Tournament DCL III Format Discussion

[Hacker]

With DCL III manager signups opening up a month from now, we would like to open up the discussion regarding this upcoming season. Below can be found the format used during DCL II.

DCL 2 Format

SV Draft
SV Draft
SV Draft
SS Draft
USUM Draft
ORAS Draft
SV VGC Draft
Flex Slot*

Some topics up for discussion:

• Tournament expansion to 10 slots
• Team Managers increase to up to 3
• Adding new formats (SV ND, LT, DPP, ADV)
• Adding extra slots for existing formats
• Replacing VGC and the Flex Slot
• Retains

And these topics are not up for discussion, posts relating to then will be deleted:

• Cutting any SV/SS/SM/ORAS slots
• Adding slots for: 6v6 Doubles, LC, Ubers, OMs
• Expanding the number of teams
• Having an odd number of slots
• Dropping players at mids

Reminder that If you are banned from the Smogon Draft Discord server you wont be allowed to play in DCL. Appeals can be done here. Heres to another fun DCL!

 

[Jesse504]

KEEP VGC

 

[Big Pharma]

Hey just wanna remind you guys that Nidoqueen is available in National Dex :)

Jokes aside, I think it's high time we accepted National Dex as one of our official DCL formats. Say what you will about Toxic and Scald, but how much support has National Dex gotten from us lately? Didn't we just update the National Dex board? The latest Smogon National Dex draft, even though it was placed smack-dab in the middle of the Spring Seasonal, got more signups than the last SS cup, and that's a Type II. It's clear that the demand for National Dex is high, while the existence of an official [NatDex Draft] format differentiates itself from the much less defined LT draft and the like. I'll leave whether or not we add it as a new format, but if nothing else, it's definitely more deserving than SV VGC, am I right?

 

[scionicle]

I'd like to see an optional third manager slot if only two of them are allowed to self-buy. Draft team tours are a ton of work, so a lot of teams already have dedicated helpers and/or "shadow managers". An extra manager slot would let more people get recognized for their contributions without requiring them to play (or feel like they should be playing).

Having three managers would also make 10 slots a little more viable if people want that for some reason.

Keep VGC

 

[StreetCredCookie]

I thought the format last season worked out pretty well. I don't think I agree with any of the changes up for discussion compared to what we already have.

Keep VGC please!

 

[Princess Autumn]

Only post I'll be making in this thread but I'd like to propose raising the manager self-buy from 15k to 17.5k/20k (exact value TBD). I'll put last year's manager self-buys and records below, almost all of them would go for more in an actual auction so I'd like to see that somewhat reflected in how we "price" them. This would absolutely price out some of the weaker managers, but on balance most of the self-buys are worth more than 15k.

DCL II Managers

GeniusX: 6 - 1
JCMShadow: 6 - 1
KCric12: 6 - 2
100percentpureheat: 6 - 2
King L5: 6 - 3
Eye Aye: 5 - 3
AsterJ: 5 - 4
PZZ: 4 - 2
LOQP: 4 - 2
blittius: 4 - 4
SlickPanther: 3 - 4
2playaLuffy: 2 - 3
SkyhorseTamer: 1 - 5
HarrisIsAwesome: 0 - 5

 

[sqoiche]

National

Dex

 

[jscurf]

Sorry what team tour got the most sign ups so far in 2025. Oh. Sitrus Team Circuit. Entertaining dropping vgc shouldn’t even be one of the bulleted options. VGC is one of the main differentiating factors between DCL and any other draft team tour and I think cutting it would be a strange decision. High key nuke the flex slot though.

 

[Hacker]

I think last years format was fine and I would be happy with it staying, however I think it could be slightly better. My proposal is

Spoiler

SV
SV
SV
SV
SWSH
USUM
USUM
ORAS

Hear me out, most of the top draft players play primarily USUM so it would make a ton of sense to double up on the slot. Alongside that, I am relatively confident in saying that besides current gen it has the most diverse playerbase. Some of its players obviously dabble in other gen's but I think theres a lot more people known for playing USUM instead of other gens.

