Alliance selection is always one of the most unpredictable (and let’s be honest, dramatic) parts of FRC competitions. It’s that perfect mix of strategy, pressure, and surprises that makes everyone stop what they’re doing to watch.
I wanted to hear about some of the craziest alliance selection moments you’ve seen or been a part of—whether it’s wild strategies, unexpected declines, or something that left everyone in the stands gasping.
One thing I’ve always been curious about is how many times a team can get declined as an alliance captain. Has anyone seen a captain go through their entire list of picks before someone finally said yes? What was the vibe in the room like? (Awkward? Chaotic? Cheering?) I feel like these moments end up making or breaking the rest of the event for those teams.
But beyond declines, I’m also looking for other kinds of wild stories:
• Teams picking each other for fun (or by accident), just to reshuffle alliances later.
• A top seed making an out-of-nowhere pick that changes everything.
• Tense situations where declining a pick was a high-risk, high-reward move.
• Any “oops” moments, like mispronounced team numbers or confusion over who actually got picked.
And then there are the moments where the strategy behind it all really shines—alliances that end up being way stronger than anyone expected or captains who use their scouting data to pull off genius moves.
This one always gives me chills. 2013 curie field, a little known team ranks #1 in the division and gets like 4 or 5 declines including 2056, the #4 seed. I was #3, and this was frustrating to us but ended up burning the entire field’s predictions and go-to strategies, leaving a few alliances underpowered. Rookie defense team makes it to division finals as an alliance captain just to lose to that little #1 seed, and this would mark the first time 1678 made it to Einstein. Since then 1678 has been to Einstein 10 times and become one of the most recognizable teams in the world.
Stemley 2017. 3739 gets picked second last, because the picking team says “we’d like to select…uhhh … yeah that one” and just sort of points to the rep as if to say ‘can I pick none?’. Most disrespectful way of doing it I’ve seen yet, but we just sort of accepted that our robot was bad and moved on.
Ryerson district (ONT) 2019. Team 5406 has a few too many quals with 6162, who cannot score at this event. 5406 is a high ranking alliance captain, but 6162 ends up being an alliance captain as well. Being an ESL team with few mentors, the students had never realized there was a second half to the tournaments as they had never been picked before. With no scouting info, I help them in the stands to just pick teams who are nice, focusing on what teams 6162 had spoken to at the event. they ended up with 7690 and 1334 and won the Team Spirit award.
Overtime Sunday 2024. Team 9580 gets picked by 2609 and 4907, and thanks me as a title sponsor. To be clear, I do not sponsor them. They did this as a meme because I’m a title sponsor for 9062 and they thought it would be funny. Due to me being on the field on a different alliance, I found this hilarious. We took this idea and ran with it for the following week at Southwest International.
Southwest International 2024. 9062 has 3 robots in the competition, and there are 6 Alliance slots due to a low turnout. 9062 gets picked up first, we do our normal thank yous. 9992 gets picked, we roll up with the rep in a schlanket and say “On behalf of Jordi (lead mentor of 9580) and Reddit user GamingDad123 we would like to say yes”. Finally, Baguette (9991) gets picked last and receives a ton of applause for getting picked, despite there being no other options. We say “On behalf of Baguette, let’s cook”. 9992 was 6th finish. Baguette finished 3rd, and our main robot Conductor was a finalist.
Not FRC, but FTC. A few years ago, the FTC team I coached at the time competed in a regional (state) championship. They were undefeated, had the best autonomous, and ranked #2 at the end of quals. Due to dumb FTC advancement rules, only the winning alliance captain (and the Inspire Winner) would advance to Worlds. They politely informed the #1 team that they would decline if invited to be on the #1 alliance for this reason, and the fact that their autos were incompatible. The #1 team picked them anyway and acted shocked when they were turned down.
There was some jeering from the crowd who, I guess, had never seen a turn-down before. The kids felt bad but won the event with a somewhat flawed alliance (and the team they turned down also qualified for Worlds at a different regional championship).
I have told this before, but in the 2022 BGRC, we were the #1, and went through our top 5 for the picklist, getting rejected each time. It only ended because we selected a team outside the top 8, so they basically had to accept. The gasps from the stands after each decline got so bad that a second MC had to come on and remind everyone to be quiet during the selections and to not add more stress onto people. There is a rumor on our team that ever since this competition, FIM has added that same type of general statement to not make as much noise and hullabaloo during selection because we heard that sort of statement quite a few times after.
