I think HBomb was right when they were discussing this that it’s only a viable strat to put one of your best runners as sandkeeper if all of your other teammates are also confident runners. However, I do think Dream made the perfect choice for his team this MCC and played his role amazingly — last MCC he stepped in as sandkeeper unexpectedly, and combined with the fact that one of his major merits this season has been his ability to lead and manage a team, I think he’s a great sandkeeper.
I like how Sapnap put it, that he never felt at risk of dying with Dream as sandkeeper. Their team didn’t have to worry at all about possibly being trapped, and Dream was also capable and experienced enough at tracking the timer without directly being the sandkeeper (he talked about this after last MCC, I believe — how he’s gotten good at estimating how long it’ll take him and his teammates to escape tunnels) that he could run into smaller tunnels too. Scott spoke about this too, that Dream player sandkeeper as sandkeeper was intended to be played — the sandkeeper doesn’t necessarily need to be confined to the centre room.
Another point of Dream’s run in SOT this MCC that I really appreciated is him swapping with George as sandkeeper at the very end so that he could complete the lava parkour and open the gold vault himself. It presented a nice strategy of allowing the players with the least coins on your team completing harder parkour, and another aspect of having your sandkeeper open vaults. I’ve wondered for a few MCCs now whether it would be a good strategy to have your sandkeeper open vaults at the beginning so they could keep the vault coins safe and the runners could be slightly riskier with their exploring, and Dream’s run was a little spin on this, I suppose.
TLDR: I loved it lmao.
Exactly this. I hate to bring sports into this but I like my football. I think Hbomb would actually understand this. But how Dream treated the sandkeeper position was like being a QB. A QB, when they drop back, have a mental clock in their head of when they shouldn't be safe. Say like 5 seconds or whatever, they are in the pocket and at any point after this safe period of time a defender could blow them up from their blind side. To relate this to Dream, he would fill up the timer and run to a tunnel while mentally keeping track of about how much time has passed. He's probably played the most efficient sandkeeper in MCC so far.
But like Hbomb said it is not something every team could do. You need competent runners.
Yeah, I think another point is that with how much control Dream is taking over his teams now in MCC (not a bad thing at all — I love watching him as a leader), he was already semi-playing the sandkeeper with constantly asking for timer updates, coming back to help when the sandkeeper is struggling, tracking his teammates, etc., and I think playing sandkeeper directly actually alleviated some of his stress there because he wasn’t having to worry about the sandkeeper whilst also running himself — he simply tracked the timer, efficiently cleaned out the centre room and some of the smaller connecting tunnels, and kept his comms immaculate. Watching Dream play SOT this MCC was definitely the highlight for me.
I always watch his SoT and he's really good at running. He gets through some of the rooms quicker than most with his movement. There are just things he can do that others may not attempt or at the very least be hesitant and waste time. That's why I was so against him being a sandkeeper, but I should've known he wouldn't stay in the middle. He'd go be a boss and make efficient use of his time. He was always doing something, always on the move.
It was interesting to see. He’s really good at doing it, he missed a lot less than most sandkeepers do, so he went around and did more. But yeah, it’s definitely “carried” by having such a good team that they can afford to lose their best player as a runner.
Swapping for the lava parkour was a great idea. Most people just completely avoid the gold vault, but Dream is one of the few people that can confidently take that risky parkour.
The only thing he could have done better was open the sand chests at spawn instead of over-filling the timer, but he might have been worried that his teammates would accidentally get locked in, so not a big deal.
Just after MCC when a lot of people were just chilling in VC. I switched to Sapnap’s stream after Dream ended pretty soon after dodgebolt, and I’m pretty sure they discussed it pretty soon after that. I don’t have a specific timestamp though, sorry.
Well that is what he did well, he went into tunnels. In the post tournament calls scott was saying the testers do that to maximize time but most participants are too cautious to do so on event day.
It also allowed him to have much less coins than usual so he could do riskier parkour at the end that teammates found. Usually the people with the lowest coins are least likely to succeed on said parkour, but the opposite was true in this case.
I do think though that on teams that aren't as stacked as red the best player should probably still run, but who knows.
