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Smogon Premier League II Format

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Erebyssial isn't being ignorant at all, and his post pretty much sums up what most of us are thinking whenever a VGC supporter posts...

and p.s. drcossack i don't think anyone really cares that it's Nintendo's official metagame, this is Smogon and here the majority of ppl play standard OU so we should accomodate to the playerbase. attracting users to smogon is nice, but this isn't the best way of going about it ^_^
 
Firestorm said:
Currently? Leave Smogon because of attitudes like yours which kept anyone from wanting to participate in the community. I'd personally not have to make them do that considering this is supposed to be a competitive Pokemon community. As for the rest of your post, that seems to be just ignorance which is understandable as much of the "working their ass off" was done in private for VGC.

Giving it two slots instead of one isn't "shoving it down your throat". 2 out of 10 slots in 1 out of 4 official tournaments isn't "shoving it down your throat". If you want your Singles matches, the other 3 current official tournaments are 100% Singles. They're even 100% OU. What's more, 2/4 of them are the most recent generation of OU only!
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What attitude? I'm just giving my perspective as an average Smogon user who doesn't play VGC. I'm curious what work has been done for VGC in private then because all I still see is a dead subforum, a dead ladder and no work done on articles and analyses. I think it's pathetic that you insult Smogonites for being relectant to play outside metagames when the VGC community has done absolutely nothing to entice us to play it. Don't accuse the players, you only have yourselves to blame here.

It's not quite "shoving it down your throat", but when an unpopular metagame suddenly gets this treatment, it certainly looks like it. And like I said I don't care about the format since I won't be participating, the only reason I'm arguing here is because the attitude of some VGCers recently has irritated me.

drcossack said:
The subforum is dead because we discuss things privately on IRC, and there's another site/PO server dedicated to it. You have to remember that VGC is a competition with real $ prizes on the line - the players don't like showing off their teams or revealing their strategies. If they do end up having to do either/both, they will use a gimmick team.

As for VGC doing basically "nothing" - it is Nintendo's OFFICIAL metagame, and it's definitely more so than singles OU, since, y'know, we wouldn't HAVE this game without Nintendo/Gamefreak/TPCi. More than that - it's a chance to meet the people we talk to on here on a daily basis. It even got DM, who never played a pokemon game before Nats 2010, to find a ROM of (LeafGreen?) and start playing it.
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If that's the way you see it, then I would honestly just say that VGC doesn't have any place at all on Smogon if this group of players is just going to hide their strategies for the actual event and discuss everything privately on IRC or on another website/server.

Who really gives a shit that it's official though? Did we ban Celebi and Jirachi because Nintendo does? People will play the metgame they enjoy more, and that's currently singles OU by far. I don't see why people should feel the need to play a metagame they clearly dislike just because it's "official".

drcossack said:
Signups for individual VGC tournaments did not last that long - half an hour to an hour (or was it an hour-2 hours) last year IIRC.

And no, in fact, the general public does NOT find Smogon more important than VGC, if you want to be pedantic about it. The inexperienced players in VGC (which is a majority of them) may know about Smogon, but they likely don't care about it, and apparently, neither does Nintendo. VGC/Nintendo tournaments do not use singles, and they haven't for years; RBY events used 3v3 (aka Stadium Mode), but that was the only option available at the time. JAA in '06 was doubles. If there was one in '07 (I believe there was, but I cannot recall the name), it used doubles. VGS (aka VGC '08) was doubles. VGC '09 was doubles. VGC '10 was doubles. VGC '11 is doubles. Are you getting the picture here?
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Well I'm misinformed on the signup method then, but the main point is that it's open to anyone and Nintendo promotes it officially so it gets loads more exposure. By general public I mean competitive Pokemon players, which there are far more on Smogon and the internet than those that care about VGC. And again, Nintendo's rules aren't relevant to Smogon at all. But this hasn't really got much to do with anything.
 
Let me put it this way.

Imagine you are going for a real life Pokemon tournament.

Imagine that the prizes are trophies, and free air tickets to the Worlds Tournament.

Imagine you're preparing very much for it, since you can't exactly change your team once it starts.

Would you want to give away your team's secrets?

Even in singles OU, people write sets they've used to great effect after they've reached some mark on theladder they're aiming for, or after they've found a lot of people know about it.

People don't throw their trade secrets to the wind. This is especially true in VGC, since there is no true "second chance"(on the ladder you can make up for it, and tournaments keep coming regularly), either you get through a battle, or you lose, and getting to another VGC is not exactly the easiest task, unless its very close to your hometown.

VGC players discuss on IRC, because VGC has not really had recognition from Smogon as an official metagame, and Smogon apparently does not have the "manpower" to run its own doubles metagames. Therefore, unelss Philip changes his mind, our official doubels metagame will be the VGC. Doubles has not at all got recognition, because PL came close to the beginning of Gen 5, and most doubles players had "migrated" to PO.

