Tournament Solomods Premier League 3: The Gameplan

[Gekokeso]

Hello everybody, Gekokeso here. For this year the Solomods Premier League will finally have a custom avatar price, so as such, we will be having another tier submission process in other to properly vet the tiers added to the tournament.

Part 1: The Tier Submission Process​

The process of tier submissions for this year will be similar to the one on PMPL 4, but with certain changes to it.

For a tournament of this size we always need to find the right tiers to introduce to the meta in order to ensure there’s significant activity in them, but at the same time some of these tiers have been either improperly coded which has caused bugs or builder irregularities. Some of these tiers have also proven to be unbalanced at times. Tour leaders aren’t perfect, they are not going to access the wants of the community 100% of the time.

The submission will not guarantee the mod’s spot in the tournament, this only allows it the chance to be a part of it, as it will compete with other pet mod submissions. Selection of these tiers will be up to a select group of people designated to do so, but submitting your tier will give it priority over other options, just make sure the meta you are submitting is sensible enough to get through. Should the deadline pass without enough submissions, the hosts will simply pick from the tiers from last year to fill the spots.

To be part of the team vetting the metagames, you can just apply in this thread or dm me or the other Pet Mods moderators, to which we will consider you to join the team. I and the rest of the team might also send an invitation to certain members of the community to see if they want to join the vetting process. As a member of the group you will be asked to engage in battles throughout the month to test the resources and metas being submitted, and report any issues or concerns you might have with the tier itself. You can join the team even if you are the one submitting a mod, but do note that you will be excluded from voting over the inclusion of that mod in particular, yet still can convince your fellow vetters on a decision.

For submitting a tier to the tournament you will be required to provide multiple resources of the tier. Here’s a list of the 4 most basic things a submission needs to have for it to be approved:

• A detailed and well examined banlist: This will become very relevant within the following section of this post, but essentially, ensure that not a single element, be it move, ability, item or Pokémon that could cause trouble makes it into the meta. Prove that everything is coded as it should.
• A stress test - At least 15 battles or more showcasing all custom elements of the metagame working properly: This should be the most self explanatory. For this tournament we want metas that people play and enjoy, play as many battles as you can and attach the replays to your submission. This will showcase how good the meta is, if there are any balancing issues, and that there is player demand for that meta to make it in.
• A moderate amount of sample teams: Willing to be lenient on this one. The samples added don’t need to be much, and in the case of metas with little new elements the number can be as few as 4, but the more samples showcasing new elements, the better. Samples should also be, for a lack of a better word, good. Update any samples that are either not as good or are outdated.
• A up to date spreadsheet: The most important one. Document every change, addition and relevant information regarding your metagame in a spreadsheet, such as Pokémon, Moves, Abilities and Items. Make sure that the information on the spreadsheet is completely accurate to how the mod operates in the builder.

Other elements like Speed Tiers, Viability Lists, Role Compendiums and Set Compediums are optional, but do make your submission more paletable.

Big reason why I am making the thread a full month before even manager signups is that it will allow tier leaders to have the time to develop their metas to a level that might deem them eligible to get a full approval. While it would be preferable if selection comes down to mods that have threads, pretty much every solomod coded in Dragonheaven or Showdown prior to this tour is eligible for selection and submission shall be done by council or someone delegated with permission to these decisions.

Selection of the tiers will come down to most of them by the apointees, and the rest decided via voting by the community (How many can get chosen can be discussed in here). Full approvals get priority over other metas, partial approvals get priority over non-approved metas and non-approved mets only get priority over non-submitted metas (which are only considered if the tier selection is looking barren)

Said thread will open in a week, do not submit metas in this thread, as a different space for the submissions shall be open in a week.

Part 2: Systems put in place in case of failure​

Next section will cover the general list of rules that should be set in place in case that there are any errors. The list is not finalized, so give your input on what the best course of action should be in any of these cases.

Teambuilder legality​

In every PL we have had issues with some moves, abilities or Pokémon being allowed when they shouldn’t have been and has led to some controversy. For this reason, moving forward we will standardize the procedure of what happens in each of these cases.

