Tournament Overview and History
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Introduction
After months of battles, drama, arguing, and posturing, the newest Official Smogon Tournament champion was crowned. In a tournament that saw hundreds of competitors eliminated, one person stood alone at the very end, receiving a small, pixelated golden trophy as a prize for the entire ordeal. While, to many outsiders, this would seem like an endeavor not worth the time spent, our community regards this achievement as one of the highest possible for all Pokémon players. Whether it be the gold trophy or a pink, black, white, red, blue, green, or cyan one, they all tell a similar story—at one period of time, this person stood atop the rest in competitive Pokémon as the best.
While new users may join to participate in suspect tests or to contribute to the many on-site analyses, arguably the biggest draw for many of Smogon University's most widely known users is the tournament scene. Smogon tournaments are prestigious due to the community based around them—there are few other sites that host large-scale events with hundreds of top-level battlers, and even then most are not in the singles battle format. The history, lore, and stories that make up the tournaments are what lends them weight in 2015. The winners that have come before the current participants have their names etched in the history books, and any given one is liable to be called a great.
However, for many users, the tournament scene is dense and difficult to navigate. Initial attempts often end with abject failure—and not unfairly so. While competitive Pokémon has opened up massively to more casual players due to the popularity of Pokémon Showdown! and the easy-to-access ladder system, many of the same players who have found some level of success there struggle when attempting to make the transition. Though there is little restriction when it comes to attempting to compete in one of these tournaments, many users who would otherwise make great additions to the community may neglect to do so—perhaps it is the lack of a guide or lack of appreciation for the weight that these trophies hold that keep them from doing so.
Whether that be the case or some other factor is at play, what I hope to do with this and future articles is to detail how Smogon tournaments work and chronicle the history of the major tournaments so that newer players are able to read and relive the glory of some oft-repeated names even now.
Like many other players in our community, I primarily enjoy and stick with Pokémon due to the competitiveness the game offers. There are dozens of top-tier players able to analyze and enact plans from the teambuilding stage to the late-game of any given match, offering new challenges regularly to the established order. Nowhere is this spirit found more so than in the Tournament community.
Introduction to the Tournament Subforum
A new user could be forgiven for not understanding how the Tournaments subforum operates intuitively. While after only a few applications it would be expected that they pick it up, for someone completely fresh to the forum system as a whole, it could be almost impossible to navigate. What this section of the article hopes to do is describe the layout of the Tournaments subforum and provide easy reference to anyone new hoping to join in on the fun. This section will be describing the very basics of the tournaments and how to sign up, particularly for the official ones, the history of which will be covered later in this series.
To navigate to the Tournaments subforum, one simply has to select the link on the front page of the forums. This link digs into a separate forum, itself containing a few subforums. Many of the tournaments a player wishes to enter can be found here, located directly one layer below the main Smogon forum. Going deeper, individual tournaments (mostly official ones) will be found.
Unofficial Tournaments
On the first page of the Tournaments subforum, the user can find innumerable threads, many of which have the phrase "Sign Up" in the title. While familiarity with traditional web forums is necessary to understand how to register and navigate to these threads, this factor is quite intuitive and shouldn't provide a roadblock for anyone wishing to play.
Most of the tournaments found on this level of the forum are considered unofficial. These tournaments are run by more or less any user with a pedigree of reliability in the community. The format of these tournaments can vary wildly; some are gimmicks, some are for older generations, and some are completely standard. Which ones you wish to participate in is up to you, as signups are (except for a few tournaments such as Battle Royale) open to any interested player. Entry is simple: just post "in" inside the signup thread, and the host will take care of the rest.
Unofficial tournaments are something that many in our community take part in. These tournaments are not considered as prestigious as the official ones, but several are longstanding and regularly occurring; they carry a bit more weight than usual. Winning an unofficial tournament should still relay a sense of pride to a user, as those that enter the tournament do so with the intention of winning. Some of Smogon's greatest users have spent much of their career partaking in unofficial tournaments, and winning them proves their adaptability amongst various challenging formats. The user with the most unofficial tournament wins in the website's history is McMeghan, a name that is almost always mentioned when discussing the greatest players of all time.
Official Smogon Tournament
On this same page, however, there are also signups for Official Smogon Tournament, more commonly referred to as OST. OST is, as you could probably guess by the name, an official tournament. The difference between an official tournament and a non-official one is pretty simple—the official ones confer trophies (placed under the username just like a badge) to the winner(s) at the end. While OST is amongst Smogon's most highly participated tournaments, it is not necessarily the most prestigious. Though winning OST is a prized achievement, the skill set that is tested throughout has caused some veteran battlers to place more emphasis on achievement in different formats.
Winning OST gives the champion a golden trophy under their name. The format for OST is simple, but grueling in its intensity. There is no room for errors whatsoever in an OST run, as a straight-knockout format is employed, where the battlers must win a best-of-three against a randomized opponent. No seeding takes place, so heavy hitters may find themselves battling from the first round onward.
