[EricH]

Originally Posted by dodar

I think what Eric is talking about is what people think are the best teams from each state from conception. But what the OP wanted was the best bots from each state this year.

Actually, I was directly responding to the "Why do people think X regional is weak" question. This necessarily goes through the reputations of the teams present at that regional in a particular year, and reputations are built up over multiple years. (CVR was pegged as a particularly tough regional this year, as I recall, despite being a first-year event.) If I see that Magnolia Regional has 60 teams, of which very few are "known consistent contenders", and the Hibiscus Regional has 50 teams, of which 10 are "known consistent contenders", I'm more likely to say that Magnolia is a weaker regional than Hibiscus, regardless of how the teams sent to Championship do. That's just me, however.

Before that, I was responding to someone saying that X team was better than Y team on record from different events, some of which were publicly held to be weaker than other events. I simply pointed out that the different teams at each event had to be taken into account (though admittedly, I didn't quite say that in so many words) and suggested that those saying that X was better than Y put out their top 3 for the state in question, as I had seen nothing of that sort. I seem to have ignited a firestorm by suggesting that, which I had no intention of doing. Mea culpa.