I'm so unbelievably torn about this game.
On one hand my team just experienced a terrible weekend where having the worst match schedule in the division caused us to go 3-7, despite our robot doing well all but two of those matches. It seemed like very match we were either paired with a team whose robot couldn't effectively play any part of the game, a team that completely ignored the preset strategy, or a good robot that found a way to break during our match.
And the fouls are absolutely awful. Both of our eliminations matches in Archimedes were more or less decided by fouls- some of which I disagreed with. (The score margin won't tell you, but I felt that sometimes some fouls should have gone the other way rather than against us- but I digress- after re-watching some footage they're not that hard to believe.).
But then I watched an amazing 8 seed beat the Fighting OPeagle Barons in the quarters with amazing strategy, and that same alliance fall apart because they rushed and were outplayed by the Winnosis Windtorque alliance, I watched that smart alliance take the trip to Einstein from the Buzzkill Rushknights who everyone thought was going to win the division while 1625 pushed the bees back and forth across the field a few times.
And then I watched two semifinals on Einstein- one was an offensive shootout that was spectacular to watch and one was a game of defensive shut-down decided by who managed to get the shots off despite the shut-down D.
And who could forget All Las Cheesy Chaos versus the SimPirCircuitage epic finals- with the game of autonomous chicken and the back and forth cycling.
I can't help but love this game when fouls are decided reasonably and the robots are of a high caliber- the strategic and simultaneous play is phenomenal to watch and more phenomenal to play.
It's a polarizing game now, and I think will continue to be until we have a new game to criticize next year.
I just wish my otherwise fantastic senior season didn't have to be tarnished by what-ifs...