First and foremost, we shall implement the following:

• The banlist submitted for each tier is final. If it appears on the banlist, you don’t use it. If a pokémon is found to be banned on the builder, but does not appear on the banlist, let tour hosts know as soon as possible to ensure either its added to the list or unbanned.
• Should a pokémon be unbanned midweek in the above case, this decision will be broadcasted publicly so that every player is notified in time. Same if a banlist is updated.
• Should a player appear to use a banned element that clearly appears in the banlist of said tier, their match will be considered null and win will be granted to their opponent. Should said element not been explicitly banned on the banlist it will be considered legal and the match will stand.
• Should an element be judged to have been incorrectly mislabeled or functioning differently as it appears on a spreadsheet, you must notify any person responsible for the sheet or tour hosts to indicate the mistake prior to your match to fix it as soon as possible or notify all teams about it. Knowing about a bug or miscoded mechanic yet not reporting it on time could result in a match being redone.

Midweek Tier Changes​

This has been a constant in every PL, and the method employed during the first section of this post should at least help with it in some way. Still, it's likely one or two metas have stuff that slips through the cracks, so to prepare for that, I have designated a schedule of some sort.

Every tier will be entitled to making changes to their metas only three times per the duration of the solomods premier league. The changes can be done at any point during the tournament, but once you change it one week you must wait another week before being able to push for a change in the meta. This is a change that should allow for metas to get rid of anything that ends up being too much while also preventing multiple changes from taking place in a short time.

Crashes / DH connectivity issues​

This is unfortunately the one we have the least control of. It is every tier leader’s responsibility to make sure every meta is working as intended, and it will be their responsibility to test every custom element in their metas to prevent crashes. Still, there’s the chance a crash occurs in a battle or the server undergoes troubles that prevent players from logging in. For that the following options shall be provided:

• Extension: Extensions to the battle can be provided for teams to make new teams or to play in case one can’t make it due to connectivity issues (note, provide as much evidence of this as possible to prove its due to connectivity)
• Recreation: If a battle has started but the server restarts a recreation of the battle can be attempted, as long as every team provides their teams and a host is around to prove that no foul play is going on.
• Rematch: Both teams load completely different teams. This does put pressure on players to have multiple teams at hand so it's definitely a more unpopular option, so just take this option if you feel comfortable having a backup in case of an emergency.

Part 3: Starting from Scratch​

Given that this is the first edition of the tournament that will make use of a custom avatar price, there will be no retains from any past solomod premier league editions. This is a decision that's based on three things: the fact that with the addition of a custom avatar price its expected for more teams to join the tournament, the fact that when the Pet Mods Premier League also got hold of a custom avatar price it also engage in a reset of the player pool, and the fact that all previous editions of the solomods premier league also did not have retains.

This year we will not go through the process of dynamic manager prices. It will be a flat 15k for all managers, but the price can be risen or lowered depending of what can be discussed on this thread. The budget will be 120k like most tours and a minimum of 10 players needed to be drafted.

With that, I shall open the thread for discussion, if you have any issues or critiques with the following plan, let us know in the thread.

 

[Soda_Eesti]

Why only mods with threads?

Its not like those are the only formats that could work competitively in the tour. Mods like Tohou, and Ma'adowr have seen gaming with a playerbase and could definitely work in a competitive tournament, and when most competitive mods are going to have threads anyways this ruling becomes unnecessary.

 

[Gekokeso]

Why only mods with threads?

Its not like those are the only formats that could work competitively in the tour. Mods like Tohou, and Ma'adowr have seen gaming with a playerbase and could definitely work in a competitive tournament, and when most competitive mods are going to have threads anyways this ruling becomes unnecessary.

I actually forgot to edit that out when writing this post but yeah, all solomods that have been coded in should get a chance, good catch.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Every tier will be entitled to making changes to their metas only three times per the duration of the solomods premier league. The changes can be done at any point during the tournament, but once you change it one week you must wait another week before being able to push for a change in the meta. This is a change that should allow for metas to get rid of anything that ends up being too much while also preventing multiple changes from taking place in a short time.

