R1M23 Quality Delibs

Judge Cookie (Extra)

Starting off with Gallery, I'm suitably impressed by the product you've put out. It's well-conceived, efficient, and fun to read, with Lucil and Ruby both having deceptively tricky Stand abilities that you put to excellent use. Lucil uses her more immediate burst mobility to target the farther-off red objectives, while Ruby handles the closer green objectives to give herself time to build up; despite that simple conceit, you really take it and run with it, tackling the skeleton of your plan with style. Mili's Husband being left to the powerful Around the World is also very sensible, and Ruby has good plans to fend him off while she makes a quick escape from a confrontation that isn't in her favor. My one point of criticism is that I'm not convinced that, even given the skirmishes with Mili's Husband, Lucil would finish her search after Ruby finished her legwork without deliberately slowing herself down, and since you plan for the red objectives to finish last, that does slightly hurt your efficiency and gives your opponents a bit more leeway. That said, it's far from crippling, so I think this deserves an **8.** Great work!

Moving on to Evergreen, this strategy is an absolute doozy to parse. You do a *lot* here, with a lot of it being somewhat tangential to the main conceit of the match. You don't really get to the objectives, with the exception of Mili's husband, until closer to the end of the strategy, but everything before then sows so much chaos that you still have an excellent case for finishing up faster.

That being said, I have a fundamental problem with this strategy. While Ouroboros using Wheelz is both great fun and very clever, it's also much, much more crippling to his ability to perform tasks than you make it out to be. It breaks down into three main issues: firstly, I don't think Ouroboros' skill in aiming, even at a 5, is enough to inspect every object at the red objectives, considering that he moves with incredible speed and the objects are tossed about by his reckless charge. Secondly, once Ouroboros reaches a certain speed, his 1 AGI simply is not fast enough to allow him to actively make use of You May Die; he simply wouldn't have the reflexes needed to change his trajectory on a dime like that. And lastly, even before that, Ouroboros is gaining momentum near infinitely, which implies that a significant force is being applied to him at all times. Even with 5 END and healing, there's only so much he can do to avoid falling unconscious from the constant and extreme g-force he'd be experiencing; for reference, trained fighter pilots can only withstand 9g, and only for incredibly brief stints. All this to say, you vastly overstate Ouroboros' ability to perform his assigned tasks in light of his own ridiculous speed. Any attempt to put this tech into practice as described is, I think, inherently doomed.

Outside of this, the strategy is solid. Ouroboros' Charisma drive-by gives Muuru a huge advantage at the green objectives, and he handles Mili's Husband pretty well. Going by the rubric, I'm going to give this a **5;** a mixed bag that gets the job done decently, if messily.

Judge Cracker (Surface)

So... Last match of 2023, huh? I'll try and keep this one short and sweet, or I'd be here all day.

Starting off with the Gallery, I'm really liking what I'm seeing! I think this is just a quality strat all around. Every piece of tech and strategy feels simple, yet effective and engaging. The powers of both are used in very efficient ways, and I'm loving the interplay between the two powers that can occasionally pop up. I'm also fond of the way they go out of their way to steal 13th Floor- it's a ballsy play that makes a good case for itself, and I'm a sucker for boisterous-yet-well played tactics like that. I'm gonna go ahead and give the Gallery a **9**. An intelligent and well-reasoned strat that felt fun to read and I hope was fun to write- and with a focus on professional-level play that puts it above the usual "pretty good!" of an 8.