For the 4th SV, its honestly more of a meta read with me feeling like the meta is in a really good spot right now. Theres more than enough players and with my proposal previous concerns of there being too much weight on SV wouldn't exist since there would be another gen that is really important in the context of the tour. A 4th SV could be a VGC or DPP slot still anyways and it'd be fine, but maybe just keep it previous years format except maybe making the flex slot either DPP or NatDex? I think having a slot that stays the same throughout the entire tour could be an improvement over what the flex slot currently is, even if the flex slot seemed to work mostly fine.

I would obviously prefer my proposed format at the top. However, I think that last years format with DPP/NatDex over flex or just keeping the format the same are both strong options. I really don't have a strong preference

 

[~Undead~]

KILL OFF FLEX SLOT!!! From everyone i talked to flex slot was university hated. DPLS format Incentivises u if u draft strong players in older gens you can actively play them weekly and not force them to diffrent slots weekly. In general Theres like 2 players max in the community who can actually flex into multiple tiers and perform at a high enough level to be viable to even do it. If you look at last seasons records almost everyone that tried it just went negative. for example i put 40k combined on LOQP And Sablo on oras. Now i have to randomly pull the Gypsy King and King l5 in one of my ORAS flex weeks and its just wasted and then I cant play them in double oras again Or like last leason where Double vgc week ZFG had both their vgc players unavailable and had to slot singles players who had no idea what to do that week and go 0-2 for free essentially.


As for the 3 managers can they all play? If so this would just push people to form powerhouse teams and paying for 3 potential top players for free seems tuff. If not they are basically just there for the recognition and extra added support so whatever ig

 

[LogIce]

Overall I think last seasons format worked out well. I would like to see the return of flex slot and keeping VGC in the tour. VGC draft has continued to rise in popularity, with Sitrus getting a whopping 197 signups this season.

I would like to echo scions proposal for a 3 manager option. I think this is a great idea, especially if the tour is on track to possibly expand to 10 slots. Mocking & supporting 7-8 slots while usually getting yourself ready is already a lot of prep time, so adding a third manager option can help reduce burnout. I do not think there is a downside to addition of this.

On expansion to 10 slots. I am in favor of expansion. But only if the 3rd nonplaying manager is added. I think the slots get tricky though because I do not think Natdex, DPP, ADV, or LT neatly fit into the existing tour format. I think that the 10 slot format would end up looking something like this, where there is a 4th SV slot and a 2nd VGC slot:

SV Draft
SV Draft
SV Draft
SV Draft
SS Draft
USUM Draft
ORAS Draft
SV VGC Draft
SV VGC Draft
Singles Only Flex Slot*

 

[iPetBigfoot]

I agree with all of Logice's points for the most part. I think that a potential compromise to allow for both more oldgens and still some VGC representation could be to have the flex slot only rotate between singles formats, which still rewards good drafting of both good older generation players and teams. This also helps addresses the issue that Undead mentioned, of having your VGC players not being available for the double VGC week, because you know that there is going to always be 2 VGC slots and can take this into account during the player auction, regardless of the week.

New paragraph because new point, I think that there should be a part of the application for people to say what weeks they will miss and I think saying you will miss a week should be enforced. This allows for more clarity between managers and players and can also help with knowing who can and can't play during your double format weeks.

 

[100percentpureheat]

• Tournament expansion to 10 slots
  I feel as though it is already quite difficult to fill all the teams with active and competent players. This is not totally necessary though it's not the worst.
• Team Managers increase to up to 3
  Let's be honest, we already abuse the hell out of captain buy-ins and this is just more leeway for the captains to cannibalize the player pool. There will be nobody good left in the auction if we allow this. It does not take 3 people having official manager powers to do this job. This should certainly not be allowed.
• Replacing VGC and the Flex Slot
  VGC is still not popular, still singles players cannot provide viable support here, the format is still bad, still nobody understands it but the mainers etc. So I will always be against its inclusion. The flex slot is fine, but not in combination with VGC. Having to have TWO mainers dedicated to this slot is just wrong. An ORAS player can flex into SM but only the VGC people understand VGC.
• Retains
  Not strongly against but I don't think these add anything to the experience and are not necessary.
  