There have been some complaints (mainly from me) in the past about this way of doing tier changes, so I wanted to propose an alternative that I think gets at some of the issues I have with this structure.

First off, my main concern with doing things this way is limiting tier leaders' ability to make necessary changes to their mods. Last PMPL, there were times where tier leaders felt rushed to make changes in order to fit within that tournament's allotted change windows, and while this new format resolves that, it also introduces a new problem. If we end up with a mod in the tournament that needs more than three sets of changes done, how will that be handled? Of course, we'd love for that not to be the case, and it usually isn't, but changes can easily rack up if, for example, a handful of small tweaks need to be done each week, or if a change proves to be unpopular and is reverted.

Additionally, this system doesn't resolve one of the biggest issues with the tier change system as a whole. What happens when a change is unpopular with the playerbase? There have been times in previous tournaments where mod leaders have rushed to make changes in response to community feedback, and though they were well-intentioned, they ended up falling short of the mark and didn't solve existing issues, or even introduced new ones.

That's why my proposal is, instead of having a hard limit of three sets of tier changes per mod, make it so that every tier change that takes place during SoloPL must be approved by an absolute majority of the teams in order to take effect in the tournament. This would mean that if, for example, there were 6 teams in the tournament, you would need 4/6 of those teams to agree with the changes you propose in order for them to take effect. I've found from experience that tournament players tend to be very wary of meta shakeups mid-tour, so this system would have the same effect of limiting the total number of changes, while still leaving room for more changes if a mod really needs them. This would also give players the opportunity to review proposed changes and suggest edits in order to ensure that tier leaders are making changes in accordance with the actual balance issues faced by the playerbase. This is something a lot of mod leaders were already doing in previous tournaments, so making it part of the process wouldn't be that big of a change from previous systems.

the maximum players drafted per team will be 12

also the gourg hate is unbelievable


P.S. - I would like to formally extend my application to be on the metagame vetting team. Thank you for your consideration! :)

 

[Quinn]

Should an element be judged to have been incorrectly mislabeled on a spreadsheet, you must notify any person responsible for the sheet or tour hosts to indicate the mistake prior to your match to fix it as soon as possible or notify all teams about it. Knowing about a bug or miscoded mechanic yet not reporting it on time could result in a match being redone.

What does this exactly mean? How will the host judge if someone will know it or not? I believe the iron fist rematch is a good example how would the host judge if ana knows it or not. This rule to me looks a bit vague and will just result in the same issue as last pmpl.

Also double post but i think manager prices should be 10k based on last year. Only ana was 15k wich is frankly unfair lol but yh most managers were rated to be 10k

 

[FlamPoke]

First and foremost, SoloPL getting a CA is epic and I look forward to playing this again. The last edition was what kinda propelled me to play more Pet Mods / Solomods, which has made mons a lot more enjoyable for me over the last year or so, so thanks to the hosts and others involved in this.

There's only two things I feel strongly about here;

Every tier will be entitled to making changes to their metas only three times per the duration of the solomods premier league.

This one is a bit iffy, I think it makes sense in a vacuum but if some element of a tier is wholly uncompetitive and you have to wait potentially two weeks to resolve it that seems pretty redundant. If the prerequisite for getting a tier submitted is robust, which, it seems like it is, this shouldn't be an issue to have something like Beaf's suggestion implemented.

Manager pricing should be dynamic - the first self-buy is 10k, the second self-buy is 15k, both are a combined 25k.

 

[Noglastica]

Hello everybody

Hello Gekokeso.

For a tournament of this size we always need to find the right tiers to introduce to the meta in order to ensure there’s significant activity in them, but at the same time some of these tiers have been either improperly coded which has caused bugs or builder irregularities. Some of these tiers have also proven to be unbalanced at times. Tour leaders aren’t perfect, they are not going to access the wants of the community 100% of the time.

The petmodders are going to attack me with lies and false accusations, but solomods have been pretty good about this. To be honest, I only really remember this being a consistent issue with pmpl... with the exception of MG4 validator last solopl.

