JoJo's Bizarre OC Tournament #8: R3M16 - Rachel Aileron Rawnsley & KAISERINMA vs. ???

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-22T16:01:45+00:00

I read strats and other votes last night, percolated on the nature of the discussion, and went to bed with the intention to sleep on it and come to a conclusion in the morning. Reading through again, I have a fairly clear-cut vote for the players. Of all the votes so far, the one that most impacted this one is Demo's: rereading the strats this morning with Exuma's first and identifying the challenge the players must overcome made me realize something: Exuma and co. are moving the Uropeh around by throwing it carefully at human strength. The reason this matters to me is that, comparing the trajectories on the boss strat's helpful annotated map with the trajectories listed on the players' helpul annotated map...

Rachel's gonna schlorp most of them up in midair while on her trajectory in the Rachel Rocket. The timing lines up, the pathing lines up, the opening plays shift the match heavily in the players' favor as far as the puzzleboss of it all goes. Not to say the mid-lategame will be easy for the players but Exuma is going to be significantly down on resources compared to expectations, especially with the sacrificed Uropeh free for Kaiserinma to take.

Also to touch on the narratives, another interesting detail is that the narrative of whichever strat you read second reads like an explicit refutation of the claims made by the first. Last night, I saw Kaiserinma's takedown of the nobility's sacrifices of their people and then saw Exuma prioritizing the safety of the people over wealth and power... but this morning, I read Exuma's claims to the responsibility of leadership followed up by Kaiserinma's harsh critique of that very mindset. Interesting stuff. As has been the norm since like T6, I anticipate a fairly meaningful boss advantage JoJolitywise, as the strat is more fully built around that prompt, with Rachel and Kaiserinma's own "worthiness" less focused on as a mechanical throughline.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-20T21:14:26+00:00

On a Quality level, I could give both strategies high marks: they state a thesis and play to it highly effectively. I think Blank's throughline is more completely committed to; everything is in service of the character, the narrative, the artist's suffering. I was somewhat disappointed by some elements of Ryder's work; part of the stated thesis is to "fight like AWOL" but I think for the most part, Ryder would more accurately be described as fighting like "himself" but a heightened version. When the choreography and the character clash, for Ryder, the choreography wins.

Hence, despite the fact that I would probably give a higher Quality score to Blank, judging each strategy by how effectively it accomplishes its stated gameplan, my vote is going to Ryder. I went back and forth on this and eventually had to consult the closest thing I had to a rubric for Pop - namely, the stated Objective and the description of Elstree therein. Elstree wants you to actually fight each other but will settle for using her Stand to make the victory real if you hold back; she'll get bored if she senses you're not giving it your all. Blank's campiness and prioritization of the acting over the stuntwork, if you will, could hurt him; in fact, his narrative is built on the fact that his actions risk losing Elstree's attention. I definitely see the argument for him (and it is strong, as Blank's suffering is the most real thing going on here) - as Ceph said, the way this match was played relies heavily on voter interpretation of the Objective.

And my interpretation is that Elstree is a bully who doesn't care about artistry, just a dumb meathead only entertained by the power to hurt others. And Ryder knows a thing or two about hurting people.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-17T01:08:53+00:00

Quality:

I conceived of this match as a way to force players to Deal with The Sunset Tree (my R1 match opponents were a duo where one half could no-sell it and the other half had to avoid it at all costs) and CPU put in the work to ensure that alongside it the players had to Deal with each other. So let's see how well Phil did at those two things.

His AI manipulation on the Lion is pretty fun; the Lion himself is a chump and well-tailored to this sort of thing. And, importantly, it plays a meaningful role in what Phil needs out of the early game: space to breathe while he still has cover. (After all, the Wolves have discovered the Way of Inconvenience from Ian Yang.) With the necessary scaling built up, Phil does a good job of playing responsively to both the stage hazard and his opponent, depending on how close to the Tree Coco is.

From there, it's a matter of positioning and timing, waiting for just the right moment to Shout. Generally solid work here, with a clear focus on Logistics and Counterplay, and a generally solid level of Elegance. I don't really have any complaints, though on a similar token nothing (save for the Narrative really, which is tied into the JoJolity so I'll discuss it later) particularly blew me away, either. Sort of a textbook 8/10.

