[NRLeuenb]

Originally Posted by wgardner

One other strange thing about the NorCal strategy: you have a better chance of advancing if you're at a tournament without a host, which motivates you to pick tournaments without hosts.

In Virginia, the two tournaments that have hosts at least still advance the same number of non-host teams as the other tournaments, so teams aren't motivated to avoid the hosted tournaments. [Aside: If anything, there's a slight advantage with the current advancement system to attending a Virginia tournament with a host, because there's a slight chance that the host team will also be high in the advancement order which results in a team lower in the order getting to advance.]

That's very true-- but its difficult to pick non-host events when there's only two, and early in the season. From my own experience in VA, where there are fewer, larger qualifiers, even though competition is more fierce, winning an award or the competition means more, because you get to advance. In NorCal, it's an interesting tidbit to stick on your resume.