[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by spears312

Currently, the way it’s done now is fair and simple. If you seed in first place, you deserve first pick. And while the first seed certainly has the advantage, they won’t always win. In almost every case it seems that it's not the best team that makes up the alliance, but the best combination of teams. Disallowing the picking of teams with in the top eight would make an interesting rule change which would end any 1-2 seed alliances, but at the same time would make picking a lot harder because in most cases first seeds pick list's top eight are the rankings top eight.

While I like the current system, I sometimes think it gives the top seed too much advantage over the other seeds. When number one can pick from any other team in the event, including #'s 2-8, if they have good scouting, they have are going to have two very good teams on their alliance. We have been in the enviable position of being top qualifier in two regionals this year, and both times we picked number 2, and won the regional. It turned out that our most difficult elimination round was at the Florida regional against the number 8 alliance, though a mechanical problem with one of our robots made that round difficult.

While I voted to keep the present system in the poll, it might be interesting to not allow teams to pick each other withing the top 8. That should equalize alliances somewhat and increase the chance for good teams that did not make the top 8 due to bad luck, etc., to end up in one of the top alliances. As it is now, teams who did not make the top 8 might be hoping to be picked in the second round by one of the top alliances, rather than in the first round by number 7 or 8. Not allowing teams to pick within the top 8 would "mix things up" in the first round picks like is now the case in the second round picks. I did not like the "auto matching" used in 2001 where 1-5, 2-6 etc. were automatically paired into alliances.