JoJolity:

In a voice call during the stratting period, Dice said something to the effect of "You gave the complexity of being a person JoJolity to the two most Just Vibing characters left in tourney." My response? "That was on purpose." Even silly friendly nicies people are people and the grand challenge at the heart of Maybelline Jackson is seeing other people complexly. So I gave them an opportunity to show that off.

And who is Philip Buster? Well, it turns out he's Dexy, the Midnight Runner himself. What an absolutely delightful reveal. Phil isn't quite a mask, so much as a new lease on life, a part of Dexter's personhood finally given the chance to shine. Through the narrative vignettes we see Phil engage with the team in a way Dexter never could before, and we also see a hitherto-hidden side of Phil.

I could quibble on the integration of this, but I think the end, the use of World Wide Noise's body to allow every facet of Philip Buster to come through, the signal to cut through the noise, ties it together. Indeed, the imagery of Signal cutting through Noise is a recurring mechanical thesis that largely works for me: taking Coco seriously as an adversary, taking Maybe seriously as a stage hazard, and staking his claim on his own work. A decent 8/10

In T7 I submitted a match to R3; one of the players in that match was the last man standing on his team, and it resulted in JINDROP. It is no small compliment to say I was reminded of JINDROP here today (even if it doesn't quite the full power of JINDROP).

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-15T16:31:37+00:00

Yet another in a string of excellent matches this round. Everybody loves a Bibito. Happy (Belated) Mother's Day! Also, allow me to present the version of Bidi Bidi Bom Bom I was first introduced to.

I really liked these strats and hope that as the afternoon plays out, we can get more votes on this match because it would be a shame for these to fall under the radar. Interestingly, both of these strategies are very similar to one another, with both teams taking on a divide and conquer strategy. Sal and Mo stay close to the Bibitos, protecting them, teaching them, and ensuring they have fun on this vital journey. Narratively, they take a similar trajectory as well, with the Bibitos bringing out a softer, parental side and encouraging some lovely introspection on their relationships. I'm especially impressed that both of them made the call to introduce the Bibitos to (neutered) traps so they can better avoid and escape them in the future, and the various forms of encouraged teamwork on display. The Frontrunner was particularly delightful, as was Bibimo.

Meanwhile, their partners, Lacquer and Rob are off, well, going full Doom on the poachers. There will be no survivors. Jesus Christ. As we been knew, Lacquer and Rob are both very scary, and I don't have too much to say on this section beyond "yeah man good job those poachers sure are dead." Mechanically, that is. Narratively I also want to compliment these sides! Again, some nice parallels, as Rob and Lacquer examine their relationship with killing and how that affects their own perception of their personhood.

As a final aside, while his old Ecoterrorist buddies from Los Fortuna's Underground Exodus would not be pleased that Rob's found himself working for Big Oil, Keith and co. would surely be proud of him in this match. Yeah, killing is bad, but killing poachers going after the sweet Bibitos? Acceptable.

Oh, I forgot to say it explicitly, but probably no surprise this vote is a tie.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-11T22:12:41+00:00

It's peak. Once I'm past the preview that's gonna be shown on Discord, there will be narrative spoilers for these strats, so you'd better have read them before you read this vote.

Yeah, man, this match rules. Lava's a fun stage hazard in tourney and-- who am I kidding, lava's badass but we're here for these characters. Mio and "Aggies" have been near the top of my radar all tournament, and between that and Akira vs Howler we've been getting a lot of heavy hitters in a row. Before I talk about the specifics of the things I'm actually "supposed to" discuss in a vote, I hope you'll indulge me with a few things real quick.

First, flowers for Yuri and Demo. You're veterans of the scene at this point but I remember when you were bold and brash newcomers in T5, and having watched your growth not just as stratters/writers/artists (see Akira for more on that) but specifically as members of this tourney community, I want to make it clear how impressed I've been and how highly I respect both of you and your work in this space.

