Champions Almost
For a change in pace, here's a follow up on the Umamusume: Pretty Derby gacha game, last covered in April. Unfortunately, there would be no victory in the just-concluded Sagittarius Cup 2 for Champions Meeting 20 (CM20), with a second-place finish in Graded League Group A - as then.

Since the previous post on the topic had not provided the background, here goes; U:PD is a game where the player (as trainer) aims to guide their Uma (horse[girl]) through a roughly 72-turn career, to obtain the best possible combination of stats (i.e. Speed, Stamina, Power, Guts, Wit) and skills, towards winning races. As the game attempts to be (mostly) historically accurate regarding the original horse's characteristics and career, Umas are specialized in particular distances, surfaces (turf or dirt) and running styles, which implies that an Uma will not be optimized towards all conditions (though some are [much] more versatile than most)

Other than Team Trials (a set of five races on different conditions, with three Umas from one's team, three from the opposing trainer and six extras) and the later League of Heroes (where individual Uma placement matters), Champions Meetings (CMs) are the only official player-versus-player (PvP) content within the game, and perhaps the premier type of competition from their comparative rarity (monthly, if slightly more frequent in the accelerated Global schedule). CMs involve three players in each race, who each enter three Umas - the winner of the race wins it for her team, regardless of how the other two Umas in the team fare.


Gentlemen, start your... uh... warmups!
(Source: r/UmaMusume)

Each CM takes place over five days: two days for Round 1, two days for Round 2, with a Final Round (for those qualified) determining the overall placement for that CM. Each day in Rounds 1 and 2 involves three guaranteed sets of 5 races, with a fourth set obtainable by paying Carats (the in-game currency) - though it should be said that the cost is partly recouped from the rewards for that set. As illustrated in the graphic above, qualification for the best tier of the next round is achieved by winning 3 of 5 races (60%) within any set. This does mean that it is possible to not qualify with a 40% winrate in a round (i.e. 16/40 races) by the pigeonhole principle, or to qualify with a 7.5% winrate (3/40 races), for the extremely lucky.

This does mean that a bog-average team (with a 33.33% winrate) would expect to qualify, as although the chance of qualifying from an individual set is only about 21% by binomial probability, this would translate to 84.8% to succeed from eight sets (or 75.7% from six sets). The Final Round is a single race against two similarly-qualified teams, with my personal record being a pretty average return of three first places (i.e. Platinum titles) from ten Graded League CMs (all Group A Final Rounds):

CM	Umas	Result
11 (Pisces) Long, Turf	Gold Ship (End), Oguri Cap (Pace), Kitasan Black (Front)	Finals
12 (Aries) Medium, Turf	Satono Diamond* (Late), Air Groove (Late), El Condor Pasa (Pace)	Won
13 (Taurus) Medium, Turf	Agnes Digital* (End), Fantasy El Condor Pasa (Late), Sakura Chiyono O (Pace)	Won
14 (Gemini) Mile, Turf	Valentine Mihino Bourbon (Front), Oguri Cap (Pace), Cheer King Halo (End)	Finals
15 (Cancer) Medium, Turf	Xmas Oguri Cap (Pace), Camping Mejiro Dober (Late), Cheer Nice Nature (Late)	Finals
16 (Leo) Sprint, Turf	Ballroom Fuji Kiseki (Pace), Nishino Flower (Pace), Taiki Shuttle (Pace)	Finals
17 (Virgo) Medium, Dirt	Copano Rickey* (Front), Xmas Oguri Cap (Pace), Banana Smart Falcon (Front)	Won
18 (Libra) Mile, Turf	Wedding Fine Motion (Pace), Camping Taiki Shuttle (Pace), Sweep Tosho (End)	Finals
19 (Scorpio) Medium, Turf	Xmas Oguri Cap (Pace), Halloween Meisho Doto (Pace), Mejiro Dober (Late)	Finals
20 (Sagittarius) Long, Turf	Xmas Vodka (Late), Commander Special Week (Late), Festival Inari One (End)	Finals

Upon review, it appears that much of the earlier success had come before I had bothered to farm for Distance S (which grants a 10% bonus to Speed), which may somewhat support the finals being a bit of a lottery, with reports of players with a 90% winrate in the first two rounds winding up third (mine has generally ranged from 40+% to maybe 70%), though it might be said that having a really strong Uma helps. Copano Rickey for example got a 54% winrate in CM17 before winning the finals too, which is the solo record thus far given that my preference has been for three Aces, rather than having one or two debuffers* whose only job is to help the Ace(s) win (analogous to domestiques in bicycle racing, or dedicated pacers in longer road races), on the principle of it.

