Wanted to give some explanations on the main selections here (bare with me as it’s Jan 1 & I am hungover). Also please note some of these selections were pretty split by the hosting team, so it’s not that people’s suggestions weren’t taken seriously. (And these views aren’t necessarily my personal views)
1. Should retains be allowed or no? (Decision was no).
Community feedback was pretty split on this, which generally defaults to staying consistent with the current model. Some other points raised were:
- The current retains formula doesn’t quite seem fair enough, see this post for an outline on some prices
possible retains this year: 13K Xrn, 10K Fey, 10K xqiht, 10K Paraplegic, 10K Eternal Snowman, 13.5K bage1
- Basing off of last year’s draft when managers in that draft were not intending for retains that may have affected draft strategy.
- There’s issues with potential new managers taking over teams (retains declining, not real continuity, unfair advantages for old managers).
2. Should DPL keep tiebreakers in playoffs? (Decision was yes).
Community generally seemed content with keeping tiebreaks, and many suggested alternatives weren’t ideal. (Community seemed to want to keep same format in regular season & playoffs, Mono SV DOU may overrepresent a tier that already has a lot of representation, shortened time tiebreaks can lead to availability/practicality issues & was what was tried before and led to week-long tiebreaks).
3. Should the format (8 teams, 8 slots) be changed? (Kept 8 teams 8 slots with 3x SV DOU, 1x SV DUU, SS DOU, SM DOU, XY DOU, BW DOU.) This one was the most contentious, so I’ll try to break down some of the suggestions. Also please do remember we have a second team tournament in Doubles Derby that compliments DPL in tiers, so if your favorite tier isn’t featured here, it will be in Derby, and most of the tiers in DPL will not be in Derby. So for many options of “swapping tiers” it really would just be a lateral move making the tiers being played earlier in the year, which led to keeping the tiers consistent with past DPLs and last year’s Derby making sense. We also did not want it to seem like one tour was an “upgrade”, as both have their place & legacies.
Increasing the tour size to 10 slots.
There didn’t seem to be a ton of support for increasing, with some even suggesting decreasing the slots. Increasing to this size would likely need an extra sub slot, and that would be a lot of players added.
On keeping BW DOU in:
Most suggestions felt BW was the most droppable tier, but there was also a noticeable surge of support on the BW thread with players showing their commitment to the tier. And again, if BW were swapped out for something else, it would have been in Derby in place of that other tier. The Oldgens Circuit schedule was made with BW Cup occurring near Derby, and DPP cup coinciding with DPL, so to have less gaps in time between these tiers getting play made sense.
Swapping out a tier for DPP DOU
DPP DOU was suggested as a possible tier to be swapped with BW DOU, as it has had a surge in activity since being founded. It’s creation helped spark Derby, and so for consistency & scheduling it was felt it made sense to be a part of Derby:
The initial purpose of the Doubles Derby from
kaori and I was to include young Doubles tiers with small but dedicated playerbases that did not yet receive serious representation -- e.g. DPP and NatDex DOU.
Swapping out a tier for Natdex DOU
This suggestion did get some traction but similar to other potential tiers it likely would have been seen as a tier “swap” and as above for DPP it already has a legacy in Derby.
