>>43027056So here's a fun anecdote about team preview. Back in 2010 VGC (last year of 4th gen) there was no team preview. The way the match ran back then was kind of a "continuous flow" system. There's be a section of the room for 0 wins, a section for 1 win, 2 wins, etc. You would go to your section and get paired up with someone else free. The winner would then go to the next section, the loser was completely out. This was best of 1, no losers bracket. Obviously the stakes were high. My friend lost in the 4 wins bracket to a guy who, after winning in the 3 wins bracket walked around and looked at everyone's screen so he could take notes of what their teams were. Then, once he saw he was going against my friend, he counter picked him. At the time my friend didn't know why someone was looking over his back, and it wasn't until he fought the guy and said "what a weird set of Pokemon to lead with; it's almost like he knew what my team was" that he realized what had happened. A lack of team preview encourages cheating as trace amounts of information gathering becomes invaluable. Team preview basically formalizes the information gathering game into an official part of the format so that the same set of rules apply to everyone.
