World Cup Layout 2011: Coming Attractions

With the Cup field I think we can safely say the PSP's "rules" experiment to entice bigger, older, slower players back into competitive paintball is over. A Pin as the Home prop? And a Tall Cake and a Mini Race are the two closest props to Home. If the league is hoping for faster points on this layout the Masters division may oblige. Beyond that completely gratuitous criticism this is an interesting and tactically complex field that I expect to see most teams defend and attack poorly. And by poorly I mean I expect most divisional teams to simply be unaware of the potential of this layout and to play it mostly as a straightforward xball field. (I watched some play this weekend that was not exactly inspirational.) In a lot of respects this is unfortunate particularly for teams that don't discover some characteristic or other of the layout until another team utilises it during a match that counts. It's hard to fix problems on the fly you hadn't encountered before.
In the past I've broken down aspects of various layouts for the educational value and as examples of different ways of thinking about playing different layouts. What I'm going to do with the Cup layout is go thru our practice process from this past weekend's scrimmaging with Dynasty. I am going to do it in enough detail that it will probably cover at least 3 or 4 posts. This will be a substantial expansion over the relatively simple field breakdowns that I hope will offer some new ideas and insights into the process of using practice & scrimmaging more productively.
I'll begin the series next Monday. (Not tomorrow. The following Monday--after Cup.) In the meantime if any of y'all have any specific questions drop me a line and I'll answer them before Cup--if I can. And if I can't post them and I'll try to respond by email.