[EFastring]

You have to remember, defense is going to play a big role in minibot deployment.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that 1 second, 1.5 seconds, or 2.0 seconds to climb the tower isn't going to make a whole lot of difference compared to the total amount of deployment time, which will likely include positioning your robot after defensive robots have been slamming into you right up until the start of the end game.

IMO a robot that can accurately and quickly get a minibot onto the pole from a less than ideal starting HOST-bot position will be the consistent winner of the race.