  Therefore my proposal is the following
  
  SV Draft
  SV Draft
  SV Draft
  SS Draft
  USUM Draft
  ORAS Draft
  Low Tiers SV Draft
  Rotating Flex Slot
  
  Why is low tiers superior to VGC when it is also not very popular? Nobody mains this but we all know what the silly low tiers do and the format is pretty similar to SV. So it's a fresh format and invites the whole team to innovate and assist with prep, whereas VGC is totally inaccessible as there's already a wide gap between the doubles mainers and the singles mainers. Flexing into low tier is not a big deal at all. We all know what singles volcanion and brambleghast do but maybe not what doubles murkrow does. DPP would be a second best alternative here.

 

[takuaa]

Hey just wanna remind you guys that Nidoqueen is available in National Dex :)

Jokes aside, I think it's high time we accepted National Dex as one of our official DCL formats. Say what you will about Toxic and Scald, but how much support has National Dex gotten from us lately? Didn't we just update the National Dex board? The latest Smogon National Dex draft, even though it was placed smack-dab in the middle of the Spring Seasonal, got more signups than the last SS cup, and that's a Type II. It's clear that the demand for National Dex is high, while the existence of an official [NatDex Draft] format differentiates itself from the much less defined LT draft and the like. I'll leave whether or not we add it as a new format, but if nothing else, it's definitely more deserving than SV VGC, am I right?

as someone who has played and tiered a fair amount of SV natdex since the start of SV, there’s a few things about this format, and why I wouldn’t vouch to include it.

first thing I do want to recognise is its popularity. definitely can’t deny the signup numbers, and this is expected as there’s a MASSIVE number of players in the community who genuinely will only play natdex-based formats. I’ll admit DCL would open up to more players if we were to include this for sure (not that it has a signup numbers issue anyway)

having said that, I think the main issue with 8 mon natdex is balancing. think tiering for natdex II was done fairly well but I don’t think you can really balance it for 8 mon 8 team pools. to put it simply, there’s too many mons on the board, especially at the top end to where there is too much threat saturation.

why is this a problem? well imo you get too many broken drafts, and the general impossibility of trying to account for other teams. ik people complain about centralised and “solved” metagames but having something as decentralised as natdex causes issues for competitiveness imo. just look at drafting - if I take valiant early r1 it’s not even unlikely for something like a torn-t or mega diancie to fall just cos there’s too many brokens, sure you can make an argument for broken checks broken but there’s just so much bloat in the tier that it feels a bit too fishy for me, especially at 8 months where you have less options to handle the wide array of threats in the tier.

at the end of the day it’s a fun format and all but I’ve played this in 8 mon several times now, including in a team tour context and it’s really not balanced enough

tl;dr sv natdex is a bloated af format that isn’t competitive when drafting/buiding in 8 mon

 

[theuncultured]

Highkey hoping for an EU friendly auction time this time round

Format wise, as much as I like Natdex, it simply isn’t balanced enough for a 8-mon format and I wouldn’t be in favour of it getting a slot for DCL.

I think it would be good it the format were either:

SV
SV
SV
SS
USUM
ORAS
VGC
SV Low Tier

I feel last year’s format was good but with the option of adding low tier, it gives a new tier to play out for a playerbase that widely enjoys it and should see some interesting matches play out. I’m not a VGC main although I believe there’s enough of a demand to warrant it a slot again.

The other option would be to get rid of the low tier slot for a 2nd USUM slot. Echoing what Hacker said, it gives more diversity and slots for people that want to play USUM to have a shot at, tho overall I’d be more in favour for my first suggestion.

If there is a flex slot I’d be in favour for it to be singles only.