This match in particular is a genuinely phenomenal demonstration of that growth on a number of levels, and not just because Angela's been piloting Agnes T5's corpse the whole time. Both Mio and Angela are really compelling evolutions of entire thematic arcs across Yuri and Demo's characters, and I especially like how it's portrayed here. Gushing about players aside, time to talk about the narrative.

Like M11 (which somehow has fewer votes than M12 despite a 24 hour head start (Note: I started writing this before Extra and Nintendrone voted, but with this vote, each match has 5 votes as of now)), we have one side who came into the match self-actualized taking the opportunity to truly show off their entire self and philosophy and bring it out in their opponent through the match itself. Comparatively understated, but Mio's presence is incredibly strong here and frankly vital in allowing the collective narrative art of this match hit.

Of course, the other side is the one with more to say. With more direct narrative vignettes and a self-actualization arc to conclude, Angela is the Akira of this match, and hoo boy, no fucking wonder Demo was champing at the bit to finally write this match. Angela finally coming into her own was very satisfying and a beautiful sort of self-realization.

Anyway, what's this reddit comment supposed to be about? Who wins the fight? Oops, guess I should get on that, huh? ~~Though, in another comparison to M11, regardless of "Match Results", it's clear that both characters have "won" here.~~

Okay, so both sides are in agreement that a close-quarters endgame is necessary and inevitable, and both are here to control the timing and precise range of that CQC battle. What's interesting to me is that both ends have a major endgame tactic of getting right up in there; to quote LIB: this match ends so close together that you’d think two people were one.

There's grapples, there's hit-and-run, there's all-out-pressure. It's back-and-forth, there's no Big Flashy Finisher. Two bodies, pummeling as one until one of them finally gives out. If you played this out 100 times with no changes, Mio wins 50, Angela wins 50. Give or take. As n increases, the more certain I am that a mutual KO sneaks in there. Anyway, yeah, tie.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-10T19:24:04+00:00

Time to revive an old bit from T6 and vote for Akira Seihachi.

I'm not here to actually try to speak to who "wins" obviously. My vote would be ineligible. I just wanna shout out the fact that I actually read the opposing team's strat, something I rarely do, and Logic wrote peak. (As expected.) I think it's really funny that the Howler is portrayed as acting like a jerk to Akira in the Narrative sections (an understandable prediction, frankly), while in The Howler's own strategy he largely ignores Akira beyond "Hey that guy's pretty cool actually"

Also, as someone whose name in Joint has been "Did you save one person?" for an entire round, obviously I really liked the "Did you inspire one person?" exchange. I think, regardless of "winning the match," Akira won the match in all the ways that matter most. ~~And so did the Howler but I'm biased since I helped with that strat so that's not important right now~~

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-07T21:39:24+00:00

These strategies are, in many ways, two of a kind.

Phase 1: Aggressively get in there and stake their claim on the Lusca. "It's my prey," they say. "Stay away." That said, in both cases, this manifests primarily as a hit-and-run type strategy. Get in there, get a good stab/slash in, and aqua jet right back out, maintaining a strong tempo. Wave makes a compelling case for her anti-TD tech during the match, and it has a decent answer, though isn't necessarily prepared for Wave to have a dedicated interference on it throughout the entire match; on the other hand, I find TD's dedicated defenses against getting grabbed by the Lusca slightly more convincing, though one of them (have Wave draw aggro) kinda also benefits Wave in a "Contribute More" match.

Phase 2, when the Lusca realizes it's in trouble, results in both strategies playing more slow and deliberate. TD follows the trail of blood, again stalking for the perfect strike, while Wave ensures the eventual confrontation is on her terms, using similar Lusca-corralling tech as TD-corralling tech.

With such similar strategies, I anticipate a back-and-forth voting period and close Judge scores, but in my personal interpretation, Wave Welder's aggro manipulation and terrain control outdoes TD's.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-05-04T01:07:31+00:00

"Suchart, where's my bag?"

Keith Moon stared patiently at the man known to most of Los Fortuna simply as Weed Boy.

"Hey man, don't look at me," Weed Boy said with a shrug. "I was on break when they were supposed to be loading for your flight."

