JJOCT7 R3M16 Quality

Judge Neil Howie (Extra)

Since Sulka's strat showed up first, I'll start with that one. You've got a brutally aggressive gameplan here, aiming to break Takanaka as quickly as possible to shore up the numbers advantage before closing in Charvet. Whipping around cars would be a quick end to anybody unlucky enough to be close by, and both Marko and Olli are leveraged to help set up a board presence more quickly.

That said, for how devastating the onslaught gets, it has its holes. Because of just how fast it moves and how concise it is, it can be very optimistic at points. In the event that Takanaka *isn't* RETIRED within the first seconds on the match, a lot of the plan becomes much more nebulous, relying either on collapsing a roof on her or using the Fallen Angel to drag her upwards. The main issue is that if the Fallen Angel is thwarted once, it can likely be thwarted repeatedly - between the two, Takanaka and Charvet have a lot of bodies to interpose, and plenty of firepower and disruption tactics to punish Beyond the Horizon for getting out of position.

Because much of your strategy hinges on something that's much more difficult to guarantee than you make it out, you introduce a lot of risk that undermines what is otherwise an excellent display of pressure and aggression. In light of that, I think a **6** is fitting.

Moving on to Charvet and Takanaka, you have a lot of micromanaging to do - eight units for Takanaka, three ACTs for Charvet, one of which has six units of its own, and of course, two whole characters without very much in the way of physicals to keep safe against some truly relentless power. In the beginning, you manage this really well.

In the second half, however, things get much looser, and often to your detriment. The majority of your gameplan is condensed into about a third of your strategy, and there isn't much mention in your midgame and endgame of the nitty-gritty. Expecting a full dissertation is unreasonable, but with how much you have to juggle there are a lot of threads left dangling at the end. Most of the individual units feel underutilized - units like Ms. Sly and Mr. Crew are barely mentioned, while units like Mr. Spark and Ms. Trigger are given very vague roles.

Considering that you frame the first half of your plan as establishing a "web," the second half establishes a very loose perimeter. That said, while it isn't the most cohesive in places, most of the individual ideas are solid, especially the car bomb as a finisher - for that and the very strong opening, I think a **6** is similarly deserved.

Judge Rowan Morrison (Ceep)

We have two pretty solid strategies here! Starting with Charvet, Team Serve and Team Slay are two halves of a solid opening; I think you stay relatively safe while getting your area set up. I feel that this strategy keeps Charvet and Takanaka fairly safe, protecting them from Sulka’s offensive push early on. The midgame is a bit lighter on the ground, and I worry that the strategy as a whole relies on Sulka walking into you a bit, but overall I didn’t have too much of an issue with this strategy. I think it earns a 6/10.

For Sulka, I think that your offenses are strong even if your opener is a bit ambitious. Your midgame is fairly strong, though I feel that it’ll be difficult for some of your moves to land; getting a car into the stores, for example. All in all, I think that your decision to go to the roofs made sense and this was a really good showing of your ACT 2. I think a 6/10 for this strategy is earned; good job!

Judge Edward Malus (Coop)

Sulka’s strategy is incredibly focused on what it wants to do/how it wants to win, and for better and worse it does very well at one particular thing. This thing being to gun for Takanaka immediately to take both her and all of the ｢Sunset Valley｣ off the table at the same time. Everything surrounding this one goal is very solidly put together, from the first rushdown to the back-up plans for seeking Takanaka out and “kidnapping” her into a more optimal position. The core of this strat being dedicated to mostly just one of your two targets however does leave some holes in the overall strategy though.

First, while the SV Goons that immediately pose a threat to Sulka and their thugs are prepared for, the rest of them are effectively unmentioned throughout the entire strategy. It comes across that the variety of skills at your opponents’ disposal was underestimated when they are simply brushed off as minimal threats. Like, yeah you’ve got a big ole punchghost that can wipe out Crew Members without too much issue, but you still need to prepare for the likely event that they aren’t going to just walk up ready to be punched in the face, and will actually put their abilities to work in order to stop you. The same complaint carries over to Charvet as well. You do plan accordingly for confronting ｢Freakum Dress｣ ACT 3, but ACTs 1 and 2 are barely even considered at any point, barring a contingency for if Sulka’s clothing gets possessed that seems like it was maybe unfinished because I’m not really sure what the response is there.

All that being said, the core plan to wipe out Takanaka as soon as possible is a solid plan that does work really well thanks to the emphasis placed upon it. I’ll be giving Sulka a low **7**.

Charvet’s strat is unfortunately of the kind that I hate to see the most in tourney - one that starts off really strong but then fumbles in the middle/end and never quite sticks the landing. Setting up a fortification while having a “scout” group of the remaining Crew Members is a pretty good opening. I find the traps made by ｢Freakum Dress｣ ACT 3 and Mr. Boom to be really cool and that they take really good advantage of the “everything is destructible” nature of this match. Some of the Slay Team’s opening gambits are also neat (mainly the stuff using Ms. Spark) but other than that I think this is where the strategy starts to fall apart.

There is too much time and potential put into the exploding base you build for you to, in the final section of the strat, be fine with tossing the whole idea out. Having a backup plan is one thing, but this reads far more like you never really expected it to work when all you needed to do was stand your ground and put more support into the idea. Generally delibs aren’t supposed to be about “what I would do instead”, but utilizing the Slay Team to focus more on baiting in Sulka and their lackeys or focusing more on turtling in the booby-trapped base until their inevitable rush-down would’ve done wonders for this strat. Without the proper follow-through to an otherwise great opener, the best I can give Charvet is a **6**.