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1114 has been only above average, not at their normal level.
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In all honesty, I think 1114 is simply not as dominant a design as they were last year. At each of their regionals, they were good, yes, but they weren't as unstoppably good as they were last year. Last year, their autonomous was 90%+ accurate, they were unmoveable when in shooting positions, they were very easy to human-load, they were fast. This year, they are good at everything, but the margin that they are better than other people isn't quite as large.
Maybe part of it is that when the triplets were all together, tactics-development proceeded at three times the rate. 1503/1680 might try something with their robot, and say "hey, this worked for us", and so their tactics would evolve quickly.
On the tactics note, they certainly matter a lot more at nats where people can conceivably fill the rack in a match. At most regionals, you could be satisisfied with just putting up tubes as fast as your alliance could do it, but here it looks to be ludicrously important to block off your opponents early.