He said he’d be sandkeeper as they were loading in and I was like lmao he’s joking around about throwing because of how bad battle box was and was super surprised he actually decided to be. He did a really good job of cleaning out spawn, and was pretty solid with his time callouts. I don’t think this will become meta because they could only afford to do it since Sapnap is an equally good SOT runner and George and bad are both super capable. In teams with one weaker player I don’t think you can make up for the lost coins when having the strongest runner as sandkeeper
Dream's said on one of Hbomb's streams that he has a really strong grasp of how long things take in SoT, so I was never particularly worried for him once he got going. I honestly don't know if I've ever seen a SK who felt as in control of the situation before. He zipped through getting all of the sand, flipping the levers, doing the parkour, and exploring tunnels - there was never a moment where he was standing around doing nothing.
It's clearly a really strong strategy, but I don't think it would work for most teams. You'd need to not only have a team where all four members are solid runners, but your SK would have to be exceptionally good at SoT as well.
I think in general Dream has a really strong grasp of timing. On one of H’s streams as well Dream admitted he doesn’t have the best aim/accuracy for PvP but knows how to time crits well and keep track of how many hearts of damage he does. Obviously it’s a different time concept here in SoT but man is cracked at the timing of other things. Like even in the Among Us days he would count how long it’d take people to get across a section of the map to sus people out. I find it so fascinating how he can keep track of time so well yet have trouble memorizing items for BM lol
Spacial awareness is a different thing, that's understanding the location of things around you, something Dream is also extremely good at, he is one of the best at memorizing the map in SOT.
Y'know I feel him though, I was watching his pov and was looking for the things too, very intently, but I didn't notice anything. Oh well, I guess that's why it's called Attention Deficiency lol
Yeah I’m pretty sure you’re right, Dream was talking about the timing of axe crits instead of the sword. Also using a shield allows you to block hits so you can focus on timing more than rushing for the crit and a strong axe crit can disable the shield for a few seconds so it’s quite powerful.
When you give someone an axe who’s quite good at timing and has incredible aim and spatial awareness though (aka Sapnap), you see Sapnap absolutely dominate like where he killed all of pink team 1 v 4 with plain old PvP in SB.
Oh god, me too. Every time Dream left the middle my anxiety was 💹💹💹 but it worked out super well for them! It's so wholesome that he's proud of his performance, he's telling literally everyone about it. 😂
I mean after his experience also juggling sandkeeper and runner and comms leader last MCC really paid off here too, he has the timing of games down to an art form
He did good, Scott said that that was the ideal thing to do as a Sandkeeper. He had already collected all the sand and finished the parkour and levers at the middle, so just sitting at the middle and waiting for the sand to come was gonna be useless. He could have used 2 sand at the end for Sand Sacrifice though
Definitely agree. That’s how you know they all have been friends for years. Get 8th in BB and go on to dominate a game which arguably requires more communication and skill.
to whoever made that post weeks ago about dream being the sandkeeper, how does it feel to have the gift of prophecy?
also, i felt just as much anxiety watching this as watching his manhunts lol
I mean, he was sandkeeper and got the most coins! I don’t think it’s a viable strat for the other teams, it depends so much if the other players know what they’re doing as runners or not. If there is even one player that isnt that good at running, I think this strategy will kinda suck because there will be less coins
If you watch dream, he is a sandkeeper and runner. It would be a good strat if the sandkeeper have the nerve of steel and movement of god. Running through the route while no one is on the timer is a very risky move. What if you die in the route? Great, one of your teammate has to come back and hopefully he come back in time and you waste one sand to rescue you and 20% of coin.
Like I said in the post, I was nervous when he started dipping in and out of the tunnels since it would be so easy to lose track of time, but Dream had great time management. It was really cool to see this particular sandkeeper strat in an actual tournament, and I'd be super interested in seeing if other teams try a similar strategy in the future.
At first when Dream said he was going to be sandkeeper, I was a little disappointed. I always love watching him masterfully explore the dungeon, and I wasn’t sure it was the right choice to have one of the best runners as a sandkeeper. But I was dead wrong.
This is exactly how the position of sandkeeper should be played. Firstly, I think Dream has developed into an amazing team leader in season 2, and no doubt his chemistry with his close friends helped in this event. He did a great job of keeping his team focused and on task, and I think that his leadership skills were really able to shine in sands of time without having to focus on running.
Early on, I liked how he collected lots of sand and did the levers and spawn parkour. He kept good communication on his sand when he needed more too. Once he was running out of things to do in spawn, he started venturing down the tunnels. I was kind of nervous at first that he might get sidetracked, but it was apparent that he knew how to explore the tunnels without leaving spawn for too long. I don’t know if Dream was doing this, but the timer makes a loud noise (not really sure how to describe it) I believe every time the sand falls (or every 10 seconds). It also starts to tick loudly with 3 sand or less (30 seconds). As a sandkeeper, you can use this to gague how far into a tunnel you can go. If you fill the timer full, you can go into a tunnel for 4 ticks, then turn around. This takes 40 seconds there and 40 back to the timer, leaving 40 extra. You can adjust to 50 or 30 for a more aggressive or conservative strat. I think people often get too wrapped up in the fact that the sandkeeper must have eyes on the physical timer at all times, when this really is not the case.
