Tournament Doubles Premier League 9: Format Discussion

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jcbc

lechonk is so cute
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It's a shame Doubles LC wasn't able to demonstrate consistent activity for a ladder, but I think that just shows that the tier isn't that popular. That's not to say Doubles LC is bad or people don't enjoy it; BW DOU doesn't have a ladder either, and I still like it a lot! My point is that Doubles LC, lacking a ladder, is clearly less popular than other tiers in competition for a DPL slot. You can in fact field six players of the tier, as you kindly pointed out in your post, but every tier can provide lists of players like this. We're looking here for a best option among several good options, and my point is I don't think Doubles LC is the best option, same as Doubles Ubers or ADV DOU.
Being fully honest a long time has passed since i lastly asked about the ladder im pretty sure i would get the criteria right now if i asked. But leaving that aside, I understand your and others concerns as to how top would a DLC pool would be. And this brings me to say that it can actually have a more stacked pool than DUU since or any other option around since it has more "unique players" that wouldnt fit in a different tier as a starter, in DUU you would see a lot of regular DOU just being placed there (not against their own will of course i know there are people who play both, but i guess the point i'm trying to make gets understood). I understand that DUU has one thing over us and that's how much time it has been around the doubles community. But outside of that i really believe that DLC can be a very solid slot in DPL.

Also if BW is that shady in playing terms(talking totally from ignorance here, im just basing myself on what i readed here if im wrong im sorry) but why is it not an option? I know it has been around since forever but if it gets not play bar in DPL why not give the slot to some other tier? Have nothing against BW DOU but just curious, the question would be the same with any other metagame if it were in that position.
 
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Idyll

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Just writing to say one thing: i think ADV DOU is gonna have more signups and a better playerbase than ORAS/BW probably, ADV DOU recently has grown a lot thanks to the ADV DOU cashprize tournament and people will be more familiar with it than with ORAS/BW since lots of people have already played couple games of ADV and tried to build some teams, which is not the case of ORAS & BW DOU. ADV DOU is also in the Ancient lower tier tournament, which means that it's gonna grow even more before the tournament starts.

All i wanted to say is that you should consider ADV DOU as a slot and not forget it instantly because "it's an old gen older than ORAS/BW so it is less developped" because that is probably not true, i don't know a thing about ORAS & BW tho but ADV DOU is not an unknown field at all.
I like the optimism shown here with regard to ADV DOU's growth. However, I actually doubt it'll have "more signups and a playerbase", just seems to be bias towards ADV being flavor of the month. I don't think anyone's actually knocking ADV off for being a much older Generation, as I think most people on Smogon should know by now how to judge and appreciate Generations as they are and not by their dates; you can clearly see this by how we don't even give DPP DOU the light of day, relatively speaking. However, the problem with ADV DOU is that, unlike the Oldgens you're trying to replace it for, it's not actually represented in the 2023 DOU Circuit in any way. There's also the fact that these Oldgens have consistently been a part of the Doubles Circuit for a long long time; the notion that ADV can get a "better playerbase" than XY and BW just seems like a reach to me, when these two formats have their own much more experienced enthusiasts.

On a personal level, as someone in ATPL and played a decent amount in the cash tour, I would never choose to play ADV over BW and XY. I think ATPL is already enough representation for the people that like the format, especially considering that the formats for DPL already seem quite contested. DPL's other formats are already gonna bite off of ADV DOU's playerbase considering the overlap, so to make the notion of an ADV playerbase being better seems ambitious.
 

Yoda2798

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In part due to the potential problem DaWoblefet mentioned, of using a comanager as a free 15k pick on someone who would go for higher in the draft, we are looking at alternate manager pricing solutions. The main one we are considering is a formula used in other PLs, started by UU:

If you would like to self-purchase as a manager, you may do so. The cost will use the following formula:

(Price last UUPL you played in or 10,000, whichever is higher + (10,000 + (# of wins last UUPL you played in * 1500))) / 2 , rounded up to the nearest .500.

So for example, if I were to do this for myself, my price would be as follows:
(10,000 + (10,000 + (1 * 1500))) / 2 = 10750, rounded up to 11,000.

