[EricH]

Originally Posted by hiyou102

While I think defensive robots are useful at the regional level, I doubt that they are going to be useful enough at champs to be worth considering. I think if a defensive robot makes it onto Einstein it's going to need be effective against cycle shooters as well. The alliances are probably going to be composed of two cycle shooters and a full court.

A little story:

A few years ago (2006), there was a bet between a mentor of 1114 and a mentor of 148 (or was JVN still on 229?). The bet regarded the makeup of the Einstein winner--3x offense, or 2x offense and 1x defense (with defense defined as scoring under 10 points, I think per match but it's been a while).

JVN went offense, and after the "defender" scored the fourth shot in the Aim High high goal, collected. Now, in spirit, he did not win--the defender did spend a lot of the time playing defense--but under the terms of the bet, he won fair and square, with the entire CD community as a witness.

All that to say: There will be defenders on Einstein. I will guarantee that. However, I will NEVER be so oblivious as to say that defense is all they do; they WILL score points in their own right, and quite a few of them. The defense may be opportunistic rather than strategized, and may be even more effective that way. A defensive robot on Einstein will always be able to rack up points if called on to do so, unless the game is best played with a purely defensive robot on the alliance.