodies away and redirected gravity fields to deal with projectiles in a sort of hand-wavey manner. Jack’s approach to Dead is quite careful to be sure, but his approach to Bert is quite assumptive in its efficacy and doesn’t really delve into specific alternatives or even a reasonable setup to make it a believable attempt. The risk of infection from Joywave is almost inevitable with its ability to cover space, and outside of a generic ‘keep distance’ plan and the still-favorite-idea of sticking to the ceiling, very little in the strat is geared toward preventing infection or recovering from it should it occur. A few difficulties, sure, but I still believe the boss comes away from the match with a slight edge. 8/10

Uffizi:

Players:

Rereading this strategy a few times, I see a very noticeable problem of formatting with this strategy. It ends up feeling a bit too splintered and inconsistent, for example having Bert and Dread split off but not having a solid routing and having the interpretation be shaky on where they meet up again and even more strangely if they even split up to any noticeable degree due to having one of the parts assume like they are both together again without much context. The strategy is a mix of linear and alinear which in itself isn’t an issue, but it could have been better marked or noted in general because now to go linearly I have to skip past sections and to see contingencies or plans of actions I have to scan through to find the section. Again not the worst thing but it does suffer in quality for having multiple valid interpretations across same scenarios.

Alright first off some roll-call on Bert’s cells and weight capacity. Investing 3 cells for a new body, and a hammer. That sounds like a moderately risky investment with some amount of time needed to graft the body and a quarter of your stand’s weight, but you do get a 210-ish pound body assuming you have an average weight sledge hammer. Medicine 5 here feels a bit handwavy on the fact you are cutting off your own head to do this, the grafting sure, but the severance with your available tools is a bit questionable. At worst it is probably would take some more prep time.

Now 4 minions to Bert and 2 to Dread to start. Some weights would be useful here since you plan on having around the cells on each person. The problem also then becomes return on investment, Spitters are strong, but also very volatile with their susceptibility to cause friendly fire, as well as having a general maintenance cost, while the Bone Cleavers are generally more all rounded. Getting the infected blood set up properly in the spitters will also take a small bit of time.

Onto net creation, this is a 5 meter doorway and a fairly precise shape and tensile weight needed to hold this structure, especially since you want it to stand against projectiles. It feels like a rough sell to call the set up time less than a second. Not only just precision, but architectural know-how if you want to have it prop up properly with minimal resources. It’s not that you couldn’t make a net, it’s your specifications here that need more resource investment especially since you plan on infecting it. Without correct positioning and pathing as well, these nets might be a waste of resources/time or your own undoing worst case.

Onto the Guzzlers, similar to the Spitter, same advantages and same drawbacks overall.

For taking care of shrines, the general ideas are sound, but the pathing gets muddled after first going down the left side. Going from Oceanic to Agriculture to Entomology is easy to point at as a questionable thing were this all in order.

Against Jack, overall it seems like a lot of focus on defensive deterrents, mobility restrictions, and subterfuge. Some amount of positioning here seems attempted, but it also seems fairly hand waved in order to generalize the confrontation. While fair enough that it would take a good amount of effort to plan a proper set-up to surround or go around him to cover his options, I can’t really give this that much in terms of quality doubly so as that’s not actually necessarily the goal.

The kicker, getting the sword and bringing it to the T-Rex. This seems glossed over quite a bit, what you need here is a solid plan to find and get the sword as well as be at the T-Rex at the 5 minute mark. So that mostly means having to defend around the T-Rex or get to the T-Rex at that time. Your defensive, mobility, as well as your general contingencies are lacking in this regard.

I’m going to be generous here and call this strategy a **7/10**, a six could be warranted in my opinion, but the only big reason I’m not is the overall ways given to deal with the shrines and cover Jack’s movements. However much more could have been done in this regard such as trying to keep a scout on Jack or more contingencies to deal with surprise confrontations or Jack’s stand if they happen to get in range. A lot of this strategy is preventative based with some shakier assumptions that could have just as easily bit you as likely as they were to be correct.

Jack:

A lot of loose positioning here as well, but for the most part that’s more understandable on this side of the match. The attacks, even with the tech involved also feel skimmed on, dealing with Bert in the first section especially. You do at least have a solid enough plan of action for responding to the players and account for Bert not being defeated so that mitigates things slightly.

The risk management and awareness tracking is fairly good in this strategy when it comes to dealing with different situations. The dedication to the goal at the end as well,

Overall I really don’t have too much to say without just going into detail on the different maneuvers. While you definitely could have done more overall, offensively, defensively and position wise, I’m willing to give the same pass I did to the players for fairness here given there are definitely some good ideas and quality here. So with that said I’m giving this quality **7/10**

Smithsonian:

This is T5’s fifth boss match, a no-holds-barred match against the man, the legend, Jack Aurel! Well, in reality, it’s an objective boss match, because the combination of Dread and Bert is very strong, enough so that it can’t really be fought by many in a direct encounter, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t one!

I’ll begin with Jack’s strategy, and see how the players’ strategy goes up against it to judge what happens. Jack immediately begins by running away and hiding the sword using gravity fields, and while I can see this delaying Bert’s attempts at grabbing it, I also don’t believe that it will delay them forever Jack. Looking around a bit should let Bert or the minions spot it eventually, but making it harder for them to do so helps in general and it’ll take them some time to do so, especially when Jack is continuously putting pressure on Bert.

