With census submissions starting to stagnate considerably, I'd say it's about time we see the results!
Census responses for each region:
India - 33
US East - 24
US Northeast - 15
Brazil - 11
US West - 11
US Central - 9
US South - 9
The rest of Asia - 8
Canada - 8
Northwest Europe - 8
East Europe - 7
South Europe - 7
Oceania - 1
While this of course is not entirely representative of what the final signup numbers will be, it at least helps to give us an idea of what to expect. While unfortunately there's a bit of guesswork that needs to be done as a result of the dinguses who didn't do the census, the teams that I'm feeling are operating on the slimmest margins are:
East Europe, Canada + Oceania, and Northwest Europe:
- East Europe is no surprise, having the least signups from last year, as well as the least census submissions out of any team both years. With a considerable chunk of their lineup either being banned or losing interest, things have become especially dire, where there are valid concerns to be had that the team might not even get enough signups period, let alone with seasoned players.
- Canada + Oceania have always teetered back and forth when it comes to turnout. While last year they looked to be their strongest, this year they'll be missing a strong group of players as a result of multiple people retiring, losing interest, or simply not having as good of an opportunity to play. While the team has managed to perform well despite a lack of seasoned players (WC3), this of course doesn't mean that sticking a team with mostly unknown or untested players is ideal. While I do think Canada + Oceania will be able to pull out the minimum number of players to fill a team, the underlying issue here is ensuring quality.
- Northwest Europe goes towards the opposite of what I described for Cone, being that while they do have a solid group of high level players, they somewhat lack quantity in terms of total turnout. While I feel it's very unlikely that they don't reach the minimum number of players needed to field a team, I do think that it could potentially be a bit precarious, and definitely something to keep an eye on.
- South Europe, while the numbers may make it look dire, it is still missing submissions from a considerable number of significant people from the team. Unless there are some considerable concerns raised over the team's continued existence, I don't think there's really much to worry about just yet.
With everything above in mind, I think the first thing that's likely been made clear is that India by far is coming in with the most responses out of any region, even more than US East! Given this massive wave of responses, as well as the whispers I've heard that people from India are looking to form their own team, I think it's absolutely reasonable that we let them have their shot! This, however, would unfortunately leave the rest of Asia in a bit of a bad place in terms of both filling a team and making it viable, as well as there being 9 teams! Given this issue, the rest of Asia would need to be added on to another team in order to bring us back to the ideal 8, leaving us a couple options:
- Adding the rest of Asia onto East Europe: This was an idea thrown around from last WC that ultimately never went through, but could serve to be useful here. It's a geographically sound idea, given East Europe's proximity to Asia, and would also help to solve the issue of East Europe's lacking turnout, thus killing two birds with one stone, though there's also the slight problem in how this doesn't really help alleviate my concerns over Cone and NWEU.
- Adding the rest of Asia onto Cone + merging East and Northwest Europe: The idea here is to merge Asia with Oceania to form a sort-of Team Pacific, though since Canada has always been with Oceania, it makes sense to keep them together, in addition to preventing us from needing to mess around by tacking Canada onto somewhere else. As for East and Northwest Europe, the hopes there are to combine the other two teams I was concerned with into one, thus solving the issues of turnout for both. The main issue here is that this leaves us with 7 teams, resulting in us having to consider a potential US South, or another contender that will be described below.
This brings us to a rather interesting proposition. Another rather glaring element from the census results is the surprisingly high number of responses from specifically Brazil. Many of these responses were from significant Smogon Tournaments players who like to team up as just Brazil (specifically not Latin America). While most of them don't really have a considerable amount of history in 1v1, Tours players have shown time and time again their ability to learn and adapt to new formats, and have often thrived in 1v1 settings as a result. With that said, I'd like to see what everyone thinks of a prospective Team Brazil for WC5. At the very least, it would make the 2nd proposal above possible without needing to open the can of worms that is splitting US East.
If Team Brazil falls through or is generally disliked for whatever reason, then that forces us down one of two paths, being either resorting to the first option listed above and hoping for the best between Cone and NWEU, or considering the splitting of US East to form the two teams of US Northeast and US South. Borders for these regions would fall along the same or similar lines as the US census regions, being what the main Smogon World Cup uses:
Given the distributions of states between Northeast and South, it is safe to say that Northeast would be just fine, given that the brunt of US East signups as is (as well as the census responses) mostly come from that Northern region. Conversely, US South struggles a bit more in turnout, putting up 9 responses, as opposed to Northeast's 15. If it were just US South on its own, it may be a bit precarious in terms of numbers, though the inclusion of Latin America would almost certainly at least ensure that they meet the bare minimum. In terms of quality, the players who filled out the census are all relatively known and capable players, so quality at least shouldn't be too big of an issue. The only point of discussion from there is whether or not people (both affected and unaffected) want it to happen over a prospective Team Brazil if we go with the choice of creating Team Pacific with the rest of Asia, Oceania, and Canada.
Be sure to leave your thoughts on a potential Team Brazil, Team India, what to do with the rest of Asia, splitting East, or anything else that you think could work! We're considering our options very carefully, and getting as much feedback as possible would be much obliged!