[FiM] Michigan State Championship Preview

[FiM Informer]

Welcome to the most anticipated district event of the season! The 2016 Michigan State Championship is the second most selective event all year (24.8% of Michigan teams made it vs. 19% of world teams to the Championship), and the second most selective MSC of all time (2014: 23.1%).

I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss how this selectiveness has changed Michigan FRC history. There are 12 teams that have qualified for every MSC: 27, 33, 67, 70, 494, 503, 548, 573, 1718, 1918, 2337, and 2834 (3539 gets an honorable mention, having made it every year since their 2011 inception). This set dropped in size by 2 this year, with 245 and 469 failing to qualify. 245 will attend the Championship anyway due to a regional win, but the Guerrillas will be missed in both Grand Rapids and St. Louis.

The last time fewer than ¼ of Michigan teams had the opportunity to attend MSC, FiM found a new venue to hold more teams. With FRC in Michigan continuing to grow at a prodigious rate, FiM must be looking for the next location, although I can’t think of many locations that could fit an event of that magnitude (ideally 140+ teams with the capacity for more).

For now, we return to Grand Rapids, the Deltaplex, and its 102 teams. Many of these teams have already been through the ringer. 48 of them will enter the elimination rounds, and 3 will emerge victorious. Lots of teams will come in feeling confident, and for most that’ll be snuffed out. A full ⅓ of the field (37 teams) has been the captain or 1st pick of a district champion alliance. That expands to 67 teams if you include all the captains and 1st picks of finalist alliances. No amount of accolades or medals can carry you through the Michigan State Championship. My strategy tips won’t carry you either, but maybe they’ll help.

Qualification Strategy

This section is pretty obvious because MSC-quality teams are pretty good. The breach is a given. With relatively little defense, captures will be crazy common. These assertions are supported by the aggregated TBA Insights data from the past three weeks of Michigan events as well as the three District Championships last weekend. As a region, PNW is probably similar to Michigan in strength (due to the crazy growth in Michigan the past few years). However, MSC is a much more selective district championship (25% vs 40%). Still, they're the closest point of comparison.

Most teams have preferred shooting modes (low or high, location), and they’ll stay with those throughout quals. Teams with a choice between going high and low will want to adjust accordingly to ensure the capture. With captures being common, winning the match will have more importance to seeding here than at any other event (even CMP). Still, even if captures were guaranteed in every match, there would still only be as much quals defense as a regular W-L-T seeding game.

Playoff Strategy

Strategy in elims has gotten more and more complicated throughout the season. There’s no single key to winning, no one piece of advice I can give you. In my search for answers I looked at the differences between district champion alliances and finalist alliances. At most events, the finals are competitive, and the finalists could have won if things had fallen their way.

I took a close look at how the performances of the alliances changed from the quarter/semifinals to the finals. Champion alliances averaged 7.87 balls and 46% capture rate prior to finals and 7.87 balls and 47% capture rate in the finals. Basically, they did exactly the same. Finalist alliances, however, dropped from 7.04 to 6.19 balls and 33% to 19% capture rate. What’s the takeaway? The best alliances are unaffected by any opponents and seem to avoid problems of random chance.

Finalist alliances typically have hit some critical pitfall. At East Kentwood, 2474 had a pair of drivetrain failures that knocked them out. At Woodhaven, 27 had a number of uncharacteristic misses (which you’d blame on defense, but they looked to have 50 lb on their defender). Maybe the most mind-boggling was the 40 points of fouls racked up by the Troy finalists in two matches. Once you add in the finals tortuga in Lansing, you start to get the picture. Winners avoid failures of all kinds.

If you’re an alliance captain, your choice for first pick will be driven by very conventional statistics/scoring output. Once you make it back for the second pick, however, you’ll have lots of similarly good choices (although likely as not no diamond in the rough like 3098 last year). In this case more than any other, you need to avoid failures from all your alliance members. If you’re not already scouting tortugas and robot failures (times when a robot ends a match unable to drive), you’re going to be behind your peers. Additionally, you’ve got to get a rock solid auton. Every team at MSC has the ability to score balls, but your third team has to be able to defend too, and be able to transition from one to the other when necessary. In some ways, the third team needs to play smarter than the top two bots, paying more attention to the clock and the score (not that I have any great suggestions for scouting this.. Maybe make potential partners’ coaches take IQ tests).

Power Rankings

As in previous years, I’ve polled 13 individuals, Michigan’s foremost experts as well as a few guest voters. Voters ranked their top 15 teams. Those teams were allotted points based on their ranks, with points decreasing from 18 points for a #1 ranking going down exponentially to 6 points for a #15 ranking (yes, this is pretty arbitrary). Here are the results:

Team (First place votes) - Points - Commentary

1. 33 (7) - 204 - There’s not much to say about the Bees. They excel at every facet of the game (with the exception of a great shooting auton). They’re fast, they grab the ball well, they score the ball well, and they go up at the end of the match real quick. Everybody else has a ways to go to catch up.
2. 67 (1) - 185 - The new shooter isn’t 100% but it very well might be at MSC. They’ve got a nice scale too, but after that, I think this ranking has a tinge of hype. Despite winning both of their events, HOT has weaknesses, including their strong preference for shooting from the (most easily defended) middle batter ramp.
3. 3357 (1) - 182 - The best of the west, the COMETS have a linkage arguably even more fun than 33’s intake. It’s a clever design that likely locks them into their midrange shooting position, but they shoot fast enough that it might not even matter.
4. 3620 (2) - 174 - In some ways the Joes are a robot in the same mold as the Bees, but they trade in scaling for an effective auton shot.
5. 2771 (2) - 171 - Code Red set the world high score at East Kentwood, then tried moving their shot back to the outer works at Ann Arbor. It wasn’t a home run, but they picked up a blue banner and will keep working on it.
6. 27 - 139 - RUSH checks in as the first tall bot on this list (is it just me or do they look like a yellow 1241?). Thwarted in the finals of 2 out of 3 events, they’ll hope to dial in their shots and pair with somebody small and speedy to compensate for their own leisurely pace.
7. 2767 - 116 - Twice above average partners for the Average Joes, 2767 hopes to get out of that shadow and make their mark. If Stryke Force can find a way to pair with another outer works shooter, they’d make a nearly undefendable alliance.
8. 85 - 113 - BOB is another team that’s been working on hitting the outer works shot. They’ve also got more medals this year than any other team in Michigan, having earned all four medalled awards (Champs, Finalists, CA, EI).
9. 107 - 109 - 107 got the result you always want at West Michigan, where they knocked off the #1 alliance for the district win. However, they suffered accuracy problems and will hope to improve in that area.
10. 2834 - 105 - They’ve got an accurate vision-targeted shot, but it’s from midrange and not tremendously fast. Have to imagine a good defender would wreak havoc if they don’t move that shot forward or back.

• Honorable Mentions (more than 70 pts): 1023, 1918, 2054