JJOCT7 R6M3 Quality

Judge Godzilla (Logic)

Been sitting on this match concept for over five years, and I’m happy with the results.

This match’s large scale looks to test players’ ability to path and scale as they guard their A DUR baby (thus their opponent’s target). Vasant’s inventory, person, and newfound first-aid kit give him a diverse set of Verbs as combat and support tricks, and Lucil’s map mobility proceeds her, but both have access to a major scaling threat to close out the match.

Funnily enough, I expected both sides to detail the kaiju combat endgames a bit more, by the nature of the match fantasy and the ordinance needed to break through the durability and mass of the opponent’s kaiju at later stages, but given the endgame’s historic place for a finisher and the “cashing out” of earlier scaling, the lighter detail is understandable. (Planning) This isn’t to say there’s no detail, far from it. Lucil cheering on Seibold II’s spat with his brother, shouting out moves from the sideline, and Vasant fighting alongside Ananda to unleash a kaiju punchrush are suitably epic conclusions for their strats. (Narrative/Competency)

The midgame is where much of the focus went, and it shows! Both sides went for a defensive, scaling strat, moving through the map and collecting plants (Logistics), while having plans to account for encounters: Vasant using Blow and Burn Lotuses to dispel and trap Lucil’s teleport network and Lucil covering the multiple angles and possibilities of skirmishes and how to escape or respond to pressure according to the resources available. (Counterplay/Competency) While GWR’s Section 2 /really/ should have been split into Scaling and Vs Vasant, GWR’s text itself reads well and EG’s formatting has done well in having taken my advice to use paragraphs alongside bulletpoints. (Formatting)

Which leads me to the opening section and where my analysis of the two strats diverges. Vasant, arguably T7’s premier scaler, understands his immediate and likely rushdown pressure, and devises a simple disengage strat given the low resources: Blow away setup, ｢Midnight Rider｣ out in front to rebuff Lucil’s approach, and drive off. (Counterplay/Planning) I might have personally put more text here due to the early game being every Scaler’s nightmare, but what is here is certainly sufficient.

Lucil makes a very bold rushdown play: Teleport up to Vasant, set up a basic network to head off Vasant’s escape paths, fork Vasant as ｢Around the World｣ attacks Vasant’s bike and Lucil steals Vasant’s baby. I’ve highlighted the difficulty of rushdown from T4 to today, largely due to the lack of resources on both sides and the possibility of reprisal. While the initial network is a solid call and ｢Around the World｣ is a capable body, I think the rushdown under considers Vasant’s options in response. Vasant is likely to be in motion from the start, moving out of the network, and while ｢Around the World｣ is a capable body, Lucil does not fare as well against ｢Midnight Rider｣. This isn’t to say Lucil is guaranteed to lose this exchange, but I would have liked to see more robust consideration of its potential costs and negative outcomes. (Counterplay/Logistics/Competency)

But, even if the strat continues with the assumption that Lucil has successfully kidnapped Seibold 2, it…surprisingly stands without that having come to pass. There is a gap in what precipitates the Kaiju fight if Vasant gets Ananda back and Lucil doesn’t prepare for the possibility of an Ascended Kaiju, but the core thesis of “Vasant Keep Away” still holds. (Planning)

Vasant gets a commendable [8]. Given my comments on managing the possibility space of the early and late game, I did a lot of hemming and hawing, but I think a [7] is reasonable on balance for Lucil.

Judge Mothra (Alpha)

Alrighty, here we are once again at the Apex of another match, starring two wonderful, wild and weird apex predators with their respective parents! While I’ve always considered myself a man willing to Let Them Fight, I dunno if the players copped to that ideology. Let’s find out together, eh?

We’ll start with Vasant’s Anti-Lucil-Tech-Bonanza!

To iterate a bit on that less-than-stellar name, this strat is built on looking Lucil in the face, staring deeply into her eyes, and saying ‘nuh-uh’. Sure, there are the main motions from start to finish, with Vasant ducking in the caves with the babybabo, rolling around to gather flowers, using every single bud he can to create or increase available movement options, but the butter on this bread boils out to, ‘this is how I deal with Lucil’.

This isn’t a bad thing by any means. The entire strat is solidly built on the thesis of playing keepaway with as many tools as possible for as long as necessary in order to set up an epic finisher- or two- wherein Ananda finally gets to strut his stuff, either as a massive Kaiju battle (awesome) or Lucil having to deal with fall damage.

Now I know that it seems like there’s not a lot to cover here, that’s genuinely because there really, isn’t. The strat is truncated well enough that any one section boils out to ‘these are the lotuses we’ve created to either stop trickshots, blow Lucil away, do both of those things, deal damage to Lucil, or keep ourselves out of harm’s way’ coupled with ‘these are Vasant’s movement patterns’.