This is essentially the average of your last player price and manager purchase price to balance comanaging. PM me if you want to check or confirm this.
This is a bit confusing so let me try to explain: it's an average of two prices, the first of which is your last price (self-buying still counts), or 10k if that's higher. The second price is a formula of 10k + (1.5k * number of wins in last UUPL played in, including playoffs), measuring your last performance in UUPL. The average of the two is then taken, meaning the value will be exactly in the middle of the two, then rounded up to the nearest 0.5k. Notably, this means the cheapest possible manager price is 10k (e.g. for someone completely new), and the highest can go beyond 20k depending on the variables. Now I would propose a couple of tweaks, being that we change the wins counted to just regular season for fairness across all teams, then increase the factor multiplying the number of wins from 1.5 to 2, since there's less games without playoffs and from only having 6 teams (UUPL has 8 teams). The formula would then be as follows:

Code:
(<higher of last price in DPL and 10k> + 10k + 2k * <number of wins in regular season of last played DPL>) / 2
Here are some examples using last year's managers (price & record in regular season from last DPL played in, DPL 8 unless noted otherwise):
fespy: 12k (6.5k, 2-3 in DPL 6)
Memoric: 15.5k (15k self-buy, 4-1)
SMB: 15.5k (15k self-buy, 3-2)
Tenzai: 12k (9.5k, 2-2 in DPL 7)
Yoda2798: 14.5k (15k self-buy, 2-3)
Z Strats: 15.5k (15k self-buy, 3-2)

And some examples of select drafted players from last year:
Croven: 16k (16k, 3-2)
DaWoblefet: 22.5k (27k, 5-0)
Lord Death Man: 14.5k (9.5k, 4-1)
Mishimono: 14k (15.5k, 1-4)
umbry: 17k (17.5k, 3-2)

fespy: 6.5k (so use 10k) and 2 wins in DPL 6 -> (10k + 10k + 2 * 2k) / 2 = 12k
Memoric: 15k self-buy and 4 wins in DPL 8 -> (15k + 10k + 4 * 2k) / 2 = 16.5k
SMB: 15k self-buy and 3 wins in DPL 8 -> (15k + 10k + 3 * 2k) / 2 = 15.5k
Tenzai: 9.5k (so use 10k) and 2 wins in DPL 7 -> (10k + 10k + 2 * 2k) / 2 = 12k
Yoda2798: 15k self-buy and 2 wins in DPL 8 -> (15k + 10k + 2 * 2k) / 2 = 14.5k
Z Strats: 15k self-buy and 3 wins in DPL 8 -> (15k + 10k + 3 * 2k) / 2 = 15.5k

Croven: 16k and 3 wins in DPL 8 -> (16k + 10k + 3 * 2k) / 2 = 16k
DaWoblefet: 27k and 5 wins in DPL 8 -> (27k + 10k + 5 * 2k) / 2 = 23.5k
Lord Death Man: 9.5k (so use 10k) and 4 wins in DPL 8 -> (10k + 10k + 4 * 2k) / 2 = 14k
Mishimono: 15.5k and 1 win in DPL 8 -> (15.5k + 10k + 1 * 2k) / 2 = 13.75k, rounds up to 14k
umbry: 17.5k and 3 wins in DPL 8 -> (17.5k + 10k + 3 * 2k) / 2 = 16.75k, rounds up to 17k

Regardless of what happens with the comanagers situation, this formula (or something similar) is something we can consider using instead of the flat 15k pricing. No system is going to be perfect, but if you look at the examples above and compare them to what they would be otherwise (all 15k), I think this is a step in the right direction.
 
1. How many teams should we have? How many should make playoffs?

feel like our playerbase has gotten to the point we can make the improvement to 8 teams 8 slots, would also help nuking the bye week in playoffs.

2. What tiers should be played?

x3 SV, x1 SS, x1 SM, x1 ORAS, x1 BW should be a lock. As for the last slot I don't have a strong preference personally but I'd argue ADV makes the most sense, only issue its playerbase might not be developed enough yet.

3. Should we allow managers to self-buy? How many credits should it cost?

Yup. I think adjusting some kind of formula would be ideal like it was previously brought up in the thread/dou discord.