Official Ladder Tournament
Only one official tournament is hosted out of the main Tournaments subforum: The Official Ladder Tournament. Now only in its second edition, it stands as one of Smogon’s newest trophy-awarding tournaments. The creation of OLT is a bit peculiar compared to the rest of the site's competitions—the idea was given birth in response to community outcry that, with the massive influx of users to Pokémon Showdown!, the OU ladder did not contain the same level of competitiveness that it had in years past. The ladder, veteran users argued, was no longer a place to test your mettle nor was it terribly notable to top it, so OLT was born in order to create periods of activity where such competition was brought back to the ladder.
OLT is a tournament in two parts. The first part is a lengthy period of qualifying, where users must battle it out to be amongst the four highest "registered" battlers on the ladder for a given week. To sign up for a particular week, users must post three alts similar to their forum name in a signup thread hosted in the Tournaments subforum. From here, they are tasked with laddering these alts to the highest possible ELO they can achieve—at the end of a given cycle, the alts are then collected and ranked according to who achieved the most points. The four battlers with the most points are entered into a subsequent knockout tournament that functions similarly to OST.
Participants hoping to do well in OLT must be proficient at two very different things. While the knockout portion of the tournament is similar to many other official and unofficial competitions, the laddering part means that winning the black trophy takes many more battles than other tournaments. The ability to consistently beat a very high standard of player is integral, and timing your run may be just as important as winning ELO points in the first place. While OLT is a new tournament, there's no doubt that it'll become prestigious very soon, as even veteran players struggle to marry the marathon mentality of laddering with the do-or-die mindset of the knockout tournament for success.
Smogon Tour
The first subforum located under the main Tournaments forum is for Smogon Tour. "ST" is perhaps tied with OST as the popular tournament available to battlers. The format, however, is a bit different and often confuses new users looking to get involved.
Every weekend (this being Friday, Saturday and Sunday in eastern US time) there are three live tournaments hosted. Live tournaments function differently than others. A user must wait for the signup thread to be posted (typically about a minute before or after the start time for that particular tournament) and then post "in" to join. After a certain number is fulfilled, the tournament will start, and the battlers are expected to stay on the server until they are knocked out. For ST, users are only allowed to enter two of the three tournaments per weekend.
Depending on the number of wins the user achieves during the live tournament, they will be awarded points. These points constitute a running tally throughout the entire Smogon Tour, where, at the end of the season, the top 16 players are seeded and made to play in a knockout tournament. The particular metagame for the tournament will vary based by week, with the current format being the three most recent OU generations (as of this writing this is ORAS, BW and DPP OU). Following the completion of a weekend's live tournaments, the hosts will tally up the highest point total achieved, meaning that only your highest placement will add to your total points.
Winning the pink trophy at the end of ST is a well-earned achievement, as the grueling season and consistency required over several disparate metagames ensures that only a player with a lot of knowledge and wherewithal can bring the trophy home. Many veterans consider Smogon Tour to be the most prestigious tournament on the site, as the nature of the competition combines very disparate skills that a player must be proficient in in order to win. Whether it be a live tournament, a knockout bracket, or a current or old generation, there is no doubt that Smogon Tour is a wildly difficult competition that has produced only the finest of champions.
Smogon Premier League
Smogon Premier League, or SPL, is a team tournament where players are drafted using a bidding system and a predetermined amount of credits. Team captains, selected prior to the start of the season, bid openly on players that have signed up for SPL in order to cover a large swath of metagames ranging from old generations to lower tiers of the current generation. Managers have their work cut out for them in attempting to build a competent team without running out of credits too early.
Don't be sad if you sign up for SPL and don't make it on a team! It is considered a breakthrough to be selected for SPL for the first time, and remember that you are competing against a large quantity of other qualified battlers. Should no SPL captain pick your name to draft, the SPL Farm League runs concurrently to the main league, giving any user interested a chance to show off for the next season.
To sign up for SPL, be on the lookout for the signup thread in the subforum posted a while before the draft happens. The signup is a bit more involved than in some other tournaments: the user must specify which tiers he is interested in playing, and what timezones he is available.
Winning the red trophy of SPL is a massive achievement and takes a really strong team in any given year. SPL is often cited as the most fun tournament to play in, as it fosters meeting new people in the competitive community and forging ties to further your competitive Pokémon career thereafter.
World Cup of Pokémon
The World Cup, or WCOP, is a team tournament like SPL. Managers for particular "countries" (this term is a little loose, it may be a region, nation-state, or subregion) select from a pool of eligible players and field them according to their own judgment. While signups are quite similar to SPL, one key difference remains: a user must specify which region he qualifies for, and from that point on they are only able to be drafted by that particular region. Examples include US East, Spain, and Oceania. While this may seem a bit odd, the national ties help serve to create a stronger team bond. The drama that fills WCOP and the competition between the different nations is part of what makes this an exciting tournament.
The blue trophy of WCOP is a big achievement itself as well, and a display of team cohesion is often pivotal to winning it. In the past, the teams that work together the best have won the trophy, even if man-for-man they were not the clear favorite. WCOP holds a special place in the heart of many top tournament players, as it is the longest-running tournament on the site next to OST, and the oldest of the team tournaments.
