[Mr V]

I highly doubt that FIRST intends to do any more changes to the wild card system and I don't really think that they should. The first year it was pretty limited and that limit was needed as the space at CMP meant that if every Regional generated a full 6 teams there would have been more than 400 teams spaces needed and no room for wait list teams. With the additional number that can be given out now and the change to Districts getting a corresponding percentage of spots there is still some room for the new lottery system.

The fact is that FIRST wanted most of the US in the District System by now. It does address the concerns that may have cited for reasons to expand the wild card and who it should go to.

The system originally created by FiM was designed to significantly help those teams caught in the "valley of doom" where that second pick of the #1 or #2 alliance that more often than not went on to win it all and get a spot at CMP was a much lower performing robot than the ones in the alliance that ended up as a finalist. Much of the robot performance side of the current unified points system is taken from that original FiM system.

So in the current system here are the points earned assuming that we have a fairly common occurrence of the #1 and #2 Alliance meeting in the finals, based on robot performance only.

Wining

Captain 68
1st pick 65-67 (assuming a robot that seeded pretty well)
2nd pick 40 ish (assuming a middle of the road seeding)

Finalist

Captain 54-55
1st pick 50 ish
2nd pick 30 ish

So it is common for the two top robots on the Finalist alliance if they are the 2nd or 3rd seed to get more points than the coat tail pick of the #1 Alliance.

If of course also addresses a proportional number of teams from a given area going to CMP. So you don't have the case where a lower percentage of teams get to go from an area just because they attend a larger event. A District just goes down the teams in order in case a team declines so that there are no unused spots.

As we move to more and more Districts and the .5CMPsl that are coming I do expect FIRST to reserve a number of spots for the lottery.

FIRST has repeatedly indicated that they want every team to make it to CMP at least occasionally. That is one of the stated reasons for the .5CMPs