[RonAyyyyyyyy]

I think another viable strategy, that was also used a lot in 2014, is "counter-defense", where your third bot shuts down the opponents defense bot. This can free up teams who are huge offensive threats unopposed but struggle when defense is applied.

For example, in the Midwest finals, 111 was arguably the best shooter there unopposed, but could not get over the defense played by 3352. Because the first seed's main scorer, 2451, scored from the outer works, they were virtually undefendable, and so 111's alliance did a triple cycle strategy, but if 4241 had focused on harassing 3352, 111 arguably would have been much better off.

The obvious downside here is that a courtyard with 4 robots can be very cluddered, but that's the same downside as doing triple cycles with defense anyway