3 Team Alliance + On Deck

[Joe Johnson]

So what do you think?

I sort of like the fact that every team in the alliance will play an important roll.

But... ...if you break in a match the alliance captain is in a tough spot. Do they try to win with one man down, hoping your'll get fixed in time to help them later, or do they take the next team in line?

Interesting dilemma!

Thoughts welcome.

Joe J.

[Lil' Lavery]

Depends, if you alliance partners are good enough to handle the load(a #1 and a #2/3 seed on the same alliance) you try to win it with your sub, no point in risking your robot to further damage if you still have a good chance of winning.

[Lisa Perez]

I also think it depends on the seriousness of the problem. If the team with the malfunctioning robot can fully assure the alliance captain that the problem is not highly critical, then it may be a good idea to select said team as the 3rd member of the alliance, and vice versa.

I maintain hope that teams will uphold the FIRST value of gracious professionalism and decline the possibility of being a member of an alliance if they know that repair is not possible.

[Billfred]

Lisa: Bet on it. I know it happened last year.

However, here comes another question. If I'm with Redateam, and our robot is blasted to pieces but we're still on reserve, can we decline?

I hope a Team Update will cover that soon. Because nobody would want to draft a broken robot because they were seeded in the right place.

[aaronD341]

I was thinking, if one (or both) of your partners are broken before a match if they go in and just sit then if you get back there that is ten points so then it might not be so bad if someone breaks

[AmyPrib]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

So what do you think?

I sort of like the fact that every team in the alliance will play an important roll.

But... ...if you break in a match the alliance captain is in a tough spot. Do they try to win with one man down, hoping your'll get fixed in time to help them later, or do they take the next team in line?

I think it's good. If one of your three original chosen alliance members breaks down, you have ONE chance to select a 4th (I think whoever is the next highest seed joins your alliance - do we have the choice? or just next highest seeded available).

So, this gives you the opportunity for a back up "sub"... but the catch is that if your original alliance member that broke down gets fixed, they cannot play.... but they are still considered part of the alliance and still get the awards (if applicable).

I'm not sure what any good reasons would be for NOT choosing a 4th sub if you need to (unless you know for sure the break can be fixed quickly), because all 4 teams are still part of that alliance.. you have more heads, more strategies, more people to discuss options before a match.

It's a nice flexibility factor for this years eliminations.

[Ricky Q.]

Originally Posted by AmyPrib

I think it's good. If one of your three original chosen alliance members breaks down, you have ONE chance to select a 4th (I think whoever is the next highest seed joins your alliance - do we have the choice? or just next highest seeded available).

From The Tournament, Section 8.4.1:
Of the remaining eligible teams, the highest seeded teams (up to eight) shall remain on standby and be ready to play. If a robot from one team in a three-team alliance becomes inoperable, at the discretion of the Alliance Captain, the highest seed of the standby teams shall join that alliance. The resulting alliance would then be composed of four teams, but only three teams will be permitted to continue with match play. The inoperable team remains part of the alliance for awards but cannot play, even if their robot is repaired.


So it looks like the highest seed is automatically thrown in there if the Captain decides to do it. Personally I would look to pick an alliance that has the least chance of this happening. Throwing a new team into the mix in the semi-finals or even finals could mess up an entire strategy and ruin some alliances. But it is a nice option, it is going to be some tough elimination rounds with every robot playing every match. Teams are going to need a top notch pit crew on the sidelines to turn around those bots fast. I think the eliminations will be some of the most fun, tough, hardest fought matches out there.

[Wetzel]

The question I have is if the broken bot team remains for awards, and the alliance goes on to win the regional, do they all qualify for the Championship?

Other then that, I see this as a good way to deal with the fact that robots break. With 2v2, but three team alliances, it allowed for a failure and time to fix things. With 3v3 and three team alliances, there is not that fudge factor. This keeps the number of teams in the finals the same, but keeps a catastrophic failure of a robot from eliminating an alliance.

Wetzel

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

The question I have is if the broken bot team remains for awards, and the alliance goes on to win the regional, do they all qualify for the Championship?

2 points, no 3.

1) I don't see why they wouldn't qualify, the 4 teams one the tourney, all 4 should qualify.

2) The Championships are not full this year, so I am not sure what qualifying for the Championships means.

3) Here is the tough spot for me. Let's suppose you are partnered with a Killer Team that makes it much more likely to win the whole thing. But, in the second match of the quarter-finals, they break with the final, deciding match to be played. The Killer Team thinks they can be ready for the semi-finals if you make it, but are not ready to go on for teh upcoming quarter-final match.

Do you bench the Killer Team for the rest tourney in order to make it more likely to advance to make it to the semi-finals or to you try to win the upcoming match one team down so that if you DO make it to the semi-finals you have a better shot at the whole gig?

4) (a new question comes to mind) What are they going to do in the Play-offs? Do all these on deck teams put there robots in the Georgia Dome? Do they stay around for the divisional playoffs?


Interesting...

Joe J.

[Travis Hoffman]

I like the On Deck idea; however, I question why alliance captains aren't permitted to pick from a list of the On Deck teams instead of having the highest ranked team force fed to them. If an alliance robot breaks, I don't believe it would cause much, if any, additional confusion or delay for a FIRST official to present a list of teams to an alliance captain (a list they'll have generated per the existing rule, anyway) and have him/her select a team from the list. Those who didn't prepare such a detailed pick list could simply choose the top ranked On Deck team as is already the rule without any additional delay.

There is a reason teams spend so much time scouting - it's so they can determine which high ranked teams are deserving of their position and which were in those high spots due more to good fortune than anything else. It's also so they can identify teams whose robots and strategies best complement what they like to do during a match, some of whom may be at the bottom of the rankings due solely to bad luck and would be ineligible for selection under the current rule. I'm sure the scout crews for many picking teams will create pick lists that are detailed enough to include their most desired On Deck teams - why not reward the hard work of those teams by letting them choose whom they want? In addition, this would let these better-prepared alliances contact their preferred On Deck selections and guarantee they won't be packing up their robot before the end of the eliminations - with the current system, can FIRST guarantee that scenario won't happen? How much of a delay would that cause if it did? I'd be more enthusiastic about keeping my robot out and in top running condition if an alliance captain came to me and told me they wanted us to be their On Deck team instead of having to wait around with the rest of the "scrap heap", waiting to be salvaged by a team who may not even like what they're getting.

By allowing teams to pre-determine who they want their On Deck partners to be, matching the On Deck team's robot and strategy to those of the existing alliance, I think FIRST would give all elimination alliances a better chance at achieving success while facing adversity, and they would improve the quality and excitement of the elimination rounds.