Alliance selection- Seed says no for an invitation?

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion VRC > Starstruck (16/17)
1

Hi everyone, seems the alliance selection process is still a myth and there are so many different situations. I have a specific question about teams who said no to an invitation.

We have just hosted the game last Saturday and it was a bit chaotic during the Alliance Selection process. It would be great to have a special session for event partner for this process.

According to the game manual “If a team declines an invitation, they CANNOT be invited into another alliance, but are
still available to select their own alliance if the opportunity arises.”

Does this rule applies to the seed team?

Situation 1
Top team invited the 3rd team, 3rd team can say no. Does it mean that
Q1 3rd team cannot be picked by 2nd team?
Q2 3rd team will still be able to select another team when it comes to their turn.

Situation 2
A team refused to choose an alliance.
Q3. Do they have the right to do it?

Situation 3
Top team invited all the teams and they all turned down the invite
Q4. Will they be the an alliance with only 1 team?
Q5. Can team ranked at 2nd position still choose any other team?

Reference


 Every team will choose a student to act as a Team Representative.
o These student representatives will proceed to the playing field at the designated time to
represent their teams in the Alliance Selection.
 There will be eight alliances formed in the Alliance Selection.
 In order of tournament ranking, the Team Representative of the highest ranked team not
already in an alliance will be asked to step forward as an Alliance Captain to invite another
available team to join their alliance.
 A team is available if they are not already part of an alliance, or have not already declined an
alliance invitation.
o If the team accepts, it is moved into that alliance.
o If a team declines an invitation, they CANNOT be invited into another alliance, but are
still available to select their own alliance if the opportunity arises.
o If a team declines, the Alliance Captain from the inviting team must then extend another
invitation.
 This process will continue until all eight Alliance Captains have been designated and chosen
one alliance partner.
 The same method is used for each Alliance Captain's second choice. Teams will select
in the same order they did in the first round. Any teams remaining after alliance eight
makes their second choice will not compete in the Elimination Matches.
 Some smaller events may choose to use a different alliance format to better suit the number of
teams, please see the event modification section of this document for more details.
2

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “the seed team,” but that rule applies to all teams.

Q1: Yes.
Q2: Yes.

Q3: If a team refuses to invite a team to its alliance, then the only option would be for that team to be disqualified from the event.

Q4: Yes.
Q5: No, the top 8 teams would compete in an elimination bracket as single-team alliances (1v1 matches).

DISCLAIMER: My answers to Q3-5 are simply my interpretations of the rules. For an official response, please create a thread in the Official Starstruck Q&A.

3

On Q1 and Q2 there is no need for a Q&A. That is standard practice and covered in the rules, exactly as you say. The only thing I’d add is that the #9 seeded alliance may choose, at their own risk, to decline an invitation from a higher seeded team during the first round of alliance selection, in the hope that a seeded team will partner with another seeded team, making them the #8 seed. I haven’t seen a team do this, but it is not irrational, if the #9 seed has an unusually burning urge to captain an alliance, or perhaps advance knowledge of a partnership between higher seeded alliances. The downside for the #9 seed is that in the event they do not move up into one of the top 8 positions… no one can invite them into an alliance once they have said “No”.

For Q3, I agree. In declining to form an alliance, they are choosing to not take part in the finals. This would be a reasonable course of action if, for instance, a team’s robot had been irreversibly damaged in their final qualifying match. Normally a top seed would indicate this choice prior to alliance selections, they would not be disqualified (ie, they would still be eligible for awards) and it would be regarded as a responsible, if regrettable, decision. Per the question, however, in agreeing to take part in the alliance selection process, then refusing to form an alliance, this would be a violation of the tournament rules, an example of poor sportsmanship, and justification for disqualification. This would cause all the other alliances to move up one seed, per standard practice.

Whether the initial requests of the #1 seed would be erased from the record when they decline to form an alliance after making those requests is a good Q&A question. In the absence of such guidance I would tend to say “Yes”, and restart the alliance selection process with the new top seed.

for Q4 and Q5, however I’d suggest a different solution. There is clearly a problem if the event unfolds this way. Either the top seeded team is so disgustingly unpalatable that all the teams have chosen to boycott them (an unusual decision as they were clearly willing to partner with them in qualifying rounds) or the rules have been grossly misunderstood. In this case, I’d stop the alliance selection process, clarify the rules and process, ask teams to discuss their decisions and course of action with their adult coaches, and then restart the process.

If it happened again, I’d pack up the event early and go home. There are clearly bigger problems at work and those problems have not been contemplated by the rules. It would be a pretty hypothetical situation to put to Q&A… you may as well ask “How do we proceed with the tournament in the event of Alien Abduction of the Red Alliance in a Semi-Final match, when the match is tied 1-1?”

4

So sorry to hear you had a difficult alliance selection. There is an event partner forum. You can ask your RECF Regional Manager to add you to it. I know that other EPs would want to hear about the situation and some may have had the same experience and specific solutions for future events.

5

This all makes sense to me. However, in the case where a team refused to pick alliance partners, I think it makes sense to make them an alliance of one. They’d play the first and second rounds but if it went to a third, they’d have to sit it out.

However, I have to agree that if this scenario unfolds, there is some serious drama going on and the responsible adults (coachs and event hosts) must take action. This is just poor sportsmanship all around.

Another question, can teams just be assigned to alliances if a team refuses to select?

6

If a team that will not be an alliance captain will not be allowed to be picked so all teams past 8 would essentially opt out of the rest of the competition. I doubt that would happen, but in the very odd case it did, then all the rest of the teams would have elected not to go on. So what you have left with are 1 team alliances for just the 8 team captains. In a 24+ team tournament that would be a lot of opting out. I would imagine some team down low in the rankings would figure this would be a clear path to state championships and hop on to the chance. Otherwise they go home.

