R1E3 Quality

Judge Elmo (Logic)

Another exhibition match, a simple fight between two Item Play User Beasts, one with an emphasis on plant manipulation the other an emphasis on mobility and teleportation. Dice threw in some verticality and we have a nice little deathmatch for both characters to show their stuff!

CdK:

Was waffling on my score for a bit, but CdK gets a 6 Quality. There’s solid Planning with the throughline of mark setup, disarmament, and the final beatdown, with a decent tech of Momentum redirecting to do drive-bys on Parhelion (Technical), but the strat overestimates its efficacy and underestimates its opponent’s defenses.

Much ink is spilled on Parhelion’s physical prowess with four 4 STR arms, but little is said of her ability. While this can be read as “we only intend to do X, Y, Z—we don’t have to focus on them,” we grade execution by the text, meaning that the persuasive burden shifts to the tactics used. The disarmaments aren’t solely justified by statistical differences and tech and tactics are displayed, but they like robustness or redundancy in case the three methods do not work. To approach, steal, approach, then break take a lot of effort and the resulting scraps need to be attenuated out: how thoroughly do you convince the reader that they would work. Given the relative lack of circumspect here (Competency/Logistics).

More concerningly, being knocked Out of Flow is treated as an afterthought in a strategy that lives and dies by its momentum. Parhelion’s 4 AGI means that she can clear the map to chase down Neon with some ease and if Neon is knocked out mid-engagement while his teleportation is on cooldown, then he risks being RETIREd before he can even get out. (Counterplay/Logistics/Technical Knowledge)

Were I only to consider the mechanical aspects, I would give this a 5 for the over/underestimation of the above resulting from the “momentum happy pathing” where I am insufficiently persuaded by the strat’s arguing of its success and resilience. And while I think the final section is a bit hard to read, it highlights the Narrative throughline that bumps it up to a 6. In many respects, I think it’s a microcosm of the strat as a whole: it gets from A to Z decently enough, but to reach higher echelons you need to persuade more strongly of each step.

You’ll never win every engagement as if it were nothing, so take that opportunity to *sell* that engagement: the strikes, tricks, and feints that make every victory a drama and a triumph—you have a skill in Capoeira, a martial art entirely about performance, dance, and trickery! A consistent point that I’ve made across my delibs is this persuasion burden and how you meet it by just leveraging what you have and understanding its consequences. By Narrative, by Competency, by Planning, there are many paths to do this, and the Rubric rewards and encourages all of them for player enjoyment. Going into R2, I will more loudly state my refrain of “come on, give us more”: you’re clearly capable and the path is set before you, you just gotta shoot for the stars.

BTA:

Parhelion goes for more of a scaling strat, starting with similar seed setup. From a defensive position, Parhelion takes more of a counterpunch heavy strat at both melee and range, with some terraforming to further tilt the battlefield in her favor. I don’t really have much to say because this is all very competently done: solid Competency/Counterplay with the specific ways Parhelion engages Neon to mitigate his strengths and to play around his Flow State; the Logistical knowledge of the opportunities for the various scaling techs and the resources need by both sides (Marks vs Melons); leveraging of the aforementioned ebb and flow.

The decision to collapse the wall onto Neon, while intelligent, is almost *too* passive. Waiting for him to re-engage having winnowed his resources doesn’t stop him from just disengaging and setting up his teleportation network again, which disrupts the execution of this plan, but not catastrophically so. Some have commented that there’s less offensive pressure here beyond melons, which I’m not as pressed by given the focus on counter punching. I do agree with the relatively light direct CQC against Neon beyond the 3-Hit Combo. There are sufficient defensive measures in place between projectile interference, armor, and terraforming, but Neon is a highly capable physical combatant between his physicals, teleportation, and Capoeira: some more circumspect could have been given to engagements should they arise. (Logistics/Competency/Counterplay) Nonetheless, this strat earns Parhelion an 7.

Judge Grover (Cory)

Good stuff on Neon's end here! Very lean, but that's not necessarily a bad thing all things considered. Assuming you're in Flow, this is a fast and nasty strat with a degree of setup that helps to augment your mobility ability. My main issues revolve around your relative lack of answers for two big "ifs", those being Parhelion and being out of flow. As is there's one section dedicated to getting rid of Parhelion's stand, and very little on if you're out of Flow; frankly, I consider the latter a much bigger consideration given how big an element of your kit it is. A strat so lean cant afford not to focus more on those 'ifs', and for that this gets a 6.

As for Parhelion, I can say almost the exact opposite in terms of counterplay. From turn one you respect the shenanigans your opponent can get up too, planning for whatever type of game he's planning to throw at you. I'll give massive props to the goal of throwing him out of Flow; ensuring your opponent never has access to their ideal gamestate is pretty much the number 1 rule of deathmatches, and Parhelion hits that standard about as close to perfect as I can imagine. A 8!

Judge Oscar (Flame)

Starting off with Neon’s strat, he goes straight for a sucker punch and then moves onto set up the arena. Something to note right off is that he’s pretty confident to stay near Parhelion perhaps a bit more than necessary after that sucker punch - he could have sorted out his speakers after zipping away.

To his benefit, apart from that Neon’s base plan is good - setting up the arena so he can easily teleport around while taking potshots, before focusing on stealing and breaking the hoes to remove her of her ability, before moving in to CQC to break her other advantage - her arms. However, almost no attention is paid to her abilities besides the basics, and counterplay is all but nonexistent beyond disabling her - the number of times you mention her growing plants or duplicating objects can be counted on one hand.

Ultimately this strat feels overconfident, underestimating Parhelion’s potential with all the focus on Neon alone. However I don’t think this is a poor strat - this gets a **5** from me.

Also I don’t know why Neon thinks Geneva is an alien? That’s weird.

Speaking of Geneva, she starts off straight into Counterplay and Logistics by making a point to keep an eye on Neon as much as possible. Her first move is to set herself up in the middle of the map, growing corn seeds from her bag and planning to make a fortress of roots and corn, before moving up the stairs to take the high ground - prioritizing the latter action over the former in the case of a rushdown.

The plan(t) splits at this point depending on Neon’s approach - melons for defense against a ranged game by aiming to win a 3-strike variant of dodgeball, and if he’s charging her then corn roots to make traps that’ll make the walls crumble while she enters CQC.

She is always aiming to land 3 hits in to knock Neon out of Flow, and given the opportunity a melon box will do as well. Her end game starts once this happens - destroying marks, keeping him out of flow, Parhelion takes full advantage of his weakened state to herd the fight to near the walls to make a trap before finishing him off in melee.
Overall the strat shows high and consistent Counterplay and use of Logistics to keep control of the battlefield against the highly mobile opponent, getting itself a high **8**.