Defense in Ultimate Ascent

[robonerd]

Originally Posted by GeorgeM

Although I didn't watch Portland or Seattle, not defending a FCS is not a bright move, because it is a so easy to do.

Evident at MSC when (I forget which team) put on pool noodles to defend against 67!

Although UA is a defence heavy game, I think it is more so an offensive/driving heavy game. An alliance with 3 strong cyclers or FCS is definitely stronger than 2 and 1 defensive robot. (This relies of course on strong Auto/Climbing and of course 2nd pick). The thing about UA (and FIRST games in general) is that it really depends on what your opposing alliance is composed of.

The exciting thing about UA is that Alliance Selection will be very interesting! It will be hard to predict which teams are going to be picked based on which strategies they want to employ. I anticipate some perennially strong teams being lost in the rabbit hole.

First off, that was 217. Second, I think it depends entirely on how evenly teams are distributed into divisions. At MSC, some excellent teams didn't make it to eliminations.

You say that interesting alliance selections make Ultimate Ascent interesting. I could make the same case for Rebound Rumble. Some teams were picked just because they were a wide bot - if they had been long, the triple balance would have been impossible.