JJBA OCT #8 R1M4 Quality Deliberations

Judge Blue -

~~~~~~~~~~GHOST RIDERS:

The best compliment I can give this strategy is that it feels as if it’s a progression from Ghost Rider’s R1m1 strategy. The strong core to your team’s writing is all there, a fine tuned, streamlined plan and fun flavor, refined all the more through some confident applications of tech and a willingness to push your strengths more. The work you put on here is genuinely *impressive* in that regard. From a Planning perspective the broader tactic of Fishbone assisted maneuvering paired with stage setting is carried through upon with a strong sense of panache, and whilst the spacing of the docks are such that REEL BIG FISH would not become a serious obstacle for Nathanial unless used specifically against vessels in less cramped spaces I’m nevertheless willing to look kindly upon it for the fact that it augments Azumi’s own movements stylishly.

I have some concerns from a Technical aspect, the C POW stats at play here are certainly pushing at their limitations when it comes to pulling these large, heavy vessels, but given the exact nature of the ability being specialized around pulling, your speed and the physics at play here mitigating the burden I am willing to look *more* kindly upon it. Nevertheless in your future showings I’d give more explicitly written thought to Fishbone’s power as it relates to the weight of heavier prospective targets, as the fact that I can see an argument in favor of it from a physics perspective is your saving grace here. In hypothetical future Azumi matches I will expect that I wont *have* to do those calculations/research on the backend.

Continuing the Technical based analysis the narrative of Azumi augmenting upon his pizza carrying methods via Fishbone is clever, fun, and neatly integrated with the fact that he’s going to have to return to Pizza Boy thanks to Karen’s presence. It demonstrates a strong sense of Narrative, Readability, Elegance and Logistics in the same stroke - both ensuring the strategy progresses naturally over time as it explains things and seeing to it that Azumi never overtaxes himself trying to ferry too much at once. It is ultimately a small aspect of a much larger work, but one emblematic nonetheless of its broader approach. What is here is a well conceived route that is augmented by some simplistic, adaptable, and expert-level applications of your stand ability to glide about the stage, turning pizza delivery into soccer practice. As a result, strong Logistics are augmented by just as strong Creativity.

Thus, I feel comfortable granting you a 9. A higher score, I suspect, would’ve required more compelling Counterplay and slightly tighter Tech considerations regarding the boats, but I do not feel as if either stops you from making a strong case for your victory.

Finally, I once again find myself interested in seeing what the future holds for the Ghost Riders. Your narrative sections here are doing a stellar job in selling the broader team identity at play here, tying in their themings with interteam dynamics with the same kind of effortless grace your strategy as a whole puts on. Genuinely superb stuff!

As a brief tangent I’m not raising concerns about overtaxing endurance on account of the fact that there would be natural breaks taken between deliveries, for those of you curious it was something I factored in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~LAYING LOW CO.

Ohhh boy.

Take your 9. You’ve earned it.

Starting with the lead star of this strategy - the Technical aspect - I find myself thoroughly impressed. It takes a special hand to take a stand ability and push the envelope on it hard enough I’m left wondering to myself how much of this is a valid use of the ability, and how much of this pushes the line a bit too far. The simplicity of your stand’s phrasing makes this job easier, perhaps, but I think you nevertheless make a strong case for Nathanial’s absolute mastery over Walk Like An Egyptian. I really only have two issues: 1) That partial transformations, whilst arguable via precision, are a notable deviation from how the ability is phrased and 2) that attaching as phrased seems a bit off-skew given the E power the stand is working off, but neither of these ended up being too much of major issues. Ultimately the partial transformations are still arguable, and can be included if necessary in a r2 retuning, and attachment itself is far from the only card up your sleeve, both defensively and in managing your pizzas.

