Well I also believe that there will be a stomp but who knows.
About the project. It's clear that the last pick is an issue, blind vote, why not. But I also think that (I'll be bitching a little sorry) "you got what you deserve".
And it's easy to see why. There are key moves in pokemon and people tend to forget it.
Key moves ? Yes, moves that make you less prone to be countered. I'm talking about Substitute, ThunderWave, U-Turn/Volt-Switch.. this kind of moves that can turn your "counter" into a tasty meal for your pokemon or your team.
Heatran is countered by something ? Well who can really say that he can counter safely a Heatran behind a Sub ? Who can say that he can counter a Rotom-W with Volt-Switch (well Gastrodon probably, but this is MINOR), who can say that he can come safely on a Celebi with TWave and kill it before it Baton Pass? (Or Slowbro with T-Wave..)
Just from looking some nominations, it's clear to see that they lack some versatility.. like badly.
Who cares if your pokemon walls half the opposing team when it is a set-up bait or another prey for a pokemon able to kill ALL your team on its own.
Who cares if your pokemon sweeps half the opposing team when it can be revenged or set-up bait or whatever.
You get my point I guess. Sets that are not good in the project (not versatile, can't adapt the the situation etc) or narrow minded just make the last pick so powerful. People can only blame themselves for that.
It's really not like I told about the Fire/Bug coverage against team 2. And yes, I'm gonna whine against about Skarmory, but it's just an example. You can blame Scizor, but picking a pokemon with a similar weakness to Fire was not smart either.
And it's not like I nonimated Nape just before (yes different teams etc.. well it's still the same, people could have seen it coming, especially after all my whine about Volcarona, it's just his brother with almost the same coverage that has been picked.. because yes, the coverage is THE SAME that my Volcarona's nomination).
About bandwagoning, that's just something I HATE to the utmost point. But there is sadly nothing I can do. I prefer let it the way it is. Why ? maybe after some fails, people will try to improve vote (and also because I can whine in the end like this and see who is the culprit :>).
And I'm not saying that my votes that were most of the time in minority are superior, I was probably wrong in some cases... but at least not as much as many nominations from my point of view. I also almost never saw someone posting a set and voting for someone's else set. You can't even imagine how funny I find that. Just in case people assume that I'm claiming to be right on every nomination, I did vote for myself once or twice at best.
Also, some people (lmao not me at all apparently, but I'm used to that) are impacting just too much the votes. I'm like convinced that if Mewtwo (no offense, I take an example, it's even something you could be proud of) did not push in favor of Nape in the last nomination that Raikou would have been picked. And I'm like 100% sure.
So before you tell me that you just spoke about relevant etc stuff.. It does not change the fact that if johnytheboss76 (I'm sorry if you really exist) would have said the exact same stuff instead of you.. Nape wouldn't have been picked probably.
To help this issue we can ban Mewtwo from this forum.
We can give more importance to the second pick !
The second pick ? well, the set that was the second one closest to be chosen. This way, people will get rewarded for publishing a decent set, that did not have so much success.
Like in the CCAT thread we could give points to encourage and give a chance to the people that are trying and proposing good ideas. This would increase the visibility of the project and give more chances to the guys who had less "hype". Since we can all say that the second nominations were all decent, I think we should reward the people submitting them.
Moreover, it means if you want to submit that you can win something in building a nomination even if the guy against you got a big crew supporting him. Well how many times I was totally disapointed and thought "Does it even matter, I won't be picked, I'm like wasting my time, nobody cares". Some "nice try" rewards would be beneficial to the project and encourage people as well as increasing the interest for the "nobodys" in the project.
PS : I'm thinking about creating a "RangedPikachu" account for the next CTP project, waiting the approval of the smogon's staff.
Or maybe a "The Big Powerful RangedPikachu", it seems too much, but I'll get all the votes for sure.