2015 Waterloo Regional

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

The biggest threat (in my opinion, in Canada) to 2056 is 1114. If for some reason 1114 ends up on the other side of the glass against 2056, it could end the streak.

With this year's game scoring of total points (average score/match), I highly doubt you will see them on opposite sides of the glass.
In previous games of win vs loses, I can see a bad matchup where that has happened before. But this year, it doesnt matter who you play against. For past Waterloo events, people paid attention to when 1114 played against 2056. This year, the matchup doesnt matter.
In the end, the better teams just end up ranked higher. I cant remember a game where you could lock up the #1 seed after day 1 of qualifications, if ever.

Personally, I'm a fan of it. You are less affected by bad match schedules and bad alliance seeds on the way to the finals. The better alliances win, generally speaking. There is no, good 1-4-5-8 bracket and hoping to be in the 2-3-6-7 bracket if that route is "easier" to get to the finals. Last year that had huge implications, especially since wild cards were being given out.

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by waialua359

With this year's game scoring of total points (average score/match), I highly doubt you will see them on opposite sides of the glass.
In previous games of win vs loses, I can see a bad matchup where that has happened before. But this year, it doesnt matter who you play against.
In the end, the better teams just end up ranked higher.

Personally, I'm a fan of it. You are less affected by bad match schedules and bad alliance seeds on the way to the finals. The better alliances win, generally speaking.

You're definitely right, I would be really surprised if 1114 and 2056 were not together.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

You're definitely right, I would be really surprised if 1114 and 2056 were not together.

And I'd bet that 1114 and 2056 likes the scoring system much better than in the past of W-L's.

[Bluman56]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

You're definitely right, I would be really surprised if 1114 and 2056 were not together.

Agreed. I just like the narrative is all.

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by waialua359

With this year's game scoring of total points (average score/match), I highly doubt you will see them on opposite sides of the glass.
In previous games of win vs loses, I can see a bad matchup where that has happened before. But this year, it doesnt matter who you play against. For past Waterloo events, people paid attention to when 1114 played against 2056. This year, the matchup doesnt matter.
In the end, the better teams just end up ranked higher. I cant remember a game where you could lock up the #1 seed after day 1 of qualifications, if ever.

Personally, I'm a fan of it. You are less affected by bad match schedules and bad alliance seeds on the way to the finals. The better alliances win, generally speaking. There is no, good 1-4-5-8 bracket and hoping to be in the 2-3-6-7 bracket if that route is "easier" to get to the finals. Last year that had huge implications, especially since wild cards were being given out.

Even as a mortal team, I really like this year's qualification system (even though we seeded low. We deserved it with constant mechanical or driver glitches). I was following along alliance selection with TBA's top-15 OPR numbers, and rarely was a team more than 1 position away from their OPR number. The alliance selection also went basically in line with what our scouts predicted.

Especially in Ontario with the inevitable essentially unstoppable 1114/2056 alliance pairing, it was nice to know that performance could get us a trip to the finals instead of sheer luck avoiding the 1-4-5-8 bracket*. I hope FIRST tries to keep the spirit of this year's qualification/elimination system next year, even if they return to W-L-T as primary sorting metric.

*Especially once the "winners' 2nd champs tickets fall over to finalists" rules were introduced, avoiding the 1-4-5-8 bracket was the #1 priority for finals. I believe in 2013 we declined an alliance selection that would've made a stronger alliance simply because it would've lead us to 1114/2056 in the semis, but we needed to make the finals.

[T3_1565]

Big shout out to 5406 and 3683!

5406 you guys are absolutely an amazing rookie team and deserve ever award you guys racked in today! Love to see more and more Canadian teams becoming so good so fast!

3683 Amazing as always! Always a pleasure to see your bot and team in action!

Thank you for the opportunity to play with you and see you again soon!

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by T3_1565

5406 you guys are absolutely an amazing rookie team and deserve every award you guys racked in today!

5406 is looking like a team to rival 1717, or 4814 for best rookie season ever.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by themccannman

5406 is looking like a team to rival 1717, or 4814 for best rookie season ever.

What about 2056?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by themccannman

5406 is looking like a team to rival 1717, or 4814 for best rookie season ever.

I love 1717, but their rookie season wasn't anything amazing when compared to 2056, or 5406 this year.

[Gregor]

Interesting wildcard scenario here.

1114 and 2056 came in qualified for The Championship, so their win generated two wildcards. These were passed on to 3683 and 1334 (finalist first and second pick), as 5406 the finalist captain earned RAS.

In addition to winning the event, 2056 also won Chairman's which created a dead wildcard, as there was no one left on the finalist alliance to give it to.

1241 won EI after winning Chairman's two weeks ago which resulted in a second unused wildcard.

[AndreaV]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Interesting wildcard scenario here.
1114 and 2056 came in qualified for The Championship, so their win generated two wildcards. These were passed on to 3683 and 1334 (finalist first and second pick), as 5406 the finalist captain earned RAS.

There were only two rookies present, both of which played in the finals. This means that even if 5719 got rookie all star instead of 5406, everyone would have still qualified for worlds.

I was the ref on the red side doing the live scoring, and man was it fun trying to keep up with 1114 and 2056's stacks. It felt like every time I inputted a stack with litter another one was about to be placed.

Finally a big congrats to all teams who competed, Waterloo is always a high caliber event but it's really amazing to see the progression from Ontario's 1st event to 3rd event. We were having qualification matches that were rivaling that of other region's finals matches all day, with or without the big two.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I love 1717, but their rookie season wasn't anything amazing when compared to 2056, or 5406 this year.

Forgot about 2056's rookie season, on second thought I think the only one to rival winning IRI their rookie year is 4814 who captained their alliance to division finals.

[EddyG]

Pictures from The Waterloo Regional

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.926221647442889.1073741876.125661567498905& type=1

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by themccannman

5406 is looking like a team to rival 1717, or 4814 for best rookie season ever.

Despite their number, this is the first season that 4613 has competed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgaex5m52XM#t=440m20s