Attempting to balance all the boxes at once is definitely ambitious, but you demonstrate a clear knowledge of the strength of user beasts in your managing of them with in your own words, ‘agility and pose’. That the pizzas are 2D in this situation makes their balancing all the easier in the reduced directions they could tilt, and while I’m skeptical towards Attachment’s ability to keep ahold of something a stronger force is attempting to wretch out of your grasp, it’s nevertheless able to help stabilize boxes.  The narrative from this point on is a delightful read showcasing elements of the strategy I’ll go into further in my jojolity deliberation, sequencing to the final one two punch of Nathanial’s heist-movie esc operation to infiltrate the final boat and make the last, show-stealing pizza delivery!  All-together great stuff!...

…but I’m missing something, aren’t I?

Yeah. I am.

If the Tech on display here is the lead star then I find the Logistics, Competency and Planning to be the stage-crew allowing it to thrive. You rightly deduce one of Azumi’s competitive edges in this match and seek to mitigate the threat it poses in every manner imaginable, taking secret routes, positioning keenly to avoid interference, giving them the respect they deserve should they try to menace you and even accounting for how they might sully the customer experience. You give yourself multiple countermeasures to maintain the safety of your gear, from more active positional plays such as using your clients as body-blocks to the exploitation of 2D transformation, each augmented by strong underlying routing and positional play which passively help avoid putting you in the situations where you would even need to rely upon them in the first place. In concert your defense synergizes elegantly to keep you moving from point A to point B, and even if this didn’t end up being as relevant to the direct question of ‘who wins’ is still impressive nonetheless. Any one of these plays if overrelied upon would likely expose you to risk or in some cases - excessive time delay - but in being woven together so seamlessly you create a compelling argument for momentum.


It’s certainly less showy, but it indicates a thoroughness behind this work that leaves me impressed nonetheless!

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Judge Clever -

GRotS:

The name of the game here is efficiency. It’s a race, after all, and I think Azumi does very well in both planning a route that enables their core plan the best, and uses their abilities in clever and concise ways to keep things going on schedule.

Reel Big Fish is the star piece of interference in not only this strat but the entire match, and while I don’t think it’s as effective as the writing implies it would be (drifting a boat to the other side of the docks is an inconvenience at best, along with concerns with Range limiting it’s efficacy) I do see circumstances where it could trip up the enemy if even just slightly. The race could be decided by seconds, after all; forcing the enemy to reroute even just half a boardwalk might end up being the decider. Strange that it was never used on Boats 8 or 9, the two that would have been disastrous for the enemy to have drifted away too far.

Azumi plays it pretty straight outside of this, focusing on keeping trips short and safe with novel use of spikes from [Fishbone]. Dribbling is a fantastic piece of movement tech and does wonders for keeping him high and dry while Railgrinding from boat to boat. This build went in with the raw speed disadvantage, but by cutting corners over water without sacrificing Pizza safety I think this has the potential to more than make up for that difference. Also: objectively correct to ignore the Karen in order to save time, and to steal from them in the process? Perfect.

It’s hard to find areas of genuine critique without resorting to nitpicks, but I suppose the two areas worth mentioning are the management of spikes and the multitasking going on. It is hard at times to really see how many spikes are being consumed/are active at once vs. being generated by the stand and available to use, though there is specific mention of [Fishbone] taking a moment or two to focus on regeneration which in my mind is just satisfactory enough to keep it a minor footnote instead of a tick against the strat.

Azumi’s action economy is also being stretched to the limit at times, I feel; Dribbling is a fairly cumbersome and precise use of stand ability, combined with towing the pizzas and Azumi themselves grinding rails and doing tricks, I can see a world where this all falls apart when focus is broken for more than an instant. Luckily for GRotS, however, they correctly predicted that their opponents would go light on the interference, making the above much more reasonable than if they had been under fire. Crazy soul-read or luck of the draw, either way it keeps the fact that Azumi stretches themselves a bit thin from being a problem.