Smogon Grand Slam
At this point, lower tier or other tier players may be feeling a little left out. While OU is by far the most played tier in Pokémon, there seems to be little chance for someone who earned their stripes on the UU (or other) ladder to prove themselves able to compete with the best of the best. Luckily, Grand Slam fills that need!
The Smogon Grand Slam, or GS, is a tournament consisting of six other tournaments. In GS, users will be given the option to sign up for five out of six "opens". In each open, winning a best of three match awards points, which are tallied up and used to determine a top 12. At this point, the top 12 users will play one another in a seeded knockout bracket, with the eventual winner bringing home the cyan trophy.
GS emphasizes a different skill set than some of the other Smogon tournaments. Users who go on to win GS often have very strong generalized playing abilities, as it is a must to perform well in several different tiers to even have a shot at making playoffs in the first place. Additionally, if you're looking to qualify, be on the lookout for tier-specific players interested only in their particular open. While you may be above average compared to the general population, it could be a bit harder to defeat someone who knows their particular tier inside out!
To sign up for GS, wait until the open thread is posted. At this point, signups are treated like normal, where a user only has to post "in" to join. Remember though, only five of the six are allowed, or you'll receive a penalty. The six opens consist of Ubers, Doubles OU, UU, RU, NU, and LC. Deciding which one to sit out is a strategic pick as well—make sure it is your weakest before committing.
Smogon Classic
The Smogon Classic is Smogon's newest official tournament, where players compete for the White Trophy. The format of the Classic is pretty similar to GS, except that one can enter all the subtournaments. Winners of best-of-three matches are awarded points, which go to choose a top 12, where a best-of-five series of all the tiers are played. The notable difference in this case is that instead of lower tiers, all the subtournaments are of previous generations, stretching from BW to RBY.
Signups are straightforward, simply posting "in" when a thread comes about. Be on the lookout in the Smogon Classic subforum for these threads, as in the first iteration of the tournament, they filled up pretty quickly!
The finalists of the Classic were almost all veteran players with first-hand and current knowledge of many of the metagames that were present. To compete in Classic, it's essential to have adequate experience in many of the tiers, as Pokémon, moves, items, and even mechanics change wildly between them. You don't want to be entering the ADV Cup without knowing about the physical-special split, right?
Semi-Official Tournaments
Located for the most part in the "Circuit Tournament" subforum, semi-official tournaments carry a bit more weight to them than the unofficial tournaments, but they aren't exactly as prestigious to win as the trophy tours. Examples of semi-official tournaments include the Doubles Seasonals and the Ubers Seasonals, with other tiers likely to follow in the future.
Unique to the Seasonal format, users are allowed double elimination. This means that even if you lose early on, you have a chance to play all the way through the loser's bracket in order to meet in the Grand Finals, where the full winner will be decided. Seasonals are designed to quickly advance metagames, something tournament players are used to doing, so posting the replays of your matches is an official rule in these tournaments. This allows newer users to watch what the veterans are doing and perhaps come up with ways to beat popular strategies in time for the next round.
Smogon Frontier and Official VGC Tournament, the Retired Competitions
In years past, Smogon hosted a peculiar tournament known as the Smogon Frontier. Based off of Pokémon Emerald's Battle Frontier, the Smogon Frontier offered users a chance to battle against a selected group of top-level OU players in a chance to win a green trophy. The challenge was considered particularly difficult—users were only allowed two losses during their entire run, and they still had to defeat the person that they lost to in order to complete the tournament. While several users did win the green trophy, the tournament was retired due to logistical difficulties and is no longer available to be entered now. Smogon Frontier was notable for being an extraordinarily difficult tournament to win—unlike all other official tournaments, there was no mandate for there to be a champion at the end. In fact, the first few iterations had no winner, and many considered the Frontier to be unconquerable. This streak was broken by Atticus, a prominent figure in Smogon Tournament history.
Another retired official tournament is the Official VGC Tournament. This competition functioned similarly to OST, in that battlers participated in a straight, unseeded knockout bracket. While the tournament was closest to official Nintendo rules, it was eventually dropped due to lack of interest and didn't carry the same weight as the other official tournaments on site.
Conclusion
Hopefully, for any interested new user, this explanation provides enough for you to understand how to jump right in and start playing in these tournaments. Whether it be the season-long challenge of Smogon Tour or the whiteknuckle knockout rounds of OST, it's always refreshing to have creative and challenging new folks join in on the tournaments. With adequate preparation and smart plays, who knows? You may even find yourself drafted on an SPL team the next time it rolls around. Either way, if you're like me, you'll start playing Pokémon to pass the time but stay for the chance to flex a competitive muscle; Smogon's Tournaments are definitely the best way to do that.
Please join me in the next issue, where I begin to recount the history of the major tournaments. We'll be starting with a tournament currently in play—the Grand Slam—and seeing who the past winners are and what route they took to bring home the trophy.
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