Other elements like Speed Tiers, Viability Lists, Role Compendiums and Set Compediums are optional, but do make your submission more paletable.

Copy. MG2 speed tiers incoming.

• The banlist submitted for each tier is final. If it appears on the banlist, you don’t use it. If a pokémon is found to be banned on the builder, but does not appear on the banlist, let tour hosts know as soon as possible to ensure either its added to the list or unbanned.
• Should a pokémon be unbanned midweek in the above case, this decision will be broadcasted publicly so that every player is notified in time. Same if a banlist is updated.
• Should a player appear to use a banned element that clearly appears in the banlist of said tier, their match will be considered null and win will be granted to their opponent.

I think point one is fine, only time it gets a little iffy is for stuff that isn't necessarily "explicitly" mentioned. I will be using MG2 examples because that is what I know, but Week 1 last solopl, SEA was like "hey can I use gems because there is no mention of gems in the MG2 thread." Gems were banned because the thread did say "Natdex legality" and all those gems are banned (or don't exist or something) except for normal gem. However, say gems were mistakenly not banned in the builder and SEA brought a fire gem, does SEA automatically lose as per point three? PMPL had that issue with baton pass or whatever and I'm not trying to get into that again, and I don't remember exactly, but I think there needs to be some further specification of rules that are not specifically clarified, right?

Point two is good, that was an issue in particular for MG4 where there were like four legal mons that couldn't be brought in the builder. I think Terapagos was legal on command but not DH, and Ash Gren was legal on DH but not command. Or vice versa.

I understand point three, but I am hesitant again with the severity of it. Here's a fun fact: before week one of solopl, Naganadel was legal for MG2 on DH despite being explicitly banned in the thread. Oops. I only caught it because I went through every mon on DH and tried to see if I could bring them, and I'm glad that I did. I feel like it shouldn't be the job of a new player who is starting the tier to have to manually validate every single element of their team. If a new player is building MG2, do they really have to go to the thread and manually verify that they can bring all of these mons? Surely this should be put on the tier leader/council instead to make sure that their validator on DH works, and/or their challenge commands? It seems dumb to me that if someone brought Naganadel under these rules because I made a mistake with the builder that they would forfeit their game. I know that part of the process for the tier vetting is to get rid of this, and I don't have a great solution to this, but I don't think I'm a fan of the severity. To me, a redo makes more sense, no? Why would I knowingly bring a banned element? Just to scout what they're bringing? Presumably we play the game out and, if I lose the game, then I just lose the game. But if I win, then I would think that a redo makes more sense, unless you can somehow prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was intentional and maliciously done.

Midweek Tier Changes​

This has been a constant in every PL, and the method employed during the first section of this post should at least help with it in some way. Still, it's likely one or two metas have stuff that slips through the cracks, so to prepare for that, I have designated a schedule of some sort.

Every tier will be entitled to making changes to their metas only three times per the duration of the solomods premier league. The changes can be done at any point during the tournament, but once you change it one week you must wait another week before being able to push for a change in the meta. This is a change that should allow for metas to get rid of anything that ends up being too much while also preventing multiple changes from taking place in a short time.

I don't think there's a great solution to this and I don't feel too strongly about it either way, but I'm not a huge fan of the edit cap. I think ensuring that tier leaders don't make rash decisions is important, but I don't think forcibly capping them makes sense. I also am assuming that this doesn't include bug fixes or whatever, so I would say maybe clarify that at some point just so if Monster Hunter has to fix their validator, that doesn't count as one of their three changes (and if they want to change something the following week they wouldn't have to wait a week to do it.)

That being said, I don't really care about the 3 times per week part because if a tier needs to change 3 times during solopl then it shouldn't be in solopl. I just don't see much point in the making tiers wait a week after their changes. Maybe scoopapa overbuffs crystal typing or something in week 4 and its broken and everyone wants it reverted immediately, doesn't make sense to me to make everyone wait an extra week and suffer through a bad state of the meta for no real reason.

