[TeamSpyder1622]

[quote=SenorZ;1146420]In my second year attending the LA Regional I've noticed a veteran team or two that ranked well into the lower half of the table get picked for eliminations over very competent newer teams.
It seems like there is a bit of cronyism mixed in with that idea that a veteran team can handle the pressure better.

Thats life though.[/QUOTE

In my opinion sometimes when alliances are picking their third robot there are so many robots left in the pool of teams who are competent enough to fill that position. Therefore they may pick a team they have worked well with in the past. For example: 1622 has been on an alliance with 1572 in eliminations in San Diego for 3 years in a row because we have experience together and we are good friends, we have also been on an alliance with 2984 in San Diego for 2 years in a row.

When you said veteran teams ranked in the lower half of the table you also have to factor in teams going to their first regional. We didn't score a single point until something like our 6th match because of all the bugs in the code we had to work out so we ended up ranked somewhere around 40 our of 58. But we ended up scoring 25 points on our own in the elimination matches. It would have looked like our team just got picked because we were a veteran.

But I do agree that some teams who do not have scouting tend to have a bias towards teams they know have had good robots in the past. a triple digit team will almost always get picked over a rookie team if the one picking doesn't know anything about their robots and they are ranked about the same.

Thats just my opinion