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Official Q&A: VEX V5 Robotics Competition 2025-2026: Push Back
2901: 4 teams tournament and alliance selection
<T16>In a situation where a tournament only has 4 teams, and the rankings after qualification are: Team 1, Team 2, Team 3, and Team 4 — if Team 2 and Team 3 both reject an invitation from Team 1, what happens next? Suppose Team 4 accepts Team 1’s invitation. Since Team 2 cannot invite Team 3 (because Team 3 already declined an invitation), what happens to Team 2 in this case?
Rule T16 says that the tournament should continue by removing that alliance, but in this case, there would be no other alliances left to compete in the finals. What should happen in that situation?
Hello, Team 4205A, and thanks for your question.
We'll start by pointing out that the RECF Qualifying Criteria requires that an official V5RC event has at least 16 Teams. A 4-Team event should never happen, but we'll play along and help you prepare for an event where all but 4 Teams are unavailable or ineligible for Alliance selection (maybe they left early, got event DQs, or just didn't send representatives).
Per rule <T14>, the # of Elimination Alliances when there are fewer than 16 teams is the # of Teams divided by 2. If there are only 4 eligible teams, that means you'll have 2 Alliances.
If seeds 2 & 3 both decline invitations from seed 1, per <T16> neither of them is eligible to be invited to join another Alliance. When it's seed 2's and then seed 3's turn to select an Alliance Partner, there will be no eligible Teams to select.
Because seeds 2 & 3 cannot accept invitations, they cannot form an Alliance for Eliminations. As described in the note at the end of <T16>, "Note: Alliances must have two Teams, and there are no “do-overs” during Alliance Selection. If enough Teams decline their invitations such that the full number of Alliances cannot be filled, the event will proceed with a reduced number of Alliances."
Because there is only 1 Alliance for Eliminations, they have no opponent and are by default the Tournament Champions.