*) The set has easier bonuses this year. Last year, 5 teams that missed the playoffs had PPB of 20 or more points (the highest, Quest Academy, had 21.23 PPB). This year, that number has swelled to 17 (the highest, Hyde Park, had 22.47). Over the entire preliminary round, the PPB average went from 17.72 to 18.93, and when limited to teams that made the playoffs, the average went from 20.49 to 21.67.
When I dialed it back to 2013, the preliminaries has total PPB of 18.07 while playoff teams had 21.49.... also, there were 5 teams that missed the playoffs with PPB of 20 or more, but the field only had 96 teams that year.
*) The set has easier toss-ups. While following the liveblog, I saw numerous reports of things such as ,"Four-word power for Miami Valley", "Buzzer race on a first line lit stock clue that Robert wins." "Ridiculous YA lit power by Miami Valley", "Five words into a bio tossup, and Smith powers.", "Sick first line by William on Miami Valley", "Churchill 3-word's physics; what an incredible buzz." "Sick 5-word lit buzz by Midtown" "Incredible 3-word power for Robert" and I could go on, but you get the point. Statistically, the 58 teams that qualified for the playoffs this year heard 246 more toss-ups and scored 120 more powers than in 2016 (10 fewer ten-pointers, 22 more negs; entirely attributable to the return of Barrington to the field,

Also, teams that made the playoffs heard, on average, 23.52 toss-ups this year, compared to 22.99 last year. Make of that what you will, but I'd argue that readers can only read so fast, and if questions are getting answered faster, that means answers are coming earlier than they did last year. In 2013, the number was 22.77 questions per round with ZERO teams hearing 24 in all eight rounds, contrasted against 7 such teams this year, and 5 last year.
*) MSNCT players who participated in SSNCT gained a clear advantage over the field. I'm not reading this set, nor did I staff SSNCT. I only base this comment on on Ryan Rosenberg, a live blogger for NAQT, posting "A consistent them of #MSNCT is that the best teams will have played high school tournaments -- MP's #SSNCT experience was a huge help." where MP referenced Mounds Park. But this is troubling to me because our school is a member of a statewide organization that proscribes the participation of middle schoolers in competitions with or against high schoolers. The rule is likely an artifact of athletic rules, but I don't see an exception getting carved out. So, while we can play 1 or 2 tourneys on an A set each year, there was no way my players were going to get invited to SSNCT, let alone play it. The same could be argued about teams going to play HSNCT, but that tournament happens AFTER MSNCT, and no one is going to argue a MS team got an advantage over a HS team by playing MSNCT a few weeks earlier.
*) The teams attending the MSNCT have evolved into increasingly better teams. Having been unable to attend the last three MSNCTs, I can only base my judgement on how we did in 2011-2013 vs. today. I feel my team has far better balance than my 2013 team, and could quite possibly be better than them. But it's pretty clear the 2017 incarnation of Barrington Station is going to have a HARD time duplicating the 2013 team's feat. There are EIGHT teams that averaged >400 per20TUH, compared to just Station, Kealing, and St. John's in 2013.