The overall Balance of the Game is actually quite good.
The new Civs always need some time to be figured out, so I’m confident they will get there soon.
Only a few civs are overrepresented - interestingly mostly actually in pro Tournaments, some depending on certain map types they excel in:
Romans
Dravidians
Wei
Portuguese
Vikings
Vietnamese
Burgundians
Armenians
Malay
Koreans
Persians
It’s actually a comparably long list when I look at that. But it means that a lot of other “classic” civs are rarely seen. This is unfortunate.
Coming back to the idea of this topic - a pro council would almost completely ignore that. Pros actually like to pick some few civs over and over again as long as there is no single one outstandingly broken. And even then - example is Romans - if the civ has like no special broken military tool they just ignore it being so strong. In the current state of these civs being most of the time just OP economicallywise a Pro council would just ignore that and the state would be maintained.
But I think it would greatly benefit the enjoyment of pro tournaments if civs that aren’t carried by their super ecos could compete there and see more play. Including and explicitely referring to the “classic” civs like Franks and Britons.
Though I would like if there was like a pro board that was VISIBLE for everyone where pros could give their input (no feedback from the devs). So everybody could see what pros input is.
PS: In general we’re taling “Balance” these days, but most of the time what we mean is actually “development direction” cause the Balance is actually very good.