Implemented SPL Format Discussion

[Triangles]

Ok please excuse my reprehensible meme post from before about RBY, I get that dropping a tier is bad. However so is 12 slots, so I have an actual good answer for how to handle this. 10 slots with tier bye weeks. Each week 10 of 11 possible slots play, the 11 slots being 3x SV and 8 old gens, and one rests. There's 9 gens and 9 weeks of SPL, so one gen gets dropped per week. Would go as follows for example:
Week 1 - 3x SV and all old gens apart from DPP
Week 2 - 3x SV and all old gens apart from ORAS
Week 3 - 2x SV and all old gens
and so on until week 9. This is also really nice to give players a break and avoid burnout in the era of no midseason.
Come playoffs, you simply expand to 11 slots all playing, which also solves another problem of high variance tiebreaks deciding series as there's always a winner after 11 games.

 

[peng]

11 slots is such a clear standout best way to get 1x old gen and 3 x current gen in, which is what we all want, that i feel this should be workable even if it means losing ties and cocking up the current points system

e.g. rugby tournaments (where games are basically never draws) are able to solve this issue by basicaly distinguishing between obvious wins and more narrow wins in their point scoring system - 3 points are given to the winner, but a losing team can still gain 1 point if they come close enough to winning (this is oversimplified but specifics dont matter)

in other words, would it work if we had an 11 slot tournament where the winner of each week always gets 2 or 3 points, but the losing team gets 1 point if the score of the week ends up 6-5. Somewhat makes up for losing ties but lets you run the obvious 11-slot list

 

[Finchinator]

An even number of slots is a must to me. It keeps competition closer as there are so many ties and the tiebreaks are always an awesome part of playoffs. Without ties and tiebreaks, I feel SPL would be less entertaining for spectators and less complete for competitors.

 

[dice]

i have never noticed a skill decline with 12 slots. this is the only fun tournament on this website. let people play. may i remind everyone this is For Fun.

imo the argument against doubles is tired because there are so many old gen dudes who do their own thing without support, too, and doubles is fun to watch. i also agree with cbb that we could just drop gen 8 and allow for maximum cg skill cap.

also yea we should not even entertain the thought of odd slots, sorry

SV OU
SV OU
SV OU
SV Ubers
Doubles
SM OU
ORAS OU
BW OU
DPP OU
ADV OU
GSC OU
RBY OU

 

[Gilbert arenas]

I think 10 slots is optimal.
cbb, triangles and I outlined very concrete formats that will produce high quality gameplay. I hope the tournament directors will consider changing the format to suit the needs of the people, the most prominent and commonly voiced of which is having more than 2 SV slots. Putting it lightly, 2 SV would be a grave mistake from the powers that be. Metagame development and engagement are important, and with 33% more games you should also expect a similar (maybe measurable) increase in new ideas and new players popping up. New gens also entice legendary older players to try and revitalize their career and experiment in the new gen (Rey, Ciele, Jayde, Sweepage, Eo Dragonuser). Sometimes this results in older players blending their style into a new gen and other times this creates a situation where they pass the torch to newer players. Tricking, Leo, z0mog, Welli0u, Eternal Spirit and Vulpix03 are just some of the players who broke through after being on the bench, not on a team or in another tier to start the season. These are all players whose careers may not have flourished if there hadn't been a 3rd CG ou slot for them to fill out. Looking at this thread I think I am speaking on behalf of the tournament community here #3befree.

 

[teal6]

I've always liked the idea of keeping SPL and other major team tournaments to a minimum number of slots. To me, there was merit in the guiding concept of these tournaments getting gradually more and more elite. Admittedly, though, as the generations continue to roll in, this gives us issues that aren't easy to solve. We saw this problem coming long ago, too, but still no easy answer.

CBB's suggestion of removing SS is radical, but I actually do quite like it. It's hard, however, to determine if that's bias on my part or not - I'm not a fan of the generation at all, so seeing less of it immediately sounds appealing. RBY I think should always remain in, but again, there's a bit of bias at play there too - it's my favorite tier, maybe after SM.

