[Whatever]

Based on what have you said and looking at the website, it sounds like a team with a check mark will eventually get into state. It seems like by marking them as a lottery team instead of as a qualified team the main effect would be when one of those teams do qualify at a later tournament. As it is, the next team in line at the earlier tournament becomes a lottery team. If they were instead listed as qualified, the next team in line at the later tournament would qualify. It skews the qualification spots to the earlier tournaments. I think that is what the scheme is but I don't find it clear.

In MN the qualifying spots are skewed heavily towards the early tournaments. The first tournament has 7 spots while the 11th has 2 or 3 spots (MN is not qualifying host teams this year). Half the teams qualified for state this year came from the first 4 tournaments.

It seems like NoCal is trying to do the same thing but in a hard to follow scheme that leaves teams in limbo.

BTW - I know why they skew heavily to early tournaments in MN. Three years ago they didn't and the last tournament almost didn't have enough non-qualified teams in it. The result was some pretty weak teams qualifying late in the season while better teams just missed early in the season.