7226 in this match blocked off opposing alliance from the cube supply behind the switch and significantly slowed down their portal cycles
I’ll just give defense props to 2655. Powerhouse counterswitch team who played phenomenal defense. Powered us to our division win and things would’ve been a whole lot different if it was anyone else.
Too many good matches, just check The Blue Alliance.
As someone on the other side of 2655’s defense in Quarterfinals, they were critical in helping the Turing division champs retake the scale during our matches. I havn’t rewatched our third match yet, but I would bet they kept 2471 away from the scale for at least a minute, maybe longer. Super impressive.
Einstein Semifinals match 4- The defense played against 1323 I think is what made the difference between winning and losing or the red alliance.
I think team 1701 did a great job in our quals 47 match at MSC. They were able to slow down the other alliance’s bots allowing us to win the match. https://youtu.be/gByKGmdurCM
Long before they joined our alliance, the scouts on my team had been noting that 2655 is a team that *knows *how to play defense. I fell in love with their robot and strategy early in the event and was stoked when we got to play with them in elims. Easily one of the best defense bots I saw all weekend (admittedly, I only watched Turing matches).
2976
The latter half of the post still stands. 1817 played tremendous defense all the way through to the finals of Galileo. Without them, 330 storms past the 7th seed. Granted, I’m slightly biased as I was the backup team in that alliance’s coach since I got to work with them behind the glass, but 1817 had some great defense.
2976
A drive team member from 2854 explains that in this thread that 7293’s “defense” wasn’t planned by the other alliance members.
4814 at Ontario Provincial Champs.
This match was a great match to show all three of those elements that you requested. Since the only robot that we found we struggled to push was Titanium, we were able to hold (or push) robots away from a dropped cube.
We managed to play strong defense against 1796 (RoboTigers), especially at Hudson Valley, because we were full weight and had a large buddy bar. We also had colson wheels that prevented us from sliding when pushing/blocking them. The key to good defense is being aware of the penalties and staying consistent on the robot you are defending.
An example: https://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2018nysu_qm9
We couldn’t have managed it without 254 and 148 being behind us and giving us constant advice on how to improve
Honestly, I would have to argue that the defense played in that match was weak. Strong defense should have kept 1796 to have far fewer cubes output into switches and scales.
As for the rest of your post, you are correct. Heavy bots with high friction wheels are an important factor in defense. To expand on that I would also say that a low center of gravity is essential, as is a strong drivetrain*. Another thing that we found to be very important was when we got into a war of attrition was to regulate high current draws to prevent brownouts and ramp your speed instead of having an instant application of power to the motors. This saved both the battery and motors by lowering the total heat generated in the match, allowing for less resistance. Perhaps sometime when I don’t have finals coming up I will write a report on this and post it on Chief Delphi.
*Drivetrain includes the amount and type of motors, gear reduction, and chain/belt output.
I have to throw in of team 3374 against 2468 in the first quarterfinals as an example of great defense. 2468 was coming to take our switch and 3374 stopped them from playing even 1 cube in the match!
Team 6377 in the Newton Finals, Match 2. They put a 60 second (from about 112-52 seconds remaining) clinic on one of the best scoring robots in the world this year, Team 1619.
You folks caused us to “defend” our switch while doing the vault where we had to score 13 cubes (IIRC) just to stay 1-2 ahead.
Did I mention that our primary job that match was to score on the scale?
You folks played great on the other side of the field. You were on the top of our 3rd alliance member selection list. At the last second of alliance selection, you can see us yelling at our captain on the field to change our pick to another scale bot.
I guess that was a good thing for you folks. 
Haha thank you!
We’re most definitely not complaining about our pick slot 
Literally the entire match Quals 42 of Rocket City. Hats off to 3966. Best defense I faced in 3 years of driving.