Unfortunately there's going to be an unhappy camp no matter what route is chosen. Such is the curse of designing a competitive circuit. I think the decision should be approached more abstractly at the top level and then the mechanics worked down from there, though. Do the TDs agree with the idea that "fewer" slots is "better"? I understand that this isn't a universally held opinion. But that must be the first question answered, and I don't think what specific tiers make up the slots is meaningful until such time that the overall guiding direction of SPL is figured.

Well, best of luck.

-"man of the people" teal6

 

[MANNAT]

The issue with the entire basis of the whole 10 slots is better camp is the fact that we have a ton of stinkers with 10 slots and that issue isn’t really made particularly worse with 12. As many people have said, there’s not really much overlap between tiers like SV and RBY, so there’s no function to removing it within the context of this discussion. In general, the downside of a 4th SV slot is overblown and I would happily take finding 5-6 new up and coming players in exchange for a slight drop in quality. I get that these tournaments are supposed to be the best of the best on smogon, but that should still be balanced with community growth, especially with a new generation coming out.

I’m partial to including DOU because of the lack of overlap and I just wanted to address the concern about those players being isolated because it’s just not true and frankly the difference between OU and DOU is pretty overblown. Ninja went 9-0 in DOST having not exactly been a main going into it, and mechanically something like GSC OU or RBY OU is way harder to get into than DOU. Anyone who’s seen him in a teamchat knows that Lunar is a super active presence that helps with tests outside of his tier, dnagerbdager was very active outside of just dou and was one of the main chat presences, nails could help a prospective rby slot, etc. These players are not all insular and while there’s tier specialists that don’t talk anywhere outside of their channel, the same is true with SPL tiers. Someone like Void isn’t exactly jumping to build CG OU teams but no one is advocating against DPP OU’s inclusion in the tournament. With regards to the concern about potential issues with retains, it’s pretty easy to implement a temporary rule that no one can be retained to play DOU this year given that it’s being newly added to the tournament.

I actually find the idea of removing SS to be somewhat interesting, but the optics of selectively excluding one generation is always going to be pretty weird and not worth doing. I’m happy with any solution that includes 3+ SV slots with 12 slots total, especially the 4th SV and DOU options.

 

[D4 Repertoire]

I will suggest a modification to Triangles' proposal to keep 10 slots and therefore ties throughout the tour.

Week 1: 3 SV + old gens without RBY
Week 2: 3 SV + old gens without GSC
...
Week 9: 2 SV + old gens
Playoffs: 2 SV + old gens

This way we get 3 SV slots for most of the tour, and for playoffs the preference for 3 slots over 2 is likley diminished. Also, no old gens need to be cut, and no other tiers need to be shoehorned in.

 

[Lily]

I'm entirely uninvested as just a spectator but just wanted to present a couple ideas I've had upon talking with people:

SV OU
SV OU
SV OU
SV OU (Blitz)
SS OU
SM OU
ORAS OU
BW OU
DPP OU
ADV OU
GSC OU
RBY OU

CBB mentioned this already but it was an edit that many likely missed so I'd like to shine a light on it. 4 SV while making the 4th slot more interesting for us clickers. May seem like just SV with more timer Ls but Blitz has shown itself to be an effectively different metagame in SS based on the usage stats available. Blitz is also fun to spectate because of how high-octane it is, so it's worth considering under that angle too.

SV OU
SV OU
SV OU
SV OU (No Johns)
SS OU
SM OU
ORAS OU
BW OU
DPP OU
ADV OU
GSC OU
RBY OU

I know this seems like a meme suggestion but bare with me. Yes, this is functionally the same as a fourth SV slot in terms of how it'll play, but the name of the game here is spectator hype; not only do you know for sure that you're getting 4 games by Wednesday, it's also just exciting to see the team you're rooting for be ahead in a week (or if they're behind, you can root for them to make a comeback). I do hope one of this or Blitz is seriously considered because they are very unique to watch while still giving new players plenty of opportunity to make a name for themselves.

If we're going the doubles route, I think it'd be cool to try VGC instead of DOU. It has no representation in Smogon formats whatsoever so this would be a good way to build that bridge further after all the work that's been put into it in the past couple of years. It'd also be nice to have 1 DOU 1 VGC as far as tournaments go - and don't get me wrong, I love both watching and playing DOU, but I don't think it needs to be represented in 2 team tournaments while also having OSDT. Also, any argument about DOU being too insular or whatever is ridiculous honestly - it is significantly easier for a current gen OU player to learn DOU than it is for them to learn RBY or GSC OU, and players shouldn't be "expected" to just Know every old gen or whatever just because they know one. I do think the retain thing is valid though, and it's important to address if VGC or DOU does make its way in.

