[MisterJ]

I think that my least favorite thing about Recycle Rush was the feeling that it generated among the teams and supporters due to the method of ranking teams (and determining quarterfinal and semifinal matches) by average score.

In other years, there was always someone to cheer for. If your team wasn't on the field, you could root for an underdog, a friendly team, or a prior alliance partner. (I can remember being ranked in the top-10 in Ultimate Ascent games and screaming for some lower-ranked teams to pull together and upset the highest-ranked ones.) Even if you had your own team's best interest in mind, there was always a team to root for.

But during Recycle Rush, the best thing for your team's ranking was to put up as many points as possible and have every other alliance do poorly - canburglar fails, stacks falling over, collisions, confusion, fouls, etc. The best case scenario for your team was to have all other teams score as low as possible.

It's a terrible feeling to have to wish that on other teams to allow your team to have the most success.