[platypus]

After watching the eliminations, I'll add to what I listed yesterday:

1. The ideal configuration is two scoring bots and one lift bot, but I could have told you that 1 minute into strategy discussions at the beginning of build season. Yet, this simple statement makes a huge assumption: the lift bot must be reliable. At GSR, there was one truly reliable lift bot, and it was a simple bot that let out a platform at one side and a gradual ramp on the other, with no manipulator. It was second-round picked by the 1st seeded team, and was climbed for 60 points every round.

2. This is a HIGHLY proactive (offensive) game. If you can score, you should never defend. Simply put, the proactive plan of doubling your score by adding to the row that you're completing tends to be more effective than preventing a single opponent from doubling his score for 20 seconds. Use PROACTIVE DEFENSE, by scoring in places that prevent your opponents from scoring.

3. The ideal basic strategy is to start by placing ringers on two side spider arms to set up a row of five. This prevents the opposing alliance from ever having a chance to make something big of the bottom row, which is the easiest to score on by leaps and bounds. It's proactive defense.

4. If in the rare case you have a reliable lift bot on your alliance, audible your typical strategy for the following:
-Use your scorers to proactively defend by placing ringers in places that stop your opponents from scoring a row longer than 3.
-Have your lift bot set up way in advance (25-30 seconds left in the game) so that your opponents cannot possibly stop him from getting to the endzone in time.
-At about 15 seconds left, you should have less points on the rack, but neither score will be even close to 30 points. Send both your robots to be lifted. If even one is, you will win.
This strategy was used over and over again by the winning alliance. Their opponents really never had a chance.

5. Some people thought that spoiler use might pick up on day 2... they were wrong. Proactive defense is the way to go. Spoilers are not proactive, and teams' abilities to place them suffer from the instant outcry from the announcer that, "OMG, THEY'RE GOING FOR THE SPOILER!!!!!!!!!"

6. There is much debate on this thread as to whether or not this is an exciting game. My conclusion: it really depends how deep you personally analyze these games. The general audience loves this game, as, unlike last year, it's easy to understand exactly what's going on, and it's very fast-paced (because proactivity is the key).
As a analyst myself, I thought this game was boring. The games were often all the same, where one team got control of the majority of the bottom row and it was all over with 30-45 seconds left on the clock. The only question mark was whether or not a lift bot would set up, and whether the other robots were capable of climbing it. In most games, there wasn't even a lift bot and most lift bots were not reliable (thus if you know the lift bots at all from scouting, you already know the outcome 9 times out of 10). If you see past the fast-pace, the game is deceptively shallow. I really hope that this changes as the season moves forward...