JJBA OCT #8 R1M29 Quality Deliberations

Judge Switz

GRotS

Very solid all-around! The macro strategy utilized for the match is very interesting, forcing the fight towards favorable ground and using any time they’re allowed before then to make that fight more painful. The general positioning and flow of the fight is felt strongly in the strategy’s usage of Silver Mountain Man and Maybe’s entourage; even for a slow-paced strategy, the efforts each player place on the field are broadly meaningful. Silver Mountain Man as a combatant in particular is used very well here, in my opinion: the variety of weapons he creates and how he’s handled as a force of destruction against Bodhicitta are particularly compelling. Maybe’s scaling arguments are fairly convincing, giving a firm idea of where the strategy wants to be. The only thing I might add is that the strategy could have used more detailed provisions on disengagement against individual opponents, especially for Silver Mountain Man, who needs to be moving throughout the stage constantly to reach their optimal win state. Maybe can bail herself out of these situations with her own scaling options (practically meant for situations like these), but Silver has the potential to get tangled up faster than they would like. That said, the strategy has the means to reach its winstate at some point, even in non-optimal conditions, well enough that I can safely award it an **8**.

LLC

LLC takes a unique and interesting approach to this fight, effectively conjuring two separate strategies that can call upon each other at any given time in order to create, effectively, two interchangeable 1v1 scenarios via essentially becoming two incredible inconveniences. Ian has a singular and very firm philosophy with his side of the combat that plays into his strengths and the weaknesses of his opponent well. Leveraging Tikka’s 1 skill around the cover of the map and the tree is very creative and embodies the primary principle of the strat, just making it generally difficult to actually get a fight going and disallowing the opponent from getting an advantage state; Ian is unlikely to start a fight with an advantage, but the opponent is similarly unlikely to have anything over him. Rachel’s strategy is a good complement to Ian’s, making an incredible waste of time of herself by taking advantage of the layout of the map and zoning opponents that target her specifically. I’m particularly fond of the way the two strats converge as their “setup” period ends, and the interplay becomes a lot more direct, building on the principles of assistance they used earlier to make for a much more thorough 2v2 scenario. I could provide some nitpicks about the efficacy of the strat upon entering a 2v1 scenario early, especially for Ian without serious backup from Rachel given his unscaled defense is more reliant on fighting Silver Mountain Man alone, but my only broader issue with the strat is its elegance. As I said earlier, while the convergence of the two strats definitely exhibits its strengths, in other ways it can feel like two separate strategies, with the length to match. Parts of Ian’s combat tech and Rachel’s map positioning definitely could have been trimmed a bit, and the assist callouts could have been better integrated into the main body instead of being relegated to their own sections. Overall, however, the strat itself is a very competent product worthy of an **8**.

Judge Mario

Now that the mountain dew has finally flushed out of my system, it’s time for me to get back into delibbing! This is an interesting matchup, with lots of complicated characters and interesting motivations behind them. Let’s jump in!

Starting with the Ghost Riders, the plan here is straightforward - after some initial setup, the duo learn about the opponents through direct engagement, then proceed to destroying the stage and forcing the opponents into the range of the Sunset Tree. Silver Mountain Man forms the main bulk of the offense, utilizing a wide variety of weapons in various situations to tear down the stage and contend with the beast that is Bodhicitta, while Maybe focuses on Rachel, using their store of vine limbs to try and grapple the slippery target and bring them to the ground, all while Tikka ferries useful materials to Silver.

It’s a decent plan overall, albeit a potentially slow one - GRotS does acknowledge this, though even still I feel it may take longer than anticipated, if only for the sheer size of the oil rig. That said, there are backup plans to get various jobs done faster, so I don’t think the time scale is too damning. In a similar vein, I occasionally found myself questioning Tikka’s material gathering - unless I’m fundamentally misunderstanding something about how Silver works, some of these weapons are gonna need a *lot* of material to make, and I question whether things like glass and pocket coins are enough to get the job done. Again, though, this is a minor note - most of your weapons are fine, and if things *do* end up taking longer, that just means Tikka has more time to get more material, so my two complaints are somewhat mutually exclusive.

Beyond that, I don’t have much to say Quality-wise! The plan is solid, the opponents are well accounted for, it reads well, and the budding romance between Maybe and Tikka was a cute narrative throughline (can’t wait to see what these two have in store for us). Though it didn’t blow me away, I think this strat does just about everything it needs to to get the job done, and for that I give it a low **8**. Nicely done!

Next up is Laying Low Co, and I’ll get my biggest complaint out of the way - I’m docking you Elegance points. You guys have a fairly simple gameplan, and most of the builds involved are fairly straightforward as well - which is to say, this did *not* need to be a 35k strategy. Furthermore, the elegance is compounded by the way you split the strategy almost entirely into “what Ian does” and “what Rachel does” - this isn’t inherently a bad idea, but when taken together with the sheer length, it made me feel like I was reading two separate strategies that barely connected to each other, which made the whole thing together a bit of a slog to read. I think blending together Ian and Rachel’s plans somewhat could have helped mitigate both points, but, here we are.