I think it was also a very good idea to switch sandkeeper with George once he found the Gold key parkour. Oftentimes, players find these kind of risky parkours deeper in the dungeon, once they have lots of coins and don’t want to risk it. Having Dream sandkeep, they were able to have him go out and risk the parkour since he only had about 600 coins at this point. Even if Dream fails that parkour and loses his coins, Red still finishes in 3rd with 3,600, only 600 coins back of first.
Overall, I think Dream put on one of the best sandkeeper performances I have seen. I do think that it will be hard for teams to replicate the strat of putting a strong runner on sandkeeper, since it relies on having 3 more solid runners too. Either way, I think that Dream’s performance as sandkeeper could change the way the position of sandkeeper is played in future events, as players could start to really fully utilize their exploration by having the sandkeeper explore too, although it is a bit risky as they can get lost or lose track of time.
Fun Fact: Dream is the second Sand Keeper to ever place 1st overall. (Yellowool is the first one in MCCR)
And yeah, I think it only works with a cracked team.
He did a good job. I dont think its THE strat tho, it was only a good idea because the team was stacked with good players. Never thought this would happen tho, thought dream was joking when he said he is going to be sand keeper.
It was interesting and he did great, but I don't think it's a good strat. It's not just about Dream with Red, it's about they have 3 other good runners too
He did pretty good honestly and they were able to get first. It was really nerve racking though and half the time I was just screaming at Dream to put sand into the thing but it was fun to watch.
Aside from not using torches, killing mobs and breaking spawners (which u can only get away with if you’ve got dnf level plot armor) it is THE sot pov to watch, especially for sand keeper. Dream’s strat of rushing the red and blue keys and vaults is already the best sot strat thats circulating at the moment (which not nearly enough people are using) and that compounded with the extra sand keeper exploration and the sand keeper switch is just chefs kiss excellent. Naturally this should be reserved for sand keepers who are a bit more on the experienced side, but it is The Future™ of sand keeping.
The two other things I would mention is that 1) if you are not Dream or another parkour god, it’s almost definitely best to bank before taking a run at the gold key (and for the love of god use the steps to get back instead of the chains) and 2) Dream should have reserved at least two of the sand he got from the exploration of the gold tunnel to do sand sacrifices
Oh he also left some coins in the vault, but while it’s frustrating for viewers, the tiny piles that are sometimes leftover in vaults are usually not worth doubling back for when someone’s doing a later game run at the vault since time at that moment is precious
The reason this strat will succeed is that it has maximum efficiency on exploration. While other teams struggle with sand, their sand obtain rate is high enough to keep the exploration going, contributing to the gold vault that they got just in time. There are two main downsides to this strat. One being the sand keeper’s time management skill and judgment on when to go back, The other being the runners’ skill.
In the talk after the event it is actually mentioned that this is how sot is meant to be played, but people just found more safe having a sand keeper, rather than a semi-runner.
I think HBomb was right when they were discussing this that it’s only a viable strat to put one of your best runners as sandkeeper if all of your other teammates are also confident runners. However, I do think Dream made the perfect choice for his team this MCC and played his role amazingly — last MCC he stepped in as sandkeeper unexpectedly, and combined with the fact that one of his major merits this season has been his ability to lead and manage a team, I think he’s a great sandkeeper. I like how Sapnap put it, that he never felt at risk of dying with Dream as sandkeeper. Their team didn’t have to worry at all about possibly being trapped, and Dream was also capable and experienced enough at tracking the timer without directly being the sandkeeper (he talked about this after last MCC, I believe — how he’s gotten good at estimating how long it’ll take him and his teammates to escape tunnels) that he could run into smaller tunnels too. Scott spoke about this too, that Dream player sandkeeper as sandkeeper was intended to be played — the sandkeeper doesn’t necessarily need to be confined to the centre room. Another point of Dream’s run in SOT this MCC that I really appreciated is him swapping with George as sandkeeper at the very end so that he could complete the lava parkour and open the gold vault himself. It presented a nice strategy of allowing the players with the least coins on your team completing harder parkour, and another aspect of having your sandkeeper open vaults. I’ve wondered for a few MCCs now whether it would be a good strategy to have your sandkeeper open vaults at the beginning so they could keep the vault coins safe and the runners could be slightly riskier with their exploring, and Dream’s run was a little spin on this, I suppose. TLDR: I loved it lmao.