Wouldn't go as far as saying the 10 slot suggestions are elitist necessarily but it's clear that they won't last and there's no reason to shoehorn them at this point IMO. 12 feels much more modular - this site definitely has 120 competent players across all of its tiers, too. Cutting SS for 1 tour is fine to make room for 3 SV is probably fine, but it shouldn't be gone for the whole gen, and I think 2 SV at any point during the gen would suck. Also think adding LC/Ubers is a bit arbitrary and wouldn't recommend it.

EIther way I'm just a spectator and don't feel too strongly about whatever happens, but I think a fun middleground can be found if we focus more on the lens of enjoyment (for both players and spectators) and less on the element of prestige.

Also 4 plain SV isn't bad if it comes to it. Spice it up if you want but if you'd rather keep it plain then that's a fine format as is.

 

[ABR]

I’m temporarily locking the thread for 2 weeks. The playerbase will have a better sense of how many SV slots are feasible by then.

I suspect the CBB format (giving SS a spa vacation for 1 edition) will remain the most popular but there’s no need to rush anything. It’s just very appealing because it hits the sweet spot of 3 without forcing in a tier for the sake of it (dou ubers lc or anything else). Blitz, draft, etc. will not be considered.

Cheers

 

[Finchinator]

Let the record show that the thread is not actually locked and you are still free to post.

 

[Dorron]

I unlocked the thread (not Finch) and the same way Lily has done, I'll be just a spectator here but I'll give my input too to point out some things I've found mentioned in the thread.

- Don't remove RBY by any meanings. I hate the tier to be honest but you can't erase a whole Old Gen from the tour with every single Old Gen tier. But next point...

- SS should leave. We've had the tier for straight three years and I don't think it will hype up more the tour than adding another SV slot instead + it can help to meta development. Also idk if it is just me but I find it the less enjoyable tier ever to watch a game.

- About Doubles/VGC, same arguments Lily has brought up. She sumed it up pretty well.

I like the No Johns idea, I don't like waiting five days to watch every single game of the week in the weekend. No Johns spices up the tour during weekdays and even from those games other players can take ideas to use that same week.

Ties are cool and 10 is very few so 12 slots here and chill. I want a tie in finals make it possible.
This and erasing SS + no Doubles would make it to 5 SV, which I don't know if it is what we (you) are looking for but I like it much more than 4 SV + SS/Doubles.


This would be just for this first SPL as it opens the Generation. Following ones should include SS under any circumstances.

 

[Aqua Jet]

SV OU
SV OU
SV OU
SV OU (No Johns)
SS OU
SM OU
ORAS OU
BW OU
DPP OU
ADV OU
GSC OU
RBY OU

I agree with this format presented by Lily. However, I don't think we should add Doubles OverUsed or VGC. I think that Doubles OverUsed and VGC should not be included in SPL because, to be blunt, they aren't Singles OverUsed tiers, which is what I think this particular tournament is supposed to showcase. To me, adding Doubles OverUsed or VGC in SPL, a tournament designed for OverUsed, would be the equivalent of adding OverUsed into DPL or VGCPL on Smogon with the aim of bridging the gap between the communities, which (to my knowledge) nobody is advocating for. Lily says here that "[VGC] has no representation in Smogon formats whatsoever...", which is true, because it's not a Smogon Official Metagame, nor is it a Smogon Core Metagame (according to the list found here).
I intend on watching SPL as a spectator though regardless of the tiers chosen, so here's to a fun season!

 

[lydian]

wait are people unironically for sv ou (no johns)? you could at least kinda make a case sv blitz is different enough, but why is a tier played on a wednesday any different than that same tier played on a sunday? sv ou (no johns) is just sv ou #4... and like that's fine if you're going for that, but at that point you might as well remove the "(no johns)" part? what?

 

[Aqua Jet]

wait are people unironically for sv ou (no johns)? you could at least kinda make a case sv blitz is different enough, but why is a tier played on a wednesday any different than that same tier played on a sunday? sv ou (no johns) is just sv ou #4... and like that's fine if you're going for that, but at that point you might as well remove the "(no johns)" part? what?

