Pre-drop phase: The variants are displayed in a mech-bay type thing, showing the loadout and modules for each. After a reasonable time for looking at the loadouts (30 seconds or so), a 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-1 draft follows (Team A picks first, then Team B picks twice, and so on).
Drop then proceeds as normal.
Now instead of incentivizing building the biggest, cheesiest mech possible, players will endeavor to build mechs they and their teammates are adept at piloting but their enemies are not.
High skill pilots will have an advantage in the pick phase.
For example, if you are almost as good with a large laser stalker as you are with a PPC stalker, putting the LL stalker in the pool will be more beneficial to your team than the PPC stalker, since in your hands it would be a beast and in the other team's less skilled hands it would be a dud.
If you are great at piloting medium strikers, you could put a hunchback in the pool, knowing that if the enemy gets it instead you aren't risking that much (unless they too are an expert in the hit and fade strategy).
Edit: spelling is hard
Edited by HansBlix WMD, 08 July 2013 - 03:36 PM.