Are you a fan of BYOTT? You shouldn't be.

With the latest marquee event announced as being Bring Your Own Two Teams, I am deeply saddened. If you've been following the Summer of Love, you might be in the same boat as me on this.
Just so we're all on the same page, here's the rules for BYOTT:
1. Players choose two teams for their deck and they are automatically crossed-over
1a. No team-ups needed to cross over the chosen teams
2. Players may only play with characters from, or cards that reference, one or both of those teams.
3. They may not play with "generic" cards.

.... so what is so bad? Other than the "generics aren't allowed" rule, this format is completely abuse-able. While surfing around on vsrealms.com, I came across lordoflimbo's X-Men/Pro-Registration deck.
....
No offense to LoL, great deck and all, I just don't think it fits with the flavor of the format. Pro Registration? seriously? Now, let's look at a REAL team-up format:

BYOTU (Bring Your Own Team-Up)
courtesy of Lost Hemisphere
0. Name two teams
1. Each team must have no less than 15 cards stamped to that affiliation in the deck 2. No more than 20 cards in the deck can be generica - ie, stamped to no team at all 3. No cards stamped to any other affiliation are permitted. 4. No Mobilize, no Enemy of my Enemy. 5. Cards stamped to a character (ie Legend cards) do not count towards the 15 card minumums, but neither do they count towards the 20 card maximum allowed generica 6. Cards that target resources cannot target a team-up if it’s the last team-up that player controls.

The biggest thing here, imo, is that this format forces representation from both teams. Let's take a look at Warp Factor 9, Speedforce/Heralds of Galactus:
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By TheDerrangedBear
Characters (32)
1-drops
3x Jaime Reyes
1x Galan

2-drops
4x Silver Surfer, Skyrider of Spaceways

3-drops
4x XS, Super Fast
2x Air-Walker, Gabriel Lan

4-drops
4x Barry Allen ~ The Flash, Crimson Tornado
1x Human Torch, the Invisible Man

5-drops
4x Wally West ~ The Flash, The Fastest Man Alive
1x Wally West ~ The Flash, Keystone Cop
1x Frankie Raye ~ Nova, Harbinger of Death

6-drops
2x Barry Allen ~ The Flash, Founding Member
1x Terrax, Harbinger of Ruin
1x Destroyer

7-drops
1x Silver Surfer, the Last Zenn-lavian

9-drops
1x Galactus, Devourer of Worlds

10-drops
1x Beyonder, Inhuman

Plot Twists (15)
4x Cannibal Tech
4x Kindred Spirits
3x Full Throttle
2x Omnipotence
1x I Hunger
1x Inspiring Demise

Locations (5)
3x Dr Fate's Tower
1x Alias Investigations
1x Elemental Converters

Equipment (8)
2x Light Armor
2x Silver Surfer's Board
2x Helm of Nabu
1x Amulet of Nabu
1x Cloak of Nabu
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I picked this list for a few reasons:
- represents both teams on the curve
- the strengths of the teams are fit together cohesively (Wally West + Air Walker for example)
- the generics*

* The fateatron might be getting old for a bunch of you, and that's fine. I think the way Surfer's Board, Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways and how Alias Investigations work together is a great example of how generics could enhance a theme; The Heralds have great search power with Creation of a Herald to begin with, and having this little engine seems to fit (even if CoaH isn't in the list).

I fell this list has both what I'd want to see from generics and what I wouldn't.

Now here are my predictions for BYOTT:
- There will be no rush decks
While some may try to make the decktype work, not having access to: Blinding Rage, Savage Beatdown, Flying Kick, Crackshot, the fatatron, devastating blow, Stryker's Island and even Big Leagues,
would make things harder. That said, brotherhood should still do well and so should any other team with access to on-team pumps. Erick might sit this one out since MKKO is a very different deck without their generic pumps.
- Gotham Knights and other teams with negation are going to do very well. I think Cliff's and others' GK/JLA decks will do very good. Money.dec saw play at worlds, and they only get better here without as much of a threat from rush decks.
- I'd expect a Heralds/Inhumans or SF/Heralds revival. I think they're the most viable stall decks in the format; Doom is nothing without his mystical paralysis.

That's it for now. If you'd like to defend the BYOTT format, go for it. Please do. Discussion is good, and if I'm missing something, I'd like to hear it. Later gang.
- OSM