[jajabinx124]

I agree with most of the responses to the OP's question.

Most of the irrational/illogical decisions I've seen come from a team that probably didn't scout as well or pick based on bias/experience working with the team.

Scouting and Strategy is a hard system to run for teams during competition and it's harder to manage than imagined. Many teams have different systems, organization, different amounts of manpower, resources, and etc. that probably affect how well their picking is.

I'm not sure if I've seen any declining based on this reason, but I declined the 2nd seeded alliance's invite (as 2052's alliance selection representative) at the 2015 10,000 lakes regional because I wanted our team to captain the alliance to get to the finals to guarantee ourselves a wildcard. I had a few other reasons to decline because I knew I had 1/2 better options to pick after declining them, but getting the wildcard was the pushing factor since the first wildcard is awarded starting with the opposing alliance captain to the wildcard team on the winning alliance.

At the 2015 10,000 lakes regional, the 2 best teams joined together to form the no.1 seed (525 and 2502) and since 525 had won the Northern Light's regional previously, they had a wildcard. Strategically I chose to decline the 2nd seeds invite because I felt like I could built an alliance strong enough and go to the finals to meet the 1st seed and guarantee my team a spot at champs via wildcard. (which at that point it was pretty evident the 1st seed with 525 and 2502 was the powerhouse alliance that had the best shot at winning the regional)

Reason I decided to mention this is because after I declined on stage I'm pretty sure half of the people in the stands (including most of my own team members) were pretty confused as to what the heck I as doing and probably thought I was being irrational.. but I do think this is more of a unique reason that a team chose to decline another team's invite.