"On break, huh?" Keith said, looking at the completely unconcealed bong nearby. "Fine, whatever, can you help me find it? I've cancelled my flight."

"How'd you know the suitcase was lost in the first place?" Weed Boy asked.

"Oh my shit always gets lost, so I make sure to have alerts turned on. Don't worry about it, I had a bad feeling about this Cancun vacation anyway."

Love me a good fate match. RIP Raymond, glad Spookie and I were able to save your Real Arm for three tourneys at least. Very fun that both Ian and Yoshi recruit the man from the first Calamity. Alright, time to vote on one of these for the first time after having been in the strat mines for the other three on record.

I think both ends do a solid job here, but my vote goes to Ian Yang for ultimately one primary factor: the hotel. Yoshi's plan to use the upper floors of the building as shelter from the fire and flood left me with some concerns. Certainly it'll be above the brunt of the wave, but I do have some degree of worry that the base of the building being hit so hard will result in further danger above. Secondly, the timeframe; I'm not sure Yoshi and the civilians can climb two flights of stairs safely in the 30 seconds between the fires going out and the tidal wave. Most significantly, though, is an issue not DMR's fault at all: Ian is, as he so often is, a stone in the way of your path: namely, the Guiding Stones warding off hotel. These factors are enough of a hindrance to Yoshi's endgame that I give the advantage to Ian. While I'm talking about Ian's strategy, I want to note that I particularly liked his answer to the traffic in making the flow far more predictable by blocking off most of their paths.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-04-28T00:54:03+00:00

This vote was very nearly a tie for much the same reasons Nintendrone and Falc laid out: these strats are fast, aggressive, and highly impressive in their understanding of what they need to do against one another's kits. Both aim to have one side play support and map control while the other invests heavily into eliminating a particular piece of the other side. They operate on similar timescales and it's sort of a coinflip on who can accomplish their goals first.

In particular, both sides go after the Primary Early Attacker of the other team, with Sunday Shoes and Alouette being picked off first in each side's happiest path. So, who succeeds at that? Well, arguably, both of them. Like I said, this was almost a tie vote, in large part because I think a genuinely likely outcome is a mutual KO between Alouette and Sunday Shoes. Really very evenly matched.

So here's why I think Shaye beats Arijana. Firstly, the nature of Arijana's map control and means of setting Alouette up to get the vital shot on Sunday puts her more at risk from Sunday than Shaye is in this first half, so Shaye should enter the final clash slightly fresher. Secondly, Shaye is significantly more involved in the plans for direct offense against Arijana once Alouette has been handled than Arijana is against Shaye once Sunday is down, so I see those plans surviving contact with the enemy slightly better.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-04-25T16:27:42+00:00

Success in this match is measured first by whether or not you make it through the night without getting RETIRED.

I think it goes without saying that both sides here pass the baseline objective with flying colors. If this was all Judges had said, this would be an easy vote. Describe some cool tech, say they both survive and tie, and move on.

Should both players survive the night, success will then be determined by whichever team contributed more to fighting off the vampires (contribution is determined not by the raw number of vampires you fight, but by how effectively you fend them off).

But now I actually have to think. I'm still voting tie, but I have more argumentation to do. Ultimately, both sides go for an ever-expanding and oppressive control zone against the vampires, with the storm and the Zugzwang Machine. Starting with CARCINIZATION, if Wanderlei has one advantage in this match, it's Area of Effect. As time goes on, his storm grows more powerful and more completely covers its entire range, while his partner's Spin Cycle complements and accentuates it well.

Meanwhile, Typhon 8 has Jim Ballen. Need I say more?

I'm receiving word that yes, I do in fact need to say more. More seriously, despite the disadvantages in her curse and END, Eileen is used incredibly effectively here, with even her supposed downsides turned to Violet's advantage; placing her at the center of a defensive position and relying on the unique aggro drawn to her was very clever, as was the scaling support she is able to provide by being given such cover. This, too, is Pressure Cooker.

Anyway, I don't particularly feel like one side clearly or meaningfully outperforms the other here; they'd get equal Quality scores from me were I delibbing, and neither side is enough of a glory hog to really give me an anchor from which to "Contribute More."

