Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJohnston
The fact of the matter is: That first pick in alliance selection is, in all likelihood, going to be the fastest and most accurate can grabber available. With countless teams developing grabbers right now, it is impossible to know who that will actually be.
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It's not quite so simple. Let me give the example from MSC. 1023, a HP bot, seeded first and had three realistic choices:
- 33 - Best landfill bot
- 548 - Most consistent 2-can grabber, very capable HP stacker
- 469 - Arguably a better can grabber than 548 when functioning, similar speed for 4 cans. Caveats: only used once in a match, takes a bit too long to set up
No single team, even with a little help, can put up enough points to win, no matter how many cans are available. Picking the team with the best can grabber available might have worked at MSC, because a team like 1023 plus 469 (not that great a stacker) plus the last pick of the draft could probably have put up enough points. But 1023 made the obvious choice in picking an arguably worse can-grabber but better stacker in 548, because 2 cans is enough if you can put up the stacks.
Fast-forward to CMP, there's no guarantee a great stacker seeding 1st will have a 548 available to them (except in Hopper, I suppose). Picking a dedicated can-grabber could work if there's a good enough stacker coming back around, but the last picks at MSC were higher quality than they will be at CMP, and even at MSC this was barely a viable strategy*. Maybe they'll be able to rely on one stack from their 3rd bot.
But a top alliance knows they need to win their division before they win Einstein. Picking a can grabber that can't do much else will result in that alliance doing neither, because one team, with a little help, simply can't create enough stacks to win.
tl;dr Even can grabbers need to score stacks if they want to be picked first
*573, as the 5th captain, took a big gamble picking 27, a dedicated canburglar/capper, as their first pick. But it paid off like crazy because they were able to get a phenomenal 3rd bot, 3098 (Watch them score 20 totes). It should not have worked, 3098 should've been picked way earlier.