4. Should we allow co-managers?

Yes. Users should be allowed to signup with a co-manager before draft starts, it shouldn't be a requirement as you are still allowed to signup alone if you'd like, but we shouldn't deny this opportunity, also like a lot of people mentioned in the thread already only one manager from the pair would be allowed to selfbuy.

There is essentially no drawback and only introduces benefits, this change should happen especially if we're looking to expand the general amount of people involved in the tournament (more slots, more teams), having a co-manager helps putting less work on a single manager's shoulders when it comes to supporting playing slots, having to help 6 slots was already hard and it'll be even more undesirable if we increase that number, also considering a manager might want to selfbuy and play their own games as well, I see no reason why we would want to make things so complicated and stressful for a subforum PL when this is a community event. It would also help in fixing a lot of issues that came with managers having to be online to make subs as the co-manager would also be allowed to make those, also it should make the process in finding a suitable auction time happen more smoothly as at least one manager would be required for any team to start the auction.

Everyone has the option of signing up with a co-manager so there is no unfair advantage. Teams with manager selfbuys also have less starting credits and are put at a disadvantage when it comes to early bids and spending on top players in the auction, adjusting a formula regarding managers playing rights should be our main focus it would further help in balancing things out.

I've seen arguments like "you can pick someone else on the team to make subs" or "you can just invite someone in your chat if you want a co" being made on here/discord by hosts. Now the latter feels even more nonsensical than before i actually typed it out, an "external support" is not a team member, doesn't get added in the HoF if "their" team were to win and is not (in theory) eligible for the custom avatar prize unless you make an exception, I don't see why we would have to take this many extra steps. Former is just a completely different thing and with just less benefits in my opinion. Managers should be picked before auction.

Hope this gets considered :D.

5. How should we handle SV slots if Pokemon Home is added mid-tournament?

Option C looks like the best one, one or two weeks max should be enough to figure out any potential quickbans, not a fan of locking the tour pre-home personally as once the new format is out the old one loses a ton of hype.
 

kaori

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Re:Co-Managers

I think this has gotten way overcomplicated so I'm gonna try to make it as simple as possible.

1) Managers should sign up in the sign-up thread alone with no mention of other management.
2) A user that does not sign up to play can be appointed once managers are picked as the Assistant Manager (or co-manager but I think assistant is a more useful term here.) They can bid in the draft and will be considered an official part of the roster to be added to hall of fame or avatars or whatever
3) This manager, or an appointed player drafted, can make subs and perform other managerial tasks.
 

Z Strats

Banned deucer.
Regarding co-managers:
I think the idea of adding a co-manager post draft is a really bad idea, and my situation is an easy way to explain why. In the middle of DPL I will be going on vacation for two weeks where I will not be available at all for an entire two weeks. Now if I have a co-manager I picked that's fine they know the situation, they can easily fill in during those two weeks and everything is fine. I do not think it would be fair at all to ask someone who didn't sign up to manage post draft to fill in for me to be a manager for a whole two weeks, they signed up to play not manage. Even without my situation I don't think it's fair to ask someone who didn't sign up for any manager duties to do manager work if needed plus draft planning can take time, and with the tour growing in size a co-manager should be allowed.

Regarding self buys:
I think one thing most people can agree on is that only one of the manager or co-manager can self buy themselves not both. As far as pricing goes there's never going to be a perfect answer and I don't really have strong opinions since I'm not buying myself no matter my price but I'll give my two cents.

Flat 15k: The old system that it feels we've just done over the years because it hasn't been awful. DaWob brought up some good points where this can kind of be abused with a co-manager and might need to be changed. Personally I think 15k is still a decent amount of change but can understand wanting to change it especially to be more fair to potentially lower skilled managers that want to play and manage. Honestly though I really don't think it could get abused much if we limit manager buying to 1. It's not like an "elite" player could sign up with another elite player and get both for 15k you're always just getting one person for 15k.

Formula: In theory a great solution however finding a good formula that people will be happy with is tricky. One thing I will say is it's pretty hard to judge a player in wins during the course of 5 games which our regular season has been. If a good player has a slump or just didn't really try last season they can end up going for cheaper than what some people would think is fair. I personally like Yodas formula but if people are complaining about 15k flat line because people can get a steal on players, I wouldn't be surprised if they will say it's too cheap. Since we only have a 5 game regular season we might just have to really bump up the value of wins even more.