 

[olivia]

I liked last year's format and would be open to keeping it. Do not like the proposal to move to 4 SV. Making it 10v10 will probably lead to just way too much work for everyone involved. Drafting week last season with the added draft slots was already exhausting, adding on more on top of that feels excessive. If we are moving to 10v10 then I agree the 3rd manager should be allowed with the caveat that only 2 can buy in, if staying 8v8 I'd leave the captain slots at 2.
Don't really see much justification for adding Natdex as the format is simply not balanced. Low Tier is a bit more appealing but it still feels significantly less legitimate than SV/SS/USUM/ORAS and considering legitimacy was what prevented SS Natdex from inclusion I would be against Low Tier at present.
VGC is popular, doing well, provides something unique that separates DCL from the other Draft team tours, and brings in a different set of players that wouldn't participate otherwise so there's currently no justification for removing it.

Flex slot was a cool idea on paper but in practice it leads to lopsided matchups (playing against a team with the strongest ORAS and then another team plays Vs them and their bottom tier USUM) and variance that isn't truly reflective competitively I don't think anyone particularly WANTS to be the flex player and there's only a handful of players in the pool that would actually perform well in that category (and will probably be captaining too) so I think discussing removing it for something else is valid. As for what slot to replace it with I like the concept of a second USUM or DPP. DPP would add more to drafting week so I'd prefer USUM ideally but the DPP tour did very well and highlighted a few players who shined in the different format. It also avoids the legitimacy issues of Natdex and Low Tier.

Definitely agree with raising or reworking captain buy ins. Either a flat raise to closer to 20k a slot or player specific buy in prices reflective of past performance and all time records to estimate a value more reflective of who is actually captaining. I believe this is how it used to work in DPL(?) so maybe those more familiar with that can provide reasons to me why that isn't a good concept? I genuinely don't know. What I do know is 15k is definitely too cheap and allows weird situations where a player can sign up as captain with no intention to really captain just to get on a team for half of their expected value and auction for the "real" captain or just bring in a shadow captain.

 

[hedja]

I think if you increase player slots to 10v10 you're gonna get massive burnout from captains and players who try to support all their team's slots. In the end I think a fun aspect of team tours is that you get to help and receive help from teammates, but increasing the number of player slots probably actively discourages you from actively helping everyone unless you genuinely have all the time in the world. Also makes captain's jobs harder on top of everything. If you increase player slots to 10 without increasing number of captains then good luck to everyone who wants to take on that responsibility because that sounds like hell.

 

[Scribble]

As much as I like to hate on VGC personally, I don’t think it makes sense to cut from the tour. Of the two biggest non Smogon-affiliated team tours this year, DPL (singles) and Sitrus (doubles), Sitrus was arguably more popular. VGC deserves representation on that alone, and I also agree that its inclusion is nice to distinguish DCL from other tournaments. It makes it feel more like an all-encompassing team tour for the community rather than for only half of it. Keep VGC.

Managers increasing up to 3 is only okay if only 2 of them can play and the non-playing one is static. As pointed out by Princess Autumn already, managers tend to have some of the most skewed records-price ratios. Going off this, I would also agree with her that we should increase the buy-in price. To what number I don’t know, but 15k feels too low.
3 managers are fine if 1 can’t play
Increase the manager self-buy price.

Retains are dumb. I dislike them on principle because I don’t really understand why a team should be rewarded for an auction decision made in a previous season. The reward already came from getting a great performance for the price player in the previous season. Don’t do retains.