That selection also had some other bad moments, specifically comments made to our representative, during our first selection by the main MC that I am going to not mention.
Edit: Apparently a similar scorching happened at the 2016 BGRC (a more direct 2-3-4-5-before 6 accepted), with more comments by the same MC being made.
I don’t know if these were exactly an out of nowhere picks, but in 2022 we managed to get 5712 at MSC-Ford after they went down to the 13th place. Additionally, in 2023 we were 10th seed and picked 857 and 7220. Both of them ended up also getting on alliances at worlds, with 7220 captaining the 7th alliance on Curie. I find it funny that we managed to pick them, and then not get picked ourselves.
During 2023 we also had a number mixup in who we selected, they were off by 1 number. We have since started adding names to who we pick.
In 2024 there is one particular selection we were part of that is notable, and that one definitely changed the selection process, you know which one it is.
Waterloo 2024. 4917 is seeded 4th, ends up 3rd alliance captain and picks 9062, who was 18th rank. There were many other better teams than us, but we were just happy to be playing in the bracket. Then 6992, the 8th captain, picks the 25 seed, 3739. Neither of these teams were expecting to be a first pick, and 3739 was somewhat nervous about being picked at all.
I still have no idea how Archimedes 2023 Alliance one was able to form.
Curie 2016 had a completely inverted bracket. Which was frustrating being on the number 7 alliance in finals and losing by 3 points across 2 matches to the number 8 alliance.
2153 was going to be the 8th alliance captain (rank 13) but declined the captaincy to drive home. Not super crazy, but one of the only instances that I know of.
On an FTC note, in 2022 POWERPLAY one of my teams (15270) was rank 4 at each of their events, and picked one of our other teams (10723) at both for playoffs. I wasn’t sure if they even looked at the scouting data, and at Pellston they had declined an invite but managed to win the first and finalist at the second. Turned out to be a pretty inspired pick.
At the 2020 Midwest Regional (before the great COVID lockdown), my team 5847 scorched the field. We were ranked 1, and were declined by 3-7 so nobody in the top 8 could pick each other. I have never heard so many "Ooooooo"s get progressively louder lol. We did not end up making it very far, I believe we were eliminated in the semis, but it was still quite the experience. Good times.
oh yeah, it was insane to see it happen in real time. At the time, we had no idea who citrus was. They had door sweepers as part of their intake and sequencer; nobody seemed to trust that robot from looks alone. But they had a solid system and it was one of the most reliable shooters in the field. I wish we had a chance to work with them, they are an inspiration to many if not most of the teams here on CD.
I was a referee on Curie that year, it’s one of those wild situations where I (and everyone else) was watching history happen before my eyes and didn’t even know it.
ONT district DCMP 2024. Technology field had a fully inverted bracket. A second year team, famous tank stars 9098 were seeded first, and I believed they were declined a pick or two before they picked a team not in the top 8. 4907, ranked 16th, from a small town in Ontario. I was incredibly surprised at a few of the other picks, as only one first pick was from the top 8. 5912, ranked 10th, was picked for alliance 1 member #3. Alliance 5,6,7 and 8 were in the upper bracket after one match apiece, and the finals included alliance 2 from the lower bracket versus alliance 7. Fun fact: one of the members of both of these alliances made it to Einstein, so nobody was a push over per se.
I was on there during alliance selection, and they straight up choosing 4907 as their first pick, which caught me off guard. I thought they would choose a team within the top 8 seed.
Wasn’t fully inverted, us (610) were part of the 5th alliance with 1325 and 188 and lost to alliance 4 of 4152, 5885, and 2706 in round 1. It was a crazy alliance selection though.
IIRC at FNC Asheville 2024 (Might’ve been another event? Kinda forgot.), one alliance captain was really only there due to a very, very strong match schedule. They proceeded to ask every alliance captain below to be their first pick, and they all declined. Everyone in the stands went OOOHHH every single time a rejection occured. It was kinda crazy.
I don’t recall which team, but someone picked several times before an acceptance. I believe one or two were already picked, one needed to leave to get home, and finally someone accepted.
