[Alpha 997]

If your team’s robot is a capable one, you won’t have to worry about selling yourself to the top team if you ranked low. A good team most likely would have a nice scouting system and don’t even look at the ranking sheet. We didn’t go of the ranking sheet when we picked. We had our own ranking sheet that tells us who matches us the best.

Here’s what happened at PNW. The team that ranked the top 3 wasn’t the most experience team out there. We ranked 4th and we had a nice scouting system. I don’t believe the top 3 teams did. From their pick, it seems like that they picked off the ranking only. The first ranked team picked the second ranked team and the third ranked team picked some other team in the top 8. We, as the 4th ranked team got to pick or first choice ring placer and what our data showed as the best ring placer there, 272. We were hoping the second best ring placer, 360, would not get picked and circle back to us because they were ranked so low. But they got picked a few picks ahead of our second pick. Team 272 and 360 was clearly the best ring placers at PNW, but because of the messed up “randomization” matching system, they played each other every single qualifying match. 272 ended up ranking 11th and 360 was ranked 36. Thanks to our scouting team, we were able to pick the best ones out of the crowd and win it all.

So if you have a good bot but ranked low, it might even be a good thing. Because if the top ranked teams weren’t the best ones, and mostly likely won’t have a scouting system, you would be saved to be picked by a good team that didn’t get ranked too high in the top 8 who has a nice scouting system.