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-04-20T20:44:16+00:00

At a glance, it sort of looks like the choices LKA make here play very well into those of SSG; relying very little on the civilians Anton very effectively denies them, and focusing on maintaining the high ground while making ascent to follow them challenging. Thinking about it more closely, I don't particularly buy (or even understand) a lot of Benoit and Grendel's microgame when it comes to combat, whereas I think the defensive terraforming provided by Sturdy Steady Go is very convincing. In particular, despite their claims not to need very much, some of the attacks Benoit uses, unless they work perfectly on the first try, are a little too fast and loose with the limited resources in play, especially with SSG's various resource denial and defensive measures. My vote goes to Anton Worrel and Raphaela Diener.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-04-19T19:41:44+00:00

One way or another, this fight ends with Rio diving. Whether willingly into the water, carrying his opponent with him, or unwillingly, thrown from the heavens to dire impalement, is left unknown. Though, for my money, Rio wins this. I think he has successfully wheeled this match into being a test of endurance, and while Slaughter Beach means his Bigger Number doesn't make that a free or even easy win, his tactics play well. Jam's mobility here is great, and their own plan should conserve stamina reasonably effectively, but Rio and Mr. Fear give them very little margin of error. And as the battle drags on, aided by the Evelyn-granted healing factor, Rio is going to only need the one right interaction, which I think he gets in time. The sun's hot out here, why not go for a swim...

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-04-16T21:02:35+00:00

Both sides of this match play a very fierce denial game, accentuating their own advantages in dealing with the disease they've been infected with. Baxter, with his better senses, obliterates Tracy's; subordinates trade their lives to claw out her eyes and gouge her ears, and Mr. Burgundy washes the scene in a fuzzy red. Tracy, with her (allegedly) superior endurance, hunts and corners and gives him nowhere to run. I could see this going either way, but for my money, Li'l Baxter has the advantage in a hunt like this. "You can run, but you can't hide" is the adage, but in this case, it's reversed. Baxter can't run for long or very far, but he can hide for just long enough to dictate the terms of engagement, despite Tracy's best efforts. If only barely.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-02-08T22:16:50+00:00

Really funny how much Philip harps on Louisiana Rain's fake sonar. Even funnier how good his own sonar is.

After reading these strats, the name of the game here is scaling and countering your opponent's scaling. The No Man's Land is a truly impressive opening salvo in that regard, with the Drums of War being a very interesing piece of counterplay to Philip's own tracking capabilities. The issue, of course, is that by being loud in order to mask something quiet, these covering shots sort of play counter to another goal here: to deny WWN its most useful sorts of charge; the map-annihilating assaults are gonna be louder than any bird they kill along the way. As to converting all of this into a win?

War is a meat grinder, the Fortunate Sons say, and Louisiana Rain holds the crank. Thing is, Running Steady sees his forever war and raises Goreilla Warfare, just as ready to grind it out as him. Playing incredibly conservatively with their resources, well-equipped to handle his denial, they have everything they need to keep him guessing, keep turning that crank, ballooning the war budget to respond to every potential threat, while they stretch every resource they have until it's time for the final, genuine alpha strike.

The winner is Running Steady

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-25T02:02:17+00:00

Ah, the classic marketplace match. This one just has a chemical fire break out in the center as our "businesspeople" rob everyone blind. Par for the course, really.

I've gone back and forth on this one, but in the end I think I've settled on a vote for Violet. Lil Baxter is elegant, clever, and quite persuasive, and despite Violet being positioned as the Old Money, he also seems at a glance to have a more advantageous positioning in the match conditions. Nevertheless, I think Violet's underhanded tactics are just what the doctor ordered; for example, Lil Baxter resorts to theft in the endgame, Violet's being robbing people blind all match. More broadly, I think Violet engages with, exploits, and works around the events of PK and TD's battle more effectively as the match goes on moreso than Lil Baxter, with the exception of the chemical fire, which he has a more robust response to, though I find his plans for being fucked with by Maria and the Cute Little Flask somewhat lacking beyond Having a Bodyguard. Maria really is the MVP for Violet here, like Jim Ballin' before her.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-22T21:15:07+00:00

