[Tim Sharp]

In my opinion, scouting will be easier than last year. Since there will be no interaction between opposing alliances, you should only have to scout your alliance partners. That means two scouting reports per match rather than five.

Scouting may well be more important though. Well prepared teams will have "ideal scoring algorithms" worked out based on all the possible skill sets of their alliance members. Alliance selection may end up being an exercise in calculating combinations and permutations.