I think the bracket did its job pretty well last year since I had the prior year’s popularity numbers to work with. The popular ones got to the finals, as they should, but it got progressively harder for them to stay in. At least half the bracket was competitive to the point if any of the top 50% had won, nobody would be too upset about it. Here’s the bracket and score comparison post for reference. Even some of the newer ones that did poorly have been becoming more popular this year like Philippine/Indian Scops and Mottled Wood Owl.

Also Snowy frustration is as high as Burrow Owl frustration. Snowy is one I thought would dominate both times, and it did soooo well, but then you get people coming out like, nah, he gets enough attention as it is, so you get that spoiler effect which is exciting to see. Kicking someone out from the start would kill initial excitement IMO. If you’re a die hard for someone like WFS and it has zero chance of winning, I can see you not participating, but if you get invested, even if it gets bumped, you still want to see the one who knocked it out get taken down.

I don’t think I have any planned tweaks from last year at this moment, as I thought last year went near perfect, but I’m always thinking about it.