All that being said… this is a *really* good strategy! Generally speaking, the plan is that Ian camps out directly underneath the Sunset Tree and makes any attempt to approach him a living hell, while Rachel darts around outside the range of the tree and engages hit and run tactics from a distance. As surprising a move as it is, I think I agree with LLC that camping the tree is probably the best place for Ian to be, and I’m especially impressed by the counterplay - I’ll have more to say on this in Jojolity, but the way Ian effectively works to not just fight GRotS, but use their own strengths against them is quite impressive to behold! The creativity was also very fun to see - again, I’ll say more in Jojolity, but Rachel’s wide variety of uses were quite fun to see in action!

Outside of the Elegance stuff, most of my complaints are nitpicks - this is a very impressive strategy, one that makes me excited to see what the future holds for you two! Ultimately, I think I’m going to give you guys a high **8**. Trim things down and this could easily be a 9, but it’s still a sight to behold nonetheless!

Judge Stream

GRotS:

Tikka and Maybe play a slow and measured game throughout their strategy, demonstrating solid technical understanding of their kits in how they approach their opponents. The overarching goal throughout the strat is to eat away at the stage as they roam around, avoiding committal fights as they force their opponents towards Maybe’s tree.

I found things quite comprehensive defensively, with good adaptable plans for the various offenses your opponents might employ, and heavily utilizing Silver Mountain Man’s durability and destructive potential to protect yourselves and exert your influence over the map. May I do think there’s potential that Silver Mountain Man is leaned on a bit too heavily, because while he is incredibly capable, he’s not indestructible, and I do think he might be put in harm’s way a bit much for comfort at some points. I think there are ways you can still square the aggression required by Tikka’s 1 stat while still leaning more evenly on your other options.

Offensively, your adaptability similarly benefits you. Tikka employs a good variety of weapons courtesy of Silver Mountain Man, changing them to benefit the particular situation. Silver Mountain Man once again is a very powerful destructive force, and while acknowledges that up until the final stage he might not deal a ton of damage, he presents a pretty major deterrence and threat in how he’s played.

While Silver Mountain Man does a lot of heavily lifting, Maybe is now slouch, the tree being a very important centerpiece defensively, as well as the wolves providing a good additional offense. The lion is addressed well and the lion teeth are used to aid offensively and defensively.

I think you play the preceding moments well enough to convincingly make it to the point where you force things into the tree, and from there you have very solid plans to capitalize on your advantage in the area of effect, using Silver Mountain Man’s destructive force in the small area, as well as Maybe’s expertise within the ability, to pull off some convincing finishing plays.

In summary, this was fairly straightforward but very effective. You demonstrated a good understanding of the opponent’s kits and played carefully around them, playing a slow game while you manipulated the arena to get your opponents onto more favorable ground for you, and having a comprehensive and adaptive micro game for both offense and defense. I’m going to give this an 8/10.

LLC:

Things start off with a classic rushdown, of a kind at least, where Ian immediately heads for the Sunset Tree, splitting off from Rachel. They play a kind of split game, where Ian covers the range of the tree and Rachel covers the area outside it with ambush tactics. Fairly straightforward and has effective potential, but I have mixed feelings on it which I’ll expand upon.

Ian plays a pretty stationary game, steeling himself to the effects of the sunset tree and working to scale the environment around it to his favor.

I think one of my primary gripes here, however, is that I don’t feel enough attention is paid to his weaknesses, including his Tapped Out: 1. While the things he does are by no means impossible for him, Ian immediately enters into an area the opponent is very likely to go and proceeds to attempt some pretty extensive setup. The potential for interference by the opponents, as well as accounting for the units of Maybe’s Stand, I feel like it’s far more likely that Ian gets set upon before becoming the stonewalling (pun intended) force that he intends to be, and that he’s much more likely to get overwhelmed in the process.

Does this mean he’s just dead or his setup doesn’t work? No, but I think the dichotomy of the threats that Ian and Rachel pose is an important piece of this strat, and more care needs to be paid to the strength of both sides of that plan. Ian can make up for it somewhat through the sheer potential of his Stand as well as pretty competent planning, but I don’t think the potency works out to what it’s intended to be.

As for Rachel’s path, she serves as a pretty effective deterrent to the area outside the tree, using effective hit and run tactics and really using her maneuverability to her advantage.

She does a good job of rushing around and taking advantage of the variety of objects on the map and weaponizing it as shrapnel as well as gathering things for Ian to make use of. Rachel does very well at providing assistance to Ian in general, given the fairly separated nature of the strategy, I think that Rachel’s potential to provide assistance through the shard is important for bolstering the overall strength of the plan.

Rachel spends the strategy being a general nuisance, aiming to weaken Ghost Riders’ potential to find safety or set up by rushing in and out, grappling, and weaponizing the map. I think she plays her range well and respects the capabilities of the opponents, as well as really cleverly implementing the variety of items that she uses.

Her methods serve to really uplift this two-pronged approach they’re taking, both aiding in Ian’s counterplay within the area of the tree, as well as setting up well for the ending where they capitalize on their wearing out of the opponents over time.

Overall, I’m going to give this a high 7/10. I think it had some pretty solid core planning and strengths, but I thought that Ian’s individual weakness could have been addressed better in the early game, as it’s incredibly crucial that he sets all that up for the rest of the strategy to function properly. Still, it demonstrated a good understanding of both your and your opponent’s capabilities, and had good execution overall.