Answer:

Yes, this is functionally the same as a fourth SV slot in terms of how it'll play, but the name of the game here is spectator hype; not only do you know for sure that you're getting 4 games by Wednesday, it's also just exciting to see the team you're rooting for be ahead in a week (or if they're behind, you can root for them to make a comeback).

Personally I don't really care if its no johns or regular, I just think Lily makes some good points in favor of it and am curious to see how it would play out.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

I will never get the argument behind "dou and ubers arent in spl for being different of the rest", when theres a jurassic gen right there that literally the same 3/10 players always sweep the rest of the competition, while having the need to play a whiole bo3 set to have a minimal competitive atmosphere for a winner (lol) in a fucking team tournament. But come on.

I dont think SS OU should be removed. SPL is a tournament thats always a playground for innovations and, even if some people are tired of the gen as whole, its just a result of how much it was played considering the format we started to follow in wcop since when the gen came out, and the fact that the pandemic was part of it. The gen is fresh, full of good players to fill in, while names like z0m and welliou are clear example of people that started to dominate SM during a similar switch-over between gens (in clear impressive fashion). Now, its time to stablish new patterns for SS w/o the meta spam thats always there during an end of a gen. Also, i dont like the side role that newer gens are getting to have since the end of oras, these gens dont have the same representation of classic gens and it simply doesnt make sense.

If i could support a format myself, for sure itd be 10 slots of 3x sv + ss to gsc, im in the opinion that, at least in numbers of players, SPL should keep the exclusivity atmosphere. At this point its part of it. If keeping 2x SV was up to the table, id 100% support ubers over rby if you asked me as well LMAO.

By the way, if whoever is gonna quote me and argue that RBY has as much rng as any other gen, then think about making it bo1 again as any other reasonable tier of a team tournament, and wonder If thats optimal. If thats not, you got your own answer.

 

[xray]

Removing SS as the most recent Old Gen sounds like a horrible idea and will definitely hurt the tier longterm and will also stop people that actually like SS (like me) from keeping interest in it. I don't know why that is even a discussion honestly.

Personally, I believe that expanding to 12 slots sounds like a good idea with 1x each Old Gen and either 4x SV or 3x SV OU + 1 Bo3 STour Tiers / SV OU Blitz / SV OU Draft Slot. Whatever you do, just don't bring back Ubers or Doubles. There was a reason we kicked these tiers out of the tour. Having a Draft Slot would be a great opportunity for community growth and also provides good timing with Smogons Draft Project starting. Blitz is just kinda cool (click, click) and Bo3 has been superior to Bo1 since forever and prep really is always just as much effort as you allow it to be.

 

[soulgazer]

I think 12 slots 10 teams is perfectly fine (4 sv, 1 ss sm xy bw dpp adv gsc rby).

It's the start of a new generation, lower tier players have nothing else to play besides CG OU until their tiers get out of beta. Thus, there are plenty of good players available to fill 4 sv slots.

If 40 sv ou players / 20 sv ou games per week is too much, I'd rather have fewer teams (8 instead of 10) with 12 slots (4 sv, 1 ss sm xy bw dpp adv gsc rby) than any of the nonsense that has been suggested so far.

Blitz? No johns? What's next, inverse?

 

[Eternal Spirit]

Less teams with more slots is legit a great idea that i have never seen discussed before.

 

[Laurel]

Personally, I think 10 teams of 12 slots is perfectly fine (4x SV OU, or 1x DOU/VGC, Ubers, are all fine). Great players will always underperform and new players will make a name for themselves every season in SPL. There will always be higher and lower quality matches, which is not going to change by adding 20 more players. Additionally, I agree with the points made previously that with lower gens not being included there will be more than enough capable players to fill these slots.

The playerbase has increased significantly since SPL was created, I’d argue that percentage wise an increase in size was due for in previous years. When you consider over 2000 people signed up for a little cup open, adding 20 slots to SPL hardly makes it lose prestige. I’d guarantee that is less than .1% of active players. It’s still the biggest and most captivating team tournament on Smogon.

