Timeline of Volume 6: The extent MITD has disrupted Team Evil to date.

[Seward]

I like the theory that they brute forced the early runs and then shook down as a team and were able to do more doors in one night without depleting Redcloak so quickly.

The limiting factor in the first run was his ability to heal them. High level parties that use tactics tend to win without taking much damage, as they burn down the opposition before they can effectively fight back. Then your limiting factor tends to be more your buff durations and how much your offense depends on spells rather than melee/archer type actions.

Losing track of how many doors you've done per night seems a bit odd, but I guess once you are up to 4-5, thinking you were just in a fog of fatigue when you did door 6 on a prior night seems plausible if an objective count shows that you must have done more than you thought, as it would seem even more implausible that you'd think you did only 1 door when you actually did 2.

[Seward]

If they reach the last door and haven't stumbled across the right one (which seems likely, going by just how many MitD is falsely marking), they'll be forced to start all over again. This is absolutely hindering

Well from a probability standpoint, any door you've already cleared has been proven to not have the gate, improving the odds that the next door you pick might be the right one.

It is a "pull from sample bag" selection not "return to bag" selection. MitD is hiding some of the samples so they never get drawn, and each door he crosses out improves the odds that one of those will be the key one that has the gate in it.

Obviously his chance of making them start over depends on how many fake doors he marks vs doors opened, but at least he can eliminate all cleared dungeon doors from his potential extra Xs.

The longer they go without finding the gate, the higher the chance that the true door is in the MitD bucket, not the unopened door bucket.

Plus remember that in this universe probability will always service drama like a 3 dollar whore. Before the MitD got involved the only chance for Drama was to have the OOTS arrive before the right door got opened. Now it has two options...that one or that the door is already marked.

I like the odds that Drama will prevent anything as boring as Team Evil finding the gate before OOTS arrives, especially when given two visible options to do that (leaving aside any twist on this that the Order of Scribble rogue has left in place)