[Nuttyman54]

If you want to control your destiny, you must be able to play all aspects of the game well. If you have a consistent minibot, you will do better in qualifications than if you just have good tube scoring.

Minibot speed doesn't matter as much as consistency in qualifcations, but it definitely matters in eliminations. If you don't have all three aspects of the game covered in your eliminations alliance, you will be at a disadvantage.

Defense can be and was effectively played, even with all the penalty possibilities. The middle of the field can be hard to navigate with lots of robots, and smart driving can definitely hinder a good tube scorer.

Watch the yellow cards. It's a fine line between pushing someone into a zone on accident, and pushing them to draw a penalty and getting yourself a yellow card. Especially in eliminations, if you do that twice you're gonna lose yourself the match, no matter how good your defense is. The refs at WPI gave the benefit of the doubt for first offenses, but if you repeated the offense in the second match they assumed it was purposeful and issued red cards.