Racecourse Analysis

Properly understanding and utilizing skills is extremely important when building a competitive Uma: An A+ scoring Uma that is well-built for a specific track will easily outperform a higher scoring Uma with general skills. Useful skills, however, change on a track-by-track basis because of their specific activation conditions.

Therefore, analyzing the track is the highest priority when preparing for Champions Meeting.

The Accel Zone

Outside of the basics, such as high Speed and meeting Stamina requirements, the most important factor in winning races is acceleration. At the Final Leg of the track, an Uma enters her last spurt and begins to accelerate to her Top Speed. Finding acceleration skills that consistently activate within the Accel Zone is by far the most important thing to consider when analyzing a racetrack.

Any acceleration skill that procs while the Uma is still accelerating is valuable!

INFO

The Uma’s last spurt begins at the start of the Final Leg as long as she has enough Stamina.

For more information, see Target Speed.

Every skill has conditions which determine where they will activate. By looking at the track features in the Accel Zone, such as straights, corners, uphills, and downhills, we can determine which skills will consistently help our last spurt.

Gambling Accels

Several acceleration skills, such as On Your Left!, Furious Feat, and Head-On, activate at a random point during the Final Leg. These acceleration skills are often referred to as “gambling accels” because they have inconsistent activation timings. These skills perform better in shorter tracks, as the late-race is smaller relative to the Accel Zone. This means that the skills are more likely to activate at the proper timing.

Random Terrain Skills

Other acceleration skills activate on random specific track features. Corner Acceleration activates on a random corner, Straightaway Acceleration on a random straight, Highlander on a random uphill, and Straight Descent on a random downhill.

These skills are unreliable and not worth using unless there are very few instances of that terrain feature. For example, if the only downhill is in the Accel Zone, then Straight Descent is a viable skill. If there are multiple downhills, it's likely that the skill will activate on the wrong downhill.

Skill Cooldowns

Most Skills have an innate cooldown of 500 seconds, ensuring that skills usually don’t activate more than once per race. There are some exceptions to this rule where skills have a cooldown of 30 seconds, leading to some skills being activated multiple times in a race if conditions are met.

The skills that have lower cooldowns tend to be more economic purchases because of how often they can trigger, leading to a certain order of skill priorities to consider. For example, Professor of Curvature has an innate cooldown of 30 seconds. If 30 seconds has passed since the last activation of Professor of Curvature, then it can activate again if there’s another corner in the race.

30s Cooldown Skills

• Professor of Curvature / Corner Adept ○
• Beeline Burst / Straightaway Adept
• It’s On / Ramp Up
• See Ya Later! / Playtime’s Over!
• Corner Connoisseur / Corner Acceleration ○
• Rushing Gale! / Straightaway Acceleration
• No Stopping Me! / Nimble Navigator
• In the Right Place! / Slipstream

WARNING

Rushing Gale! activates on a random straight, which means it will almost never activate at a good time.

Do not buy this skill without proper discretion.

Late Race Terrain Skills

The best acceleration skills are ones that have conditions that force proper activation timing. For example, Seiun Sky's Angling and Scheming activates on any late-race corner while in first place. As long as the Final Leg of the track starts on a corner, the skill will proc at the perfect timing.

Final Corner

• Red Shift/LP1211-M
• Shooting for Victory (2nd Half)

First Corner in Late-Race

• Let's Pump Some Iron! (Late/End)
• Moving Past, and Beyond (Late/End)
• Angling and Scheming (Front)

First Straight in Late-Race

• Straightaway Spurt (End)
• Encroaching Shadow (End)

No Stopping Me!

No Stopping Me! is a skill that activates when there is an Uma close in front when spurting. Umas will also spread out on the final corner. This means that on tracks where the Uma starts her spurt before the final corner, she is more likely to have someone in front of her to proc the skill. This happens more commonly on Long tracks.

Velocity Skills during the Accel Zone

Velocity skills raise the speed target of an Uma. As the Uma is accelerating towards her speed target during the Accel Zone, velocity skills that activate during the Accel Zone do not do anything.

For more information, see Target Speed.

Velocity Skill Carryover

Velocity skills that activate just before the final spurt can also be helpful due to Speed Carryover. When the Uma starts accelerating, she will start from a higher base velocity. This means it will take less time for the Uma to reach their top speed, essentially giving a head start on acceleration.

Track breakdown for Nakayama 2500m.

On the Nakayama 2500m track, the Uma will start her spurt at the 1667m mark, which is on a straight. We can see that accelerations that activate on the first straight in the last spurt are viable here. One such example is Straightaway Spurt for End Closers. However, corner acceleration skills are still viable as the first corner is only 33 meters into the Accel Zone.

The Accel Zone of the Nakayama 2500m track, which starts on a straight and goes into a corner.

Track breakdown for Tokyo 2400m.

In contrast, on the Tokyo 2400m track, the Uma will begin her last spurt at the 1600m mark, which starts on a corner and immediately follows with the final corner. There are no straights within the Accel Zone, which means Straightaway Spurt cannot activate. In contrast, since the final corner begins only 25m after the start of the spurt, Maruzensky's Red Shift/LP1211-M is useful, as it will consistently activate in the Accel Zone.

The Accel Zone of the Tokyo 2400m track, which starts on a corner.

Each Racecourse can also have one or two stats that modify speed. You get 5% speed for each 300 of the stat threshold hit for each track. You can see this in the Nakayama 2500 image above (Stamina, Guts). This can be found for Champions Meeting courses here.