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Re: Scouting, is it important?
Scouting is the most important thing a team can do at competition. At first you might think it's just useful for alliance captains but there are so many times before and during eliminations where good and up to date data will either save your butt or give you an edge. I think what really separates the great teams from the greatest teams is their scouting efforts.
If your team doesn't care about accurate scouting and you've never regretted a second round pick, you've been incredibly lucky. Luckily my team highly values scouting and my team's head scout is a very dedicated hard worker, so we've managed to grab teams that were absolute steals in the draft before.
I have seen some great teams get completely shortchanged by lackluster scouting. Do you really want to be the team with the #1 robot in the country making stupid selections because your data is terrible?
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edit: A note. While the responders above have many great points, and qualitative scouting is very valuable, it is always, always better to have quantitative data in addition to qualitative data. You're shortchanging your team if you have the manpower for both and only choose one.
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Last edited by Chris is me : 18-07-2010 at 13:10.
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