I will say that I feel like the specifics of how Lazaretto is used here weren’t really given enough attention - the E spd slowdown is somewhat underutilized, and some tech such as the Death Letter feels harder to pull off than the strategy makes it out to be, and the same applies to the rubble blasts. More of a focus being put on the specifics of all of this would help make it less of a problem, but I feel like it wasn’t really given here.

In addition, to reiterate what some voters have said - gravity is a force, and simply putting something in a zero gravity field or in a field where gravity moves in a certain direction won’t automatically make it stop or push it there, as it’ll have to overcome the previous velocity and momentum it gained from before. Of course, that’s where the E spd fields should theoretically come into play, in order to slow the projectiles or attacks down, but using them that way isn’t really a part of the strategy for anything other than the temporary ground. I feel like this strategy certainly could have benefitted from there being more usage of the E speed fields for anti projectile plays and things such as that.

The general plans here aren’t necessarily bad, and I do feel like they can end up threatening  Dread and Bert quite a bit, especially once the former is dispatched with, but I do feel like more could have been done here to grant Jack the advantage - making more use of the E spd zones, relying less on just the Death Letter for attacks, having more ways to defend himself than just using the gravity zones, more contingencies for what if specific methods of attacks fail, and things like that. I feel like utilization of the sledgehammer or other blunt objects for simply striking people in the face with A pow A spd would also have gotten Jack surprisingly far here while still avoiding touching infected flesh, even if it would have still been somewhat risky.

Looking at the Dread and Bert strategy, I feel like Jack might really be able to deal significant damage to Bert in the initial sections or even retire him outright, with their strategy not really properly accounting for such a rushdown and situation where he’s focused down, and this should help him going forwards if it succeeds, but I’m not sure it gives him the edge necessary to actually eek out a win here. I’ll be giving it a 7/10.

Onto Bert and Dread’s strategy, and I feel like the biggest issue this has is somewhat of a lack of polish. Certain moves here feel like they should have been thought out a bit more, and the strategy itself is somewhat hard to get through at times, with it being hard to understand what Bert and Dread are doing while they’re split up and the rough timeline of everything.

Chert (Chad Bert) is a cool and fun move, though I feel like it’s important to mention that despite his new form’s defensive advantage and the bone cap, Bert’s head will remain somewhat of a weakpoint that could be targeted by Jack and Lazaretto for devastating damage, but that’s to be expected, and Chert isn’t going to be in close quarters with Jack for too long anyways.

Dread slathers herself with infected Bert Goop for defense, and I do feel like more elaboration on this would have been good even if it was already given in Dread’s previous match, just to make it easier to read through this strategy. From here, Bert and Dread split up, Bert going to take the sword while Dread begins moving around the exhibits to mess with the shrines.

As Bert often does, they create minions, and I feel like these could have been further elaborated on and possibly given more thought - on account of containing infectious blood, the Spitting Scoundrels are likely going to only be able to spit out once or twice before their muscles get affected and they will lose their ability to do so with any efficiency, and even then, Jack might be able to divert these projectiles off course given how spit isn’t necessarily a very high velocity projectile (further elaboration on the exact mechanisms by which the blood is launched might have helped mitigate this, but if they’re actually spitting it then I can’t see it being done in any way that won’t weaken the muscles / body as blood passes through and weaken them). It’s also worth noting that the Spitting Scoundrels are reliant on Bert being in contact with Dread in order for them to restock on their “ammo”, and this might not always be the case since the two of them split up.

I also wonder how effective the Capricious Carousels would be against the beast that is Lazaretto in direct combat, making me think that it might have been better to use those stem cells for different minions.

Continuing, the strategy’s odd formatting makes it hard to understand what exactly is going on and the sequence in which it all happens, even if I do like most of the techniques presented throughout - exploiting Jack’s linear movement, incorporating the museum exhibits into Dread’s attacks, hiding the sword within the sledgehammer, and more are all clever and smart.

I feel like a place where the formatting really could have been strengthened is in covering the anti-Jack plans - many of them are spread around in the other sections, and it’s hard to really look at them all at once, and to understand when each thing is used. Even when accounting for them, I do feel like not enough is done to directly protect Bert from Jack’s assault. The minions aren’t necessarily strong enough to protect him, and even when he’s strengthened by the artificial muscles, he might end up getting smacked around by the A spd A pow Lazaretto, or pulled around by gravitational fields. Making this more of a problem, should Bert get retired, Dread’s capability to stand up for herself is weakened significantly, as many of her methods of attack rely on Bert to be there and on using their minions.

Reaching the end, I like the usage of decoys to distract Jack in the moments leading up to the completion of the ritual, and forcing jack to accidentally destroy the effigies is neat, if ultimately not too big of a factor in how things work out (I do wonder if they won’t accidentally be destroyed by the players either way while the effigies are extracted, given the strategies they use)

I feel like, in summary, this strategy had great potential, but it could have delivered better on it had it been more organized and some moves had been better thought out. It tries to split every “aspect” of the strategy up into an individual section meant for it, but there’s many situations where things cross over between the different parts (such as things related to combat against jack being put in the “completing the objective” section) which makes it harder to read through it. It might have probably also helped in filling out aspects where the strategy was lacking, such as contingencies or certain things that were overlooked. More of a focus on positioning and on learning where the characters are at all times and where they are in relation to Jack would have really helped as well. Ultimately I’ll be giving this strategy a 7/10.