[Karthik]

My general principle is that there should be no significant rules changes after kickoff unless there's a safety issue involved. That's the case here. The GDC was in a very difficult position, having to choose between two unpleasant options; making a significant in-season rule change or leaving a significant safety hazard in play. In my opinion they absolutely made the right choice. Unfortunately, I know that right now this is very little consolation to the affected teams, especially because some of them made their strategic decisions based predicting this storm of frisbees that wasn't envisioned by the GDC.

As for how this will impact game play, there's no denying that this will change the game dynamic, I don't think the change is as large as people are making it out to be. The main value of a floor pickup is extra points that can be scored in the autonomous period; this hasn't been altered. Yes, there will be less discs available in the last 30 seconds of the match, but many of these discs would have been very difficult or even impossible to pick up by most teams. (Flipped over, clumped in piles, etc.) In general there won't be a shortage of discs; In 2012 Teams only made 66% of their shots on the Archimedes division at championship. I expect shooting percentages to be in that ballpark once again, leaving a huge supply of discs on the floor.

The group of people who I feel the worst for right now are the students who have been training and practicing for the past six weeks to be human players. There are definitely going to be some disappointed HPs tonight.