[Kevin Sevcik]

It's definitely an intriguing idea, though I think rookies would be swamped by the massive scouting necessary to make informed picks. Also, I think refusing picks is an issue. As pointed out earlier, a team could be refused all the way down the list of teams. If you do allow refusals, do they work the same as they do now where you can no longer be picked? Are you allowed one refusal and then must accept the next draft? There's various issues of collusion/unfairness to be solved here. Maybe a largish off-season competition could try this format out?

Second point. Assuming a nice round (in binary) number of 32 alliances, you'd start with 16 best of 3 rounds and move up. You'd end up with atleast 62 matches needed to determine a winner, at most 93(!) assuming no ties. Plus later rounds would be delayed until previous level of rounds was finished. Going back to the old style '98 double elimination tourney would be a well-defined 62-63 matches that could actually be scheduled, and would probably be more workable. Plus I always liked the idea of a team losing in the first round and then working their way all the way up the losers bracket.