 

[Heroic Troller]

I will never get the argument behind "dou and ubers arent in spl for being different of the rest", when theres a jurassic gen right there that literally the same 3/10 players always sweep the rest of the competition, while having the need to play a whiole bo3 set to have a minimal competitive atmosphere for a winner (lol) in a fucking team tournament. But come on.

If i could support a format myself, for sure itd be 10 slots of 3x sv + ss to gsc, im in the opinion that, at least in numbers of players, SPL should keep the exclusivity atmosphere. At this point its part of it. If keeping 2x SV was up to the table, id 100% support ubers over rby if you asked me as well LMAO.

By the way, if whoever is gonna quote me and argue that RBY has as much rng as any other gen, then think about making it bo1 again as any other reasonable tier of a team tournament, and wonder If thats optimal. If thats not, you got your own answer.

Wasn't really expecting any better of a post from you and was definetly planning on sitting it out rather than starting a conversation. But then i thought the dead horse is being beaten again by someone unexplicably salty and there is a risk if not clarified that some bystanders might even believe the nonsense you are spouting. Sometimes i wonder why i waste my time arguing over a pokemon tier online, after all stupid takes do not effect my life directly and i would probably forget reading your silly whiny post in a couple of hours. But when i give it some thoughts i do get my answer: no matter where, irl, or online, i hate when people talk out of their asses. When they don't know shit but still talk as if their opinion is somehow particularly important. So let's get on topic. For years you have cried that the tier was pure luck fest and no skill. Always proved wrong by facts and results, your new issue (read: excuse to whine) is now that "the same people always sweep", what is it that you want from the tier exactly? Because as it stands, if you don't cry for one reason it's another. If the tier is as random as you say, just come and luck your way to some wins, you might even do better for your team than being your usual angry overpriced mediocre self!

About bo3, i'm gonna start off saying that if the users pushed for it i'd support bo1 because deep down i'm sucker for symmetry. Still i'm love with the concept of bo3 as a whole. I think it makes for the superior spectacle watching players learn and adapt to each other's, not to mention going to a game 3. In my ideal world everything would be bo3, always. But that would be a world with players overloaded of "work" in new gens where having a good match up is a significant advantage. I have no clue about ancient history and how rby bo3 came to be but if we have a gen that can comfortably run bo3 without prep being too stressing, i'm gonna be fine with it and let it go unless someone (with real unbiased arguments) has issues.

About removing rby, as you can guess i really don't like the idea, and the reason is simple: Having every ou tier but one feels so wrong i can't put it into words, i hate arbitrary things. Reason why i'm also unmovable on ss ou being in. Keeping everything together is simple and allows the format to stay consistent. As amusing as it would be if we were to remove tiers from the oldest to watch world war III when it's time to nuke adv and the communities starts to vomit shit at each other trying to remove dpp instead, i will pass on that.

Your rby teammates have done poorly over years with bad luck (or at the very least that is your perception) yada yada wrawn, we get it. Now if you could move on and make posts that at the very least try to resemble compelling arguments, we might even get somewhere.

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

Add more slots if neccessary. Don't cut generations.
Troller explained well why starting to remove gens is not a good idea. This means at one point we will be forced to increase the slots, theoretically at latest with gen 11.

No Johns and Blitz are (probably) bad ideas
I am not following new gens at all so won't be personally bothered by whatever decision is made about them, but to me no johns and blitz don't seem like good ideas. If a whole single elimination tournament uses short deadlines, then you could just flip unplayed matches if neither player has a good case for an activity win. Granting extensions would not only be against the spirit of such a tournament, it would also delay future rounds. In SPL it would not cause delays. If the no johns rule is strictly enforced, I can only imagine how often act fishing, trying to force double subs etc. is going to occur. And regarding blitz, right now SPL is supposed to show the highest quality gameplay possible and reducing the time players have is going to lower the quality. Unlike for regular time controls it will be less fun to analyse the game afterwards and trying to understand each move of the players. It will stand out as the "low quality format" to people watching the replays. Having short disconnects decide games is terrible as well.

Keep 10 teams
I don't feel as strongly about this one but I think the playoff format works best with 10 teams. If the format stays the same with only 8 teams, half of them advance which feels too much for an ideal format. 10 teams requires to be more above the average in the standings. Reducing it to 3 with the 1st team getting a bye to the finals is possible but leads to less games and hype. Also it preserves team identity and isn't arbitrarily removing certain franchises.

