For fun, let’s get the ball rolling this year.
Which regional is the toughest this year?
IRI.
GTR West or GTR East or Waterloo. 1114, 2056, 188, 1503, 610, 781, 1334, 1075, and 772 (lol sorry i had to put my own team 
). are some of the more competitive teams at these regionals. Not ll of those teams are at every one of those regionals though. 1114, and 2056 are at all three, and together they are almost unbeatable (even apart they are almost unbeatable).
IRI.
Well yea… but if we’re are gonna say IRI, then championships will be one of the most competitive too 
Question is, which championship? I vote for MSC.
Even though it’s not technically a regional, MSC is always awesome.
IRI blows the championship away. Only MSC can match what IRI brings to the table and they may fall just a little short.
We’ll see what MAR Championship can do. They’ll probably end up somewhere around #3 or #4 on the toughness list. IRI, MSC, Championship (all divisions inclusive) is how it’s gone the last few years.
However, the toughest regional you need to worry about is always the one you’re competing in.
I think that peachtree this year will be a clash of the titans
MSC is always a good one. Last year for Logomotion it wasn’t overly exciting, but all of you who watches the finals for Breakaway at MSC know what it can entail. 217, 67, and 2612 vs 1918, 469, and 2834. You have 3 world champions (2 of them being multiple-winning world champions) and 5 matches of heart stopping action. That’s right, 5 matches, all thanks to HOT hanging after the buzzer in the first match and not being able to do so in the rest of the matches for the win. To this day, it is my favorite match I have ever seen in FIRST history…closely followed by watching 71 Hammond crawl it’s way to victory.
Midwest will be a good one with 111, 16, 148, 1625
Central Valley Regional is going to be a huge battle of the west coast powerhouses:
254, 330, 368, 973, and 1717 are in attendance, representing some of the best, most consistent teams in California (and Hawaii). That also includes 2/3 of the defending World Champions.
980, 1323, 1388 and 1622 will also be coming to play, and are always solid performers.
Oh yeah, it’s also the second event for every one of those teams. It may not be MSC, but I’ll venture to say it will be the most competitive west coast regional this year, and maybe even the most competitive regional (State Champs are excluded from that category, IMO). I think it will definitely be in the top 10 most competitive official events this year, too (including State Champs and World Champs).
Toughest NEW regional will be Central Valley. 254, 1717, 973, 968 (I think), 330, 971, 368, and a bunch of others!
*To all of those teams, 256 would LOVE to alliance with you.
I think one day the chmpionship will be the toughest event around (even tougher than MSC) once FIRST completely converts to the District models (gripe about it all you want this is the future of FIRST and it’s the right thing to do) teams that are more competition ready will be at teh championship to do battle.
As for non district regionals my top three are:
- Connecticut Regional - There is is some seriously sick depth at this regional.
- Queen City Regional - Every year there is a brand new regional that gets blessed with big name teams showing up to coronate it with their presence and this one is it.
- Central Valley Regional - Another new regional getting the royal treatment with some heavy hitters on the West coast (and TKM from Hawaii) at the expense of Las Vegas which is usually the most powerful regional due to the presence of these teams. Two and three can easily be interchanged and I wouldn’t argue.
Honorable mentions: Chesapeake. Midwest.
Midwest is always up there. There’s a pretty good list of teams usually. 16, 111, 1625, 71, and 148 this year. That should be quite a show.
I recall going last year, and the team list was about the same: 16, 45, 111, 118, 1625. Plus a show from Dean Kamen, and that’s a regional I’ll never forget.
With CVR, California is trying out a new regional model, though not too much info has been given out on it yet (RC, any cool stuff you wanna share with us?). However, Jim Beck, CA regional director, told us that California will be trying out a district model in the near future. Anywhere from 2013, to 2017.
I for one welcome our new district model regionals.
It’s easy to name the top 3 teams at a regional and cite it as the toughest regional, but I think the depth of a regional is equally important. Midwest was mentioned a couple of times in this thread. While it probably has the biggest group of elite teams at the top each year (16, 71, 111, 1625, featuring appearences within the past 3 years by 1114, 217, 118, 148), its been extremely shallow the last two years to the point where the top 3 seeds almost have first round byes.
Wisconsin and Midwest both the same week has really hurt Midwest’s already lacking depth. 148 is a new addition but 45, 118, 1675, 1732, 2041, and 2826 won’t be there this year.
CT will be a brawl this year. 39 of the 62 teams have been around since 2006. Say what you will about the game similarities, the fact remains that over 60% of the regional attendees have a LOT of experience, and that’s before you even consider the impressive list of perennial powerhouses in attendance. 118’s even making the trek out from Texas to throw their name in the pool.
This. Every year, there’s some really intense competition (and 1124 has won it 4 out of the last 6 years). It’s also very veteran laden - about 75% of teams attending have a team number under 3000.
Waterloo, CVR, MSC and MAR Championships.
IRI is in a league of it’s own.
-Nick
Midwest has been hurt the past few years by having either Wisconsin or Boilermaker or both on the same week and drawing away good teams from them. That’s why this year Midwet is actually Queen City because alot of those teams are going there all at once instead.