Suffice to say that there is no real shortcut to reading the unofficial manuals for serious players, who will then have to start planning for their star Umas' (great-)grandparents. Heck, the racing mechanics section alone is a chunk of math, though it does yield some non-intuitive observations such as how the Speed stat doesn't actually determine the Uma's speed until late race (with Wit largely deciding the relative positions of the Umas before that, influence of skills such as Uma Stan excepted), and how having sufficient Stamina for the race length is the top priority (alright, this seems obvious on hindsight)

Which brings us to my primary Ace (and favourite Uma) for the latest CM, (Xmas) Vodka. One might find it hard to believe that (simulated) racing can be so engrossing, what with strategies such as drafting not being all that easy to spot in real-life racing. This is in contrast quite exaggerated in U:PD, with many skills dependent on specific placements (e.g. being fifth or sixth going into the final corner, for Moving Past, and Beyond) or conditions (e.g. pass three other runners, for Behold Thine Emperor's Divine Might) to activate.


Hey, pardner!

This in turn means that Umas - even nominally of the same style - tend to have their own distinct running (and winning) patterns, and for my CM20 Xmas Vodka, the ideal scenario would be to approach the final corner about fifth; this (or later) would qualify for the Into High Gear ultimate to trigger, allowing speed carryover into the final leg (or acceleration zone). If most or all of the available acceleration skills (Claw Forward, Moving Past and Beyond, No Stopping Me!, Slick Surge) then trigger, XVodka can teleport à la Orfevre (not yet released on Global) straight to (or even beyond) the front, where a host of velocity skills (Dreams Donned with Pride, Top Gear, Racing Spirit: Stamina, Homestretch Haste, original Vodka's Cut and Drive!, the basic straightaway skills) can take over.

This doesn't happen all that often, unfortunately, and therefore the final winrate of about 29%, due to a number of weaker points. First off, despite having some early-to-midgame skills such as Uma Stan and Tail Held High, she has basically no corner skills (reflecting the real-life horse, so oh well) which can lead to her falling irrecoverably behind before late-race. Secondly, Tosen Jordan's event for the Breath of Fresh Air gold recovery didn't occur, which left XVodka relying on two lesser white recovery skills to support Claw Forward and Racing Spirit: Stamina, which had her lose more than a few races due to gassing out and comically slowing to a jog towards the end.

Still, there's nothing quite like the excitement of watching to see if a backliner can explode forward and overhaul the front-runners. My Festival Inari One end closer would then be the more-reliable and lower-variance option, trading XVodka's sheer volume of lottery skills for a more-consistent final package, which had her only slightly lower in winrate (28%) but significantly higher in top three finish rate (74% to 63%). Poor Commander Special Week couldn't really compete despite the Nakayama 2500m supposedly being her specialty, likely due to a deficit of closing skills. This resulted in a 7.5% winrate, for an overall team winrate of about 64%.

It could also be noted that the XVodka used in CM20 was from my first career with the character, that happened to get nearly everything required (including an S in Long affinity) bar the abovementioned deficiencies, though one can of course always do better; the problem with getting an Uma one reckons being around the 90th percentile is that one would expect to have to play ten more careers before training a (possibly only slightly) better one, and let's just say that I do have other commitments - which makes the recent release of automated Independent Training a godsend!


[*Moreover, debuffers canonically operate by kicking up dust, whispering slurs (and other distractions) and giving the ol' stink-eye, which doesn't seem** in proper sportsumalike spirit.]

[**That said, this is a game where Umas have ultimates that involve drawing and firing a pistol (yes, an American), pulling out a dagger and summoning a water dragon, which has to be unfair compared with the more genteel manifestations, such as from the famous but now-defunct Mejiro clan.]

[To be continued...]