|
Predictions Week 7: One Last Volley
Six weeks of competition are in the books, and Ultimate Ascent has shaped up to be an exciting and dynamic challenge. A variety of strategies have proven themselves to be successful with the right alliance members. While certainly not the default strategy for the season, utilizing three scoring robots has had far more elimination success in 2013 than in many recent years. It will be curious to see if that holds true this weekend and at Championship. Larger and deeper events should allow for a larger pool of effective scoring machines to select from, but a stronger top tier leaves fewer discs for a 3rd alliance member to utilize. As top ranking alliances shift from having their primary scorers put up 3 or 4 cycles to 5+, it leaves only a handful of white discs for the third member to score. Let alone full court shooters, who can frequently exhaust an alliance's allocation of discs on their own. The alliance selection and strategies pursued in Bethlehem and Ypsilanti will be some of the first indicators of how the divisions in St. Louis may play out.
There are obviously plenty of factors to alter that equation. Teams that effectively ground load during driver control open up a new possibility of discs to be scored (though this is mitigated somewhat by high accuracy shooters). Additionally, it creates the possibility for disc passing, a strategy that has seen some success in recent weeks (including being used by the SVR champs last weekend). Having any one alliance member capable of scoring in the pyramid goal also creates a new dynamic to the game. These types of features, along with full court shooting and 30-pt climbing, will continue to become even more frequent on top flight alliances in order to elevate their alliances' point ceiling.
The governing factor may well be traffic. Both defensive and offensive robots can create delays for the primary scoring machines on alliances. Especially if the other alliance is pursuing a defensive strategy, additional robots (scoring or otherwise) around the loading station or pyramid is often detrimental to scoring. Finding teams that communicate and drive well is the key to avoiding such issues, regardless of what role they're assigned to. The ability to spread the floor will be critical to alliances who wish to push the pace of the match. On the other hand, not every alliance will want to push the pace. Many will want to slow it down, hoping for accuracy and end game points to trump shot volume.
Commentary: - It's pretty much impossible to talk about MAR Championship without mentioning the teams that declined to attend. For the second consecutive year, at least 11 qualified teams opted not to accept their invitations to the event. That includes several very high profile MAR teams, including three teams in the finals last year (25, 341, and 2016) and the #1 team in the 2013 MAR standings (341). 25, 341, 365, and 2016 all competed in regional events outside of MAR that likely influenced their decision. Raider Robotix and Miss Daisy competed in Las Vegas last weekend, and a cross-continent team/equipment move in one week is certainly a large stress. Yet, given their less than stellar performances, it's hard to imagine they wouldn't benefit from an additional weekend of interaction with competition robot (both in terms of Championship readiness and attempting to prove they're among the elite teams this year). MOE's case is even more interesting, as they opted to attend a regional the same weekend as MAR Championship. The Mighty Monkey Wrenches decided to completely bypass MAR to earn an invite to Championship, as they submitted and won the Chairman's Award at Buckeye. The fact that none of 25, 341, 365, or 2016 need to attend the competition at Lehigh to reach St. Louis should not be overlooked, but so long as MAR teams opt to allocate their registration and travel budgets to outside regionals over MAR Championship, the event's prestige will remain decidedly behind the Michigan State Championship, and likely the other region championships that form in coming seasons.
- Declining an opportunity to attend MSC, on the other hand, is quite rare. It seems like only four teams (94, 216, 815, 1596) elected to decline their spots this season. 1596 has declined before, given the difficulty of travelling from Michigan's upper peninsula. 216 was the highest ranked of the bunch, but even they were outside of the top 40 teams in the state.
- Two MAR teams opted to compete in Baltimore this weekend. 87 didn't end up qualifying for the MAR Championship anyway, but stands a decent chance at reaching the eliminations at Chesapeake. They're a fiesty defensive team that can score in autonomous, and there's some chance for a late season increase in their offense as well. 365 is obviously the bigger name, and will be among the favorites at Chesapeake. They'll have to avoid the stability and jamming issues that haunted them at Lenape, and being able to recapture the ability to score additional discs during autonomous would give them a sizable advantage as well.
- There are several other solid cyclers at Chesapeake. 128 is leading the pack, but 694 and 1885 aren't terribly far behind. Outside of the cyclers, 1559's 30 point hanger should be in the eliminations, but will face an uphill battle to repeat their success from Rochester.
- One of the more interesting things to follow this weekend at MSC is seeing how pure cycling teams attempt to stand out. At an event as stacked at the one in Ypsilanti, simply scoring a few cycles may not be enough. Elite cycling teams like 245, 68, and 1718 will likely still find themselves as major players at the event, with a strong chance at being selected onto a high seeded alliance. The massive second tier of pure cyclers, like 27, 862, 2000, 2959, 3234, 3414, and 3656, will be in a more precarious position, as they'll likely fall to the second round of the draft. It will be interesting to see if any have added any new tricks to their arsenal in order to convince alliance captains they have what it takes to offset the balance in a tight elimination match (often involving another similar team on the other side of the glass). Or will teams that don't quite have the same offensive consistency, but possess a specialized attribute, be the 2nd round option for an alliance captain looking to round out their alliance? Say the full court shooting of 314, shot blocking/pyramid goal scoring of 51, or the climb+dump specialization of 1025 or 3572.
