[Billfred]

The most dominant drivetrains have a few common attributes:

1) The drivers are comfortable with the robot. This usually means it's a drivetrain they can build early in build season (or can build a spare of for practice easily enough).

2) Reliability. Robots that throw chains and don't turn don't fare that well. That applies for the long haul, too--1251, a dominant force in the regular season last year, had to sit out the elimination rounds at Mission Mayhem because they kept having troubles.

3) Quickness at the task at hand. The drivetrains that can get a given job done fastest tend to do better. That doesn't always mean raw speed--71 shuffled its way to a world title in 2002 going awful slow while ensuring that all three of the goals that season would get to their zone.

In my experience, this usually entails some flavor of 6WD. Some teams have reached a level of sophistication where they can go with more advanced drivetrains (see also: 148's coaxial swerve this season), but most of us are still where 6WD is the way to go for most cases.