Quote:
Originally Posted by Wing
R3 will break formation to attempt to move B3 from R2. B3 will have no choice but to move away from R2, due to the pinning rule. R2 and R3 will need to rush in order to execute, and R2, being shaken by the defense, may need to cover some additional ground to align with the bridge again, wasting precious seconds off the clock. This will waste even more time, as long as B3 can hold its ground. At this point, about 7-8 seconds will be left (with the 15 second scenario up there), which is nearly impossible to allow for a triple (though HOT may beg to differ). For teams who take more time, they will need to recover and may have a chance at balancing still, but after 3 seconds, B3 can pin again to stop another robot, as long as B3 is 6 feet away.
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You can definitely break this defense with an Ally or staggered triple, but I think you're overestimating it's benefit overall. Specifically the bolded region. If I'm lined up against the wall ready to triple, and an unmovable robot (a fact I would well know by that point) pins me or the bot in front of me, I'm not going to break formation. Unless I'm darn sure I'll be able to return the situation to normal in less than 4 seconds (~1 second for B3 to get far enough away to avoid a G29), I'm going to stay put, exactly where I'm supposed to be, and get ready to bust forward when the pin breaks. The alliance would lose a couple seconds, but seeing the defender earlier would have affected our triple start time anyway. 4 seconds is a lot when you don't plan for it. The key doesn't need to be avoiding, though. Simple planning will do in most cases, even if it is 3% of your match time.
I haven't seen many elim drive teams shaken up by pinning defense, certainly not when they have time (which, barring other issues, they would have set aside by forseeing the issue). Getting flustered helps no one, and you always know the pin will break momentarily. (=At least, that's what I'll remind my drivers.
It seems for this to be viable, you need to move them off-track and/or slow them down more than just 4 seconds. Or you need to force them to start tripling later so that 4 seconds really is too long.