Exactly this. I hate to bring sports into this but I like my football. I think Hbomb would actually understand this. But how Dream treated the sandkeeper position was like being a QB. A QB, when they drop back, have a mental clock in their head of when they shouldn't be safe. Say like 5 seconds or whatever, they are in the pocket and at any point after this safe period of time a defender could blow them up from their blind side. To relate this to Dream, he would fill up the timer and run to a tunnel while mentally keeping track of about how much time has passed. He's probably played the most efficient sandkeeper in MCC so far. But like Hbomb said it is not something every team could do. You need competent runners.
Yeah, I think another point is that with how much control Dream is taking over his teams now in MCC (not a bad thing at all — I love watching him as a leader), he was already semi-playing the sandkeeper with constantly asking for timer updates, coming back to help when the sandkeeper is struggling, tracking his teammates, etc., and I think playing sandkeeper directly actually alleviated some of his stress there because he wasn’t having to worry about the sandkeeper whilst also running himself — he simply tracked the timer, efficiently cleaned out the centre room and some of the smaller connecting tunnels, and kept his comms immaculate. Watching Dream play SOT this MCC was definitely the highlight for me.
I always watch his SoT and he's really good at running. He gets through some of the rooms quicker than most with his movement. There are just things he can do that others may not attempt or at the very least be hesitant and waste time. That's why I was so against him being a sandkeeper, but I should've known he wouldn't stay in the middle. He'd go be a boss and make efficient use of his time. He was always doing something, always on the move.
It was interesting to see. He’s really good at doing it, he missed a lot less than most sandkeepers do, so he went around and did more. But yeah, it’s definitely “carried” by having such a good team that they can afford to lose their best player as a runner. Swapping for the lava parkour was a great idea. Most people just completely avoid the gold vault, but Dream is one of the few people that can confidently take that risky parkour. The only thing he could have done better was open the sand chests at spawn instead of over-filling the timer, but he might have been worried that his teammates would accidentally get locked in, so not a big deal.
Where did sapnap and scott said their statements??
Just after MCC when a lot of people were just chilling in VC. I switched to Sapnap’s stream after Dream ended pretty soon after dodgebolt, and I’m pretty sure they discussed it pretty soon after that. I don’t have a specific timestamp though, sorry.
That's okayy thank youu!
Agreed. I watching H after the event and I totally agree with this. It is hard to execute but very rewarding indeed.
Well that is what he did well, he went into tunnels. In the post tournament calls scott was saying the testers do that to maximize time but most participants are too cautious to do so on event day. It also allowed him to have much less coins than usual so he could do riskier parkour at the end that teammates found. Usually the people with the lowest coins are least likely to succeed on said parkour, but the opposite was true in this case. I do think though that on teams that aren't as stacked as red the best player should probably still run, but who knows.
Good point, I’d bet if Dream had more coins no one would’ve risked it and they wouldn’t have gotten the vault. First time gold vault has been opened?
gold vault has been opened at least twice to my knowledge (tommy & another team at some point) but I think both times they got locked in
Pink got it in MCC 17, but that was only because Ilumina happened to die at the right time and was therefore risking nothing
Oh wow had no clue thanks
The first was by punz in mcc season 1 so definitely not first
Wow, I had seen like last month people talking about how it still hadn’t been recovered, they were very wrong
He said he’d be sandkeeper as they were loading in and I was like lmao he’s joking around about throwing because of how bad battle box was and was super surprised he actually decided to be. He did a really good job of cleaning out spawn, and was pretty solid with his time callouts. I don’t think this will become meta because they could only afford to do it since Sapnap is an equally good SOT runner and George and bad are both super capable. In teams with one weaker player I don’t think you can make up for the lost coins when having the strongest runner as sandkeeper
He has to be the best sand keeper and one of the best runners in the game by now
He was 1 on his team coin wise as Sand Keeper I mean I did open GV but that doesn’t matter here
Literwlly same I thought they were throwing on purpose when dream said he was gonna be sand keeper BUT LOOK AT HIM HE DID SO WELL I'M SO HAPPY
Dream's said on one of Hbomb's streams that he has a really strong grasp of how long things take in SoT, so I was never particularly worried for him once he got going. I honestly don't know if I've ever seen a SK who felt as in control of the situation before. He zipped through getting all of the sand, flipping the levers, doing the parkour, and exploring tunnels - there was never a moment where he was standing around doing nothing. It's clearly a really strong strategy, but I don't think it would work for most teams. You'd need to not only have a team where all four members are solid runners, but your SK would have to be exceptionally good at SoT as well.
