Alliance Captain versus last pick in Alliance Selection

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

The alternative perspective for what it's worth is that I would rather be a low alliance captain than the 4th robot on a winning alliance who didn't play. While it is great to be selected and be part of the alliance I don't think I could ever truly celebrate a championship win without our robot touching the field. I don't want to take anything away from any team who has won or will win (either a division or a championship) as the 4th robot, but for me I would rather play 2 matches on the field and loose than leave my robot on it's cart and win.

I want to point out that with the introduction of the 4th robot the last 2 years, even though those teams never entered the field, they did serve important functions. Those teams should feel that they had an equal part in the alliances' successes.

In 2014, taking 5136 limited the availability of goalie bots for other teams and gave us the back up for 1114 and an additional option to run a different mix for the autonomous routine.

In 2015, we honestly thought that 5012 would be playing in the Einstein semis and finals and that 1671 would be sitting out those rounds. The games played out differently so that we didn't use 5012. In addition, having 5012 available mooted 1114/148's threat to use their harpoon grabbers.