Just arbitrarily decide: Just having the host team decide the price of each manager is something some tours do. I honestly think this could be the best solution but it also could just result in more arguing and a formula is better for just having strict rules to follow. LC does this where the lowest price is 5k and the highest price is 20k. The pro here is that there is absolutely managers that should sometimes be able to buy themselves for a low price if they want to, but the con is more work for host team and even more arguing.
 
I'm in favor of having co-managers (or rather assistant managers like kaori mentioned), but I don't think they should be chosen before the draft. Instead, each manager should be able to appoint an assistant manager among the players that they drafted. In the signup posts, players can answer yes/no to being open to being an assistant manager so that managers know to choose at least one person who can fill in for them if needed.

As for Home, I'd prefer the whole tournament be played under the same format, but I now understand that playing pre-Home after the release of Home would severely reduce interest. I'd be okay with DPL being delayed a few weeks if needed to allow for Home to be released.
 

eragon

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1. Not having 8X8 would feel like such an L after DWCOP, I think there's enough interest to support it and would give newer users a chance to prove themselves which I'm a fan of.

2. 3 SV, 1 SS, 1 SM, 1 XY, 1 BW, 1 ADV (or DPPt if real) Pretty much what most people have been saying except I'm not really a fan of the lower tiers this gen, DUbers is wack until Home, DUU will be either screwed over by home release or will super mid without adjustments from home mons, and DLC is a mess with poorly defined rulesets and a lack of a ladder.

3. Not letting managers play seems kinda dumb, I don't have any expertise with this but one of the formulas for price above seems fine.

4. As someone on the DWCOP team whose manager got banned in finals I think co-managers are an absolute must, I think maybe players who sign up could put down if they're available for co-managing, which would alleviate the issue of having people selected after who aren't prepared to do so and would allow co-managers to play. The one issue I could see with this is not having many people put this down as an option, but I think it could add a heightened strategy to the draft.

5. I am all for option B, with C as a not-too-distant second. Having the tier immediately carry over eliminates the malaise of playing an old tier and gives top players a way to feel out the new meta, allowing for more informed tiering action from council leaders (ie, see DWCOP usage stats playing a large role in the decision to quickban Tatsugiri and Flutter Mane). However, regardless, either B or C is much more improved than option A, which I think would lead to a lot of stagnation.
 
For all of the questions, I largely agree with what's been said by most people here. Regarding the format, I believe the last shot should be DUU. Speaking from the perspective of a (very) new player, adding in DUU gives us newbies a better chance at being able to contribute to a team without being at as much of a disadvantage against players who have several years of experience under their belts. DUU feels like the only lower tier that has a functional, moderately developed meta, and with it having its own circuit, DPL can do for DUU what DWCOP did for DOU (in terms of informing the community of banworthy mons/abilities or new team archetypes). Assuming option B or C is selected for the post-Home portion of DPL, this would mean that an additional slot is impacted by the influx of new Pokemon. However, I think this for the best, as the DUU community is active enough to adjust to these developments (however dead ladder may be).

Seeing how Fespy had to take charge of US West midway through DWCOP, I agree with KennyJ's and Eragon's suggestion to have players indicate their interest in comanaging on their signups post. This would mean that managers would have one additional thing to keep in mind when drafting - ensuring that they draft at least one player who can comanage - which will make the draft slightly more interesting without impacting it too negatively.

Go Cold Crew :)
 

jcbc

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and DLC is a mess with poorly defined rulesets and a lack of a ladder.
I would like to know what's poorly defined on our ruleset because i don't see how this is true at all. And if a lack of ladder is that big of an issue to not be picked, do not worry we are getting one added soon.
 
Hello everyone! I wanted to share my thoughts about the last slot discussion that is going on. As one of the oldest DLC players I would love to see this tier in the DPL, sadly I believe it is not as popular as the other low tiers in the DOU community.

However, I am surprised about some statements that people have written above in this thread. Since, DLC is not very attached to this community I can understand the lack of knowledge of some people, so let me talk a bit about the DLC tier.

