«SM-masters II»

Are you sure you meant to write in this thread? In this tournament, Freshmod is only enabled by mutual agreement of the opponents.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Two-way monoliths were also only used by agreement. Although it seems to me you're just not aware of what's being discussed. There was such a feature in early mods with checking/unchecking monolith properties.
Anything that requires mutual agreement generally doesn't get played if it unilaterally worsens someone's position.

And in the context of bidding for color — what's the trouble? Well, the value of red changes, bidding for color becomes less intense, that's all. And this is precisely the balancing that Heroes so lacks.

Bidding for color (and for Castle) is the greatest sham and deception overall. Dragged into the game by swindlers and adventurers who also handle the cavalry, chasing phantom bonuses. I don't understand how the Heroes masses can be so easily fooled by such pseudo-tournament elements.
How can you bid for a pig in a poke? Do you know how much gold, resources, and objects will spawn on the respawn? What guard stacks will there be? Which heroes will appear? What will be in the guild?
Then you read in reports — oh, he got a Necro (a Necro not from the starting town is always more interesting), and this one got an external 7th-level dwelling and Dragon Fly Hives with Griffin Conservatories, while another got a bad guild. How do these major win factors influence the bidding, even by 1%?
And so, say, 5100 is too little, but 5200 is already plenty — let him take it. What for? And it turns out that a hundred matters! Balance is precisely imbalance, not trimming.
I won't delve further into this degradation (definitely not optimization), nor this balance. It's pointless to discuss anyway.