A Pokemon Draft.

[Dragontamer]

Honestly, when I think of a draft/league format to Pokemon, I think of a weekly round-robin style competition (with an eventual playoffs) rather than a straight-out tournament. Eight teams pick eight or nine pokemon each, facing off against one team each week for seven (or fourteen :p) weeks in order to be placed in brackets for a final tournament (ranking first by win/loss, then total pokemon left standing in wins, then total pokemon not KOed in losses).

Each week, a team is allowed to add one pokemon to their team, at the cost of dropping one of their current pokemon - of course, that pokemon would have to clear waivers first, going say 24 hours without being claimed by a team with higher priority (any team that claims a pokemon is sent to the bottom of the priority list). Trading is allowed on a one-to-one basis, either unlimited or also set to one per week. For playoffs, rosters are expanded to 10-11 pokemon, with the last-ranked team given first priority in choosing its first new member.

The problem with this format is that it would require a long-term investment by all participants in order to work, which might not be viable due to last-place teams choosing to quit midway through the process (even though all teams would make the finals), and that it does not reward teams for their placement in the regular season (some kind of home-field advantage would need to be devised, such as limited control over special clauses to be put into effect - most likely, home rules would have to be established before any games took place for each team). Advantages to this system include allowing opponents to metagame each other by adding on specific pokemon to counter their upcoming threat, scouting matches, or choosing to stay the course with their pokemon and grab up bargains for the postseason (at the expense of home-field advantage).

If sixteen people could be troubled to participate in the draft/league, teams could be split into two seperate leagues (Kanto/Johto, for naming purposes alone). Each league of eight would draft from a full pool of pokemon, not interacting with the other league expect perhaps for light interleague play, then combine for a playoff of eight people. This would encourage players to actively seek out victories in the regular season, as only the best four teams from each league would make the playoffs.

Yes, it's somewhat complicated. But that's what true league play is all about.

I like this idea. However, I think that the teams should start off random. Your 30 pokemon are assigned to you by a random number generator. Trading rules will apply, and you may get repeats for pokemon. Ubers and NU pokemon are illegal. Everything else is fair game in terms of the RNG. (That way, no one gets a luvdisc, and no one gets a Mewtwo)

Entirely random teams may put some players at a disadvantage, at which point they can trade in 2 pokemon for a single chance at the RNG. With 30 pokemon in your pool, this gives quite a few retries.

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

We would definitely have to use an anonymous voting system, and I don't mind the draft taking a couple days. if you're impatient for a battle then go to the "Battle Me" forum.

honestly the draft would not take a couple of days. After the first person picks you have a time limit that is it. You have to come in prepared. 5 min x 80 picks = 400 min which is approximently 7 hrs.

Well never mind, I guess it would be a couple of days.

Heres an idea:

Someone can just go and make a new thread that is titled so and so tourny draft picks. The person who picks first simply puts who he wants. Bam, everyone sees who is picked first (and lets just say it is that big fat whore) then everyone would cross blissey off of their lists. Now, the person who picks second has 5 minutes to decide. He then posts who he wants. It's that simple. One word posts. once you reach 81 posts, your finished. then everyone takes a couple of hours and gets their teams together. They can then be submitted on the same forum.

Here is the real thing behind drafting: risk-taking. Lets take Kingdra for example. Blissey and Heracross would obviously be snatched up quickly, but where does this leave Kingdra? Well, hell still be there in the second round, but is the second round too early? I think so. Now move to the third round. Well, I still think it is too early, but this is where your preperation will be key to your success. After all, it's a DRAFT tournament, so anywhere from 50-80 percent of your success lies within your draft.

fantasy football is no different in that respect.

Master Gamer I am so sorry, that was not all in response to your tiny quote. lol

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

Sounds cool, to tell ya the truth. but i dont think it needs to be done on Competitor. if its irl, it adds another component to the game -- players will generally not pick pokes if they arent confident in the poke they have there. @rbygsc, are you willing to host such a tournament?

absolutely, as soon as i figure out how. lol

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

Well the main reason that I brought this up, is that it gives you a chance to fight a blissey-free tourny. like I said, only 1 blissey can be taken (or 2 in the case of two seperate brackets), and the drafting is what makes your success. Honestly, the person who does their homework the most and does not make a stupid decision on draft day will be the one to watch out for. There are at least 100 pokemon that can see some use. you could probably grab shuckle in the 10th round, but that won't be so bad, if you grabbed some trick roomers on the way down.

