Here's an idea on how to combat restarts during the tournament:

A judge, who is not participating in the tournament, generates saves for most castle matchups and checks them for blocking issues and mandatory early encounters (further balancing is undesirable, in my opinion).

Consequently, the point of restarting would be eliminated because saves where everything is too difficult can simply be rejected (although this is a drawback, as skill can never be improved without occasionally getting out of a tough spot, and it often happens that when you break out of a difficult situation and find some space, you start to progress).

As an alternative, there could be several saves for each main matchup, and they would be distributed randomly.

I have some thoughts on the pros and cons of this idea (I think the cons are minor and insignificant), but I would like to hear what the community thinks.