Another very late post, I know.

So, Team #369 - Markov Chain Gang, secured a position in the top 8-12th bracket of the International Qualifying bracket of BattleCode 2018. We had a really good chance of getting a place in the Finals (& a trip to MIT!), if not for some of these reasons -

• Two (out of 4) of our team members got bogged down with other college related activities. So it ended with me and @legobridge carrying the team.
• Docker problems plagued me throughout the tournament. I lost 3-4 days cumulative in patching, updating, clearing, removing, re-installing docker to run the BattleCode scaffold.
• A quota of max 4 International teams for the finals (out of the total 16 spots) was implemented for this year.

Very honestly, it was the last point that hurt the most. The “International” teams were as a whole way more competitive; most of the top positions in the daily scrimmage rankings were captured by these teams. I understand the reason why it was done (last year had almost nil local presence) but I can’t help feel a bit salty. Mainly due to the fact that despite the other problems, we had a good chance of getting into the Finals, if not for the quota.

Sigh, quotas are a sticky, volatile and frustrating point for many people in my country, including me, in general(puns). However, I can’t deny that the experience was lovely. Every single part of it, from regularly coding upto 20 hours at a stretch, the fun discussions on Twitch and Discord; the strategies and plans hatched and abandoned. It’s something I’ll definitely want to do again next year too.

Just no Docker again, please.