Was this your tournament? No match result updates have been exposed as of yet. Awards are present to see what happened.
https://www.robotevents.com/robot-competitions/vex-robotics-competition/RE-VRC-16-4844.html

Are the state qualifying spots correct? A 50 team event only gets four states spots for 3*TC and Excellence into VA states? No design award or (now combined) skills winner? Wow that is tough. There must be a boatload of events in VA or a really small VA state tournament. Or they under-weighted such an early event on purpose to give later events a chance.

7

I’m in Virginia and only went for part of the tournament you are referring to (Giraffe). The tournament only had about 39 teams. They took some teams off the wait list but didn’t remove teams that had dropped out (my team was listed - but we had dropped out weeks ago) so it was showing 50 teams even though the intent was never to have 50 teams compete.

The qualifying criteria in Virginia has not been posted yet - so more teams may qualify for states.

However, I don’t think the OP is referring to a tournament in VA. That tournament had predictable alliance selections (I wasn’t there for alliance selection or the finals - but the top alliance had three teams from one school, in the finals they went against an alliance that consisted of two teams from the same program). This leads me to believe that the alliance selection was fairly smooth. But I look forward to the OP clarifying what tournament he attended and where it was.

Edited: Plus there were some very experienced and professional coaches at that tournament that could have handled the situation described.

8

My bad, I thought it was your tournament @Gear Geeks Too little sleep after watching football last night. I apologize! Still a 39 team tourney getting three spots is small.

@hamletbon how big was this tournament?

9

I am also in Virginia. I was not at the tournament on Saturday and was surprised by only 4 spots for states. States has a 48 team capacity and it will not be filled up especially since it looks like there will be only 4 spots per tourney. In all past years they have filled the remaining spots using skills scores. I assume they will do the same this year

10

Hi everyone, thank you so much for the input and it is much clearer now. The event is was held in Hong Kong and it was my first time running it, we only had 20 teams which was a small tournament.

To further clarify the situation, I’d like to point out what happened.

#1 selected #2 which was accepted
#3 (a team with very young and new members to the game) selected #4, #4 refused and so does #5-#10
#11 accepted the challenge.

So the question now is
#4 tried to invite #5, but since #5-#10 refused the invitation before, they won’t be able to be invited, is that correct?

Thanks,
Hamlet

11

Is it a special forum in the vexforum or it is a separate site? I will definitely contact the RECF Regional Manager.

12

#5 is ineligible to be selected as part of an alliance. They can still be an alliance captain.

13

Special forum in vexforum restricted to event partners.

14

Teams 1&2 formed alliance 1, so you have 7 more captains to fill starting with the third seeded team. That means up to number 9 seed can be and would be a captain if they decline seed 3. These 4-9 seeds are not able to pick robots seeded 5-9 as their partners because they declined seed 3. They need to know this before they decline.

Team seed 10 is the problem (and any team lower seed). If they decline, they are out of the tournament as they can not become a captain.

You would want the emcee will say this to the next choosing team that if they decline they will have to be a captain and not be on a team with the previous teams that did a decline.

Page 19 of the Starstruck manual is the key page to read.

15

Thanks, I’ve also moved this to the official Q&A forum.
[https://vexforum.com/t/answered-alliance-selection-seed-says-no-for-an-invitation/37145/1)

16

There is only one extreme situation that would need clarification. What happens if all the teams declined an invite from the top ranked team? Would it result in alliances with only one teams? Or do you rerun the alliance selection and clue the teams into the consequences.

Personally, I’d hate to run into such a situation as it would mean there is a lot of negativity and the declines are in protest to perceived injustice in the tournament. A lot to unravel.

17

I had this same question last year, but got trounced on by asking it. At a tournament there were about 24 teams. The first team was really cocky and arrogant. Every team refused from #2 till #22 or so. The #8 team ducked behind the #7 to not be seen and was over looked. So #22 or so from his own school grudgingly accepted. The number 2 team picked #8 who ducked into hiding. Then it got really interesting. Basically #3 had to pick #23 and then #4 picked #24. I was not hosting the tournament, but was standing back in shock. What do you do? The rest could not pick anyone because there was nothing left to pick. Basically the person running it started over at that point by talking to them and let #5 start picking fresh. I know it sounds far fetched, but it happened.
What do you do when the above happens?
What would you do when it is #5’s turn and there is nobody left to pick?

18

Every team that refused that wasn’t in a position to be an alliance captain eliminated themselves from the Elimination round. If I was the event partner, I would stop the selection at that point and discuss with all of the teams the consequences of their choices. I would give them 5-10 minutes to discuss their strategy and start alliance selection from the top. If I got a repeat of the same thing, I would end the event, declare the #1, #2 and #3 seeds as tournament champions. Hand out awards and send them home. I would then e-mail all of the mentors/coaches and let them know that I was extremely disappointed in the behavior shown by their teams. Luckily, I really can’t imagine that scenario ever happening here in Wisconsin.

19

Agreed - it shows lack of sportsmanship all around. However, If it was a qualifying event, I would not give Tournament Champions out.

I would also be calling the RECF Regional Manager once the alliance selection went south.

20

@n5vei I would hope the event organizers would explain this as the teams declined. They let it be known that they must be a captain and can no longer be picked. So any plans they may have had with another team goes up in smoke.

Beyond the point of captains it needs to be very clear that if they decline they are opting out of the rest of the tournament. If they continue, then it is what it is. Everyone had the facts on what is happening and the implications of their decisions. Fill in what you could at that point since you explained it “be picked or go home”