Haha, don’t know what your opponent was thinking near the end there... Terrible blunder on their part indeed. I guess they were thinking they wouldn’t be able to trap your known Captain because of 3-square and maybe they assumed the unknown Captain was just something garbage, but there was still no need for them to lotto. They may have also thought the unknown Captain was a Miner and maybe their flag was in that corner so they were desperate?

I thought you did pretty well considering the limitations of the setup. The flag could’ve been a bit vulnerable early if the opponent had committed to a bit more of an aggressive attack while their Marshal was over there, but I do think they believed that was the weak side with nothing of value over there. The Spy being in the front row surprisingly wasn’t actually a problem.

The main flaw in the setup seemed to be the 2 Colonels stacked in the middle, because that caused you to be a bit more defensive with them then you probably would’ve otherwise liked to be, since you were correctly fearing a General attack. I think the flag tripod, while being not very optimal in terms of wasting a bomb, may have helped in terms of unpredictability and they probably would’ve wasted their last Miner elsewhere because I highly doubt they suspected the flag tripod was in the location that it was in.

Yes, this would have been a challenging game against a higher-ranked opponent. It's true that he didn't know that second captain that he could have forked and captured, but pursuing it would have won him a piece regardless, while the lotto ended the game for him. It is possible that his flag was up in that corner, but even then he would have had time to bring something over to block a miner. Plus that was his weaker side, so it didn't feel like a flag (then again, look where my flag was.)

The two colonels was a huge weakness, never mind the spy. As soon as his marshal was revealed (and then mine), I figured that his general was in the middle and that I had to create space for my colonels immediately. He could have taken my middle captain with his general (it had moved, but he must have forgotten). Overall just a lot of mistakes that you would expect from the low-silver level, but he gave it his best and to his credit he played the game rather than just lottoing from the start.

I think this setup will be very challenging against gold or especially platinum opponents. At least the scouts are not buried, so it is possible to create some space and try to maneuver around. However, in a competitive game, you don't want to waste time doing this when your opponent is developing more properly.

The best bets for success are:
-Cover the spy ASAP
-Play the right side as your weak side (no flag around here)
-Take advantage of unexpected piece positions with some key bluffs.
-Try to create some space so that you can rearrange as necessary.

It does seem that the back row bomb structure can be quite effective in the late game.