Without any real fault to point to, I’m happy to give this an Eight. The logistics here are very well done, novel use of stand ability and user skill shored up any raw weaknesses going into the match, all paired with a narrative and creativity that makes it a joy to read.


LLC:

I should apologize up front for what will likely be a very short entry, because I believe LLC handles the objective so well that it's hard to come up with notes.

Nate is disgustingly efficient at every step of the plan, only taking a brief pause in the beginning to make sure he looks the part and secure his Pizza payload through layered application of his ability. I especially like that the team took the time to describe each delivery and how Nate approached the customers with a professional air, it makes for a good narrative through-line while tying jojolity into the mechanics to a satisfying degree.

The planning and logistics of Nate’s route are pristine, focusing purely on his own efforts in a dead sprint to deliver the final pizza. It would have been nice to see some interference plays worked into the overall plan just to keep things rounded for any situation, but what is presented is not hurt by their absence. Conversely, Nate's contingency list is more than healthy enough to ensure any hiccups are kept to the minimum. The Reel Big Fish play in particular does run the risk of messing up his pathing, but novel use of [Egyptian]’s ability makes sure he can still reach boats that have drifted away with relative ease.

The underwater 2D tech shows a surprising amount of depth to Nate’s ability, one that I hope we see more of in future matches. Layering the effect on different objects and triggering them in sequence to avoid getting wet is some fantastic application. The magic trick for each delivery uses a similar concept to a more lighthearted ends, but gives his route a layer of showmanship that his rival lacks.

Nate's laser-focus on completing the objective serves his kit very well in this match, it's a brutal efficiency that would be difficult for most builds to contest with. The fundamentals on display here are flawless; with a few ideas for interference and a narrative that explored Nate a bit more as a character, this strat could have very easily been pushed to a 9 or even a 10. As is, I am happy to give it a high Eight. A fantastic first showing from LLC!

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Judge Stream -

Azumi:

This strategy is straightforward and highly effective. Does very well as far as readability, flowed quite well and I didn’t feel that there was too much fluff. I felt that Fishbone was used to great effect throughout, with a lot of clever movement tech, and some solid interference that showed just how potent its relatively simple ability can be.

Your many usages of Fishbone to bolster your movement and stability were the star of the show, I feel. When it comes to the race itself, you nailed it, implementing your ability in a lot of creative ways. Every little time save counts here, and you pull off a lot of them in ways that are both technically sound and elegant.

As far as your plans for interference, I do think that Fishbone was asked to carry a bit too much weight at times. Between the bounds of its Power and Range, I question the efficacy of REEL BIG FISH as one of the core pillars for the strat. Not so much that it doesn’t work at all, but in a way that I feel dulls some other aspects of the strategy. I think that maybe some further interference throughout the match was neglected due to an overestimation of this tech.

I think that with a bit more diversity of options for interference and counterplay throughout the strat and a bit more care paid to your action economy and limitations this could’ve been bumped a bit higher, but I still think this deserves a solid 8/10.

Nate:

Another well formatted strat! Yours also flowed quite well, didn’t feel overcrowded, and you had a very clear plan of action. You demonstrated a good understanding of Azumi’s capability, and played within those bounds well, respecting the need to get some distance and avoid harassment early to give yourself some setup time.

The strategy felt technically airtight, with efficient planning and pathing that is very focused on the objective, and puts his ability to great use the whole way.

I also have to commend you for just how comprehensive your contingencies were here. Given the fairly straightforward and concisely planned strategy, I think that you used the extra space you were afforded to make sure all your bases were covered, and you did so quite well.

My primary note to the strat’s detriment is that I have to concur with my fellow judge that I am somewhat iffy on the application of partial transformation in the ability as written. I don’t think it sinks the strategy due to your strategy being comprehensive enough that attachment isn’t terribly vital, but I do think it’s worth further consideration.

Overall, this strategy was very well executed, and demonstrated a solid understanding of the bounds of the map, your opponent, and your own ability. 9/10.