I didn’t really have any issues with the format of DCL last year and wouldn’t mind it staying the same, but I’m also fine with exploring other options. I don’t think expanding to 10 slots is a good idea. Draft team tours are so much work already and I really think 10 slots will burn people out. I also don’t think NatDex is competitive enough to include as a format. Low Tier is probably the most established alternate format, but it’s kinda weird to me to have 3 SV slots and then what is essentially a SV 0.5 slot. I’d rather have something like DPP or ADV included. So in the end my format proposal would be:
SV
SV
SV
SWSH
USUM
ORAS
VGC
New Format (DPP/ADV) OR Flex slot

 

[EntryHazardous]

I believe there is no argument to be made for removing the VGC slot, if anything adding a second vgc slot over the flex slot would be healthy in how there is lots of vgc talent that was left unpicked in the previous auction and how that would help with the complaints of some with how there could be a lack of prep support for the vgc slot. I do not believe that complaint has a lot of truth to it as in tournaments like the Sitrus team circuit you see a lot of singles players learning the format, as well as how most top vgc players would be able to find prep help from friends within that community. Another format I believe could replace the flex slot(that slot should 100% be replaced) would be ADV, the ADV draft format has seen major growth over the past couple years, with the Emerald Open tournament earlier this year receiving over 380 signups and with how popular the format is becoming I believe it should at least be a consideration to have it represented within DCL as long as the board used is something other than the previous Smogon ADV board.

 

[OdinRM]

As someone who liked the DCL II format a lot, im open to the idea of replacing the flex slot if a better solution can be found. On the case of VGC, i dont play the format or have any interest in playing it, but its popularity is undeniable while still having a very competitive player pool (which is expected to be even more competitive this year) so removing it at the moment doesnt make much sense to me. VGC should absolutely take up the 7th slot in my opinion.

For the 8th slot, Natdex should absolutely not be up for discussion in my opinion, it might be a popular format but It doesnt pass the competitive benchmark for Draft. Low Tier is a weird one to me, i have played it a lot and am very involved in the current format but in theory its still a underdevelopped metagame and in play its an extra SV slot with a different tier list, essentially just splitting the SV pool with little gain. That leaves ADV and DPP, while ADV Draft has seen enough play i think DPP is more in line with what type of format DCL wants to add so that would be my pick for the 8th slot. Doubling up on any of the other formats that are already present would also be a fine alternative in my opinion but the idea of experimenting with a new format is more interesting to me.

As for the rules up for discussion, at first i liked the Idea of a third manager and even thought 10 slots could be a solution for the current problem with slots that we have but 2 managers has worked well for years now and 10 slots for Draft has its own set of problems so It doesnt really solve much. Personally leaning towards keeping it as it is for now but maybe this can be revisited in the future.

 

[scionicle]

As much as I like to hate on VGC personally, I don’t think it makes sense to cut from the tour. Of the two biggest non Smogon-affiliated team tours this year, DPL (singles) and Sitrus (doubles), Sitrus was arguably more popular. VGC deserves representation on that alone, and I also agree that its inclusion is nice to distinguish DCL from other tournaments. It makes it feel more like an all-encompassing team tour for the community rather than for only half of it. Keep VGC.

Managers increasing up to 3 is only okay if only 2 of them can play and the non-playing one is static. As pointed out by Princess Autumn already, managers tend to have some of the most skewed records-price ratios. Going off this, I would also agree with her that we should increase the buy-in price. To what number I don’t know, but 15k feels too low.
3 managers are fine if 1 can’t play
Increase the manager self-buy price.

Retains are dumb. I dislike them on principle because I don’t really understand why a team should be rewarded for an auction decision made in a previous season. The reward already came from getting a great performance for the price player in the previous season. Don’t do retains.

I didn’t really have any issues with the format of DCL last year and wouldn’t mind it staying the same, but I’m also fine with exploring other options. I don’t think expanding to 10 slots is a good idea. Draft team tours are so much work already and I really think 10 slots will burn people out. I also don’t think NatDex is competitive enough to include as a format. Low Tier is probably the most established alternate format, but it’s kinda weird to me to have 3 SV slots and then what is essentially a SV 0.5 slot. I’d rather have something like DPP or ADV included. So in the end my format proposal would be:
SV
SV
SV
SWSH
USUM
ORAS
VGC
New Format (DPP/ADV) OR Flex slot

I agree with all of this except for Low Tier being excluded from the discussion. Here are my thoughts on the last two slots:

It sounds like a lot of people agree on keeping VGC and cutting Flex, which makes sense to me. VGC is a staple of DCL, has a very active community, and many of the current best singles players have recently found success there. Flex is a cool idea but felt flawed due to the luck involved. There also aren't many players able and willing to play all gens at a high level, which can lead to lower game quality if players are forced into formats they aren't fully comfortable with. Additionally, VGC becomes more reasonable to auction for when there isn't a second VGC slot added for a single week.

