R4E1 Composite Quality

Judge Gilgamesh (Flamechar)

The brawl between two immortals is here, right in the middle of a bustling crowd!

Starting with Ouroboros, he aims to control the crowds with fear to force Markov to deal with them, and to finish the fight with only six bullets (Logistics): four to move the crowds so as to crush his opponent as the crowds run away towards her, and then when he crosses his ‘Evergreen Road’ he fires a fifth to blind his opponent with blood, and then moves in to fire the last one into the ground to ricochet right into Markov’s host to kill her and finish the fight — a relentless push forwards, in a strategy that gets what it wants done with little bloat (Elegance) and even then still covering some what-ifs.

On the opposite side of the field, Markov takes a spray can to immediately mark Ouroboros with paintballs so to better keep an eye on him, before playing a hit and run game — keeping behind cover so as to protect her 1 End host, ‘double tapping’ Ouro so as to take advantage of his healing to get more shots into the wires inside of him, and sending spray paint into his eyes and a use of a Bangstick (a really Creative tool to use btw) to let her escape. She scares off the crowd with airsoft bullets as the match goes on, using the more concrete cover as the crowds thin, all waiting for an opportunity to spot [True Survivor] and take it down — with some solid Contingencies as well to back it all up.

Overall, a very fun match all around! I’ve been impressed with the quality of both strategies, leading me to decide upon both getting **8s**!

Judge Ravana (Alphamon)

Oh boy everyone, it’s exhibition time again! What’s that you say, where’s my usual joke to kick us off with? I mean, it’s not like I can’t do one, I just don’t think it’s a good place for it- what do you mean it is? I mean, you cut off all of my jokes right at the- oh, NOW it’s too long!? Fine, jeez.

We’ll start this Shindig off with Everquest, and their mighty serpent-eating-his-own-tail and snake oil salesman, Ouroboros!

Now while there were some missing commas and other bits of punctuation in the grand design of the opening, I didn’t feel like it particularly impacted the reading. There’s a small part of me that wants to say it was by design to make the meat of the strat 9999 characters exactly to slide in under the bar by one, forgetting how the judges number them at the top incidentally, but it’s really only worth bringing up at all because they are there n’ visible.

The strat layers into itself pretty much immediately, with the first section being getting the crowd to head in one direction- or several, but mostly- away from Ouro, followed by the next layer of “This is how we further our advantage” or “This is how we do it again if it didn’t work the first time”, while finally be capped off by the damage and destruction caused by the two previous layers rolling directly into the main function of Ouro’s stand ability, and how he’ll approach the ending with that, coupled with the very final shot.

The JoJolity and mechanics of this one are layered very strongly, so I’ll be going over that soon enough, but the important note is that the narrative driver Can Not be separated from the body of the strat.

The strat is a delightfully breezy, altogether short and impactful read. I don’t have the most to say, to be honest, because the initial grammar mistakes were about the only thing that stuck out. I’ll give this one an **8**!

Moving on to God, What, Really!? we have another three section piece headlined with the setup, middled with the everything else, and capped off with about three paragraphs for the ending. I say about three because it’s sixteen sentences before the contingencies, but we’ll get to that later.

I’ll apologize in advance if any of this sounds familiar.

Now, we have another robust opening giving us all the lowdown we need to see the setup and a couple of opening moves- namely, marking Ouro and marking where supplies will be for later- and how the double-tap method will be used and applied throughout the strat.

The equally-sized followup is what I’ve come to call the ‘chip damage’ section, where the possible moves and throughline of how Ouro will inevitably be killed, and a generally story-driven footpath to that end, are made known. The last bite-sized chunk is, essentially, a victory lap of sorts. It’s short, sweet, and goes, “Yeah this is it.”

Getting down to the narrative brass tacks for a moment, I feel like there’s an understated separation between the JoJolity and mechanics. While I understand that Markov is turning the new host over, and potentially making new followers and definitely doing new things, accepting herself and moving forward with it, I can’t help but feel that the mechanics don’t follow that path. They have a narrative path, mind, but without the story sidebars, it would lack connective tissue.

I felt that it’s worth mentioning that the contingencies would’ve been better served nearer to the parts where they were brought up in the strat proper, if not because they were already partly referenced in certain sections, then because it would make for a more clear and concise body of information.

To instead shine light on the positives, this is a very well-put-together and competently written strat. The bases are covered neatly, the powers and abilities on display are given their narrative weight, and the general gameplay loop is neat and tidy.

With all of that said, I have nothing else to mention. So, here, take this **8**!

Judge Qin Shi Huang (Extra)

I'll start with Ouroboros. Short and sweet is the name of the game here, with barely more than a single section of mechanics. I'd say this is about as archetypal of a plan as it gets, if you oversimplify things - shoot the other guy a couple times and don't die. These are the two things Ouroboros does best. The brevity is definitely the strategies greatest strength, leaving very little room for misinterpretation or error by keeping the plan brutally straightforward. That said, I do think it serves as a slight weakness at points - while the match itself doesn't have an abundance of moving parts or terrain pieces to make extensive notes about, by the nature of brevity you have to choose between breadth and depth. This opts for the latter, taking a single plan and making it deep, but it suffers at points from not casting a wide net, leaving too many doors open for counterplay. Given how solid the chosen plan is, though, I'd say it's well deserving of a **7** nonetheless.

Moving to Markov, this strat takes a little bit longer to get to its endgame, brings back a couple of old classics, and mixes in a little of the fresh coat of paint Markov's put on. The focus on attacking the vulnerable True Survivor - the *true* Ouroboros, in some respects, the only part of him that's been there since the beginning - is a very nice touch from a flavor perspective, but certainly also from a mechanical one, trying to break away the fibers of what makes Ouroboros a terrifying opponent and fight him on even footing. Just a very well-thought plan that keeps things fairly simple throughout - a compelling **8.**