You make a good point Steven, if there is no split by mode in the challenge and hence activators are purely looking for the maximum number of contacts with unique (new) stations from as many summits they can activate as possible through the year, whichever mode has the most activity (i.e. the maximum number of different stations to be contacted by the activator - not necessarily SOTA chasers) is going to score best in the challenge simply based on activity levels.
There is the possibility to run FT8 from Smartphones these days, so taking a laptop out to the summit is no longer required but I like you, prefer to operate SSB rather than FT8. Others prefer CW and there may be at times more CW ops on the bands than SSB, at the moment there is FT8 activity when there is nothing else on the bands, so I would be surprised if the top-scoring activators in the challenge were not using mainly digital modes such as FT8.
Looking at the chaser side of the challenge it’s different as only SOTA activators can be worked for points, not just any station as is the case for activators. In this case if there are activators not running FT8, other modes may have a better chance of coming out ahead.
It is going to be interesting to see the data at the end of the challenge.
73 Ed.