SV Low Tier seems fine to me- I don't mind adding an extra current gen format. Nearly every active draft player has experience with the current generation. I get wanting less standard SV slots to keep the format from feeling stale or overdone, but that isn't a major issue when Low Tier has a different meta. Some tournaments like WCOP have several current gen OU slots and several old gen slots, but also feature UU. I don't see why DCL can't be similar. It's not the most developed format, but it's fundamentally similar to the other singles formats and easy for SV players to pick up. I'm not even a huge fan of Low Tier draft, but it's one of the best options in my opinion.

ADV draft doesn't have much history on Smogon, but it has a huge external community. It's similar to VGC in that aspect (there had only been one unofficial VGC draft tour here when DCL I started, same as ADV currently). I'd like to see an attempt to include those players by using a ruleset closer to the ADV draft standard- if not this DCL, then in a new tour.

I personally like DPP a lot, but I'm not sure it has enough support or players yet. It's had a few promising tours, but I'd like to see it run as a Circuit tour to get more playtime before it gets into DCL.

Regarding NatDex, I agree with Takuaa's points- it's a popular format for sure, but there's still nothing remotely close to an agreed-upon tier list/ruleset and it feels uncompetitive.

I don't think adding an extra slot of any of the four main formats is a good option either. Quadruple SV feels excessive, and we voted against double SWSH/USUM last year for a reason. None of the old gens are new or popular enough to justify a double over the other two, and the player pools for the most recent DCL, DFL, and DPL have reflected that. VGC's inclusion is being debated as is, so it's hard to justify a second slot for that too. I don't mind the DPL flex format where each team picks a bonus tier, but that won't work without removing VGC or expanding to 10 slots, which would both hurt the tour in different ways.

All that being said, I'd suggest keeping VGC and replacing the flex slot with Low Tier. ADV and DPP are also fine options for the last slot.

 

[Addison]

I think an underlying principle that we need to hold in the context of DCL is that team tour burnout is very very real. A lot of us had DCL into DLWC into DPL, and shits exhausting. Thus, I think its crucial to acknowledge 2 principles: A) to not make any changes that dramatically increases effort from captains/team members B) account for the reality that shakeups are good and necessary to keep team tournaments fresh and exciting, even if they have competitive flaws. (**The latter in particular is how I reconcile the flex slot from last season, which while it was aids competitively, as Undead has rightfully mentioned, I think it did create a level of uniqueness and creative thinking both during the auction and the regular season.)

Tournament Expansion to 10 slots: is a terrible idea. I can't think of a better way to stress out captains even further. This idea gets an F- on principle A above.

Team Managers increase to 3 slots: is a okay idea, conditional on Scionicle's suggestion that only two managers can self-buy. Ultimately, 3rd captains unofficially exist as is in major team tournaments. So it would just be a way to boost engagement in the tour from players who want to commit but not in the form of playing themselves every week (and help them score a sick custom avatar).

Adding New Formats: is good and healthy. I generally beleive that by this point, one of Smogon's biggest accomplishments is bringing ADV and DPP draft further into the mainstream, and I think that is very very cool. Ultimately, both of these formats bring new talent into DCL, and score high on principle B above. I don't have enough insight to know whether ADV or DPP is better, but I think one of the two should be represented. This all being said, a new format means more effort from captains and more drafting as well, so it scores mid to low on principle A. My suggestion to resolve this is that some formats might benefit from having 2 drafts rather than 3. At minimum I would suggest this for the ADV/DPP slot and VGC slot, and potentially ORAS, as these three formats seem to be the ones with the least universal reach across the majority of the playerbase, and in practice would just be niche parts of each team (2 or max 3 players) having universal say over the drafts.

