Michigan State Championship 2017 Dates

[burde1jb]

I for one will simply be ecstatic for our team to make it to states! We’d be pumped for the honor to play alongside such great teams.

At any district event, you never play alongside all of the other teams anyway. Divisions of 80 or 40, you’re still missing out on a lot of teams to play with. The schedules are random.

You’re still talking about on average the top 12 teams from any given regular district event. High quality teams and their bots.

Thanks for organizing this event and our team is eager to earn our way to Saginaw!

[Jarren_Harkema]

My understanding is that the decision was made in the interest of match cycle time. It’s MUCH easier and faster to run 4 independent fields than it is to “ping pong” between 2 different fields, and any downtime on one field doesn’t bring the entire event to a halt.

I can agree with the decision logistically. I was just sharing my opinion from a tournament participant perspective. I give huge props to the wonderful volunteers we have within FiM that makes these events as incredible as they are. I trust the decision was well thought out and ultimately had the big picture in mind.

[Koko_Ed]

As someone directly involved with the planning of MSC this year, I can confirm that the current plan is 4 fields, 4 divisions, 160 teams. Each division will play on their own field, winners from each division will then play another set of elim matches to determine an event winner (much like Worlds).

Pits and Practice fields will be in the Field-house, Playing fields will be in the main Gym of the Ryder Center (additional seating will be brought in to accommodate the extra fields).

Michigan’s Einstein (Ford?) should be nothing short of amazing!

[Schnabel]

Green Arrow.
Ellen is Black Canary.

Black Widow*

[Nate_Johansen]

As someone directly involved with the planning of MSC this year, I can confirm that the current plan is 4 fields, 4 divisions, 160 teams. Each division will play on their own field, winners from each division will then play another set of elim matches to determine an event winner (much like Worlds).

I think this is for the best. FiM is expanding, and that means our state competition needs to expand as well. Divisions are the best way to do this without making scouting an absolute nightmare. Although I wish we were able to play with every Michigan team, I think this opens up a lot of opportunities for FiM, and I’m excited to see how our State Championship evolves with this.

Michigan’s Einstein (Ford?) should be nothing short of amazing!

Also, yes.

[Basel_A]

This is kind of disappointing to me… What makes MSC my favorite event every season is the chance that we get to play with team’s we have built relationships with, as well as play with teams we never get to see during districts. Reducing MSC to effectively 4 district sized tournaments lessens it’s impact and aw inspiring scale in my opinion. It also reduces the chance that people get to play with a wider range of teams, as well as limiting the pool of teams for alliance captains to pick from. This potentially reduces the overall performance top alliances could achieve depending on the random assignment of divisions.

I agree totally (these are basically the reasons why I said I’d prefer 2 divisions), but to be totally honest, I’m just happy we didn’t get our own #2Champz.

[Craig_Roys]

This will be an interesting shift. 96 teams out of 160 will be in eliminations (with another 32 teams waiting in the wings as potential backups)…this is assuming 8 alliances per field.

Any idea how the divisions will be determined? Random sort? Some sort of placement based off of points? Get ready for all the analyses of the divisions after they’re announced! Should be fun.

[Jarren_Harkema]

This will be an interesting shift. 96 teams out of 160 will be in eliminations (with another 32 teams waiting in the wings as potential backups)…this is assuming 8 alliances per field.

Any idea how the divisions will be determined? Random sort? Some sort of placement based off of points? Get ready for all the analyses of the divisions after they’re announced! Should be fun.

Paging FiM Informer!

[Mike_Schreiber]

As someone directly involved with the planning of MSC this year, I can confirm that the current plan is 4 fields, 4 divisions, 160 teams. Each division will play on their own field, winners from each division will then play another set of elim matches to determine an event winner (much like Worlds).

Pits and Practice fields will be in the Field-house, Playing fields will be in the main Gym of the Ryder Center (additional seating will be brought in to accommodate the extra fields).

This means MSC is the size of a district and instead of playing with 100 different teams from around the state and fielding the alliances of the best Michigan can offer we’re now playing a tougher district. You’ll have repeat matches against the same teams in quals and results will likely be predictable. Huge disappointment IMO. Only upside is that scouting is a lot easier now.

[Koko_Ed]

Black Widow*

Ooops. My bad. I thought you guys were sticking with DC characters.

[Nate_Johansen]

Out of pure curiosity, will alliances that win their divisions receive medals and banners, similar to champs?

[GaryVoshol]

Maybe MSC will be allowed to use CMP playoff rules - for example, pick your own backup, choose your driver stations

[cbale2000]

Any idea how the divisions will be determined? Random sort? Some sort of placement based off of points? Get ready for all the analyses of the divisions after they’re announced! Should be fun.

It wasn’t something that was discussed (at least not that I was in the room for), not sure if they’ll opt for a Worlds-style sort or if they’ll try to balance the divisions some other way.

Maybe MSC will be allowed to use CMP playoff rules - for example, pick your own backup, choose your driver stations

I like this idea.

[FiM_Informer]

Paging FiM Informer!