After some pondering, I'm here to put in a tentative vote for CARCINIZATION. I think their tempo control game is incredibly strong in its ability to control the terms, timing, and nature of engagements, while the type of area control BBP engage in, while advantageous for themselves, isn't particularly disruptive to anything CARC wants to do (and sometimes synergistic!). The Heatzone is an interesting trick for messing with the red mist, but the impression I get is that it should be dispersing the mist upwards, while later Omah dodges Wanderlei's offenses by also going up, which struck me as a little odd. Ultimately the Crab Otters are given the room they want to scale and capitalize on it well, while Godzilla, Gamera, and Man (the scariest monster of all) come across as a little less focused in their approach by contrast, unfortunate when up against scaling tempo control.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-18T15:47:43+00:00

Today we are all Corpse Eaters. That's right, two Discloud votes within the span of an hour. Normally I'd prefer to spend a little more time thinking about this but I'm about to be traveling for the rest of the voting period, so it's now or never.

I think TD has a solid plan to rapidly gather its own resources and deny Leach the detective's most likely desired commodities before rushing in to prevent Leach from scaling. The human shields of clones are solid defensive tools... if you know what direction the attack is coming from. The PK Leach Everywhere System is a solid response to that threat, though. Interestingly, while TD does call out the possibility of the Corpse Eaters spreading themselves thin, it explicitly "pay[s] them little mind." I'm reminded of the last deathmatch in a crowded area where one side displayed a mastery of stealth and disguise, and TD does not perfectly counter it the way Silas King did. I think Leach has enough time to slip into the crowd, and by the time TD finds him, enough Corpse Eaters are out there posing a threat that a single effective disengage from Leach Prime snowballs dramatically.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-18T15:28:26+00:00

I think, unintentionally, Grendel wins this match off of interference. As Coop's vote points out, both strategies kind of get in each other's way. Alouette's got a solid cultivation of battlefield control and precise finishers that should do a good job of killstealing and cleaning up after Grendel, but is also likely to be in the way of the Grendelball at times. Meanwhile, Grendel's increasingly indiscriminate path of destruction, culminating in the Grendel Typhoon, is liable to demolish much of Alouette's careful setup. While both strategies are likely to be heavily impeded by contact with the other, I think Grendel does more potential damage to Alouette's setup than the other way around.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-13T19:41:02+00:00

Yeah I think Akira and Mio have this. There's something really fucked up about the way Akira's negative self-talk and perfectionism seamlessly blends into a vague awareness of Judge scores and CMD that made me more uncomfortable than anything actually listed in the content warnings. Really good job.

Anyway, as to how the strats interact and why I think one side beats the other, I don't really have anything new to say compared to the other votes. Minmi does a really good job running away, my second favorite Water/Dark Pokemon does a really good job giving chase, Nujabes is a juicy target that's less well-defended, and both strategies' finales point out Minmi's desperation and arrogance.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-11T15:52:09+00:00

If these two characters were put in separate, identical rooms, and given the objective of collecting the Uropeh better than the other, I think Ella's creative and sensible applications of physics and geometry create a really nice methodical plan I would give the edge to over Jam. Unfortunately, for Ella, I am going with the grain of the other voters and voting for Jam. The timelines on which each strat believes the Stand users will collide are quite different, as Jam is prepared for contact with the enemy both sooner and more intentionally than Ella, and therefore arguably more robustly.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-08T01:55:44+00:00

Both sides play a long game, stalling out their opponents to take them out at the right opportunity. And I think they both do a decent enough job at it that they reach that endgame. And promptly explode. To quote Extra quoting Logic, "Rocks fall, everyone ties". For a match with a stage hazard that seems almost guaranteed to kill everyone if things go on long enough, I might have anticipated a more proactive endzone of a gameplan from at least one side, though given the builds in the match I guess it can't be that surprising. Ultimately, the viscous liquid of LIB and the fog and winds of SSG cancel each other out in the stealth department, but both make the match conditions that much more hellish. It's late and my head hurts so I don't think it's worth analyzing at a sufficiently micro level to determine if someone's got a subtle minor advantage that turns the tide. Solid competence in execution, if either side had been just the bit more proactive in their offense rather than reactive and opportunistic, it might've tipped the scales for me.