Moving onto Evergreen, we get a classic style of "Blue Strat"; abusing the mechanics they're allowed to fool with in creative ways the same way someone might use the bikes in GTA to fly. There's some consideration to the idea that Ouroboros can actually manage the things he's doing- he's got big stats, but these plays certainly stretch them to their upper limits in a way where although I believe he can definitely *do* it, he may not be as effective at it as the strat says he is. My personal concern is if he has the control he says he does- while he does have a 5 in Aiming, that's hand-eye coordination and visual cognition. Oro also has 1 AGI, a stat generally associated with one's ability to make effective use of one's body from a kinesthetic and instinctual standpoint. I think this strat can occasionally suffer from "Blue's Hubris"; a tendency to overstate the capabilities of strengths just outside the bounds of what's possible or fully effective. It's still remarkable, well-thought out, and extremely fun piece of stratcraft either way, though. For Evergreen, I give them a **7**. Flashy and incredibly energetic, but questions of effectivity and potential overconfidence can leave an aftertaste.

Judge Biscuit (Ceep)

Starting out with Gallery, I think this is overall solid work. While I felt Ruby was a bit on the slower side for her own mobility (I think there were potential ways to speed up her movement or coverage), Lucil’s own schmoovement was solidly done to get around the chaos inherent to the match. I think that while the early game with Ruby is a bit weak, Lucil can solidly tank aggro from [Mili’s Husband] long enough for Ruby to manage the early parts of the match.

I think that your midgame is pretty decent. The Supermarket Slide is a great midrange tech to handle a lot of the situations you need to deal with and I think your slippery nature means you’ll be a bit less concerned with Wheelz being sprayed everywhere. While I’m a bit concerned about Lucil’s defensiveness, I think that you do avoid most of the patent-brand nonsense in your way. Ruby’s a bit less directly protected, but given your play with her being further from the sort of ‘center’ of the supermarket she doesn’t need as much.

I don’t have a terrible amount to say; this is a solid strat without many major issues to it. I will note that its somewhat slower start means that Ruby may not gum up checkout quite in time, but I feel given how you play around expecting this to take a little while, it’s not a huge issue for me. While Ruby could have increased her tempo, that’s a sort of what-if I don’t feel comfortable seriously penalizing; I feel a low 8/10 makes sense to me.

As for Evergreen, I really love the overall narrative and presentation, and the overall formatting is excellent. It portrays a constant roiling chaos that really, really comes across; I’ve brought up ‘rhetoric’ as a factor in voting before, and this is a snazzy, stylish strategy. I think your opening play is really strong, giving yourself just enough time to set up before using Ouroboros as a beatstick. That said, while I think the overall strategy is super solid and works great, there are a lot of smaller things that held the strategy back for me.

First; overstatement of a 5 stat. While Muuru I had no issue with, with Ouroboros I hold umbrage with using his 5 stat for everything he uses it for. While target selection is indeed a major part of being a good shot, I think that given the sheer chaos he’s creating and the massive tempo, I’d like to see a bit more to finding the various items-- I think there might be something to use You May Die for this, but I’m not completely sure.

The other thing is that I feel Ouroboros wouldn’t be able to maintain his sheer tempo advantage. He has the Endurance to last a long time and ping-ponging is fine by me, but I feel the efficiency of his healing is going to be lower. To create Wheelz, he needs to slow down, and then to heal he needs to recollect and press them onto the wounds. While he can do some really nasty things with, say, flinging himself around, I think some of the more ambitious moves like the spinning and flinging around ICE AGE will be a lot more difficult-- how does Ouroboros keep track of ICE AGE, and keep it in his grip, even with high Strength? While he’s kicking up a ton of sand, what does he do about dehydration? Absorbing water from him isn’t necessarily something that can be solved with more flesh, even if he

Additionally it feels like there’s a tendency to oversell the effects of Friction for striking power. Notably, Muuru’s finisher on [Mili’s Husband] is a kick to launch him 13 feet skyward; I’d accept this on face if Muuru got him into a situation where he was sliding down a wall, for example, or some other sloped surface to shoot him off, but a strike feels ambitious.

Overall, this is a strategy whose overt themes and ideas are excellent, but a lot of smaller overstatements keep me from being as confident as it is. Strategically it’s masterful, but a lot of the tactics feel like they needed a bit more time in the oven; this gets a 5/10.