Doubles LC started as a tier in an LC unofficial team tour during USUM (yes, is that old), that's why we have always been closer to the LC community. To be honest at the first it was a meme tier, but it kept growning and growing until we jumped into the smogon forums. In SS, we worked in all the necessary resources to be considered a serious tier and finally, in 2022, we had our first full-year Circuit with 4 tours in it: two Seasonals, one Swiss and one Majors; plus the Invitational at the end of it.

I don't actually know how many people was aware of this, since like I said earlier, due to... well, "external circunstances" to the tier itself; it hasn't been very popular in the DOU community. We don't have a thread in the DOU forums (now there is a link to our thread in the LC forums), we don't even have a channel in the DOU discord, like other low tiers. So I guess some of the recent comments about DLC have been done from a good-intentioned ignorance.

In the first place, some people say DLC has not enough player base. If we take a look at the number of people who play the tours we can see that the two Seasonals got 31 and 32 sign-ups respectively, the Swiss got 48 and the Majors got 57. Overall, up to 85 players participate in at least one of the circuit tour. (You can check the standings here)
We all know some of them are casual players, but I think we can agree that this is a decent amount of player base for a low tier. DLC is rather a unique tier due to the fact that the people that usually play this, comes from both DOU, but also LC community. So we can provide the tour with some new players that are not really familiar with the DOU community.

On the other hand, some people say that DUU is the only low tier with a functional and developed meta, or that DLC is a mess with poorly ruleset (I have the greatest of respects for a player like Eragon, but that quote was really unfortunate from him...). But what most people don't know is that we actually do have a developed meta.
If you guys want to spend a couple of minutes checking our SS thread and SV thread, you will see that we have been constantly working on the tier since 2020, building the necessary resources for new players (speed tiers, role compendium...), posting the usage stats from our tours, doing regular updates to the VR and the sample teams and several discussions about the state of the meta through the SS generation, with the following suspects that were needed to keep the tier healthy. We also had an active council and an active discord server. I can proudly say that our tier is very well-cared and fully functional.

It is true what some people said, having no Ladder has always been a huge issue fo us, as it holds back the developement of the tier. If this is a main factor for some people to think that DLC is not worth, I believe this problema is going to be solved soon (hopefully).

Sorry for this long explanation, but I felt the necessity to talk about it since apparently some people don't know the tier at all, and have a wrong opinion of it.

I'm unaware about the states of the ADV and Dubers tiers, however I'm confident enough to affirm that DLC is more developed as tier in general and has the necessary tools to be part of the DPL, maybe not this year, but in future DPLs at least.

As I said at the beggining of my post, my intention is not to try to convince you to put DLC as the last slot. As much as I would love to have it, DUU has a good developed tier as well, and it´s more popular in DOU community, that´s a real fact. Only the hosts can make the choice and judge which tier has more developement and popularity to take the final slot. But I strongly believe it should be between DLC and DUU.

I guess the real reason why I made this post is to give some visibility to the low tiers. I believe that both DLC and Dubers have a great potential in the future of the community. DLC has zero visibility right now in the circuit, if we want to look forward to a DLC tier (or maybe even the three of them) in a future DPL, we should aim to have more tours or cups, like the recent Maushold Cup, or even official ones inside the circuit, but that is more complicated... But overall, I would love to see that the DOU community gives more recognition to DLC, as it should be an active part of the community just like DUU and Dubers.

I hope that this serves as well to encourage people to join the low tiers Circuit, I also hope you guys give a chance to DLC in particular, thanks for reading!
 

eragon

retired unmon enthusiast
is a Tiering Contributor
I would like to know what's poorly defined on our ruleset because i don't see how this is true at all. And if a lack of ladder is that big of an issue to not be picked, do not worry we are getting one added soon.
To be honest I was too harsh when I said this, I was referring to confusion surrounding the legality of Dunsparce and a few other discrepancies between the DLC thread and Showdown during Maushold cup, but checking again it appears most, if not all, of these issues have been fixed. However, I still think the lack of a ladder makes DLC very unviable as a format for a serious tour. If that is fixed soon, I could see it being decent, but I still think ADV or DUU is better-suited for an 8 slot DPL due to having more of a history with DOU.
 