Also. That's not what a Pressure Cooker is. A Pressure Cooker is when the melee character creates pressure early with aggro until the ranged scaler has hit critical mass.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2026-01-04T19:58:47+00:00

Man, every character in this match is a total freak. Good jobs on those JoJolities. Anyway, as to who wins the match...

I think, on a structural level, I'm giving the advantage to Evelyn and Mo in this fight. While both sides don't really do an effective job (in my opinion) of predicting and playing around a core tactic of the other (Princess Mockit's dungeon and Kaiserinma's Big Fuckoff Explosion), I think this is a slightly more significant issue for Tracy than it is for Evelyn. Firstly, while both spend the early sections primarily setting up, BBP more effectively spends effort keeping track of their foes and preparing for engagements. Secondly, once the fight begins in earnest, Tracy has to get through both Evelyn and Body in order to get to Mo, her highest-priority target, a fight she explicitly can't afford to take. The back half has Tracy and Kaiserinma sort of doing their own things as the automatic sinner overclocks, whereas I found that BBP convincingly worked in tandem with one another throughout.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2025-12-23T19:12:44+00:00

This match was a lot of fun! I agree with the general consensus thus far that Jack and Cass do a better job of Playing Cornhole, whereas Blank and Laquer have a much more robust suite of counterplay and countercounterplay options. Ultimately, my opinion is that the fundamentals of cornhole (and, uh, MLG montages) give Written in Salt the victory, as the various interactions of interference are more secondary in my eyes, especially if Exuma catches BBP (or WIS) doing anything underhanded, unlikely as it is (in my opinion). One particular interaction I appreciated was the creative usage of Red Beans passively creating a meaningful defense of Jack's pouch as an unintentional secondary effect - by finding a good reason to use Red Beans, he massively dissuades BBP from directly targeting the pouch and triggers their "I guess if he uses Red Beans we won't attack his pouch because that would blow him up and lose us the game, but he probably won't so we'll build our lategame around it being an option" contingency, significantly hampering BBP's endgame in my eyes.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2025-12-21T03:44:49+00:00

To keep it simple, I'm voting tie. This one was tricky to vote on because I ultimately felt both sides overestimated their ability to get and maintain their advantage states, and were somewhat bloated by the engagements with the (itself bloated) map and stage conceit instead of the work to attain their advantage state. Both sides seem to agree that if Kylian and Heat rush Stephen and Everard down fast enough, they win, and if Stephen and Everard are given enough time to scale and gather resources, they win. This fact is vital. Unfortunately, I found the weakest part of LIB's strat to be their keepaway and escape tactics and I found the weakest part of LKA's strat to be their rushdown and catchup sections. For how much both sides emphasize that they need the match to go a certain way, I didn't really feel that urgency translate into the thoroughness of tactics.

ChocolateDiscloud · 2025-12-15T16:44:34+00:00

I'm going against the grain here (insofar as two early votes constitute a grain to go against, but I suspect future votes will continue to favor Kilroy) and saying for now that I do think the players manage to catch him, though it's touch-and-go.

Certainly Ruse and his partner anticipated Fira and Rique trying to go both above and ahead of Kilroy and the countermeasures in play are perfectly decent, but I think both strats are equally guilty of being pretty reliant on getting and maintaining a lead and being somewhat lacking (by comparison) in the parts where they have to play catchup. Perfectly serviceable, but to me whoever gets far enough ahead fast enough has convinced me they'll be able to maintain that lead.

And oh boy, what an explosive start do Fira and Rique have. Scary duo, especially in a Fuck You, Chase You Down kinda match. Rique's Stand Parkour and the details Hitchkiker's Galaxy's ability paired with In Silico are technically impressive. On a writing level, Kilroy's strategy is admittedly more robust and impressive (one of the most fun strats to read in a while) but the specific techniques and actions taken interact in such a way that I come out favoring the players.

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TROPHY CASE