It was not really mentioned in the S&F so far, but I really feel the need to mention that I find an auction like last time to be something we do not want to repeat. The gradual increase in bid increment was good, especially for generals that cannot be online exactly around the increment time. It also removed the need for something silly like battle bids. But the amount of players versus the amount of players getting on teams is not something that works well for auctions, causing prices to skyrocket.
The auction had 37 players signing up, of which more than 2 were inactive. This caused team Aether to have to buy an inactive player for a large sum of points, I mean, what the hell?
I suggest that if we really want to keep the auction, that the amount of players per team is no longer set in stone in the rules. Instead, it depends on the amount of players signing up, up to a maximum of 6 players per team, including general.
On top of that, to keep an auction balanced, the amount of players making it into war would have to be at least 10% less than the total amount of people signing up. I can understand that, especially with the number of people signing up last war, excluding 14 out of 38 players is not a good thing, either.
So an alternative is to not have an auction, but another method of assembling teams. Having a draft, it is more acceptable to have a number of signups close to the total number of players.
Another alternative that comes to mind is even more daring, allowing teams to not fill all player spots on purpose. They would still get as many matches as any other team, but would always be played by another member on the team. This means less people to collaborate with, but in case of team Aether last war: that last inactive was nothing but a drain on our vault. Low value players will again be low value in auction and become a part of a team that actually wants them, instead of forced into a team that happened to have a spot left.