Keep it to single OUs only
Once again, I personally couldn't care less which fairy formats gets played but if a new format gets added as a filler just to reach a nice number of slots, it would have to be removed in the next iteration once a new gen comes out (or you would have to add a second filler format). That's why I would suggest just alternating between either 2 and 3 or 3 and 4 OU slots to always reach an even number of slots. Not ideal but to me it seems like the best option.

 

[Boat]

Small comment on Triangle's proposal of 11 slots with one rotating slot that doesn't play; the only really fair way to do this is with striking. You can't have RNG (week schedule) determine which tiers are played vs any particular team. Teams will very much be upset when their star player doesn't get to play while the opposing weakest player doesn't have to. Obviously that's a worse case scenario for one team, but taken across every matchup in nine weeks, there would definitely be some nonsense as a result of a bad draw on the week schedule.

 

[phoopes]

Sorry I’m late replying to this thread, no one pinged me saying that people were advocating for cutting one of the old gens lol. I’ll try and address everything I saw so far and try and reason through the suggestion I’m about to make.

I think we need an even number of slots. This means 10 or 12 slots.
An odd number of slots isn’t good IMO, I think having an appropriate amount of points for wins, ties, and losses is a tried-and-true format that just works. In the playoffs it leads to tiebreakers too which I think increases the hype. This tournament is supposed to be a hype showcase of the best-of-the-best after all, and I think even number of slots is what does that.

I think we need representation from every old gen OU.
Call this RoA Leader bias, but cutting RBY, SS, or whatever gen is a complete non-starter for me. This tournament should showcase the best-of-the-best from every generation, and cutting RBY for ~reasons~ or giving SS “some time off” violates that.

I think two SV slots just isn’t enough.
As we’ve already covered in this thread, two SV slots isn’t enough. We need at least 3 IMO (more on “at least”) later. It’s the latest release and even though it’ll still be very fresh when SPL starts, two slots just isn’t enough.

With that said, here’s what I have so far…

3x SV
1x SS
1x SM
1x ORAS
1x BW
1x DPP
1x ADV
1x GSC
1x RBY
1x (open)

I think the above should be a lock. And I think it should be a lock with 10 teams, for the reasons FOMG highlighted. It just makes the most sense to me from all sorts of points of view. There’s no way to fit everything into 10 slots without cutting an old gen or by reducing the current gen to two slots, both of which I think are bad ideas. I mean okay, there is a way to do it (reducing some old-gens to Bo3/Bo5 over multiple tiers like marcop suggested) but I think that’s bad too lol. So it all comes down to what that last format should be.

I don’t think the last format should be any doubles/Nintendo/lower tier.
We’ve seen people advocate for DOU, VGC, Ubers. I don’t think any of these fit the theme of the tournament here. I have no doubt that Doubles players can “fit in” or whatever (that’s a dumb argument that they can’t IMO), I just think that having an all singles OU tournament with one Doubles tier/lower tier randomly thrown in there is just out of place and not on theme with what we’re going for. This is why I feel VGC and Ubers aren’t the right call either. I would much rather have another OU slot to round out the tournament. Because of this, here’s my (non-original) suggestion:

The last slot should be another standard SV OU slot
People are going to say that this is going to dilute the quality of games or whatever, but I think capitalizing off the hype of SV release + giving more up-and-comers a chance is the way to go (so basically I’m agreeing with blunder). You do this with a standard slot IMO, not a No Johns or a Blitz slot. No Johns isn’t as fun or more competitive IMO, and Blitz, while yes it is a different skill set, also doesn’t fit in line with the tournament as a whole.

As much as I wanted to say make the last slot a Bo3 slot with some old gen representation (like was mentioned on page 1 a few times) I don’t think it’s realistic because people will whine about prep, so yeah. I think logically it just makes the most sense to have 12 slots, 10 teams, one slot RBY-SS, 4 slots standard SV.

 

[Coconut]

One question I have for those who want to remove Sword and Shield is, what will we do next year? At that point, it won't be a "tired" metagame anymore and won't have that same overrepresentation. I don't care what the outcome is, but kicking the can down the road to next year doesn't seem like a good idea.