This year we will not go through the process of dynamic manager prices. It will be a flat 15k for all managers, but the price can be risen or lowered depending of what can be discussed on this thread. The budget will be 120k like most tours and the maximum players drafted per team will be 12, with a minimum of 8 (adjustments to the size can be discussed here).

The main thing I have an issue with is the number of players per team having a cap. Again, I don't see a reason to include this. We are not going to run out of players. Someone in the discord said something about how the talent pool will decrease but like, yeah? That's why we have an auction where you can spend more money to get better players? If a team wants to get 20 players for 3k then they should be allowed to, I don't really see a reason why not. It only makes sense to include this rule if we don't think we are going to get enough players but not only did we have a surplus of players last pl (and some fine players who either didn't/almost didn't get drafted) but I think we can definitely expect more players this time around.

Also, given that we are "starting over", I would like to propose that this pl is renamed to Solopl 2 1 or Solopl 2 the sequel: just the custom avatars.

That's why my proposal is, instead of having a hard limit of three sets of tier changes per mod, make it so that every tier change that takes place during SoloPL must be approved by an absolute majority of the teams in order to take effect in the tournament. This would mean that if, for example, there were 6 teams in the tournament, you would need 4/6 of those teams to agree with the changes you propose in order for them to take effect. I've found from experience that tournament players tend to be very wary of meta shakeups mid-tour, so this system would have the same effect of limiting the total number of changes, while still leaving room for more changes if a mod really needs them. This would also give players the opportunity to review proposed changes and suggest edits in order to ensure that tier leaders are making changes in accordance with the actual balance issues faced by the playerbase. This is something a lot of mod leaders were already doing in previous tournaments, so making it part of the process wouldn't be that big of a change from previous systems.

I don't like. First of all, is it the players slotted into the tier when the week goes out, or is it the managers? Secondly, yeah, I think most tier leaders who made changes were getting feedback from the players in the tournament in order to make the change, so I don't get why this needs to be a mandatory thing to do. I don't think this is really going to be an issue, but at the same time, you're also taking control of the tier out of the hands of the people who own the tier, right? Why is Teamo the deciding vote for if Paleomons should nerf a pokemon instead of you or someone on the council?

Also both Quinn and FlamPoke responded to manager selfbuy, I would support the 15k for each manager, I don't know if I like flexing it around that much. Definitely no "vote on opposing manager prices" (Teamo idea...) and whatever that "if you and another manager agree, I will drop both of your prices by 2.5k" utter woke nonsense. The 10k and 15k seems pointless to me. Also Ana 100% deserved that 15k buy so I don't wanna hear how it was unfair. Bro is literally the only person who plays that tier.

- Noglastica, winner of solomod 2 the prequel: just the untiers.

Edit: oh also I had this brilliant point and forgot to mention it. What happens for something like MG2 and MG4 with the bug reporting thing where it's not a bug or modified element, but rather considered more of a mechanic? If I find a "mechanic" in one of the two that isn't mentioned in a mechanics doc, am I legally obligated to report that to every team? For example, week 1 we knew that psychic noise was 5 turns long instead of 2, and MG4 didn't exactly have a mechanics doc. If we had this rule: "Knowing about a bug or miscoded mechanic yet not reporting it on time could result in a match being redone," and if we brought psychic noise, does our team have to replay the match? Kinda an MG specific issue I know but should still be addressed.

Edit 2: Geko I guess if you're married to the idea of having a player cap as much as you're married to osp, then I think either increasing it to the 14-16 ranges makes sense, and honestly you could feasibly just decide on a cap after signups close once we have an idea how many players actually sign up.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

I don't like. First of all, is it the players slotted into the tier when the week goes out, or is it the managers? Secondly, yeah, I think most tier leaders who made changes were getting feedback from the players in the tournament in order to make the change, so I don't get why this needs to be a mandatory thing to do. I don't think this is really going to be an issue, but at the same time, you're also taking control of the tier out of the hands of the people who own the tier, right? Why is Teamo the deciding vote for if Paleomons should nerf a pokemon instead of you or someone on the council?

