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

[Mr. Lim]

A lot of people still aren't familiar with the most important aspect of the "Scorched Earth" strategy:

The fact that you save your top pick till the end, AFTER you've scorched everyone else...

To maximize the strategy, you need to "scorch" everyone else's alliance, but still build the best one you possibly can. You need to communicate with your top pick, and let them know you intend on breaking up everyone else, and hopefully you convince them that after having done so, you can now form an alliance capable of winning the event.

To illustrate, lets say you are a "weak" #1 ranked team.

Teams ranked #2-#9 are all very strong and ranked in order of strength. You also know all these teams would rather form their own alliances, than accept your invitation.

You need to pick #3-#9 and have them all decline, THEN pick #2 (your top pick) last.

That gets you the best team at the event on your alliance, and 3-9 are all unable to pair up.

In a lot of cases, this break-up is enough to make a #1 and #2 alliance the best possible at the event. An alliance of #1 and #2 might be better than the alternative #2 and #11 - and if so, it would probably be better than all the other possible alliances from #3-#9.

"Scorched Earth" is NOT just about screwing everyone else, it's more about giving yourself the best chance at winning by selectively picking, and taking full advantage of the #1 ranking you've earned.

What amazes me is that this doesn't happen more often - that there is a negative stigma attached to it - and that a lot of people are still VERY resistant to it - likely because they haven't had the ENTIRE process explained to them!

It's takes some communication, co-operation, a bit of trust between teams, and the ability to see a few steps beyond what's immediately in front of you.

I wouldn't take away the opportunity for this strategy to happen, because I personally think it's a pretty great and ingenious way to build some pretty important critical thinking, reasoning and relationship building skills.

Despite the poor optics of a decline, and the requisite booing that inevitably happens, I think the opportunity for co-opertition and learning that goes on behind the scenes is far more valuable.