I was told to post here despite the fact that this is a commencement thread. I strongly suggest rands auth open threads for format discussion on team tours. tagging rands people for visibility
Irpachuza sharpclaw livid washed eva and I hope more see this.
managing/playing in WCOR and RBTT, I have some suggestions that I think would make both tours better. I think RBTT and WCOR would benefit from the general model SPL/WCoP have. I think their roles should essentially switch; WCOR should focus on CG/gen8/gen7 in order to help smaller regions field their squads and be more equitable. On the other hand, I think RBTT should focus on the fact that it's a draft and the most important rands tour of the year. As such, it should strive to foster the most competitive playing field possible.
RBTT: 14/16 slots
gen 9x3
gens 1-8x1
other gen 9 metas (doubles, hc, factory, etc)x3 or 5
The main difference is that this would eliminate mb and bring all of the non-random battles formats to gen 9. While I think RBTT is a very competitive and strong tour, I think this would strengthen it even more. Having a variable slot each week makes drafting less informed and playing less consistent. Losing a week because the specific mb format that week was disadvantageous isn't the best competitive feeling in my opinion. Moreover, it makes sense to include gen 2 in RBTT rather than WCOR when you can
specifically draft for it. This year, mb has 3 formats that aren't represented by a cg counterpart: pick 6, gen 2, and monotype. I think it would make more sense to just add these and eliminate the repetition of something like gen9hc and gen8hc or gen7bf and gen8bf. While i understand gen7bf may be completely different than gen8bf and equally competetive, repeated representation across gens does not seems like a good/consistent tournament philosophy. If bf is that popular, add two gen8bfs to the tour, not a gen7 version thrown into the mb format. Overall, i think this would make RBTT more competetive.
However I don't hate the voting/variable aspect of mb inherently. I think it or something similar would make more sense in WCOR, which can focus and lean more into recents gens. I think its not wise to think all regions can equally field a strong gen 2/3/4 etc player. im not recommending the removal of all classic gens from WCOR, but maybe a condensed approach like a classic bo5 or including them/some in their own mb. That way we
can add all these mb-voted tiers each year, like gen 7 bssf and more. IMO, its much more reasonable to ask a small WCOR region to supply cg or recent gen players.
I definitely don't think this is the only way to go about this for next year, and I also recognize this is the week of finals lol. I just think the way these two tours are is a little bit opposite, and they should take aspects from each other to make both of them fit nicer into their respective places. It would be cool to hear others' suggestions too.