Lord Death Man

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On the other hand, some people say that DUU is the only low tier with a functional and developed meta
I wanted to add on to this. As much as I like DUU (and I think DPL has been pretty integral to the DUU meta developing every gen), I don't think I, personally, believe that DUU is better developed than DLC at this time, nor do I expect that to change during the duration of DPL. The meta has been very volatile so far, including mons like Annhilape and Dragonite in Decemeber, and mons like Iron Valiant and Houndstone in January, whereas DLC has been mostly stable since Novemeber minus the recent Dunsparce ban. Normally I would say DUU is probably more developed than DLC, but I don't think that's the case at this specific moment in time.
 

Actuarily

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Moderator

The time for everybody's favorite tournament has begun! Before we start any of the real fun stuff, we have some details to iron out, as always. This thread is a place for the community to voice their opinions about the DPL format.

Link to last year's thread for reference:

Here are some questions that are up for debate:

1. How many teams should we have? How many should make playoffs?
Obviously the number of teams depends on manager & player signups, but generally speaking we're looking at somewhere around 6 or 8 teams (Last year we had 10 manager signups & ~119 player signups). Do remember that the more teams means that the tournament goes on longer. A 6 team tournament would have a 5 week regular season, and an 8 team tournament would likely have a 7 week regular season. The tournament is slated to start the 5th of March, meaning if the tournament runs longer than a 5 week regular season, there will be some significant overlap with DLT & Doubles Classic.

Secondly, if it were a 6 or 8 team tournament, how many teams should make the playoffs? If only top 3 make playoffs, remember that this would mean a bye for the top seed.

2. How many slots should each matchup have? What tiers should be played?
Last year we had 6 teams with 6 slots, with the tiers being 2x SS, 1x DUU, 1x SM, 1x XY, 1x BW. Some felt that this was too small and not featuring enough tiers, while others thought that this was the right size to keep the tournament prestigious. Realistically the tiers eligible for the tournament would be SV DOU, SV DUU, SV DUbers, SV Doubles LC, SS DOU, SM DOU, XY DOU, BW DOU, and ADV DOU.

3. Should we allow managers to self-buy? How many credits should it cost?

Self-buying is when managers buy themselves, allowing them to play in one of the slots. Previously we've allowed managers to self-buy for 15K credits, but since managers are almost always good players in their own right, this could be considered too little.

4. Should we allow co-managers?
Previously we have limited teams to just one manager, however there has been some interest shown in co-managing. We would likely limit this to a max of two managers per team, and make it optional. If co-managing and self-buying is allowed, it is almost certain that only one manager would be allowed to self-buy. Should there be some sort of small credit charge to have a co-manager to offset the potential advantages?

5. How should we handle SV slots if Pokemon Home is added mid-tournament?
As of right now, we do not know the exact dates for Pokemon Home other than "Spring". If Pokemon Home is added mid-tournament, it would obviously cause a lot of changes to occur for all current generation slots, with many new pokemon added. How should this be addressed? The DOU Forum Mod team has thought of three potential choices, with others up for consideration:
A) Tour is locked to SV pre-home, as even once Pokemon Home is released, there will likely need to be quickbans and meta development before it is DPL ready.
B) SV slots are post-home once Pokemon Home is released, as this would be a fun way to explore the new metagame.
C) SV slots are kept at pre-home for a couple weeks (1-3 perhaps?) then change to post-home, to allow for meta development and quickbans to occur before it is played in DPL.

As always, if you have any other items you'd like to discuss regarding DPL 9, feel free to post them.
As of this point, we have basically decided that DPL will be an 8x8 tournament with 4 teams making playoffs (Unless we unexpectedly do not get signups to support this). We have also decided we will optionally allow co-managers. Players will be able to lock themselves into tiers. Tiers played/what to do about home are still being decided, but with no new information on these fronts, there isn't that much up for debate that hasn't already been said.

This has opened us up for two further questions that we want to hear your thoughts on.

1. Should we do a 5 week regular season, or a 7 week regular season?
A) The way a 5 week regular season would work is that the 8 teams are split into two divisions of four. Each team would play every team from their division (3 games), as well as two teams from the opposing division, for a total of 5 games. The top two teams from each division would advance to the playoffs. #1 from division A would play #2 from division B, and vice versa. The advantages of this format would it would keep the tournament from dragging on for too long, as well as minimize overlap with other tournaments (DLT and Classic).

