[cadandcookies]

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it seems like a really good way to create some animosity if even one party isn't being cooperative, but on the other hand, it also forces higher-capability teams to think more about their alliance partners. It's important to remember that highly competitively successful teams make up a tiny percentage of FIRST teams-- does it competitively suck to know that your success in a match may be tied to your luck in match assignment? Yes, of course! But also remember that this is how 90% of FIRST teams experience a regional.

That being said, I do think that, from the perspective of "I want to see the best matches possible," it's kind of annoying that a little bit of pure dumb misfortune could land some otherwise potentially successful teams playing sub-optimal strategies because they remembered the key to working in a team: compromise.

Ultimately though, at the end of the day, I don't really (shocker) care all that much whether there's a highly focused robotics competition happening at every regional. If other people are still walking away inspired, it's all fine with me. Personally, I would find it incredibly inspiring if a highly-capable team helped a less capable one both show off their mechanisms and still scrape by with a win.

As to whether our theoretical low capability team should just accept the strategy of the elite team, I don't think it's that cut and dry. Just like there's more to FRC than showing off your robot, there's also more to FRC than winning matches. Some teams have priorities other than winning matches. They aren't less or more right than a team has the goal of winning the tournament.