[Chris is me]

At FLR we were playing an alliance of 341, 1126, and 1405. 1126 had won our previous regional as the #1 seed. 341 had won a district already and our data showed they were among the top 3 finishers at the event. 1405 had been playing fairly solid D. Our alliance partners included 1551, a decent trusser, and 5349, a rookie team who had yet to score points at the event due to technical problems. We (2791) primarily played the role of the truss robot and rarely scored in the high goal at all at that point.

We knew the 341 alliance would have no problems finding three assists, and we knew that no one on our alliance could score in the high goal well enough to go for a rapid 2-assist strategy. I met with 5349 at the practice field to try and figure out ways to squeeze an assist out of them. Their robot was a Boom Done clone and they couldn't spit out of their intake. They ended up showing me a low power shot they could do which basically dropped the ball right behind their robot. That gave me enough confidence to push for a 3 assist cycle. 1551 had a longer truss shot than us and didn't really feel confident in the high goal. We had scored in the high goal a few times that weekend and we were confident we could rebound into the low goal fairly quickly if it came down to it.

Defense was tricky. 1126 was a long range arm shooter and 341 had a deadly point blank shot. We decided to focus mostly on 1126 as they had the more vulnerable pickup and the line drive shot could be spun off course.

When the actual match began, the assist strategy changed a little. FLR refs were very generous with assists (honestly, I preferred the game played this way), so the HP ended up chucking the ball at 5349 and having them bump it once or twice for the first zone assist. 1551 picked up the ball through the scrum and truss it, while 2791 played defense and scored when the opportunity opened up. Even though none of us were doing exactly what we were used to, we managed to hold off 1126 and keep pace with their cycles, scoring twice in the high goal. A last second two assist cycle finish by us ended up sealing the win by less than 10 points.

Not the craziest strategy in the world, but when I looked at the schedule I didn't expect that match to even be close. Winning that match was a great way to start Saturday, and I'd like to think it helped convince 341 that they'd rather play with us than against us. I'll try and get video of this up at some point.