[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Cory

This rarely goes down as a true "pick from 3-8 and make them all say no". The only instance I can even recall something close to that happening was Curie this year. Far more often it means strategically picking 1-2 teams (that you would still like to play with!), causing them not to be ably to ally with the best robots when they deem you unworthy and decline, and then picking the best team that you know will say yes to you. It would be irresponsible not to do this if you knew you could not form a strong alliance as the number one seed.

This reminds me of the Cookie's alliance selection play this year. If I recall correctly, they only picked 971 and 1662 and "made" them decline. It was definitely a good strategic play, that combined with them picking 973 was almost certainly the reason they made it to the finals.

Stuff like preventing the top 8 from picking each other or messing with how declines work will do much more harm than good, like you said. To echo other's sentiments, the real "solution" for this is just to play more qual matches.