Ran through a couple dozen battles on a couple accounts. The order of battles revealed appeared to be static from player to player. According to the first post, the battles are random. The only way to reconcile both being true is to think of each battle as a card within a deck, having one deck shuffled and that order copied to every single player. The first five battles are the same for everyone, and every battle revealed was the same “next card” *regardless of which one was selected. My battles with Glitterclaw were extremely frontloaded compared to Tinseltail in both instances, and I got the same reveal order even if I intentionally chose not the highest rarity option currently available. (It is possible this is another mistake and it was never actually “random”, but the pattern the battles are revealed in makes it highly unlikely a person chose to have them reveal in this order, it more or less followed the median point gain that a random distribution would have once we hit a certain number of battles, and I doubt effort would have been put into actually selecting a set order to mimic randomness when just using random picks would work fine)
Basically, all “randomness” was resolved before the event even started and that same order is used by everyone. I mean, this is certainly better than having any kind of score influencing randomness, but it also means that none of the choices were relevant. If its going to be a set order, why not be… a set order, with a predictable pattern? Why use RNG to determine the order of battles at all?
I am in no way saying that Council of Chiefs shotgun RNG all over the place is better, just that you don’t have to use RNG to make the battle selection process relevant. In fact, it is preferred if you don’t use RNG, especially not any in the way that would influence scoring. For example, have multiple low rarity battles with different types of troop from different pools, instead of one low rarity battle that pulls from a small troop pool for very static variants of that one battle. Instead of giving out a “random” battle no matter which one you clear, the one you defeat reveals a higher rarity and higher scoring version of the same battle (with a stronger main troop, talent, etc) up on rarities to form a series, and then when a series is cleared, goes back to the low rarity version for another round of selection and advances the level. Different paths have different opponents to fight, possibly even different amounts of battles, but all paths would resolve into the same score over x number of battles, and thus work way closer to how the system was said it was going to work when it was first talked about - you can take the path you want and have a different experience, but your score over time would be the same.
All this considered, having the choice of battle being nearly completely irrelevant and everybody gets the same battles and score potential (this one) is still infinitely better than having the choice of battle being actually completely irrelevant (cause RNG both on the battle offers and score) and drastically influencing score potential (Council). If you can’t pull off having relevant battle selection without randomizing potential score, please just use the Festival of the Sun method. Not having relevant battle selection disappoints me because it is wasted potential, but not being able to estimate my buy in or have a semi-consistent score for a certain buy in actively irritate me and drive me away from engaging in the event altogether.