[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by audietron

I would also like to know why this rule change was not included, since it makes the referees jobs easier and a bit less confusing for a public audience?
I like the rest of the rule changes and think the alliance captains not being able to pick each others makes things more exciting for all of the teams involved.

I wonder if the tournament organizers felt like it removed a major component of the original game? I have no inside information on this one. We've played both ways and are open to either.

No picking within the top 8 does make the off-season events more exciting, especially when an events has a shallow pool of teams a cut above the rest. (I find the talent in KC relatively deep, making this less of an issue.)

Thankfully we don't do that during the regular season where advancing to the next level of competition (district champs or world champs) is on the line. It would make teams question whether or not they would rather be the 8th or 9th seed, often with an opportunity to do something about it in the closing qualification rounds. Whether a team intentionally throws a match or not, unseemly speculation would abound. I dislike systems where a team's best interest and an alliance's best interest are put at odds with each other.

I remember playing in the Ozark Mountain Brawl in 2012, knowing in our last qualification match we'd be 8th if we won and did the co-op bridge. There was no serpentine draft in that event that year, and only 24 teams present, so the 8th seed would get to pick the 16th best team and then work with whomever was left at the end. You can see how we handled that dilemma here.