Friday night we'll gather together a bunch of people in a hotel room and we usually sit and talk about what kind of a team we want as our partner. After we figure out what our ideal partners would be, its time to dig out the scouting papers and talk about the robots that fit that description. Our scouts usually take pretty good notes, so we take into account what happens in a match like say bad partner support, no partner support, of if they just played a bad match. In some cases we've had a team down in the lower rankings higher then a team that was currently in the top 8 just because we know how a team works or personal friendship too. I really don't think rank should matter in who you pick. I've seen the last seed picked at a regional before and they ended up on the winning alliance. Overall, it should be who is best for you.