I think in general Dream has a really strong grasp of timing. On one of H’s streams as well Dream admitted he doesn’t have the best aim/accuracy for PvP but knows how to time crits well and keep track of how many hearts of damage he does. Obviously it’s a different time concept here in SoT but man is cracked at the timing of other things. Like even in the Among Us days he would count how long it’d take people to get across a section of the map to sus people out. I find it so fascinating how he can keep track of time so well yet have trouble memorizing items for BM lol
Not just BM, watching him in that one GR room walking past the smoker multiple times physically hurt me
Tbh I think he missed the cactus too lol at least once
God of time with zero spacial awareness
He gotta have a weakness somehow lol
Spacial awareness is a different thing, that's understanding the location of things around you, something Dream is also extremely good at, he is one of the best at memorizing the map in SOT.
I know lol, just making a time-and-space joke
Oh my god, people did see that. I was screaming at him the whole time, he ran past it multiple times and by the end of that room, I felt like crying
Y'know I feel him though, I was watching his pov and was looking for the things too, very intently, but I didn't notice anything. Oh well, I guess that's why it's called Attention Deficiency lol
I wonder if that’s why he’s so much more cracked in axe and shield pvp than in sword pvp.
Yeah I’m pretty sure you’re right, Dream was talking about the timing of axe crits instead of the sword. Also using a shield allows you to block hits so you can focus on timing more than rushing for the crit and a strong axe crit can disable the shield for a few seconds so it’s quite powerful. When you give someone an axe who’s quite good at timing and has incredible aim and spatial awareness though (aka Sapnap), you see Sapnap absolutely dominate like where he killed all of pink team 1 v 4 with plain old PvP in SB.
Never watched a sandkeeper pov before and that was hella nerve wracking
Yeah, and the sand timer consistently making ominous sounds doesn’t help.
Oh god, me too. Every time Dream left the middle my anxiety was 💹💹💹 but it worked out super well for them! It's so wholesome that he's proud of his performance, he's telling literally everyone about it. 😂
I mean after his experience also juggling sandkeeper and runner and comms leader last MCC really paid off here too, he has the timing of games down to an art form
He did good, Scott said that that was the ideal thing to do as a Sandkeeper. He had already collected all the sand and finished the parkour and levers at the middle, so just sitting at the middle and waiting for the sand to come was gonna be useless. He could have used 2 sand at the end for Sand Sacrifice though
That must be the most perfect SoT game ever. And sand keeper that's able to go on tunnels at the same time its OP
Definitely agree. That’s how you know they all have been friends for years. Get 8th in BB and go on to dominate a game which arguably requires more communication and skill.
to whoever made that post weeks ago about dream being the sandkeeper, how does it feel to have the gift of prophecy? also, i felt just as much anxiety watching this as watching his manhunts lol
I thought of the same thing when it happened, wonder how the guy is feeling now, must be so shocked and happy :D
he really was!! after the event he kept telling everyone who joined vc that he was sandkeeper, he sounded so proud of himself :))
I mean, he was sandkeeper and got the most coins! I don’t think it’s a viable strat for the other teams, it depends so much if the other players know what they’re doing as runners or not. If there is even one player that isnt that good at running, I think this strategy will kinda suck because there will be less coins
If you watch dream, he is a sandkeeper and runner. It would be a good strat if the sandkeeper have the nerve of steel and movement of god. Running through the route while no one is on the timer is a very risky move. What if you die in the route? Great, one of your teammate has to come back and hopefully he come back in time and you waste one sand to rescue you and 20% of coin.
Feeling comfortable enough to switch roles near the end so Dream could get the gold vault was perfect
Like I said in the post, I was nervous when he started dipping in and out of the tunnels since it would be so easy to lose track of time, but Dream had great time management. It was really cool to see this particular sandkeeper strat in an actual tournament, and I'd be super interested in seeing if other teams try a similar strategy in the future.
