The Amp feels like the most significant/impactful low goal in a really long time. It’s really rare that your playoff alliance essentially requires at least one team to focus heavily on scoring low goals instead of high goals.
The tradeoff with its significance is the relative difficulty of the Amp versus other recent low goals. Most low goals are easily accomplished by high goal scorers, and therefore the best high goal scorers are also the best low goal scorers. That won’t necessarily be the case this season as the Amp and the Speaker (likely) require unique mechanisms to score. Many teams will forgo one capability or the other. Some will attempt both and be less effective at both by spreading themselves too thin. Of course there will also be great teams that excel at both elements.
The calculus regarding the value of the Amp is incredibly dynamic and difficult to characterize in a general format. Its utility in a given match, and the optimal strategy for how to use it heavily depends on the composition of a given alliance. It’ll be really fun to see how the strategies evolve as the season goes on.
Hats off to the GDC for an interesting and dynamic low goal!
I might drop one year later: The Exchange/Vault in Power Up. Relatively easy entry (if you planned for it), ability to “adjust” scoring in your favor.
That said, this is going to be an interesting one. I suspect that a good Amp/Trap robot that can do a smidgeon of opportunity defense is going to rank well, given an even slightly competent Speaker shooter on most of their quals alliances. If they don’t blow their strategy…
Theres so many great things about this year’s game and the amp is definitely one of them. Im going to love seeing designs that mix high scoring and amp scoring into one mechanism this year.
Overall i think this is going to be a really fun game to play and watch.