Value & Credibility of 4th robots on an Alliance

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by FiMFanatic

Not saying they can't provide a contribution - because they certainly can and some surely do. That being said, it is somewhat "luck" that they win as a 4th pick, as there were likely 25-28 other more deserving teams that could have stood on the podium.

Not realizing this fact is part of the society we live in today, where there are participation awards for everyone, kid's leagues that don't have outs, etc., etc.

This seems to be an argument that the third team on a small regional or district alliance shouldn't be included in the list of the championship alliance. Often those teams come from below the 50th percentile in the event performance list.

As for Champs, you're too focused solely on what happens on the field. In fact there's a lot more going on in the competition metastrategy. As an example, I'll walk though what we did the last 3 years:

2014: 5136 - the other goal blocker in our division, with a highly competent defensive performance. This gave us a back up goalie to 1114 for auto if it was damaged and the option to bring in a faster defensive robot if needed. 5136 did not play
2015: 5012: we actually thought they would be playing the
Einstein rounds to maximize can grabbing and that 1671 would be playing only in the division playoffs. We switched up with 1671's amazing success. But 5012 was still part of our credible threat in the semifinals that kept 1114 from deploying 900's harpoon grabbers.
2016: 2990: ended up playing on Einstein, substituting for 364 who played in the division playoffs. They earned equal credit on the field.