Alliance Selection Strategy

[EricH]

Originally Posted by themccannman

People should stop hating on OPR so much though, it does exactly what it's designed to do. It's not designed to replace your scouting system, so don't expect good results when you do rely on it for scouting.

I have to ask, if OPR is not designed to replace a scouting system, then why did you suggest earlier that a team who was unsure of their scouting just pick based on OPR? Those two statements are not entirely compatible.

OPR does do what it's designed to do: tell you how much a team can expect to score. For alliance selection, though, I probably don't care how much my alliance can score.

What I care about is how big of a point differential my alliance can produce in my favor, which is not the same thing by any means. If that means that my really, really accurate full-court shooter has to be protected by a pair of brave little toasters, then that's what I'm going to pick (though I'll probably pick rather specialized brave little toasters, just to increase that differential). If that means that my 50-point climber needs some shooters to back it up, that's what I'm going to pick. Is there a full-court shooter somewhere in my likely road? I'm going to look at teams that either have a blocker already or that can add one quickly. This sort of thing is what OPR cannot tell you, because it quite simply is not designed to do that. But it's this sort of thing that can make or break an alliance.