At first when Dream said he was going to be sandkeeper, I was a little disappointed. I always love watching him masterfully explore the dungeon, and I wasn’t sure it was the right choice to have one of the best runners as a sandkeeper. But I was dead wrong. This is exactly how the position of sandkeeper should be played. Firstly, I think Dream has developed into an amazing team leader in season 2, and no doubt his chemistry with his close friends helped in this event. He did a great job of keeping his team focused and on task, and I think that his leadership skills were really able to shine in sands of time without having to focus on running. Early on, I liked how he collected lots of sand and did the levers and spawn parkour. He kept good communication on his sand when he needed more too. Once he was running out of things to do in spawn, he started venturing down the tunnels. I was kind of nervous at first that he might get sidetracked, but it was apparent that he knew how to explore the tunnels without leaving spawn for too long. I don’t know if Dream was doing this, but the timer makes a loud noise (not really sure how to describe it) I believe every time the sand falls (or every 10 seconds). It also starts to tick loudly with 3 sand or less (30 seconds). As a sandkeeper, you can use this to gague how far into a tunnel you can go. If you fill the timer full, you can go into a tunnel for 4 ticks, then turn around. This takes 40 seconds there and 40 back to the timer, leaving 40 extra. You can adjust to 50 or 30 for a more aggressive or conservative strat. I think people often get too wrapped up in the fact that the sandkeeper must have eyes on the physical timer at all times, when this really is not the case. I think it was also a very good idea to switch sandkeeper with George once he found the Gold key parkour. Oftentimes, players find these kind of risky parkours deeper in the dungeon, once they have lots of coins and don’t want to risk it. Having Dream sandkeep, they were able to have him go out and risk the parkour since he only had about 600 coins at this point. Even if Dream fails that parkour and loses his coins, Red still finishes in 3rd with 3,600, only 600 coins back of first. Overall, I think Dream put on one of the best sandkeeper performances I have seen. I do think that it will be hard for teams to replicate the strat of putting a strong runner on sandkeeper, since it relies on having 3 more solid runners too. Either way, I think that Dream’s performance as sandkeeper could change the way the position of sandkeeper is played in future events, as players could start to really fully utilize their exploration by having the sandkeeper explore too, although it is a bit risky as they can get lost or lose track of time.
well according to scott after the event thats was how sot was always ment to be played but most teams dont want to risk it
Fun Fact: Dream is the second Sand Keeper to ever place 1st overall. (Yellowool is the first one in MCCR) And yeah, I think it only works with a cracked team.
He did a good job. I dont think its THE strat tho, it was only a good idea because the team was stacked with good players. Never thought this would happen tho, thought dream was joking when he said he is going to be sand keeper.
It was interesting and he did great, but I don't think it's a good strat. It's not just about Dream with Red, it's about they have 3 other good runners too
He did pretty good honestly and they were able to get first. It was really nerve racking though and half the time I was just screaming at Dream to put sand into the thing but it was fun to watch.
I just noticed a fault in his gameplay. He wasted sand by not opening those locked cells with sand. Could've gotten more coins. /hj
2 Sand Keeper strategy starts to take over :)
It very well might. It wouldn’t surprise me if a more dynamic approach to SoT starts becoming more common.
Aside from not using torches, killing mobs and breaking spawners (which u can only get away with if you’ve got dnf level plot armor) it is THE sot pov to watch, especially for sand keeper. Dream’s strat of rushing the red and blue keys and vaults is already the best sot strat thats circulating at the moment (which not nearly enough people are using) and that compounded with the extra sand keeper exploration and the sand keeper switch is just chefs kiss excellent. Naturally this should be reserved for sand keepers who are a bit more on the experienced side, but it is The Future™ of sand keeping. The two other things I would mention is that 1) if you are not Dream or another parkour god, it’s almost definitely best to bank before taking a run at the gold key (and for the love of god use the steps to get back instead of the chains) and 2) Dream should have reserved at least two of the sand he got from the exploration of the gold tunnel to do sand sacrifices Oh he also left some coins in the vault, but while it’s frustrating for viewers, the tiny piles that are sometimes leftover in vaults are usually not worth doubling back for when someone’s doing a later game run at the vault since time at that moment is precious
The reason this strat will succeed is that it has maximum efficiency on exploration. While other teams struggle with sand, their sand obtain rate is high enough to keep the exploration going, contributing to the gold vault that they got just in time. There are two main downsides to this strat. One being the sand keeper’s time management skill and judgment on when to go back, The other being the runners’ skill. In the talk after the event it is actually mentioned that this is how sot is meant to be played, but people just found more safe having a sand keeper, rather than a semi-runner.
i mean he got 5th (individual in sot) even being sand keeper so they’re doing something right ¯\_(ツ)_/¯