[Nathan Streeter]

I agree that banning the can battles is silly (if the concern is 'game-breaking')... particularly because even at the highest levels at CMP, they weren't game-breaking at all! It almost always came down to 'who scored the most totes, made the most of their RCs, and/or just consistently avoided mistakes.'

The winning alliance of 118-1678-1671 won or tied on the cans against the alliance of 987-2826-2512, but I think the real reason why 118-1678-1671 won was because they avoided mistakes and kept scoring totes in the finals, whereas 987-2826-2512 had their worst two Einstein matches in the finals. They scored 232 (5 RCs), 256 (4 RCs), 271 (5 RCs), and 283 (6 RCs) in the QF and SF matches with video on TBA... If they had scored at the levels they scored in the QFs and SFs with only the 4 or 5 RCs they got in the Finals, they could've won.

This isn't to dig up difficult memories for 987, 2826, and 2512... (although I know how hard it is to lose on Einstein; they honestly have a ton to be proud of with their machines, their performance at CMP, and their 270pt average in the SF of Einstein), but is a case-study in the fact that even at the highest levels, consistent performance was still more important than Canburgling... Granted, if both alliances perform 'perfectly' canburglars are still the tie-breaker, but if an alliance could score 250pts every single time with only 4 RCs (particularly if they sometimes capped a 5th stack), I think they would've won on Einstein.