Unless you can convince Philip somehow to give Smogon a different doubles metagame, VGC should remain in at least one official tournament, and needs these 2 slots to show that it is a current official metagame.

@Erebyssial: I honestly doubt if not a single non-VGCer supported this decision was made. COnsidering the TDs were involved, and I don't think ANY of them are VGCers(correct me if I'm wrong), it shows that it isn';t just the VGCers apparently "very happy that THEIR 5% metagame is being recognized". Smogon is a competive Pokemon community, not a competitive singles Pokemon community.
 
Just something that called my attention:

drcossack said:
The subforum is dead because we discuss things privately on IRC, and there's another site/PO server dedicated to it. You have to remember that VGC is a competition with real $ prizes on the line - the players don't like showing off their teams or revealing their strategies. If they do end up having to do either/both, they will use a gimmick team.
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Seconding what people have said earlier here; because Smogon does not involve money at all I assume said players won't use their main teams due to being afraid of revealing their strategies, and therefore we'll just have a "tournament of gimmick teams". This doesn't sound competitive to me.
 
It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

Smogon users proclaim that VGC is useless and don't want to support it.
VGC players see this attitude, and decide that Smogon doesn't care about them, so they take their discussion elsewhere.
Smogon users see this and say VGC users don't care about the site.
VGC players see this attitude, and decide their are better places to contribute.

See the problem?
 
I actually think VGC players will try quite hard for this tournament because it's a team tournament. If they're going to use gimmick teams, then their team goes down too. Considering VGC players are more likely than the average person here to see a teammate in real life (especially with two VGC slots) - I don't think screwing over your teammate is going to be a good option :P

Not to mention the metagame in January will likely not be anything like the metagame in May.

As for why, although privacy is a part of it, really I think the #1 reason is this:
- the VGC sub-forum was 2 years late
- by that point many users had started discussing VGC off-site or on IRC
- Shoddy was our primary simulator and didn't support doubles so NetBattle Supremacy and then Pokemon Online starting in April 2010 were used. Smogon had no servers on either aside from the SPL one for previous generations (NBS) and then the Gen 5 one about 6 months after PO came out
- Every time they think about posting on Smogon again they see bitching about their metagame or "wifidiots" so don't feel welcome and stay away

After all, there are people always helping in the Simple Questions thread as well as IRC for all new players - even so far as giving them teams to start practicing with so they can make their own.
 
Bluewind said:
Just something that called my attention:



Seconding what people have said earlier here; because Smogon does not involve money at all I assume said players won't use their main teams due to being afraid of revealing their strategies, and therefore we'll just have a "tournament of gimmick teams". This doesn't sound competitive to me.
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Tournament VGC matches are completely different to say, Regionals. The teams used in SPL would be different to the teams people plan to use at actual events because there's a different standard. Do you seriously think that people are going to sign up to a tournament like this and deliberately bring "bad" teams? That's ridiculous and I guarantee you it will not happen. Imagine you're in an OU tournament and you come up against Earthworm, but ST7 is in four months time, are you going to take a bad team because you're saving your good ones for another tourney? No. People enter competitions to be competitive. If anything, the standard will be higher because you're more likely to face good players.

Also, seconding Firestorm's points. Can people just drop this now and accept it? There's 2 VGC slots. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you think it's stopping you from getting a place in the other metagames, then you should play more metagames so you're more valuable to managers or stop being shit at the one you do play.
 
i think if everyone who didn't like 2 vgc slots didn't play it there'd be no spl j/s

and noone posts their best teams that they use in big tournies until after the tournament or they just post stuff they ladder with or do casual battles with, which apparently doesn't happen with VGC players teams and strategies
 
I personally don't have much of a beef with there being 2 VGC 2011 slots, as the playerbase is actually much larger than any other metagame, although obviously, not everyone who plays the VGC metagame are on Smogon.

I'd like to also put forward a point that nobody else seems to have thought about, the prevalence of VGC in one of our official tournaments could actually prove quite beneficial to Smogon, as having an online site that supports/endorses VGC could prove to be much more convenient for them, as they have the opportunity to test out strategies and teams without the time usually required in-game. This gives them more freedom and flexibility with teams, and will usually result in a better team. Now, if this spreads by word of mouth, at the various VGC tournaments, the playerbase of Smogon can be expected to swell, and whats to stop those players from expanding into Smogon's tiers (in fact, whats to stop all of you people complaining from learning the VGC metagame?) , which will result in a larger playerbase, more variety, and possibly a better class of players.

Anyway, I think this is a positive thing, and thanks to the IS staff for it. I look forward to this tournament, and hope to participate, and be able to watch some great battles.
 
