[jayjaywalker3]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

Herding opponent's balls into corners, pinning opponent's balls against the vertical field elements (walls). Playing "keep away" slows hurdling and that's a good defensive strategy. As long as the defensive robot does not possess (support or capture) the opponent's ball, it's legal. It'll frustrate good shooting robots to no end...

Does this mean you can pin an opponents ball forever?

Originally Posted by Donut

I only viewed through webcasts, but I believe there was still a good amount of defense present (and necessary for the best alliances). The defense, however, is guerrilla hit-and-run tactics as opposed to the all out pushing matches and pinning we've seen in past years.

If you want a good match for some defensive tactics, watch Midwest match 44 (I know, the final score was high, but with 33 and 1114 as part of the contenders it had the potential for more than that even). Perhaps two of the best moves I saw over the weekend were what 1675 was doing against 1114 part of the match. Twice during the match you can watch as they run on the inside of the track parallel with 1114, forcing them to slow down and have to maneuver around them to round the corner and adding a few seconds to their hurdling time. You can also see 1675 hit a a ball slightly backwards immediately after a hurdle, then trap the ball against a wall to prevent 1114 from grabbing it. They were able to grab the other red ball on the other side of the field so this only delayed them by a few seconds, but had they been with a partner who was using that ball to hurdle this would have robbed their alliance of 8 points. Also worth noting 1781 blocks the 2nd red ball from being knocked off in hybrid (though I think unintentionally), and 648 slows down blue alliance hurdling and lap running quite effectively at some points.

In matches where there are 2 good hurdlers (or herders) on each alliance and thus no spare trackballs, these defensive plays would have had an even big impact on the score. I think this type of defense, slowing down the opposition without impeding, and playing "keep away" trackballs, will prove to be vary valuable once elimination alliances all have at least 2 high powered scoring robots.

I think 48 also continued to play defense effectively even when everyone thought it would be almost impossible.

Thanks for this awesome demonstration of defense. It will definitely affect play for my team's alliances.