Championship Event - Where the "Random" Match Sorting Really "Shines"

[Lil' Lavery]

While the goals of the system may be controversial, and are certainly questionable, there is little question that this algorithm meets those goals. If you look down Ed's generated match list, there are only 2 or 3 matches with a clear cut winner, the rest will all be very competitive. Even the godly alliance of 67, 469, and 1501 won't have a terribly easy time with 74, 498, and 1523. The qualification rounds are well balanced, with both alliances having a good shot to win. While number isn't always a good indicator of the strength of a team, the fact that people are complaining that high numbers teams are being artificially inflated and low numbers are being crushed shows that it often is. As any assumption, there are exceptions. An occasional blow-out match is bound to happen, and I don't think FIRST wanted to completely erase them.
A disturbing bi-product is that it not only creates competitive qualification matches, it creates competitive elimination matches. By having some lesser-skilled teams inflated to the alliance captain status, it dilutes the talent of the pool, and creates parity among the alliances. It greatly reduces the chances that two powerhouse teams will pair up and dominate(once again, there are exceptions). Perhaps this was the motivation of FIRST? It serves the same function as the serpentine draft after all, creating competitive elimination matches, where very few alliances are a clear-cut favorite.