User blog:SpaceManiac888/Old vs New Audited: Discussion

Old vs New may have been the first arena tournament I took part in, but at the time of posting, has been my least favourite. Although I liked the concept, the execution did not really go to plan in my opinion. One of the main problems was the fact that the draw was randomised instead of being picked through multiple votes. This meant some extremely overpowered robots (IG-88), and extremely underpowered competitors (Wizard), got in, whereas reasonable robots like All Torque did not. Also, the fact that the final was a New vs New encounter did sour the tournament further in my eyes.

Therefore, I have decided to recreate the tournament as a blog post, whereby the ladies and gentlemen of this wiki are given the chance of picking the Old and New robots competing. Nonetheless, there are some rules and formats to discuss below.

Rules
The rules are similar to the original, with restrictions for which robots can be selected to represent each team. However, instead of the draw being random, the top sixteen picked robots from both teams are to be selected.


 * Old: Sixteen robots from Series 1-3 must be picked, with the exception of all three UK champions (Roadblock, Panic Attack and Chaos 2), and the World Champion (Razer), who are banned from this tournament.


 * New: This is where it gets a little interesting. Robots that were Heat Finalists or worse from Series 6, Extreme 2 and Series 7 are allowed, with the exception of all tournament winners, and Thor and IG-88.


 * As for robots from Series 8, Battle of the Stars and Series 9, further restrictions are to be put in place. For robots in Battle of the Stars, only those that failed to reach the Final of their respective groups can be voted in. For Series 8 and 9 competitors, only those that failed to make it pass the Group Battles are allowed. This has been done to prevent robots like PP3D from dominating the competiton.


 * For American robots, competitors from Extreme Warriors 2 and Nickelodeon, which were neither Grand Finalists nor tournament winners, can be selected. Robots that were heat finalists or worse can also be chosen from Dutch Robot Wars Series 2 too. Finally, all German Robot Wars robots, with the exception of Tsunami and Black Hole, are eligible.

Format
In the original version, the format consisted of four Old robots battling four New competitors in a one-on-one knockout tournament. The trouble with this format in my opinion is that only two Old robots reached the Heat Finals, who were Killerhurtz and Pussycat (who thankfully reached the Grand Finals!). But when you consider that Killerhurtz nearly lost to Barber-Ous 2 in the first round, and Pussycat was nearly beaten by Pinser in the heat final, this format should be changed. With the correct format, we should have at least some Old robots progressing through the heats.

Therefore, I have three suggestions as to what the format for this audited tournament can be. They include:

1: Two heats consisting of just Old robots, and two heats filled with New robots. They will be competiting against each other to determine the two best Old and New robots worthy enough to take each other on. In the Grand Finals, the two Old and two New competitors compete, guaranteeing an Old vs New Final.

2: Four heats, consisting of four Old and four New robots. The difference between this format and the original is that the four Old robots and four New will be competing against each other first, before facing the best of each team. This will guarantee four Old and four New robots will reach the Heat Final of all four heats.

3: We stick with the original format, to make it totally random.

Please vote for what format you prefer in the comments below.