B) A 7 week regular season would mean every team would play each other, and then the top 4 teams would advance. The advantages of this format would be that everyone plays everyone, as well as more DPL gaming.

2. How should the co-manager and manager self-buys work?
With an expanded format, we like the idea of allowing co-managers to help support the greater number of playing slots, as well as to be able to help in situations where the primary manager isn't available. Of course, if a manager feels that they don't need a co-manager, that is their right and they can be the only manager, with a possible assistant appointed after the draft. Only one co-manager appointed before the draft would be eligible to play, for a self-buy price. Our questions really arise for a fair price to self-buy, and we have three options:

A) 15K, as it has been done.
B) The UUPL formula, with some slight alterations (using total wins last DPL, and last DPL auction price, so no self-buys)
C) My formula, which is Max[last DPL auction price, 25,000 * win pct last DPL played, 15K]

Each of the three options would be subject to an inflationary raise, due to the expanded format giving managers more credits (likely a 1.375 factor). The below table doesn't include inflation, so that we can look at the different options in terms we're familiar with.

Here's a sample of about 15 individuals without inflation, selected for either being a manager in prior tours, on dou council, or had a strong performance last tour:
1675972397301.png


As you can see, the UUPL formula has a lower floor & ceiling, with a range of 10,000-22,500. My formula has a higher floor, but slightly less of a range (15,000-27,000). My formula would require the managers to spend more credits on themselves, while the UUPL would let some managers spend less than they previously have been. Again, in the actual draft, these would be multiplied by a factor, you can view the sheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...o2L3Gttr2wJ8BdgZyuQXQSMERw/edit#gid=916883420

Let us hear your thoughts! We could also slightly tweak these formulas if people would like to see that.
 
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kaori

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Definitely a 7 week regular season, everybody playing everybody and having a 4 team playoff are vastly superior to me.

I'm a fan of the UUPL formula for prices, I feel like it adequately prices managers that perform well, while also being less of a hindrance to managers that would go for less being able to play. I've played in several UUPL's and the manager price system seemed to work really well in my experience.

If people's concerns are managers going for too low, I think it should be kept in mind that 1 win in 6x6 goes a lot farther than in 8x8. You're getting the support from the manager regardless, so on sheer playing ability from a self-buy its still an advantage, but significantly muted compared to 6x6.
 

GenOne

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I prefer 7 weeks for more DOU gaming, but admittedly do think the 2-division system is an elegant solution to achieve 5 weeks with 8 teams if that’s what other ppl prefer.

The UUPL formula seems better, the Actuarily formula seems prohibitively high. The flat 15k is fine too.
 
1. Should we do a 5 week regular season, or a 7 week regular season?

B) A 7 week regular season would mean every team would play each other, and then the top 4 teams would advance. The advantages of this format would be that everyone plays everyone, as well as more DPL gaming.

2. How should the co-manager and manager self-buys work?
A) 15K, as it has been done.

3. Tiers ?
A) i would like to defend ADV DOU here with varios reasons:

1): Someone called it "flavor of the month" and thats a good reason to choose it and not to ignore, because it has the momentum adn the players so having it in another big tournament is gonna finish his nourisment and stabilished a player base and a more development meta (is already development fast now that the money tour is in thas last rounds and a ATPL started), while if we left the tier here until the next year when a new tourney with the tier appears is gonna go back to tile 1

2) Is the most different tier and fresh off all the choices, the limited pokemons, different mechanics, no fairy involved etc , make the tier so fun and interesting and contribute to DOU viewerbase and playerbase more than a more generic one

3) The future playerbase that can enter in the DOU scene is bigger with ADVDOU (and DLC) than with DUU

4) Im probably wrong here because im not part of the scene/community but DUU still feels like it needs a first dlc to be its own tier while DLC feels more like a LC sub-tier than a DOU sub-tier so it would be better to use the slot in the generation that introduced doubles as its gimmick. (i have nothing againts DUU and DLC tho, they are good tiers, just not as good)
 

Sapphire

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Hi idk if I'm the most qualified person to talk given I've never played in DPL am not very well-versed in the DOU community, but here are my brief thoughts, I can elaborate if needed:

8 teams with 8 slots:
Proven to work, creates a clean number of teams that imo is good for playoff quals. 8v8 is good because enough players are getting playing time while also having ties, makes the playoffs race closer

Formats:
Take this with a complete grain of salt but imo there should be more than 3/8 slots for the current tier since I feel like most people want to play the newest tier, but that's just me. I think 4 SV + 4 legacy could be cool, and if there are more than 4 popular legacy slots we could consider a rotational system?