Would be the managers who'd be approving, with the assumption that they'd be asking their players for feedback. Also the only thing this impacts is the tour itself. If a mod owner wants to make a change, they can either wait until after the tournament or do it with player approval. At least, that's the idea.

 

[Concept]

Every tier will be entitled to making changes to their metas only three times per the duration of the solomods premier league. The changes can be done at any point during the tournament, but once you change it one week you must wait another week before being able to push for a change in the meta. This is a change that should allow for metas to get rid of anything that ends up being too much while also preventing multiple changes from taking place in a short time.

This is a change that I personally like, as someone who has both participated and managed in Solomod and Petmod tournaments within the last two years seeing constant weekly metagame adjustments was unpleasant to both prep and play with. The ever increasing volatility of the metagame being shifted every week trying to find out was the next good thing was quite frankly annoying and overbearing for metagames that otherwise see very little games being played or struggling with an adequate playerbase. I believe allowing tiers to still shift their metagames is the right play, especially limiting it to just 3 times which doesn’t allow a lot of room to mess around. I would however limit these adjustments to be during designated times throughout the tournament. In case of unintentional interactions or bugs those would be perfectly okay to fix on a weekly basis in my opinion (Outside of the 3 tier shifts). I’d propose allowing metagame changes to happen after Week 1, Week 3 and the week before Semifinals. This gives tier leaders ample time to focus on improving their metagames and doesn’t rush them on a weekly basis, it allows leaders to talk amongst themselves and speak with the community on problematic aspects within their tiers while not rushing them on a weekly deadline. The only real exemption from this would be Week 1 which would have the most impact on patching the tier.

(After) Week 1
It gives teams enough time to play around in the designated tiers by introducing players to their new tiers, this is usually the most important week for teams in terms of finding out what concepts do and don’t work. Because these games tend to be more important in determining what is healthy and too strong for the metagame I find it reasonable to have the first “patch” after Week 1.

(After) Week 3 or 4
It allows players to have a semi-reliable understanding on the metagame. For example, last year in Solomod PL, everyone playing Modern Gen 4 had expressed their dissatisfaction with both Gholdengo and Urshifu-Rapid-Strike in the tier for their oppressive presence they had on the metagame as early as week 2 in the tournament, yet no action was taken until the fifth week of the tournament. I think that it’s reasonable to expect players to want certain Pokémon that are metagame warping to an unhealthy degree altered or banned from the tier in a reasonable time. Two weeks is enough to determine what is and what isn’t metagame warping. Another example of this was Blank Canvas in PMPL 2025, in which it was very early determined that fat or defensive balance was the predominant and only good archtype with breaking potential in the tier being extremely bad with the only good breaker being heavily nerfed week 1. Because everything in the tier had recovery but nothing could reliably break through multiple Pokémon and because of everything having vast typing, abilities and reliable recovery it was very limiting in team structures and made the general overview on the metagame incredibly negative.

(Before) Semi-Finals.
The Semi-Finals and Finals are considered the most important weeks of the tour and arbitrarily fixing the tiers during these weeks should not be allowed unless something is so metagame warping that immediate action is needed to provide a healthy metagame to the playerbase.

Part 3: Starting from Scratch​

Given that this is the first edition of the tournament that will make use of a custom avatar price, there will be no retains from any past solomod premier league editions. This is a decision that's based on three things: the fact that with the addition of a custom avatar price its expected for more teams to join the tournament, the fact that when the Pet Mods Premier League also got hold of a custom avatar price it also engage in a reset of the player pool, and the fact that all previous editions of the solomods premier league also did not have retains.

This year we will not go through the process of dynamic manager prices. It will be a flat 15k for all managers, but the price can be risen or lowered depending of what can be discussed on this thread. The budget will be 120k like most tours and the maximum players drafted per team will be 12, with a minimum of 8 (adjustments to the size can be discussed here).

