[markmcgary]

I think that I have figured out a strategy that can earn you a blue banner. You need to be able to understand the game well enough to design and build a robot that is so dominant at 'the game' that you do not need to depend on randomly selected alliance members to win during qualifiers. Do whatever it takes during qualifiers to ensure that you will be the first seed. Then, you can hand-pick an elimination alliance that can really play 'the game' so amazingly well that there is no way your alliance fails to win the finals. Bingo. Blue Banner. Am I close?