JJOCT7 R3E1 Quality

Judge Naruto (Logic)

A straightforward enough match that seems like the class “ranged vs melee”, but the size of the map and the utility afforded by both kits provide each player the latitude to vary their approach—a format not uncommon to exhibition matches and duels alike.

Grace goes for a traditional melee approach: build up defenses before engaging with the opponent. (Planning) While the Crab constructs are interesting (Competency), the transition into CQC isn’t as smooth. (Planning) Part of this is due to strat’s emphasis on disarming any setup Nat may have created (Counterplay), but the strat is unclear when exactly it makes the pivot from disarm to engage beyond “[when] Nat either lacks Orbits around her or has only just been able to create new ones, [so that] Grace aims to have his Crableg Spear usable.” (Planning/Logistics) Planning emphasizes the logical throughline between sections, and the discontinuity between the resource denial and aggressive positioning harms this axis.

I’ve spoken of the need to split the midgame into multiple sections, but I think the CQC should have been compiled in the last section to further focus on the specifics of fighting Nat. (Formating/Competency/Planning) Currently, Section 3 assumes even damage and Nat’s dwindling resources to necessitate a scramble; this isn’t an unreasonable assumption, but it needs more discussion of the combat itself for me to accept it as not unreasonable. (Planning)

Additionally, while much attention is given to resource denial and some positioning, combat is left to a few sentences, focusing on parrying and disarming, but not arguing how it does meaningful damage or how Grace gets in range to do so beyond dodge-rolling Nat’s approaches, relying on a tie-up into a grapple finish. (Competency/Counterplay)

It’s this discontinuity across sections (Planning) and thin combat tactics that leads me to conclude that the strat “doesn’t cover things that could back it up sufficiently:” [6]

Nat immediately looks to divide and conquer, sending Near Future ahead as a Central Body to pick up loose objects as it outboxes Grace and Nat herself looks to collect resources. (Planning) While having Nat collect resources from 3 of the 4 towers is a major time sink for initial scaling (Planning/Logistics), especially when Near Future has such a Durability deficit against Grace, the awareness of this weakness and emphasis on merely preoccupying Grace mitigates this concern. (Competency/Technical/Counterplay)

The second section is dedicated to corning Grace, not only collapsing the scaffolding as terraforming but also recreating the Dicing Wall to ward off Grace’s approach. While the time sink for these plays may be a bit high, especially relying on Nat’s own efforts (Logistics), as one who emphasizes the importance of lockdown for melee, I find this section compelling on the whole, especially given my comments on the Dicing Wall in that prior match. (Planning)

The conclusion of these two sections is—I have to begrudgingly admit—pretty cool. (Creative) Having spent the first two sections harrying and debilitating Grace, Near Future rejoins Natalie to coordinate into fighting as a multiarmed asura, using an attention to detail to eke out small advantages, surprises, and opportunities wherever possible, before spending all of Nat’s resources for a knockout blow. (Competency)

While I think Nat overindexes into resources gathering and setup so that Near Future risks being overwhelmed by Grace in combat (Logistics), I think there’s enough care taken on the whole to ward against that possibility (Counterplay), and the clear logical connection between sections leaves a strat that “covers secondary things sufficiently enough and the mistakes it makes don’t cut down what it does do:” [7].

Judge Sasuke (Ceep)

Starting out with Nat, she immediately takes charge of the tempo of the match by rushing Grace down, with the dual goal of getting early damage on him and tying him up to deny him resources he needs. In this regard, I feel that you plan around his counterpunching fairly well, and you convince me well enough that Nat doesn’t Just Die when trying to put pressure on Grace. Everything here is fairly well detailed; that said I noticed that there was a notable hole in her ability to manage projectiles and similar high-powered ordinance. Near Future has enough Speed and Precision that it can rely on dodging a little, but there are a lot of funky options that Grace has to get reach, and he can propel things harder than Nat can pick up. This isn’t a major issue to me, and Grace doesn’t end up relying on these, but it is something of note for an otherwise solid section.

