Championships Competition Structure

[Alexa Stott]

It's pretty simple: teams are divided randomly into four divisions of about 100 teams each. They play a bunch of qualification matches where they are randomly paired up in 3v3 matches. The top 8 teams then get to select two other teams to play on their side in the elimination tournament. The winners of each division face off in a final four to crown the champion.

Honestly, you tell them that. And then say that you were picked to move on to the elimination rounds as part of the third seeded alliance but were knocked out in the quarterfinals so you were one of the top 24 robots in your division (yes, technically you were not in the top 24 in terms of ranking, but those details, to be fair, don't really matter if you're trying to explain it to someone who just wants a brief overview of how you did).

I personally don't think it's worth the amount of time it would take to do a 3rd-8th competition. It already takes such a long time to do the eliminations as is.

8 plays 1 because, well, that's pretty standard. The higher ranked seeds, theoretically, get an "easier" time than the lower ranked ones. It's like how you give higher ranked teams first round byes in some sporting events rather than doing it randomly. They've essentially earned their spot at the top and that's one of the benefits. As we've seen plenty of times, though, especially in this era of coopertition points, being the #1 seed doesn't always mean being the best team there. Like I said, that's pretty standard practice in...everything.