Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian Mackenzie
I really disagree with this - this system effectively punishes teams for doing well at their regionals, and raises the spectre of hyper-competitive teams getting into the Championship by first-come, first-serve (instead of actually qualifying) and then deliberately not doing well at their regionals to get a more favourable spot in Atlanta. (Not saying anybody would do this, but it's still not the sort of thing one wants to encourage.)
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Ian,
I'm sorry, but I don't see where you are coming from. I'd really like to believe that NO team would throw a regional just to have a good alliance partner in qualifications in Atlanta.
You're saying that this system punishes teams who perform well at regionals. I can assume you mean 'punish' in the scope that they will paired with "not so good" teams in their division. Now, what makes more sense? Creating equal alliances based on power, or continually punishing teams for having a low team number? If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at the match schedule from Boston. Most of the low numbered teams (121, 125, 126, etc) did not have alliances partners with numbers lower than 1500ish. Now, look at the top 4 seeded teams. 1626, 2079, 126, 1511. Notice anything? There you have 3 very good teams who, as you might say, were NOT punished for having a high team number. Were they there on merit, or were they there from the schedule? You make the call.
The best possible solution is to have a totally random match schedule. But obviously, this new algorithm is here to stay. I believe the system I proposed (or something similar.. basically anything that uses power to split teams and not number..) is a good way to make everyone happy in Atlanta. We get our competition, and FIRST gets their co-opertition.