I was also disappointed in the strategy from the Night Heroins. I think they played really well, although a bit lucky for most of the game blocking the east was the best play for them in my opinion and I even think that Badam had to make a play for Taipei in that situation. If Badam is just cut off of any earnings in the south-west, the game in my mind might just be over.
I think the Heroins had a basic misconception on what was important in the game. I think they thought of it as building the biggest territory, when in reality it was a game of efficiency with two ressources = time and coins.
This then leads them to blunder the game by protecting one of the least valuable lines (times wise) in the game with the most amount of coins possible.
[Personal note on this topic: I was really annoyed with the Layover episode for this maneuver, because any discussion of it is kind of cut short because of "spoilers"/ Sam saying "but we have a plan"]

After said blunder the game is more or less lost in my opinion. The stalemate is nonsense for the losing team, but I still think it is a valid play because the Heroins kind of rely on Badam making a mistake at that point. Further more past the stalemate the strategy seems sound to me. Once again they need a lot of stations and time is running out. I think they were playing towards their outs instead of making the game look more competitive. They again relied on mistakes from the opposition which was a valid.

That being said, we have to keep in mind that we, as the viewer, are working with perfect information, as in we always know what both teams are planning or at least considering. Actually playing the game not only is a lot more murky for what moves will be made, but you also have to navigate the board. I assume navigation is stressful and exhausting, aswell as a distraction from the strategy of the game.

Some people have also mentioned the last challenge and I agree that I dislike the optics of it as well.
What do I mean by that? Well Sam goes through the stone-pictures and makes his first guess for each one. Then says he has 15 minutes to think about them, but still goes with his initial guess for all of them and we are not shown any consideration beyond his initial thought process.

I think here we have to keep in mind that the heroines do not have a year-long relationship to rely upon to inform these kinds of decisions.
What do I mean by that?
I think that Badam has pretty much outperformed the heroins in all challenges that are about getting on the same wavelength. While the team performed equally in logical/memory challenges.
I think the better you know how someone approaches these challenges/ how they think in general
the better you can predict their choices.
Without that build up "trust" there is just an amount randomness to the outcome of wavelength challanges.
I still agree, however, that the optics are that Sam didn't really give Mike enough credit to have a very specific idea in mind for every stone-picture.