- Also interesting, what happens when these pure cycling teams seed in the top 8. Will they be able to build an alliance that can offset the areas they lack? Or does a captain that already has one of these attributes have a significant advantage? How often will they be declined?
- Consistent cyclers won't have as much of an issue being picked at MAR Championship. Key word: consistent. 11, 1640, and 2729 look like the best of the bunch, and will be among the strongest contenders at the event. At it certainly wouldn't hurt if Sab-BOT-tage was able to get their 30-pt climber working reliably or if STORM continued to drain their unorthodox full court shots to stretch out the defensive efforts. Beyond those three, 56, 222, 1089, 1403, 1676, 3314, and 3974 will all be contributing to high elimination scores.
- No rookie machines reached Ypsilanti, but three got to Lehigh. One of them, 4575, is a very solid bet to be playing past lunch on Saturday. The Tin Mints are a simple, but very reliable, cycler who can fly underneath the pyramid. If they're their alliances primary scorer once again, they won't go far. But as a complimentary piece, they could be very dangerous.
- 869 presents one of the most interesting cases for a defender. While the ability of the air moved by their fan to actually steer shots away from the goals is debatable, the bellowing windsock above it is more than capable of deflecting shots. Their aggressive driving style and lack of fear around and underneath the pyramid makes them quite a hassle for many scoring machines. An elimination berth at MAR championship is no guarantee though, especially given their lack of autonomous scoring. Given the short nature of an elimination series, the ability to throw the opposing alliance out of their comfort zone may make 869 an excellent "x factor."
- TechFire is without a doubt the biggest full court shooting threat in Lehigh. That will, once again, put a large target on 225's back. They showcased the ability to hit 3s during SF2-2 at Lenape, but it was too little too late for them, as they lost the match on hanging points to the eventual champions. 225 will need to decrease the time it takes for them find the mark when targeting the high goal, but the potential is there for a deep run in the elimination tournament.
- A number of teams at Chesapeake were middle of the pack teams at prior events, and will look to up their game in Baltimore. 1123 and 1719 were decent scorers at DC, but were eclipsed and ended up missing the eliminations (though Umbrella Corporation was called in as a back-up). 375 just barely snuck into the eliminations in New York. With a little better play, all three could be solid contributors in a much shallower field. 250 and 329 can both shoot from long range, but their luck with it has been fickle at best. If either of them can improve their cycling game or find the target more consistently from distance, their draft stock will improve significantly. 1086 may be the biggest sleeper in the field, as they appeared only semi-functional in North Carolina. But we've seen plenty of dramatic improvements already this season.
- Climbing (and dumping) is a rare skill in all of FRC, so it's no surprise that it's relatively rare at MSC as well. What makes it particularly intriguing is the teams who didn't sacrifice shooting to accomplish the goal. 1918 has had the most success as a dual threat so far this season. 1023 has the potential be a strong alliance member, but would likely better fit as the 3rd member of an alliance. 67 has the most upside, but has also had the most trouble scaling the pyramid. HOT should have no issue still being an early pick even without their climber, but if they get it working they will be elevated to the status of one of the three or four favorites at the event. Their three FiM championships and four finalist appearances in the brief four year history of FiM may already make them a favorite by default, though.
- An interesting phenomena of all the teams skipping Lehigh is that they were among MAR's best ground loaders and autonomous threats. 2590, 316, 103, 357, 2495, and 1403 still boast the capability, but Royal Assault and Hamilton West have yet to demonstrate a >3 disc autonomous and Cougar Robotics loads from the station during tele-op. Nemesis is the only to demonstrate a 7-disc autonomous during competition, and appears to be the best overall scoring machine at the event. But don't count out the Lunatecs, especially if they can align with a top notch partner like they did at Lenape-Seneca.
- There are plenty of teams at MSC capable of scoring additional discs in autonomous. So many that it's very hard to imagine more than one or two elimination alliances that don't have the capability (and harder still to imagine those alliances advancing far). 33, 469, 2054, 2474, and 3539 have all demonstrated autonomous modes capable of scoring north of 5 discs fairly regularly. Las Guerillas are the only ones to show off a pyramid wing, center line autonomous in addition to that. Several more have been able to load a single row of discs from underneath the pyramid, and certainly some may upgrade their autonomous during the event. The Bees and Guerllias look to be the best of the bunch (and the favorites heading into the event), but the Tech Vikes aren't significantly behind them.
- Some quality, team by team breakdowns of MSC can also be found over in this thread if you haven't seen it yet. Kudos on the excellent work!
|
the jocks may have muscle, but we have extruded aluminum :D - [527]phil [more] 
10-04-2013, 21:29
Linear Mode
