FRC Blogged - What Do You Think? The ‘Invite to Decline’ Strategy

[Caleb Sykes]

I actually think that a 1-8, 1-8 selection would help to discourage scorched earth. 1-8, 1-8 helps captains 1-3, has no effect on captains 4-5, and hurts captains 6-8 when compared against the serpentine draft.

In a serpentine draft, seeds 6-8 are hesitant to accept the invitation of a mediocre #1 seed because the remaining partner will be the 16th pick. (Using seed 7 as an example) If the 7 seed declines, they still get the 7th and 10th picks.
In a 1-8, 1-8 draft however, if the 1 seed invites 7, 7 is much more likely to accept. 1's&7's second pick will be #9. If 7 declines, in contrast, they are stuck with the 7th and 15th pick. Assuming minimal difference between pick 7 and 9, 1 only needs to be marginally better than the 15th pick (could be as low as 23rd overall robot) for them to accept. Not to mention an easier schedule in eliminations.

Since scorched earth strategies rarely (if ever) come from a seed lower than 3, this would definitely limit the occurrences of scorched earth.