So I saw that the Championship will be 4 team matches. How does that work, do all 4 teams play or does 3 play then what happens to the 4th? We are new to the championship and I really am curious about these things.
With four team alliances, only three play at once. Alliances are free to field any combination of three robots they please. This allows the fourth robot to function as a backup or an alternate strategy.
All ELIMINATION Alliances will be composed of 4 teams.
The Alliances are free to play any 3 of the 4 teams at any given time.
There are no Back Up robots… and if a given team has to sit out a match because of a mechanical or technical issue the 4th robot can come in and the team sitting out can still come back and continue to play.
During Qualifications the alliances have the normal 3 teams on the field.
When alliances are picked there are 4 teams picked by each alliance.
What is the order for picking the 4th bot in the alliance?
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It would be cool if they kept normal 3 team alliances during division playoffs and then let the winning alliance pick any team from their division as the “backup” robot for Einstein. That would create some super alliances consisting of the best that the division had to offer.
1st to 8th 
That makes sense, I was curious because a 4 team qualification alliance could cause some issues because of the rotating alliances and a weaker team could get pushed aside. During elimination a 4 team alliance is great gives more teams a chance to play and we used it once during a regional elimination to put a better fresh team in because another had taken a beaten the previous match. It proved a wise decision because we crushed the other alliance to move to the finals. I was concerned about the qualification matches because it could get a bit snarky and contentious before the matches.
You’re just saying ELIMINATION’s to make me :yikes:
Like I tell my students. Read the manual.
Er, is there really that much of a difference between calling them Elims and Playoffs?
It is important to note that traditionally there are 12 players in the castle per alliance (4 for each team) but in eliminations at champs, a representative from the team not in the lineup but on your alliance is allowed in the castle. Which is essentially another coach during eliminations.
I understand what you are saying but in practical use the term is used all of the time and I am afraid it is something that will never stop. Every one understands what is being referred to and that is the point of communication.
I don’t need to read the manual.
lighten up Francis…
:0)
See you at the Nationals. 
I expect this year to see 4th robots playing more in the elimination rounds.
There are two reasons to use the term playoffs instead of elims (or eliminations).
- Actually using the official term. This prevents confusion if a newer member sees the term elims and doesn’t know what it is. It also allows the search function on CD to find the relevant threads.
- Teams that are knocked out are not eliminated from winning awards. Using the term playoff prevents us from confusing new people to the community or spectators.
See the difference is that using the term nationals is offensive to every single team outside the United States whereas using the term eliminations isn’t justifiably offensive to anyone. It’s like using boulders and balls when describing this years game piece. Everyone knows what you are talking about no matter which one you use and nobody is offended by it.
Playoffs versus Eliminations is my personal language crusade.
I am trying to help our denizens adjust their phrasing.
As a Game Announcer, I always have to be careful about the terminology.
Boulders, not Balls. Playoffs, not Eliminations. Championship Event, not Nationals.
I have called them Eliminations for 17 years. I still catch myself.
It changed last year. Playoffs. It’s in the manual.
In the sports model, they are also called Playoffs, even if they are an Elimination tournament.
Please forgive me my OCD on this.
I do too. I can see this being used to pick a strong offense robot as a second pick, and then a dedicated defender as a third pick. That way, alliances can choose between running a triple-offense or a defensive strategy depending on who they’re up against or if one strategy loses a match.
Isn’t the representative from the fourth team (13th alliance member) actually a human player? If I remember right from last year, many of the big scouting teams scouted human players for their 4th alliance. If the 13th alliance member was a coach, they aren’t allowed to touch anything. Thanks.
Humans are humans. Language is language. You’re fighting an up hill battle, yo.
Back in the day, every team played on Saturday in what was officially referred to (in the Manual even) as the “Elimination Tournament.” Thursday was inspection/practice day. Friday was ranking day using 1v1v1 ranking matches – 2 points for 1st place, 1 point for 2nd, 0 for 3rd. And Saturday was the double elimination 1v1v1 tournament day (the generalization of the more standard 1v1 double elimination to 1v1v1 was wonderful to behold – and quite beautiful once you could see the structure … but I digress).
As it turns out 1v1v1 games are prone to bringing out the worst in some folks and, after skulduggery at the (then called) Nationals* in 1998, Dean, Woodie & the Manchester Brain Trust (a.k.a. FIRST HQ) came up with (imho) the brilliant idea of alliances for 1999 and with it came the draft and the playoffs.
So you see, it is quite natural for folks to conflate the Elimination Tournament (which human nature & language being what they are everyone called The Elims) with this newfangled thing that kinda sorta replaced it called the Playoffs.
Yes, the OFFICIAL name is the Playoffs, but I am just not going to stop using The Elims. It is historic. It is accurate (yeah, I read the post above arguing otherwise, I’m not buying it). It is burned into my brain.
AND… …GET OFF MY LAWN! You young whippersnappers. dang nabit…
Dr. Joe J.
http://i.imgur.com/udI7SNZ.png
*I DO try not to use “Nationals” any more though I fall into old habits at times. I do this for the same reason that FIRST changed its name from USFIRST to FIRST (though why it took them so long to ditch the usfirst.org URL I can never understand): It diminishes the international teams and FIRST itself.
