[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

There's one reason why I think the #1 seed might not do it this year: the field is so even that many (if not most) of the matches will be a crap shoot. The schedule will be important and there's a decent chance of a surprise team being the #1 seed.

That's how MSC felt to me in 2011. Every alliance hit the diminishing returns in tubes and had strong minibots such that most matches seemed like a "minibot coin toss."

We've certainly seen surprise top seeds before. I don't think very many people expected 1918 to seed 1st in 2010 or 217 in 2011, though they were both strong teams. 1918 went all the way, of course. 217 lost in the QFs, but had a great CMP, captaining Newton's 7th alliance to Einstein.