[Kevin Leonard]

I remember a story from Karthik's strategy talks from 2011 where they were seeded just outside the top 8 (I wanna say about 11th, but I could be wrong), and Team 1771 was seeded 1st. Karthik knew that with 1771, they had little chance at a world championship, but hesitated to decline because they could end up not being in eliminations at all.

This year, in Archimedes, we (20) were seeded 10th. There were a few teams that had the potential to seed inside the top 8 that we weren't comfortable being on an eliminations alliance with. We told our field representative that if she managed to be on the field as a captain by the time one of these teams tried to pick us, she should decline and we'd take our chances as an 8 seed captain. That situation didn't end up happening, as these teams ended up losing the matches they had the potential to win and seeding behind us.

But if we were the 9 seed and a 1-6 seed captain tried to pick us that we weren't comfortable competing with, we'd absolutely decline if there was some chance we could end up an alliance captain instead.