R1M12 Quality Delibs

Judge Prince (Yuri)

This here’s a match I was incredibly excited for, given the fact that it was kind of my baby. I’ve been waiting to do a moving train match since before I got chosen to be a judge, and the moment I saw that these two had signed up I was jumping for joy. But now we must ask ourselves an important question... Do they live up to the hype?

Yeah. Lol.

I’m starting with Pluto’s strat since it was the first one I saw. Right away I have to shout out the flavor text in this strat; an absolutely deranged choice of an opening paragraph turns into a super well thought out exploration of Pluto’s ideals, and it’s a delight to read. Really brings the whole thing together. I’m a big fan of this guy! In general the writing in this strat is fun and breezy, making for an easy read that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Your opener is efficient and clean while also accomplishing everything you want it to. I’ve given others some crap for their openers before, and it’s because an opener is an extremely sensitive thing. You want to make sure you’re doing everything you can within the opening seconds of a match while also making sure you’re not doing too much, and this strat skirts that line excellently, so props for that!

The rest of the strategy follows a similar pattern, balancing what Pluto’s capable of doing with what he has time to do, and luckily, his perfect opener gives him a *lot* of time. Despite his goofier plays (the golf club, oh my god), it never feels like he’s stretching the limits of what he’s allowed to do, and the fantastic melee leverages his advantages very very well. Diamond Dust in particular is a nasty attack that is also remarkably efficient. Pretty much everything here works well to some extent, and I can’t find any massive missteps anywhere. Your finisher is a remarkable way to capitalize on all the setup you’ve been allowed to do, and yet, it also feels incredible well earned from how well you’ve done in forcing Yankee to slow down before you get there. You set up extremely well, and the payoff is just as effective.

I have no qualms, and everything here has impressed me. I was going to give this a nine, but fuck it. You get a **10**.

Onto Yankee!

This one follows a similar pattern to Pluto’s strategy, which I think works well in its own ways. I can give similar praise to the remarkable efficiency of your opener. It’d be one thing if you just shot at him and crawled off, but the insistence of laying down fire into Pluto’s car makes it extremely dangerous to be in Pluto’s position. It’s hard to imagine a world where you don’t get everything you want out of that trade.

The Metal Mule is an excellent use of your environment, and it plays into one of my favorite things about this strat. Yankee respects the hell out of Pluto throughout this match, making extremely good use of cover and other defensive strategies to make sure you don’t get Owned, while also knowing Yankee’s own strengths and playing well off of them. Your anti cover tactics for shooting Pluto down are brutal, and. Well. You face down Pluto *and his stand* in close range melee and it fucking *works*. That’s insane. How’d you do that. The melee here is extremely well detailed and believable - your micro is just as strong as your macro, leading to an aggressive battle plan that can put Pluto through hell very very easily.

The only major misstep I can see here is that you pay too little attention to Pluto’s cold - metal would probably not help in dealing with it, since metal gets pretty cold, but given your focus on not putting yourself in line of fire and using cover, and Yankee’s endurance (which is very well leveraged) I’m not going to be as harsh about it as I would otherwise. I think what you do right massively outweighs what you do wrong.

Normally I’d give you an eight, but there’s two things here that pump that score up to the **9** I’m giving you, and that’s Elegance and Readability. This thing reads like a breeze, presenting the perfect amount of mechanical information. It’s never overbearing, but never underwhelming or lacking in info, and it’s a fun, exciting, and well formatted read throughout.

Excellent fucking work to the both of you. I’m taking notes from these strats. Stand proud. You’re strong.

Judge Ladybug (Arch)

Did you see that? I don’t think I got a good look before it passed. Something moving at such speeds… it must’ve been Match 12! Yankee Valiente, hired bodyguard for P.I.N.D.R.O.P. vs Pluto Hendrix, icy sculptor from the Heart of the Rose! And given the skills our combatants bring to the table, we’re in for quite the action-packed deathmatch!

Starting with Yankee, we begin with suppression fire, using the Dust Grenade and Sticky Ammo to limit Pluto’s movement while the bodyguard sets up. He quickly makes a protective layer of armor around Voz and takes the time to create the Metal Mule. Overall, a solid play.

