A Recycle Rush Reflection

[Siri]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

OP- RR can be boring, but it gets boring for the same reason any other game gets boring. The problem with North Star, and the cause of OP's complaints, seems to be the huge divide between 2826 and the rest of the event. First and second were divided by 50 points, and the divide between second and third was also pretty significant. It was pretty clear what was going to happen there, and if you weren't 2826 or 3130, it'd be easy to be upset by the predictability of the event.

However, OP is wrong in singling out RR for this causing this frustration. Similar things have happened in regionals in the past. Look at Midwest 2014 or Waterloo for the last eight years. When one or two teams become so much better than everyone else at an event, all the fun is taken out because the result is obvious.

Recycle Rush isn't inherently boring. Midwest was actually VERY exciting to watch. Elimination rounds featured brilliant strategies, alliances doing the seemingly impossible, and the cheesecake to end all cheesecakes (shout out to 16 and 2358), all ending in a regional winner decided by only 6 points. The finals matches were absolutely some of the best-played, most thrilling matches I have ever seen.

I agree completely, but I don't think the assertion is really "RR is inherently boring". I think it's that it's statistically more likely to suffer from the boredom you've identified (e.g. Wave----->everybody else at the event). The point spreads are nuts this year. When they're not, it's not so bad (as long as you're good with watching uniformly-ish good or bad box stacking).