Alliance selections can be more than just someone picking the good teams. Although this is not huge at Championships due to so many good teams in attendance, but at regionals it can become a larger example of this:
There are 4 really good robots among many not so good robots at a regional or district. One of the top robots is seeded first, another second, the third sixth, and the fourth outside the top 8 due to poor seeding points in a match even though they are really good. Your top 8 look something like this:
1. A
2. B
3. x
4. x
5. x
6. C
7. x
8. x
D- Lets put them at 9th.
Team A is a very good robot and teams B,C, and D are each good robots, but all in their own way and are near equal in their average scoring in a match. Team A sees that team D sticks out more than team B. They pick team D and team B picks team C. This puts all 4 of the best robots in the event on the top two alliances. This might look like something many of us have seen at many events and these two alliances face each other in the finals. How could this have been prevented? In reality, team A should have picked team B knowing that either captain 3, 4 or 5 would have picked team C or D, or would have had very bad scouting data to not pick one of the two other top robots. Yes, this may have decreased the offensive power of alliance number 1 by a slight margin, but it would have taken away any chance for the other two top robots to get together and almost seals the deal for a regional win.
Man I need to remind myself that official season is over and time to get back to life!
