Re: 2016 STEMley Cup Championship
 

Not really. The frozen moat slowed robots down a little bit over that defense, but no one was stuck permanently as far as I saw (most robots were long enough to touch solid ground on either side of the castors). A little bit of novelty, without too much drastic change in gameplay was probably for the best. But I would have loved to see a robot drive stuck on top once, driving forward endlessly like Wile-E-Coyote :)

The coloured "cannon balls" had a much bigger impact on game play, as teams had to decide between sinking the double-value ball that came out in the last 20 seconds, or playing the regular end-game.

The finals were extremely exciting. Effective defense kept the 1114-2056-5921 power alliance from capturing their tower in F2 and F3, allowing 3683, 4678, 3161 to ramp up the low-goal cycles. The 2nd seed alliance came within a hair's breadth of winning the upset, just missing their F3 capture points due to a little carpet contact. Regardless, it was a great way to end the Stronghold season, and I want to congratulate both alliances for putting on such an exhilarating show!