Marcus has said he wants this to be a serious competition. If so he should at least choose real strategic templates that have been somewhat vetted by the community. As an example picking Yorkshire Brawl instead of French Brawl (even though IMO Yorkshire is an inferior template) so that things are a bit different would be the kind of thing I would support. Picking something like Mace No Split that has weird settings and while not entirely unstrategic most people have no clue what to play would be not.
Speaking of which I'll second Gak's nomination for Yorkshire:
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=23344259
Edited 7/18/2023 18:11:47