Moving onto her midgame, and honestly, I think it drags a little. While Near Future stays active and putting pressure on Grace, I think that Nat vastly underestimates how much force and energy she has to put into knocking over the towers to make her arena. Her backup of the Dicing Walls to wall Grace in works fairly well however, so this is an ultimately minor complaint.

As for the back bits, and as my fellow judge said, it’s pretty cool! Getting Nat into the mix is a solid way of putting even more pressure on Grace, and I believe in her ability to go for the nasty surprise hits and specific attacks to wear down Grace. I don’t really have a lot to say on this section; it’s well done. I still think that Nat is a bit more soft to projectiles than you’d probably want, but that’s splitting hairs. All in all, I think that this is worth a low 7/10. It’s all solid work, and nothing is so detrimental to the strategy that it falls apart entirely. While Nat doesn’t get the benefit of the towers being knocked down in my mind, the contingency around if she can’t is solidly made and she nonetheless succeeds in forcing Grace into a slugfest where she holds all the advantages.

As for Grace, I felt this strategy was a bit aimless. You start out with a strong suite of well made defenses, to protect Grace somewhat from Nat’s onslaught of projectiles. You have a decent play at overwhelming her orbits with junk, but given her Precision I doubt your ability to maintain it for too long. I also felt that the actual combat that Grace brought to bear was a bit thin on the ground. The spear is a solid, reliable weapon that he can consistently remake, but I feel that his preparations to get in close range of Nat were a bit thin on the ground, given the massive mobility advantage that she can bring to bear and her higher range.

I feel that Grace’s combat is solidly ideated with the crab claws and spears as longer range options to catch Nat or Near Future out, but there wasn’t either the commitment to hard rushdown or the burst mobility on his end to support it. He certainly has strong options, but there just isn’t the backbone or support to consistently threaten Nat or Near Future directly. All in all, I feel this strategy is worth a low 6/10, because it does have good and threatening ideas that just aren’t developed as much as I’d like.

Judge Sakura (Alpha)

Oh boy, it’s time for round 3’s first exhibition match! I hope everyone’s set for a good time, because Exhibitions are asked for, set up, and made by-and-large for player interaction! I haven’t checked how many votes it got just yet, so- wow, five votes.

I’ll start this train off with Gridiron Pizza, whose crabciting crabventures crabbed my crabtention. Crab.

Now that that’s out of my system, let’s look at this mechanically. Grace uses a nearby car for cover and weaponry, seems legit, and takes a minute to get set up for potential counterplays. It is a deathmatch so that’s more than warranted.

Taking a quick step back before we move on to other plays, a minor nitpick I had when reading this’n was that it could’ve benefitted from bullet points or quote text for separation’s sake. Readability is king, after all.

Back to the bulk of it, there’s a lot of carcinization going on between making tools, crabbris, crabs, and barriers to keep yourself alive, and that’s good use of kit and tech. On the flipside, the battlefield is finite, to a degree, so capping the strat off with starting over from point A with vastly depleted materials doesn’t seem feasible, though it is noteworthy.

While I do see a solid throughline and the strat’s thesis for how it moves forward, it doesn’t have much more than that to present. It appears, it coheres, it gets a 6.

Now, let’s move onto Nobody Answers Destro, with their physics-slapping strat! Before we get into it, if you have the time and space for it, please proofread. There were a lot of minor typos I snagged on in the reading, one of which included Natalie’s last name.

There’s a lot of good here mechanically, going for things like blunt objects (hammers, ratchets, etc.) to break armor and using stabbing implements when the soft fleshy bits are exposed, or when no other option exists, is solid framing. You did good work building onward and upward from there with the shredding walls and other major orbitals.

From here, I don’t have too much to say. All of the questions I feel I’d have normally are answered adequately, with stand movement or ability usage covering bases, the separation of bodies and stand range covering a large portion of the map, and available thoughts on carcinized objects being answered naturally as they come.

All in all, I feel like this deserves a 7.