Drafting Strategies

[commodoredl]

What strategies did you think would emerge in the draft? What strategies did you see emerge?
I figured that teams would mentally separate robots into three roles, offense, defense, and midfield, and choose based on need and the best robot available. That's what my team did when making our lists. However a couple teams attempted some less orthodox alliances which is why I wondered what other people's strategies were in drafting.
Also, which robots tended to be drafted first? At FLR, the first pick was a top scorer, the Thunderchickens, though the team drafting them was one of the best midfielders. Defense tended to be left until the second round.

[Grim Tuesday]

I was surprised and gladdened to see how much the seeding scores were disregarded. We were seeded 27, and were still a first pick for a team. We were an offensive, high scoring robot, and managed to score a high amount of points, even without middle assistance (the two elim matches played without working teammates). The tunnel ability was very useful there...

[kirtar]

From my experience, most teams don't just go by seeding (even in previous years). Last year at Boilermaker, we were seeded 31st, and were the second pick for the #2 alliance. The picking was mostly in the teams I expected from the scouting data collected, although there were a few exceptions that were just beyond my predictions (although I was surprised by how late 1024 was picked).

As my team's scouting lead, for all I care, a team could be ranked dead last, but if it has what I want, I'll take it.

As for what I think happened and how I will likely approach it is that I will pick the highest scoring robot that I can get first, even if I know that I will be rejected. This can help prevent superalliances. Once I get my first, I will fill whatever hole there is (I'm not sure where my team will fall). I'm guessing I'll probably take someone who's decent across the board since most of the time at least one robot switches zones. However, depending on where I am in order (e.g. if I get the last pick in the second round), I'll probably take whatever is the best counter to the trend of the other alliances.