Thanks for the great settings of KotD, we had the chance to see a variety of combats between different civs. However, correct me if I am wrong, civs like khmers or koreans were still less picked in the match. Due to this setting, players are less motivated to explore 1v1 strategies with these *3rd tier* civs, which makes them more underrepresented in game. To address this deteriorating situation, I think we could enforce in the next tournament that in a Bo5 match a player picks 4 civs for himself (according to some conventional civ picking/banning rules), and then pick 1 civ for his opponent, who has to use this civ in the first 3 games (so that it won't be skipped in a Bo5 under any circumstances). In a Bo7 a player picks 2 civs for his/her opponent and in Bo9 three civs will be picked for one's opponent. This will reward the player that spends more time in exploring new strategies with these less ideal civs, and we will see a better diversity of civs in the tournament.
Maybe someday we will find OP strategies from these "worse" civs and categorize them as top civs again. :D
