[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

I thought of this after the Dallas finals -

In the past, there have been many instances of alliances using their timeouts to let their opponents repair their robot. This is still allowed, but the use of "cascading" time outs, or time outs one right after the other, are expressly forbidden.

Now, because the rules this year:
1. Require two wins in the finals to crown a champion (no tiebreakers).
2. Have a minimum score of zero

It's possible that two finals alliances could agree to just sit out a match, and should something happen (autonomous didn't get shut off, a human player not fully in the loop), intentionally cause penalties to force a 0-0 match (or matches) until all robots are at full strength.

This obviously does require a modicum of trust between the teams involved, but at most events, that's not too hard to come by.

It's possible that this would anger the refs: they are a proud creature who don't appreciate when their own weapon is used against them. But neither alliance is delaying a match, and you can't force teams to field broken (or even working) robots.

Not that it makes this less valid, but none of this is new. Cascading timeouts have been prohibited for the better part of a decade now, and a perfect 0-0 tie would force a replay in any year other than this one.