Manager selfbuys:
Wanting to play in DPL shouldn't restrict you also wanting to be a manager, I would go for 15k or maybe if the guaranteed buy is "too powerful" 17.5k?

Co-manager:
Already spoke about this in the Discord, but I think co-manager is needed just so the team doesn't fall apart when the manager is busy. I'm running VGC Winter League rn and some teams I still have troubles reaching with 1 manager + 2 co-managers, I think a co-manager is definitely a good idea. If co-manager self-buys are to be a thing, maybe you could consider 15k + 20k for managers (in a 120k system with a min bid of 3k and min team size of 10)

Home stuffs:
I would give a week for quick bans but afterwards replace SV with Home SV, gives enough time for things to be slightly more balanced while not holding off from the cool new format for too long. Also QBs take effect the next week if one is made.

Again, take this whole post with a grain of salt :)
 

ryo yamada2001

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As manager signups go up tomorrow, we want to inform you of the following rule changes:

* We're planning on including 8 teams, with 8 players + at least 2 mandatory substitutes. In accordance, teams will receive 100k drafting credits.
In accordance with this expansion, DPL's regular season will now be 7 weeks long. The subsequent 4-teams playoffs will be 2 weeks long, excluding tiebreakers. DPL will thus finish on the 30th of April at earliest, overlapping with part of DLT and Classic.

* We have chosen the following formats: 3x SV; 1x SS, SM, XY, BW & DUU. While we have settled on DUU for our last slot, we recognize the merits of other tiers and remain open for their inclusion in future editions.

* We will implement tier lock the same way SPL XIV has: players will be able to denote tiers they do not want to play in, which is binding for the regular season.

* Managers will be allowed to sign up with a co-manager, or alternatively choose a co-manager from their team after the draft.
Self-buying changes: if a manager signs up with a co-manager, only one of them can be bought (and thus play). The other manager who is not bought cannot play at any phase, but will remain eligible for winner's prizes. Co-managers appointed after the draft will be allowed to play.
Self-buying prices: we have chosen to adopt the UUPL formula¹ (without additional inflation) which means to balance fees according to DPL 8's regular season and playoffs performances, examples of which can be found on this spreadsheet by Actuarily.

¹ ((max(10,000, last auction price) + 10,000 + (1,500 * all wins last DPL))/2) rounded up to the nearest .5k

All mentioned above is as good as set. We are still deliberating on how to handle the Home release; though we're leaning towards option B (changing immediately) we'll make a final decision when we know more about it. Feel free to continue discussing and suggestion options in this thread and the Doubles Discord! For any questions feel free to ask here or tag me at May#3456 on Doubles Discord.
 
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GenOne

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We are still deliberating on how to handle the Home release; though we're leaning towards option B (changing immediately) we'll make a final decision when we know more about it. Feel free to continue discussing and suggestion options in this thread and the Doubles Discord! For any questions feel free to ask here or tag me at May#3456 on Doubles Discord.
I think that at the very least it would be wise to let any obvious quickbans occur before thrusting DPL into the post-home meta. These are the mons that would keep me up at night, but this is of course just personal speculation:
  • Basculegion's male form is a Water/Ghost swift swimmer with access to both Wave Crash and Last Respects, as well as 112 base Attack. The female form is meant to be a special attacker but still has 92 base Attack and access to Wave Crash and Last Respects. I genuinely think this mon might be too OP.

  • Tatsuguri I am hoping DOU council will just keep Tatsuguri (or Commander ;)) quick banned upon Home's release, but if not I would want this mon to be vetted for potential QB before DPL adopts the new metagame. I really don't wanna play more Bozo mirrors.

  • Flutter Mane might actually be ok post-Home...my gut says it might still be an issue but out of the three mons I just listed, this is likely the one mon some people will disagree with me about. It's still an absurdly fast Ghost/Fairy is all...
But either of option C (preferred by me) or option B should be fine. I'm just happy option A isn't in the picture.
 
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