Firstly I’d like to say that the priority shouldn’t be a hardcap on players. The tour is 100% going to have an extensively higher signup count due to the Custom Avatar prize, there’s no negotiating that it will increase the amount of signups for both managers and players alike. At the very least I’d like to increase the player limit, as you’re limited to the number of players you can draft in the first place most tournaments have the player cap set to the range of 16-20 which I’d like us to emulate here.

This is just a hot take, don’t take this one too seriously. I would still like feedback on it though. Instead of limiting the player count I’d like to see it mandatory to draft at least x Pet Mod Mainers, the main selling point for this tournament are the individual Solomods themselves, so what’s better than giving the lifeblood of these tiers the chance to show off their skills and capability to the tiers they’ve created themselves. This allows Pet Mod and Solomod players outside of the big names the chance at getting drafted and stops managers from drafting just players that they know are good but would otherwise have very little impact to no impact on interacting with the tiers. Mainers can be determined by how many messages they have in the respective categories. Discord Servers messages (the respective tier and Pet Mods), Tier Thread Messages.

I’m writing this at 2am so apologies for any spelling or grammar mistakes because I know that if I don’t send this now I just won’t.

 

[R8]

That's why my proposal is, instead of having a hard limit of three sets of tier changes per mod, make it so that every tier change that takes place during SoloPL must be approved by an absolute majority of the teams in order to take effect in the tournament. This would mean that if, for example, there were 6 teams in the tournament, you would need 4/6 of those teams to agree with the changes you propose in order for them to take effect. I've found from experience that tournament players tend to be very wary of meta shakeups mid-tour, so this system would have the same effect of limiting the total number of changes, while still leaving room for more changes if a mod really needs them. This would also give players the opportunity to review proposed changes and suggest edits in order to ensure that tier leaders are making changes in accordance with the actual balance issues faced by the playerbase. This is something a lot of mod leaders were already doing in previous tournaments, so making it part of the process wouldn't be that big of a change from previous systems.

If tiers shakeups are an issue, they shouldn't be addressed with something that involves the managers during the tournament imo, as there is conflict of interest, especially in a CA tour: there is incentive for them to vote not depending on what they think is the best decision for the tournament but rather what could give them the best chances at winning (ex: plans on using a tech with or against the broken thing in question, or keep a scouter vs a certain other team relevant).

Knowing about a bug or miscoded mechanic yet not reporting it on time could result in a match being redone.

Seconding Quinn, i believe the rule on this shouldn't rely on something so difficult to verify.

In general I think a game being affected by a bug / a miscode or an improperly made banlist isn't something that should punish the player by default, I think it should not be their responsibility especially in a tournament where we might expect lot of signups coming from people that aren't necessarily super duper familiar with Petmods/Solomods, so the possibility for a genuine mistake is quite high.

 

[Runo]

Instead of limiting the player count I’d like to see it mandatory to draft at least x Pet Mod Mainers, the main selling point for this tournament are the individual Solomods themselves, so what’s better than giving the lifeblood of these tiers the chance to show off their skills and capability to the tiers they’ve created themselves. This allows Pet Mod and Solomod players outside of the big names the chance at getting drafted and stops managers from drafting just players that they know are good but would otherwise have very little impact to no impact on interacting with the tiers. Mainers can be determined by how many messages they have in the respective categories. Discord Servers messages (the respective tier and Pet Mods), Tier Thread Messages.

This is gonna sound a little blunt but I think players should not be entitled to be drafted solely because they have spent a large amount of time on the tier. The reason the big names are big is because they have some sort of credibility outside of knowing how to build or yap. If a manager is going to draft someone who is reliable but doesn't give a shit about interacting with the tier vs someone who does but is otherwise an unknown in terms of skill, that is their prerogative. Stuff like this could be encouraged (I'm all for taking chances on people) but not forced.

The budget will be 120k like most tours and the maximum players drafted per team will be 14, with a minimum of 10 player (adjustments to the size can be discussed here).

On this point I really dislike player maximums. Teams with entire armies are seldom better than teams with a standard amount give or take and in some cases they end up being worse. It's another thing that should be up to the manager not forced. If by some insane feat a team manages to gobble every good player for xyz metagames or just in general and then they win as a result then surely that is just the hallmark of the managers drafting better than the other teams.

