I want to start by saying that for the most part I agree with Mr. Soup's post - however I understand that many people care for both of these tours in different ways and drastically changing them may rub some people the wrong way. Being a newer player myself (relatively - RBTT has been going on for 7ish years), I get that many players who have been here since the tour's inception like the way it currently is. However, with change comes growth, so I ask those reading this to read with an open mind. I understand that Soups post asks a heavy amount of change when it comes to these tours, so I would like to start with a more mild proposal:
Add Gen 2 Random Battle slot to RBTT; remove Hackmons Cup slot from RBTT.
From what I understand, RBTT was originally intended to be a tournament representing all of the main rands formats, with an emphasis on this over competitiveness. But let's face it - over the past couple of years, with signups and hype at an all time high and the introduction of team CAs - RBTT has naturally grown to be more competitive than ever. This is further emphasized with the introduction of RBEL - an entire tournament with the intention of getting your name out there for RBTT. There is no denying that RBTT has grown to be as competitive as it's ever been, and in my opinion, this should be reflected in the competitive integrity of the tournament itself.
This brings me to my point that Hackmons Cup is (un)arguably the least competitive format in RBTT by a decent margin, with this sentiment being shared by many other people in the rands scene. Having played in RBTT twice myself, I have personally never enjoyed this format having its own slot, as every week feels like it comes down to who’s luckier with little to no room to outplay. In both RBTTs I have played, even our own hackmons player(s) seem to despise the format, especially this year, with most of our players / subs trying to actively dodge the format. Not to mention, I think hackmons is also unfun as a spectator, as pretty much the entire game comes down to hoping your player randomly gets better movesets than the opponent. I understand that there is a small but active HC community, but the same can be said about the small but active Gen 2 rands community.
To be clear, I think that the Mystery Box slot can stay to still uphold the original intended purpose of the tournament - to give most rands formats a spotlight. Hackmons would simply be moved to Mystery Box, while Gen 2 becomes a main slot. And lastly, I think the slots would look cleaner if gen 2 was included instead of randomly skipped. Gen 2 was taken out because it was allegedly deemed too unbalanced, but you will never convince me that Hackmons Cup should have a slot over Gen 2.
