Which matches so far do you think will be most similar to playoffs at world champs?

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

Depends. If no one is playing defense, a blockable third robot can contribute quite a bit of boulders to the top alliances. There are actually quite a bit of high goal shooters that are pretty good but only become less effective as a result of defense. If you got two really strong outerworks shooters and one close up shooter, the defense will mostly have their hands full with the third robot. If the defending third robot used all its time to play heavy defense on the close up shooter third robot, then the shooting robot won because they contributed more points.Realistically if the close up shooter can score 6 undefended, the defending robot needs to stop or slow down the opposing alliance by 6 boulders worth just to break even.

I would contend it's a lot easier to prevent 6 boulders from being scored than it is to score them. I would also say that by the time you get to the 24th best robot on a division, the offensive skill will probably be below the defensive skill of available robots.

There are a ton of blockable robots. Very few robots can shoot consistently and accurately from the outerworks with a 54" blocker reaching out 12"-15" over them. This means a defensive robot will more than likely be playing defense on more than 1 offensive robot, increasing its value.

In a case where there are no defendable robots, a defensive robot is still incredibly valuable as a secret passage blocker. Cutting off an alliance from their secret passage (without blockading) can easily account for 6 boulders worth of time, especially if the opposing alliance is running with 3 offensive robots.