I just wanted to bring up the fact that the idea is to have the current singles metagame which, by my reckoning (based on most recent tour and current tournament) is DPP OU, not BW OU. I don't have a problem with this, but just wanted to point out the logical inconsistency.
 
Accipender said:
I just wanted to bring up the fact that the idea is to have the current singles metagame which, by my reckoning (based on most recent tour and current tournament) is DPP OU, not BW OU. I don't have a problem with this, but just wanted to point out the logical inconsistency.
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Black & White is the most recent generation. The OU metagame in Black & White is, as a result, our most recent primary singles metagame. DP is now a legacy generation.
 
Just posting to say that I'm gonna be using terrible teams if I get picked to play VGC cause I'm incapable of building more than one efficient team and because I signed up for a tournament just to lose.

EDIT: i forgot my sarcasm tags
 
smashlloyd20 said:
Alright, nobody sign Huy. Why he posts to say that he is planning to fail on purpose is beyond me.
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He's purposely misleading you...or he's still sad that he can't use Parasect in it this year. I know I'm still saddened by the loss of Entei and Cresselia (but mostly Cress.)

And player signups are a week away. yeah!
 
drcossack said:
He's purposely misleading you...or he's still sad that he can't use Parasect in it this year. I know I'm still saddened by the loss of Entei and Cresselia (but mostly Cress.)

And player signups are a week away. yeah!
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at least stick ho-oh and dream eater hypno are banned so you dont have to worry about them
 
We do eventually share our teams... in our warstories after the tournaments. Hell, I shared my team after I won a regional and still continued to use it at Nationals and Worlds.
 
Somebody said:
I was hoping for ADV UU and maybe ADV Uber to be included but whatever.
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SPL likely will never include anything but the primary singles metagame of previous generations due to how many there are. It's probably hard enough to administrate what we have now!
 
smashlloyd20 said:
You wish. If they weren't in SPL they're definitely not gonna be here.
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Yes I do wish that's why I said I was hoping for them!
Firestorm said:
SPL likely will never include anything but the primary singles metagame of previous generations due to how many there are. It's probably hard enough to administrate what we have now!
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Okay but the only secondary metagames of previous generations that actually matter are ADV UU, ADV Uber, DP UU and DP Uber. I guess it's a bit of a longshot to expect all/any of those to be included but at least they're developed. I'm pretty biased towards old gens but having half of the slots devoted to metagames that are less than 4 months old just seems kinda funny to me.
 
The two VGC slots are fine in my opinion. As JRank said earlier go on a different PO server and you will find people that can probably teach you.

And it doesn't take very long to learn a metagame. I remembver it took me about a week to learn UU and NU back almost a year ago and It only took me a few hours to be competitive in RBY. If you want to pick up something just ask people for tips, go read relevent sections of the forums and do your theory. make a couple of teams. Play some people that know what they are doing and then you will be competitive in no time.

Stop whining and actually make an attempt to learn something new.
 
There are a few clarifications to the format, that after discussion amongst myself and the Tournament Directors, are going to be made.

To Account for inflation of price due to there being 12 players per team instead of 10 players per team, the initial funds are being increased to 120000

The Retainer Cost rule is changing to the following: Retainers cost either 10k or "last season's cost + 3000" - whichever is more expensive.

The reasoning for this is we don't want to make it absolutely unfathomable that teams would be able to retain high price players (though we don't want it to be possible to retain someone forever), so a fixed increase is set in place. We acknowledge that this does mean "bargain" players are a little harder to retain, but the way it's seen is a team has already gotten the benefit of a bargain player once, and there's no reason you should CONTINUE to reap the benefits for seasons and seasons and seasons to come. The whole point is that retainers should be somewhat costly, because you're getting to completely eliminate the competition from other managers to repurchase them.

The last change is going to be a bit controversial, but please allow me to explain the reasoning.

There is only going to be 1 VGC 2011 slot this year. It is being replaced with another BW OU slot.

Now, this is for a number of reasons, but let me start off by saying:

Equal slots being portioned to the most current generation OU and the most current VGC ruleset is the "goal". It's going to happen eventually, people, and you're best off getting used to that idea now. The ruleset of Pokemon as viewed by THE WORLD can not be ignored by Smogon any longer.

The ONLY reason it is being changed for this season is due to practical reasons. There was not enough of a warning between the SPL format announcement and now in order for people to know to practice the VGC metagame in depth, nor for managers to properly know who is good. Furthermore, I asked around the notable VGC players that I knew of and not even they themselves could not even come up with 20 "elite" players that would likely play (and who would prefer to play VGC rather than another metagame).

We want this to be as competitive a show as possible, and the quality of players DOES matter.

Please do not consider this a slap to the face, VGC'ers, we could be wrong that there are not enough quality players. I hope we're wrong. Prove us wrong. The onus is on you this season to show that you DO have the number of QUALITY players to warrant your 2 slots and I'll be MORE than happy to dole them out.
 
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