[Basel A]

Interesting topic. Thanks, Karthik, for posting the thread.

When I was a student, my team had a fair amount of success. In our four wins, we captained our alliance to victory 3 times. At times, we were also relatively mediocre, low 1st round or 2nd round picks. I never really felt how it felt to be just okay, but I did find myself questioning how much I, personally, did to win those wins. And although I was a leader on my team (DL nominee, etc.), my conclusion was that I didn't do that much of the overall effort, and that didn't feel great.

Since I've joined my current team, I've been more involved in the match-by-match minutiae of competing. We're frankly not as competitive as the team I was on as a student. At our events, when we're low picks, it can feel as if we're "along for the ride." And that doesn't feel great. We've had one event when I really felt we ought to win (we didn't). We got our top choice of pick and a great second. Our strategy seemed to be effective, and altogether that felt great, even if we didn't win.

I personally am not sure I could stand winning a world championship as the 3rd or 4th team on the alliance. I wouldn't want the attention nor the praise. Rarely does an alliance have equal contributors and even more rarely do they win (they tend to be lower seeded). If I'm going to win a world championship, I don't want it to be because there were 23 better teams on my division. And I don't want it to be after my alliance knocks out a whole bunch of more deserving teams.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take the win and turn it into whatever resources I can. And in the situation of knowing roughly I'll be a low pick, I'd rather get picked by a more competitive alliance than less, even if that's a few spots later. But I'd be more proud of the captained win at a district than the dragged-along win at the championship.