[Jhultink]

Hey CD,

I was recently got back from a Debate Tournament (anyone else here crazy enough to do NCFCA and FRC?). The ranking system there is very interesting and I though it could potentially be applied to FRC qualifying rounds.

Basically the qualifiers would be divided into 'sections'. Each team would compete once in every section so that after Section 1 every team would have competed once, and after Section 2, twice etc...

Now, here's the interesting part:

Sections 1, 2, and 3: completely random alliance section.

Sections 4 and on: Alliances would be made of teams with similar ranks. So if possible we would have two alliances of 3-0 teams compete. If there were not enough 3-0 teams, the 2-1 team with the highest OPR would compete. This would then happen with 2-1 teams, then 1-2 teams, and 0-3 teams, so the good teams compete with good teams against good teams, and bad with bad against bad. So basically it woulf be power-matching, opposite of what we do in elims, power-protecting (1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc.)

Power matching would have some pros and cons though:

PROS:
-Good teams would never have an "easy match," so it makes the better teams work harder and have a challenge.
-Rookie teams would have easier matches, and not feel outmatched as much
-The qual matches with the good teams would be EPIC, and potentially could be like watching the Elim Finals

CONS:
-Depending on how it is done, there might have to be a break after every Section to compute results
-The qual matches with the bad teams would be kind of boring.

What are your thoughts on this? Would it work? What changes would be needed? Pro and cons?