What do you mean by an unorthodox match Pies? Does it require creative loadouts or creative tactics or combinations of these both?
We have few regular functions that ships have (+ combinations):
- disable/piercing
- piercing/explosive
- mines as chaos inducer or support
- blending
(Unless I forgot something)I included mines here simply because many teams have been using mines more or less effectively for a long time now. Also one of mobulas that Daniel likes, that was not mentioned by you in the 'unorthodox' category uses a minelauncher as a primary weapon.
Ship loadouts can be
1. Meta
2. Not meta but utilising functions above
3. Original loadouts with potential (few and far in between)
4. Original loadouts without potential (those are more popular)
I'm quite amazed you put the piercing mobula that Daniel created into the 3. category. Other than having more piercing than other ships it would be a perfectly normal ship, if not for the non-trivial tactics included.
Other than that, people that don't bring meta loadouts almost always bring either ships from 2. category (and win or lose) or 4. category (that requires to be carried by the other ship).
Loadouts from 3. category are also usually very difficult to implement. I've experimented with a certain merc squid that required better pilot/crew coordination than one we had to make it a regular competitive loadout (possibly more practice). I myself attempted to use Daniel's piercing mobula, succeeding only to some extend, lacking the loadout understanding that Daniel has.
Sometimes these loadouts work only with a specific ally ship and require flawless coordination. A question arises: 'Then why not put them against some less meta loadouts so they can practice?'
It's an invalid question. If those ships don't work against meta initially, only practice against meta can make it so.
I do not know what to think of ships utilising minotaur, I consider them to be in any category outside meta.
In my opinion, far more interesting than specific loadouts are tactics employed. Watching a perfectly valid ship (meta or not) that does weird things together with his ally is much more entertaining than watching a non-standard ship pretending to be meta and doing the exactly same thing a meta ship would do, just not as effectively.
Also, there's plenty of loadouts that could work against meta, but opponents see that they can hardcounter those ships and they bring the hardest hardcounter possible, proudly proving their knowledge of hardcounters. And that's not the issue with the event being more or less competitive, but competely hopeless notion that the lobby is a place to gain advantage over the enemy at any cost rather than negotiate match-up teams are comfortable with. No, I will not agree that it's a problem with the event being competitive, it happens all the time in pubs. And meta ships can also be countered.
That's quite a long post I produced here, I hope it explains some aspects of what Thomas wrote:
Odd ship loadouts and tactics pop up pretty commonly in SCS, it's a great field for experimenting in. They generally don't do that well, but once in a very blue moon there's an interesting outcome. Some people take it more seriously than others of course, and they're generally going to win.