Extra Slots for Existing Formats: I think there is functionally zero reason to add an extra slot to one of ORAS, USUM, or SWSH - at the end of the day we had this conversation last season and it was an utter clusterfuck. I respect Hacker's opinions on USUM but unfortunately they aren't really founded in what we've seen lately - USUM has had the least number of unique players playing the tier in DPL 9, and second least in DCL 2, and also had the least amount of expressed interest from signups in DPL 9. We could have debates over player quality or excitement of the tier or whatever, but at the end of the day theres nothing sticking out stats-wise that USUM should have an extra slot over any other tier.

Flex Slot: I think we had our fun with the flex slot but I think repeating it would be a mistake. It came with mixed reviews and served its purpose but now that other formats (ADV/DPP) have been more fleshed out through the year its very reasonable for the flex slot to be flushed out.

VGC: As much as I hate losing a week or a season because of VGC, I think its a staple part of DCL at this point and jscurf is very very correct in that it has a massive community backing and relevance.

Retains: No.

NatDex: No.

Buy-in Price: idc, but it should be a flat price, no adjusting based on previous records or goofy shit like that.

Proposed format:
SV (4 Draft slots)
SV
SV
SWSH (3 Draft slots)
USUM (3 Draft slots)
ORAS (2 Draft slots)
DPP/ADV (2 Draft slots)
VGC (2 Draft slots)

Total number of drafts: 16 (same as last season)

 

[Tjb145]

Here's my take on everything that's been discussed so far, although I will state that a lot of what I'm about to go over has already been covered.

Expansion to 10 slots: This is a giant no-no for me personally. The current format of 8 slots is already a lot to keep track of both in terms of captaincy and as an active teammate. One crucial aspect draft team tours have compared to the others on the site is a lot more comrade in the teambuilding aspect, as this has been a foundation for us every since draft team tours' inception (although can wain sometimes in "niche" tiers such as VGC). Any attempt to expand slots would make this a hell of a lot harder and because of that I'm hard against it.

VGC Inclusion: VGC 100% deserves to retain its spot in this event. It has been a great year for VGC draft, with other events such as Sitrus seeing the height of its popularity currently as well as seeing players that predominantly reside in the singles tiers taking part. This will only increase the knowledge base in the player pool of the tier itself, as well as lead to a higher quality player pool due to the increased competition. VGC has to stay.

The 8th Slot: This is a complicated subject matter, especially as someone that liked the flex slot last season but can understand the gripes with the RNG aspects caused due to how the schedule panned out. I don't think there is a better system of implementation of flex with only 1 slot, nor can I think of any fair way that eliminates those "luck" elements. In terms of other formats, I am personally against the idea of NatDex (due to the volatility of the tier and the ridiculous power scaling present) as well as Low Tier (As I do think it's a tier that is too underexplored and having only one Type C metagame represented in our premier team tour does not sit right with me.) The idea of including tiers such as ADV or DPP initially appeals to me, but I have to imagine that those tiers are currently being looked at for other things, especially if DLWC is no longer annual. That does not leave many options, but I think the best solution is to Double up on USUM slots. This is because the tier currently has the largest player-base in a draft league team tour environment, and with Double SS already previously implemented in DCL I, I think it is only fair to move to the next tier down.

Captaincy Buy-ins: This is probably my most unique point here, but I do echo the sentiment that as they are right now the captaincy buy-in is extremely exploitable for the results captains are currently putting up. For that reason I do think it is fair to bump the price up to 20k (please no dynamic pricing that will only cause more issues that it would solve). However, another point that I want to bring up regarding this is that I feel as though this increase makes it even harder for captaincy cores that would be "weaker" in terms of individual quality. For that reason, what I propose is that instead of buying the player individually, you buy for the right for a captain to slot in a line-up. I understand that this goes against what is typically the norm for Smogon events, but I do think that this is a fairer system and gives a slight advantage to the captain cores that do not believe that their playing abilities would justify the cost to both buy-in, as neither would be forced to be permanently on the sidelines.

