(Seemingly) Irrational alliance selection decisions?

[TheBoulderite]

Originally Posted by OccamzRazor

Hey did anyone watch Curie division picks? 100% upset brackets this year in 2016. Every alliance selection made me cringe until the 7th or 8th seed. (which hilariously enough were division finals)

Curie was an anomaly this year. Some of the better-known teams like 3310, 1983, and 2848 weren't as strong at Curie as I thought they would be. However, they were good enough to be selected for eliminations, and the captains thought they could win with them. I didn't cringe, I was curious to hear the strategy behind making those selections.

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by TheBoulderite

Curie was an anomaly this year. Some of the better-known teams like 3310, 1983, and 2848 weren't as strong at Curie as I thought they would be. However, they were good enough to be selected for eliminations, and the captains thought they could win with them. I didn't cringe, I was curious to hear the strategy behind making those selections.

Disclaimer: My team was the 4th pick for Curie alliance 4, which included 5803, 3310, 2168, and us (5940)

I don't think that 3310 was a irrational pick for our alliance. Yes, they hadn't performed great in quals, but if they were able to put in 8-9 high goals as they did at the regional level it would have been huge for us and would have, in my opinion, changed the outcome of eliminations in Curie. 3310's prowess in the high goal + 2168's ball-hoarding strategy from NE DCMP + 5803 breaching would have been an incredible combination. 3310 had everything working great going into the quarterfinal matches. Unfortunately, they suffered some unpredictable failures (such as a busted VRM in QF2-2) that decreased how many shots the could get in.

In short, if 3310 was working at full capacity I believe Curie might have been a different story.

[SpaceBiz]

I think there is a significant difference that needs to be clarified between irrational picks and bad picks. Team's make bad picks all of the time, but There was always at least some rationale behind any pick. That selection had to arrive on a picklist for some reason, whether or not it was a good reason. If a pick seems irrational, there might be a good reason behind it. If you have outstanding scouting you can find value in teams they themselves might not even know they had, let alone the general public.

I think the more important thing to look at was the result the pick achieved you and if they yielded the result you expected them to yield. Essentially was the pick a bad pick. If you select a high variance team with high scoring potential and it doesn't come through, but you were aware of that risk beforehand, the pick is not particularly bad despite possibly yielding a bad result. If you select one team for some reason while leaving another more valuable team on the table, and this selection ends up hurting your performance, it can be argued that you have made a bad pick.

Defining whether or not you think your pick was bad or not is important. Once you do, you can then look at the reasoning you had to pick that team and then find what flaws you may have had in that reasoning to yield the wrong result. Hopefully, you will be less likely to make that mistake in the future.

[SpaceBiz]

I think there is a significant difference that needs to be clarified between irrational picks and bad picks. Team's make bad picks all of the time, but There was always at least some rationale behind any pick. That selection had to arrive on a picklist for some reason, whether or not it was a good reason. If a pick seems irrational, there might be a good reason behind it. If you have outstanding scouting you can find value in teams they themselves might not even know they had, let alone the general public.

I think the most important thing to look at is if they yielded a result you expected them to yield and this option was better than the other available teams. Essentially was the pick a bad pick. If you select a high variance team with high scoring potential and it doesn't come through, but you were aware of that risk beforehand, the pick is not particularly bad despite possibly ending with a bad result. If you select one team for some reason while leaving another more valuable team on the table, and this selection ends up hurting your potential performance, you have most likely made a bad pick.

Defining whether or not you think your pick was bad or not is important. Once you do, you can then look at the reasoning you had to pick that team and then find what flaws you may have had in that reasoning to yield the wrong result. If you find that you made a mistake, you will be less likely to make that same mistake in the future.