In all of the regular season, 1323 only lost one match (qualification 47 at CVR). One match away from being undefeated–that’s incredible!
As far as I know, the only better season was 254’s undefeated 2018.
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1114 2010 (granted they didn’t win it all but they were undefeated up until Einstein finals)
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They lost QM100 on Curie—was that an intentional throw due to 2010 double-loser’s-score rules?
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yep
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Something that’s really impressive about 254’s season (beyond being perfect) was their average margin of victory. Hardly ever a close match, even on Einstein:
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what year is that data from?
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Due to the winner takes all nature of the scale, matches look they won by a lot even if they were somewhat close. An alliance that is one cube ahead on the scale for the entire match would appear to be destroying the other alliance when in reality, they were only one cube ahead.
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Added a link for clarification
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What @Alex_Y said, but also: this shows just how OP 254’s auto was that year. They owned the scale early and they kept it pretty much the whole match, every match. The effectiveness of that auto could not be overstated. Some matches were closer than others with who owned the scale, but 254 was dang good at keeping it no matter how close.
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That’s true, although it did feel like 254 was clearly above the rest of the field (especially in auto as @kierajreed pointed out) that year, even if they weren’t nearly as dominant as the score showed. This year it didn’t feel like there was much that separated the top teams. There were a bunch that could give the top bots like 254, 2056 and 1323 a run for their money if they played well in a given match.
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All teams that couldn’t compete in 2020 went undefeated /s
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My team had an undefeated streak from 1992-2012. Actually existing in 2013 really wrecked that one.
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I am fascinated to know what this rule was that caused the intentional loss. I just watched the match, the whole alliance was on board, so it must have made sense.
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(also shoutout to 4096 and 2609)
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Imo, compared to 254 2018, Madtown’s performance this year was equally if not more impressive. I feel like Charged Up was a game that was particularly reliant on strategy and collaboration between all 3 bots and the game is designed in a way where 1 robot should ideally not be able to singlehandedly win a match for an alliance. In 2018, if you had control of the scale at any pont, you already had a major advantage as robots on the losing side had to place cubes higher and at a more awkward angle imo. Teams could often just place a few cubes down early and sit on their advantage for the duration of the match, depending on the other alliance. This year, although an easier game depending on who you ask, you almost always had to cycle the full duration of the match and the charge station was such a wild card and a major deciding factor in even semi-competitive matches where it appeared that one alliance had it in the bag. Teams would often not attempt triple climbs with less than 10 seconds left. I saw this cost teams matches on many occasions in Archimedes quals this weekend.
TLDR: Madtown almost went undefeated in a game that was significantly reliant on much more than pure robot performance alone.
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But the “if you had control of the scale” is the hard part, though. Aside of perhaps the can wars in 2015, no game really introduced such a direct clash for a scoring objective like the 2018 scale. You had to win that early scale battle to get control of the scale. While it’s easy to view that game as a failure from the standpoint of “the alliance that places more total game objects should win,” 2018s game really emphasized a direct battle over a scoring resource in a way that no other game ever has. It wasn’t about if you could score more total game objects or score higher up or organize your cubes better, it was about directly beating that other alliance head-to-head for that early scale control. That’s a big part of what made 254’s undefeated season so special, nobody else could beat them head-to-head in that scale battle. They were simply better than anyone else (thanks in large part to their autonomous). It didn’t even matter if the scale positions randomized poorly for them, they were still going to win that scale battle.
Other alliances attempted to best 254 in a battle for the scale 53 times, and other alliances failed 53 times.
(There’s also the perfect 4.0 ranking score that 254 achieved at SVR that year, which is remarkable because the safest way to achieve the autonomous ranking point was to score in your own switch, rather than attacking the scale in autonomous. Also, both of those ranking points involved some level of partner cooperation)
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254’s 4 cube autonomous was well beyond any other team’s auto. The only other team with a 4 cube auto was 2471, but 254’s auto was significantly more reliable and missed fewer cubes. It is difficult to emphasize how difficult making such an auto was, it didn’t require just the best software, but also perfect hardware and electrical.
1323, while they had the best auto and teleop this year, and made many good design decisions other teams didn’t, wasn’t in a league of its own and was comparatively less difficult than the complete mastery of all technical aspects of FRC required for 254’s auto.
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You are right. I hadn’t really considered the strategical component getting/maintaining scale control, especially as the season went on. My main point about this year being impressive was alliance/cycle organization. These game peices, cones particularly, were really difficult for teams to intake at times. Teams would often get stuck at sub trying to intake or get blocked at double sub by a robot at the chute if the timing wasn’t right. I don’t remember as many failed intakes in 2018. As the season went on, teams got better, at least from what I saw, at either matching each other cycle for cycle in alteration or cycling with a method to not get in the way of an alliance partner. I’d imagine 1323 did this organization aspect particularly well, as their record speaks for itself; although I admittedly haven’t had time to watch many of their matches from previous comps this year so I could be wrong.