If you’re asking me to analyse divisions once they’re out, to be honest I don’t really have time this year for the usual volume of posts. If you’re asking me how they’re going to sort, IDK. If you’re asking how they should sort, I’d just do it serpentine based on district points. Here’s what that would’ve looked like last year:

A	B	C	D
33	67	2771	2834
1023	3604	3357	85
27	3688	3534	1718
2137	3620	3546	2767
5505	1918	3602	5050
5926	5114	5460	4384
4377	70	494	503
2619	3538	107	3618
2054	3452	3641	4391
123	5448	4216	5980
217	548	2337	6193
5907	5150	4381	3656
1481	74	3536	3655
4362	573	5053	6098
2474	5155	5878	68
6086	4967	3539	1701
5222	1250	2959	3707
1684	6075	3098	4680
2611	3770	858	4003
5084	3668	2612	5502
5166	3234	5167	3767
2586	1025	66	5230
3414	5048	5203	51
5712	3535	2832	308
2851	3542	4376	4392
1188	910	201	6097
1711	4810	4988	5194
4325	3658	5046	2960
469	4453	5567	6190
3617	1596	1506	4130
141	857	904	2620
1189	226	5843	5238
3322	703	2405	5710
6128	5610	862	6121
2604	4835	4956	5509
94	6085	6013	6002
245	4395	5162	5462
1076	302	3667	5534
5901	2075	4409	4776
3773	280	5675	5661

For comparison, I’ll do a stupid sort, let’s say based on team number. That would’ve looked like this:

A	B	C	D
67	33	2771	3357
2834	2767	3604	1023
85	3620	3534	1718
27	3602	70	2137
3688	5050	503	4377
3546	4384	107	2619
5505	5460	3641	4216
1918	5926	4391	123
5114	494	5980	548
3618	3538	217	74
5448	2054	5053	3655
2337	3452	2474	6098
3656	5150	5155	4680
4381	1481	5878	3770
5907	4362	3539	858
3536	68	2959	5502
573	1701	2612	3668
6086	4967	3767	5084
1250	5222	5230	66
3098	3707	51	2586
1684	6075	4376	5203
5166	2611	6097	308
1025	4003	910	2832
3414	3234	1188	3535
5048	5167	1711	3542
5712	2851	4988	4392
4325	201	5194	2960
469	4810	4453	5046
141	3658	4130	5567
2620	904	1506	1596
862	5843	857	3617
5610	703	3322	5238
2604	2405	5462	226
4956	5509	5534	1189
6013	94	3667	5710
245	1076	302	4835
4395	4409	2075	6002
4776	5661	5675	6085
3773	280	4819	5162
5217	6090	6081	5901

The first set of divisions looked decently even to me. The second one is a bit off. Divisions A and B are stronger, but if those were the divisions, I don’t think many would complain (except Jim).

In general, this exercise made me less excited about having 4 divisions. If you look at the divisions above, I feel like they’ll be similar to some districts where you’re just waiting for the one or two inevitable powerhouse alliances to duke it out. But then, #16 beat #1 last year, so who knows.

[P.J]

What I’m curious about is whether this will change the schedule at all. I know for at least the last year or two matches had to start on Thursday to fit them all in. Since there are four independent fields of 40 teams each it would theoretically mean all matches should fit on Friday/Saturday, like a normal district, leaving Thursday as a pure practice day. This may be easier on volunteers who would need to take less time off of work. But matches on Thursday would allow for longer cycle times. So I wonder which way it’ll go.

[jnicho15]

But matches on Thursday would allow for longer cycle times.

Or more matches!

[Craig_Roys]

I would think you’d want to get the 12 matches (hopefully 12) in on Thursday/Friday; leaving Saturday for playoffs. There will have to be a break between the division championships and the playoff for the state championship, and I’m sure everyone is tired of not leaving the venue before midnight…

[Tsukunea]

I’m putting my bets in for Divisions Ford, Buick, Kellogg and Wright.

[emeraldstorm]

I would think you’d want to get the 12 matches (hopefully 12) in on Thursday/Friday; leaving Saturday for playoffs. There will have to be a break between the division championships and the playoff for the state championship, and I’m sure everyone is tired of not leaving the venue before midnight…

I haven’t been to MSC of years previous, but after being completely tired out from several days of competition, sitting through hours of playoffs and awards without being involved in either was pain, especially being a driver on the way back, post-midnight, on a 2-hour trip. Not sure how Worlds compares though

[Jarren_Harkema]

If you’re asking me to analyse divisions once they’re out, to be honest I don’t really have time this year for the usual volume of posts. If you’re asking me how they’re going to sort, IDK. If you’re asking how they should sort, I’d just do it serpentine based on district points.

[snip]

The first set of divisions looked decently even to me. The second one is a bit off. Divisions A and B are stronger, but if those were the divisions, I don’t think many would complain (except Jim).

In general, this exercise made me less excited about having 4 divisions. If you look at the divisions above, I feel like they’ll be similar to some districts where you’re just waiting for the one or two inevitable powerhouse alliances to duke it out. But then, #16 beat #1 last year, so who knows.

I was referring to your excellent analysis each year, but this is also a very good consideration of the actual division split. I think the serpentine draft would work well. I look forward to any and all posts you are able to do this year!