Declining Alliance invitation is a strategic decision, however, I am wondering here in Canada this year with our small tournaments and only 4 alliance playoff brackets ( not 8), would it ever make sense to decline a playoff invitation?
Consider this:
this year it is quite possible for a team who scores only low hub and climbs well could rank very high, perhaps even #1.
if such a team were ranked #1 and the next teams had decide to decline them, it could easily end up that the #2 and #3 are now captains.
team #4 is now in a strange spot…if they decline, they are the# 4 captain with the #8 as a partner and playing the top alliance.If they accept, they are in the top alliance
by that same logic, team #3 likely should also not decline
another trend we may see in Ontario is that there is a pretty significant decline after the top 4-6 teams in these small event…this further puts the importance on being paired with top ranked teams
considering all of this, do you think we will see alliance declines much less frequent compared to the 8 alliance tournaments in USA?
I have particular interest here because we may be one of these teams that could rank high but not be an attractive playoff partner.
7211 at the Milford event in Michigan was ranked second as a mainly low cargo and traversal climb bot. They picked the fourth ranked team, who declined. Then they picked the sixth ranked team, who also declined. The sixth ranked team went on to lead the fifth alliance who won the whole event. All this to say, even the lower alliance captain in a US event found it favorable to decline. The fourth alliance in your scenario will probably act similarly. If they think they have better odds without you, they’ll decline. It really comes down to how many good robots are outside of picking position.
The biggest mistake I thought 7211 made was not employing scorched earth. They could have picked every other picking team, keeping them from picking each other in the future. The fifth alliance that won the event was made up of one picking team choosing another. If you don’t have the best scoring robot, make the rest of the field thin and grind out an event win.
Good Luck!
Sorry if this was all over the place or dodged the question. I loved watching Milford this weekend and wanted to rant about it a bit
Consider this:
Number one bot is a low goal scorer and will be completely dominated if two of the next 3 ranks below them team up. Knowing that the 3 below them don’t want to play with them in elims they steel themselves and scorch the earth - taking three “we respectfully decline” responses. They the pick the best of the rest and win the tournament. Yes declines make sense and are even perhaps more impactful in a smaller tournament.
While I’m not as experienced in Canadian events, I believe the awnser would be no. With the way the RP’s work this year, as you pointed out, a team can rank high and score low. As a captain of alliance 3, I could see a very strong argument for picking the 7th seeded team, as they may score more but only make 75% of the # of shots of seed 1. Being at FIM St Joe this weekend, this is something we saw. Only alliances 1 and 2 picked within the top 8 for first pick (although a few of those picks became captain). I think this would be even more true of a 4 alliance event, as seeds 5-8 no longer have much reason to decline. If 1 was a low bot, and I was a captain of one of those 2-4 alliances, I would most likely decline.
As the first alliance at Milford - we knew we had a long hard uphill road. By the time the picks came back around to #1 the climbing bots who could also score were very thin. That resulted in us picking a third bot who couldn’t climb (but could continue scoring).
We thought for sure 7211 would go scorched earth. We were surprised they didn’t negotiate to another high ranked team, and tell them they would scorch the top 4 or 5 robots then circle back and pick them to get their agreement. That’s been done in the past.
Either way - the way it worked out resulted in one heck of a set of matches. A combined score of 219 points, where the losing team still managed to break the high score record for the competition. It was exciting!!!
Now for a bit of self indulgence: we played the last three matches on 3 swerve drives instead of four when one of them quite literally ripped in half. We were thrilled to be picked by Hot (thanks guys!) and had a great time.
One unique thing about these Ontario districts is just how shallow the field will be (since no event has more than 18 teams). There’s always a chance the 2 seed can decline, but most of the time 3 and 4 shouldn’t be declining.
There may be a chance to decline in some of the deeper fields (eg. Waterloo Day 2) since there will still be good bots left as a 3-4 captain, but most of the time, there just aren’t enough top tier robots to make it worth declining.
In the case of a 4 team tournament wouldn’t the 4 seeded alliance have the fourth pick as well as the fifth pick? In traditional alliance selection the picking order is reversed the second time through which would give the 4 seeded alliance back to back picks. Whether or not this would be advantageous would depend on the depth of the field, the strength of the first seeded alliance and the ability of the 12 best robot (1st alliances 3rd pick).
This is correct. The serpentine draft still applies in these smaller tournaments. As for whether that is more advantageous to the 4th seed than a typical 8 alliance elims bracket, I agree that it depends on the given event and the depth of the field.
Your field on Waterloo day 2 is perhaps the most top heavy (on paper) of the season, but other events COULD have a fairly steep drop off. Humber did, though it was also week 1.
The fear of scorched earth makes you really second guess declining…could be getting a partner with an OPR of 5 as a second pick.
You all were awesome! 7211 did really shake things up. I learned A LOT more by watching this alliance selection than many in the past. It was a honor to play against you in the semis - I hope we can meet at States - with our intake working and your swerves working!
The logic used here ignored context and likely led to an awkward result.
The scenario posed the top seeded team being undesirable and choosing down the ranks. In that scenario, the 4th seeded team has the two choices you’ve posed. But, we’ll want to take it a bit further.
We need to acknowledge several things:
None of the higher ranked teams can form a group together. This means everyone will be picking from the remaining pool and a typical “super alliance” isn’t going to occur.
If 4 is considering 1 to be undesirable, this means they don’t believe the team fits well within their strategy. If that holds true, they’d prefer face this team than join them. Given that would be their first opponent, that’s a blessing.
There’s an implication here the top seed didn’t do a great deal of scouting. It’s rare for undesirable teams to just work down the RP order and have that work out for their strategy. This means the 4th seed can realistically expect them to choose the top remaining seed each time they pick. That’ll start as the 5th seed. It’ll finish with somewhere around 12. This gives the 4th seed enough information to determine if they think 1 and 5 will work together well.
The premise they’d only have the 8th seed to pick next suggests both 2 and 3 also didn’t scout well. The 4th seed will have a good idea of EXACTLY their three team alliance at the moment they’re deciding.
When we take a deeper look at all that’s involved, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the 4th seed decline the invite here. If they like the robots 5-8 better than 1, they know exactly what they’re getting themselves into.
That would answer the question “is there ever a reason?” We can extend that logic to the third seed easily. They have a clearer picture of who’s behind them to pair and a smaller range of teams selected ahead of them. It’s easiest for the second seed. If they see any two robots in the field they’d prefer have over the first seed, a decline is simple. They’ll get one of those two. They won’t face the top seed until the finals, if at all.