The above remains as the strat’s mechanical crux from beginning to the penultimate bits, with the only major evolution in play being ‘OK, this is how we defeat Lucil’ and ‘No Really, This is How We Defeat Lucil’ at the very end. It’s a decent read, but it doesn’t leave me with too much to say.

Oh, right, thank you for not making this one entirely out of bullet points! This’n gets a **7** from me!

Moving on to Lucil’s Kidnapping Spree, we have a wonderful first section that amounts to, “we’re going to steal the baby”. It’s not just that, of course, it’s *investment* in stealing the baby. It’s making sure that there’s at least an 80-90 percent chance that the baby is simply got and(/or) the bike is destroyed. The tech on display here is believable, usable, fits and ships. Ultimately, while the rest of the strat doesn’t completely depend on this move, it does act as though it works, and doubles back into itself to make sure it does.

We move on to the first part of the second section- which, oddly, the dividing points used in the reddit actually cleanly cut the shift of the second section right on the line- where we see the narrative at play. I’m going to be judging that later, so mechanically, it’s about gathering flowers and keeping the babies from evolving by only feeding them four. It’s also more mechanically-relevantly focused on letting Lucil dodge potential attacks or grabs from Vasant or [Midnight Rider] via quick dodge tech.

The back half of the second section is about keeping Vasant both away and over there through anti-tech tech. Trickshot the lotuses, fight the enemy stand, pick off Vasant or the bike (if it’s still in drivable condition), and coat the area in slag to prevent the growth of lotuses. It’s all decent tech.

Finally, Lucil force evolves the Kaiju and lets them fight… but makes sure that Seibold 2 (Vasant’s Kaiju) is very definitely defeated by helping beat Siebold herself, and/or also Vasant. It’s very straightforward, and incredibly short.

With this all said, I think this’n deserves a **7**.

Judge Jet Jaguar (Arch)

We’ve got a colossal match on our hands, though it doesn’t start off that way. Before the kaiju fighting can properly begin, our combatants must first face an even greater challenge: parenthood! Our combatants, Vasant Bulsara from Evergreen and Lucil Caravan of the Gallery of Wayward Reverie, both bring their bravest faces and a great deal of patience to this match. However, even raising children can become a competition, especially when they are so inclined to violence. So, which parent better equips them for the task?

Starting with Vasant, he makes a very intentional effort to throw Lucil off of her game. He makes a mad dash towards the caves on his bike while discarding anything of his that could act as an access point for her network. Once his lotuses start to bloom, he stays on the defensive, blowing away both projectiles and himself from his attacker, ensuring that any fight will be short and sweet, something Vasant desperately needs. From there, he uses his blue kaiju to create rubble at the mouths of paths, closing Lucil off from easy access to resources. Once he’s played keep-away long enough, he will have had enough time to train and feed his Kaiju, even allowing it to ascend, making it a formidable opponent. As he fights beside it, they make quick work out of Lucil and her kaiju, covering her network, unraveling her web, and limiting her movement options to land a final blow.

For a kaiju match, Vasant takes a lot of effort to address Lucil, and I think that is an incredibly smart move. The only way to deal with a hyper-aggressive opponent with crazy rushdown capabilities is to rush yourself and limit her mobility options every chance you get. This isn’t to say he neglected his child, as it grew to be a powerful and well-nurtured beast, but it was ultimately a very good call to keep Lucil on her toes to properly foster that growth. Thus, I’m giving this strategy an 8. Well done!

Onto Lucil, we’re given a vastly different strategy: steal the baby. It sounds crazy on paper, (and it is), but Lucil puts in the work to properly keep the pressure on Vasant, either through dogged pursuit or leveraging his bike. When she does acquire the baby, she wastes no time in bonding with it, but most importantly, choosing its path before it inevitably goes back to Vasant. From there, she nurtures her own green kaiju, giving her much needed sustainability to keep on fighting until the end. And when the inevitable clash between siblings occurs, Lucil helps her kaiju teach the rebellious one a lesson.

Lucil’s strategy is unconventional, but highly entertaining. But more importantly, it hard focuses on control. Everything from swallowing rocks to forcing Vasant to choose between his kaiju or the safety of himself or his bike to even the aforementioned forceful choosing of the other Kaiju’s path, ensuring that its attacks favor Lucil more. It’s all in service of defining the fight on her terms, and hers alone. It’s a bold play, and she has the mobility and wit to back it up. Thus, I’m giving this strategy an 8. Well done!