3 Captains: This makes sense to me provided that there is only a maximum of two captains allowed to buy-in. This can also work with what I said previously with the option for all 3 captains to play, just only a maximum of 2 are allowed in a line-up for any given match. The latter might be slightly overpowered depending on the cores assembled, but I do not think it makes a massive difference compared to what has already been suggested.

 

[olivia]

Here's my take on everything that's been discussed so far, although I will state that a lot of what I'm about to go over has already been covered.

Expansion to 10 slots: This is a giant no-no for me personally. The current format of 8 slots is already a lot to keep track of both in terms of captaincy and as an active teammate. One crucial aspect draft team tours have compared to the others on the site is a lot more comrade in the teambuilding aspect, as this has been a foundation for us every since draft team tours' inception (although can wain sometimes in "niche" tiers such as VGC). Any attempt to expand slots would make this a hell of a lot harder and because of that I'm hard against it.

VGC Inclusion: VGC 100% deserves to retain its spot in this event. It has been a great year for VGC draft, with other events such as Sitrus seeing the height of its popularity currently as well as seeing players that predominantly reside in the singles tiers taking part. This will only increase the knowledge base in the player pool of the tier itself, as well as lead to a higher quality player pool due to the increased competition. VGC has to stay.

The 8th Slot: This is a complicated subject matter, especially as someone that liked the flex slot last season but can understand the gripes with the RNG aspects caused due to how the schedule panned out. I don't think there is a better system of implementation of flex with only 1 slot, nor can I think of any fair way that eliminates those "luck" elements. In terms of other formats, I am personally against the idea of NatDex (due to the volatility of the tier and the ridiculous power scaling present) as well as Low Tier (As I do think it's a tier that is too underexplored and having only one Type C metagame represented in our premier team tour does not sit right with me.) The idea of including tiers such as ADV or DPP initially appeals to me, but I have to imagine that those tiers are currently being looked at for other things, especially if DLWC is no longer annual. That does not leave many options, but I think the best solution is to Double up on USUM slots. This is because the tier currently has the largest player-base in a draft league team tour environment, and with Double SS already previously implemented in DCL I, I think it is only fair to move to the next tier down.

Captaincy Buy-ins: This is probably my most unique point here, but I do echo the sentiment that as they are right now the captaincy buy-in is extremely exploitable for the results captains are currently putting up. For that reason I do think it is fair to bump the price up to 20k (please no dynamic pricing that will only cause more issues that it would solve). However, another point that I want to bring up regarding this is that I feel as though this increase makes it even harder for captaincy cores that would be "weaker" in terms of individual quality. For that reason, what I propose is that instead of buying the player individually, you buy for the right for a captain to slot in a line-up. I understand that this goes against what is typically the norm for Smogon events, but I do think that this is a fairer system and gives a slight advantage to the captain cores that do not believe that their playing abilities would justify the cost to both buy-in, as neither would be forced to be permanently on the sidelines.

3 Captains: This makes sense to me provided that there is only a maximum of two captains allowed to buy-in. This can also work with what I said previously with the option for all 3 captains to play, just only a maximum of 2 are allowed in a line-up for any given match. The latter might be slightly overpowered depending on the cores assembled, but I do not think it makes a massive difference compared to what has already been suggested.

In regards to dynamic pricing being an issue can you please explain why that might be? I genuinely don't know why it is an issue it seems fairly reasonable to me at a glance. Happy to have my mind changed.

 

[Tjb145]

In regards to dynamic pricing being an issue can you please explain why that might be? I genuinely don't know why it is an issue it seems fairly reasonable to me at a glance. Happy to have my mind changed.

For me dynamic pricing cannot be carried out in a fair manner that doesn’t have any inherent biases. All it will do is cause arguments over arbitrary price placements either if done by a formula (which has been done elsewhere and was hated) or was done manually by the tournament staff (which is asking for trouble). Hope this clears it up a bit