In general I think a game being affected by a bug / a miscode or an improperly made banlist isn't something that should punish the player by default, I think it should not be their responsibility especially in a tournament where we might expect lot of signups coming from people that aren't necessarily super duper familiar with Petmods/Solomods, so the possibility for a genuine mistake is quite high.

Ignoring genuine mistake, I have always been in support of abusing legality errors and glitches. This is especially so as petmods and solomods are making attempts to strengthen their banlists and implement rules such as banlist = final say. To find a bug that doesn't result in the game being compromised competitively (read: forcing crashes) yet gives you an advantage in game, it really just shows that you spent more time in the builder, testing, and reviewing the sheet & banlists than your opponent did. Megas For All had this issue in a past PMPL and I was planning on abusing the issue myself, because I had done my due dilligence and confirmed it wasn't on any easily accessible banlists, until another team had done something similar and was punished for it unjustly. If its not on the banlist at all or significantly up to interpretation (ie: mechanics glitches) then it should be fair game.

 

[Quinn]

This is gonna sound a little blunt but I think players should not be entitled to be drafted solely because they have spent a large amount of time on the tier. The reason the big names are big is because they have some sort of credibility outside of knowing how to build or yap. If a manager is going to draft someone who is reliable but doesn't give a shit about interacting with the tier vs someone who does but is otherwise an unknown in terms of skill, that is their prerogative. Stuff like this could be encouraged (I'm all for taking chances on people) but not forced.


On this point I really dislike player maximums. Teams with entire armies are seldom better than teams with a standard amount give or take and in some cases they end up being worse. It's another thing that should be up to the manager not forced. If by some insane feat a team manages to gobble every good player for xyz metagames or just in general and then they win as a result then surely that is just the hallmark of the managers drafting better than the other teams.


Ignoring genuine mistake, I have always been in support of abusing legality errors and glitches. This is especially so as petmods and solomods are making attempts to strengthen their banlists and implement rules such as banlist = final say. To find a bug that doesn't result in the game being compromised competitively (read: forcing crashes) yet gives you an advantage in game, it really just shows that you spent more time in the builder, testing, and reviewing the sheet & banlists than your opponent did. Megas For All had this issue in a past PMPL and I was planning on abusing the issue myself, because I had done my due dilligence and confirmed it wasn't on any easily accessible banlists, until another team had done something similar and was punished for it unjustly. If its not on the banlist at all or significantly up to interpretation (ie: mechanics glitches) then it should be fair game.

 

[Gekokeso]

Tier Submissions are now open.

Apologies for the radio silence. From what I have gathered from discussion on the thread and discord, it appears the maximum player limit has been unpopular, thus I decided to remove it.

Gems were banned because the thread did say "Natdex legality" and all those gems are banned (or don't exist or something) except for normal gem. However, say gems were mistakenly not banned in the builder and SEA brought a fire gem, does SEA automatically lose as per point three? PMPL had that issue with baton pass or whatever and I'm not trying to get into that again, and I don't remember exactly, but I think there needs to be some further specification of rules that are not specifically clarified, right?

In this case, unless the banlist specifically said that gems were banned as well, SEA's match wouldn't be affected by this. But from what I gather on the thread and the discord, this ruling could get some work done.

Should an element be judged to have been incorrectly mislabeled or functioning differently as it appears on a spreadsheet, you must notify any person responsible for the sheet or tour hosts to indicate the mistake prior to your match to fix it as soon as possible or notify all teams about it. Knowing about a bug or miscoded mechanic yet not reporting it on time could result in a match being redone.

Im willing to remove or edit this part of the rulings with enough support, but I'd like to see more discussion as to alternatives to it and if it should be more lax than the ban element ruling.

I also see that people might want to see changes over the metagame edit cap and how it works, as well as changes to the manager retain prices. Since im not swaying to any particular change about those two issues, i'd like hear proposal for changes to the edit cap and retain prices.

This policy thread will close on the 29th of November Gmt-6, get your opinions out as soon as you can.