With the new Team Update today (2/20), it was ‘revealed’ that the Michigan State Championship’s playoff matches would now have 16 alliances, doubling the amount of teams in eliminations. Along with this, a new system for allocating points to these selections was given out.
Thoughts?
I disliked it when I first heard about it, I still dislike it now. Does it get more teams involved, which would have been a concern with 24 teams out of 102 in the playoffs? Yes. But now it leaves out a whole 54 teams from playing on Saturday at all.
Frankly, the rest of the country has been blessed with only seeing the very best of Michigan. Only about 30 Michigan teams at CMP last year, only 24 in elims. Let me tell you, Michigan is great, and deep, and everything, but it’s not that deep. The 48th team in Michigan is not that pickable (not to mention that the 65th best team isn’t of a quality that I’d want them at the CMP, and that’s coming from someone on a team that ended up around there last year).
There are various other pros and cons that I’m sure other people will bring up, but altogether, I’m not a fan. Pick-your-own-backup would have gotten more teams involved in a better way.
From a team that’s been to MSC twice, and neither time was particularly close to elims, the larger size of the event and the elims bracket is tantalizing. 24/64 wasn’t really a lot (in my opinion). Though maybe our robots didn’t “deserve” to be in elims, a better shot at it is exciting.