He then goes over his two combat options, each in impressive detail. I appreciate how thorough these sections are in regards to this fight with Pluto. And I believe its warranted. Pluto is a dangerous foe if left on his own as well as up close and personal, so he makes sure to apply plenty of pressure as soon and as carefully as he can.

Some notable techs include the Room Clearers and the Shield Breaker, allowing Yankee to account for any hard-ice constructs Pluto could forge throughout the match. When in close quarters, Yankee is particularly prepared. He takes care to address the chilling aura of both Pluto’s constructs, as well as [My Collection]’s imposing build. Using Iron Slug armor to throw the Stand aside is a smart play, focusing on the weaker user rather than going to-to-toe with the much stronger Stand.

Overall, I’m going to give this strategy an 8. I think this strat covers a lot of ground, and clearly understands both its opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as their own. With this in mind, I think Yankee puts up a hell of a fight, despite his age.

Onto Pluto, we start with an immediate dash to the bar to avoid Yankee’s shotgun, throwing high powered ice to keep him away while [My Collection] is working. At this position, Yankee grabs his frozen bar and makes a charge towards Yankee, with it acting as both ram and shield. A good start, one that works to get immediate control of the stage.

Pluto accounts for Yankee’s interference with this plan, going over the various combat options at his disposal against the bodyguard. Throughout these techniques, I appreciate the effort put into chipping away at Yankee’s endurance. Some notable examples include freezing the ground and imbuing attacks made with the Big Ahh Hammer skill for additional sting. Both the Wrapping technique and the pouring water play are both effective in slowing him down. One point of critique, however, is that I believe the strat could’ve spent a little more time addressing Yankee’s True Grit skill in the close quarters sections. The aforementioned tech does ultimately hinder the capabilities of this skill, but that’s mainly due to inference. Otherwise, this is a solid gameplan.

Moving onto the finisher, Pluto gathers a large mass of ice to form the Death Engine and then moves forward, forcing everything in front of him out his path towards Yankee. As the name implies, this is a deadly piece of tech, leaving no real room for escape, ending things with an icy blow to the chest.

Overall, I’m going to give this strategy a 7. Pluto makes a great effort to freeze out his opponent, making the train car a frozen hell to exist in. And even if there were a few instances that could’ve been expanded upon, I think Pluto has a solid game plan for taking out this intruder.

Judge White Death (Ceep)

This match is interesting. On one side is my BOY Sub, who stood with me through basically all of T6, and Aurum whose tenure as judge speaks for itself and has one of the T6 characters I'm most excited for mechanically. Therefore, I'm going to have my biases cancel out!

Both characters start with clean opening plays. Pluto walling off the car to get space from Yankees onslaught, and Yankee having a great opening salvo to get space himself to get his own sauce in the pot.

I think both teams did exceptionally in playing against each others best case scenario and turning the tables. Yankees CQC techniques and tactics are mind boggling, overcoming the low Agility well with simple techniques and making an outright argument to managing a threat as terrifying as ｢My Collection｣. Pluto's strategic choice to play the waiting game and kite out Yankee outright flips the match dynamic, and his setup against the worst of Yankees onslaught (especially the smoke and bouncy balls) is great.

I feel that the defenses were the weakest parts of both strategies. Yankees use of metal felt like a bit much to cover A POW cold considering its conductivity, and Pluto feels like he could have done more in CQC, as strong as options like the diamond dust are. Additionally, it feels like his responses to glue/metal of simply transforming them felt weak, if not a major issue to me. That said, I'll also point out that the players didn't try and oversell themselves too much either- Pluto not claiming the diamond dust as a sure kill and Yankee not ignoring his 1 AGI or other outright loss conditions spring to mind. I appreciate that.

Normally I'd give both strategies 8s, but what brings them over the line to 9/10 each is elegance. Pluto's strategy gives a massive amount of sauce, Yankees is formatted like a dream, both of them don't feel lacking, and neither feels like they desperately needed anything added to them. The softcap gives clearance for longer strategies. But these are exemplars of when more is not necessary or better. Amazing work.