Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Johnson
BUT I will repeat that these 5 point make ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that the intent of FIRST is that qualifying matches be played to WIN.
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Yet they have retained the loser gets winner's score feature of the rules, and therefore retained the incentive to "lose bigger". Trying to comeback after going down big does not serve the loser, as the loser doesn't get loser's points. There will still be a threshold "gap" and match time left at which some teams will decide to abandon the pursuit of a "true" win and instead pursue a loss result that yields the best seeding score possible. The +5 merely widens that gap. That may be enough to deter most teams from pursuing the loss. Time will tell.
I will not fault teams for continuing to pursue "lockdown" mode - helping the winner win bigger is still a benefit to the losing team - in effect, the losing team IS pursuing their best interests by doing this - this is how they "WIN" the match when a *real* win is out of reach.
It is unrealistic to expect teams to try to WIN under all game conditions when doing so in certain conditions under the existing rules is directly to the detriment of the team.