Also, I just realized that only selecting one blissey is not the highlight of the tournament. It's Tyranitar! Thank about it, with only one T-Tar and that other guy who creates a sandstorm (i can't spell his name at the moment) floating around you are free to use focus sash's, endure/reversal combinations, and many other things that old t-tar ruins.

 

[AlleyViper]

I love the anonymous drafting. Only 1 slight problem with that. The person who picks second will know who was picked first. the person who picks third will most likely know who the first two picks were. For example, you pick blissey 1st and then I use my second pick on blissey and realize that you have her. Well, now I'm going to take heracross, and you have no idea what i have on my team, and I am aware of your blissey.

You missed what I said. If I picked first and you picked second, you wouldn't know that I have Blissey, you'd only know that Blissey was off the board. That's what the Moderater is for. Let's say the draft was conducted in a thread here on Smogon, the draft itself would basically just be the moderator saying "Blissey has been selected, team 2 is on the clock." All any player would be told before hand is what spot they're picking in.

Honestly, when I think of a draft/league format to Pokemon, I think of a weekly round-robin style competition (with an eventual playoffs) rather than a straight-out tournament.

I have an idea: The draft is split into two halves, with the first half Pokemon made into a team, and the second half draftees made into a seperate team. We play our opponent with the first team, then battle with the second. If we split the first two matches, then we choose three pokes from the first team and three from the second to make a tiebreaker team.

I think both of these ideas are just far too contrived. The league would take A LOT of work and dedication (especially considering there's no yahoo or sportsline here to take care of a lot of the tedium for us), and I don't really feel Pokemon lends itself to an add/drop/waiver process. Moreover, nobody claimed this was a draft/league format, it's really much closer to a CCG booster draft.

The second idea, I think it's just trying to do TOO much. If you want to do a league, that opens up room to do more complicated things, if you want to simply do a tournament, you need to keep it as simple as possible.

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

Well, I guess I just misunderstood you. If I don't know that you are team #1, then yes annonyomous would not be so bad.

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

well, i just figured out another problem with the anonymous drafting. Lets say once again that you pick blissey 1st and i take heracross 2nd (yes, i know that is getting old, sorry) and then when it swings back down to my 15th pick, I pick gengar (doubtful that he will be there but that is not the point)

Now it is time for you to pick your next two guys. If you paid attention you know what every team has. For example, you know that heracross and gengar WILL be on the same team. you will also know the 3/14 combo, the 4/13 combo, etc.

If the moderator does not announce who is selected then the draft will take FOREVER, especially in the later rounds. For example, If I am in the 4th round and I say Kingdra, the mod may tell me that it is taken. I would guess again, but the guessing can go on for an hour.

It seems there is no way around the moderator announcing the pokemon chosen; thus, as long as you pay attention you will know who is on who's team anyway.

 

[AlleyViper]

Now it is time for you to pick your next two guys. If you paid attention you know what every team has. For example, you know that heracross and gengar WILL be on the same team. you will also know the 3/14 combo, the 4/13 combo, etc.

There's nothing wrong with that. I still don't know WHO has those things, and again, assuming this is just a generic bracket tourney, I may never face them. Moreover, after each of my picks, people will be able to respond accordingly, it goes both ways.

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

very true. if brackets do exist, then you may never see big bad blissey, but at the same time it wouldn't hurt to grab a counter (possibly medicham or machamp) in the later rounds.

 

[X-Codes]

It seems there is no way around the moderator announcing the pokemon chosen; thus, as long as you pay attention you will know who is on who's team anyway.

Not quite. You will have an idea about what each team is, but you won't know who has which team and which 6 of the 10 'mons selected make up the actual team.

Once the first round of the tourney is over, then everyone knows who has what as usual. The draft does nothing to change that.

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

Not quite. You will have an idea about what each team is, but you won't know who has which team and which 6 of the 10 'mons selected make up the actual team.

Once the first round of the tourney is over, then everyone knows who has what as usual. The draft does nothing to change that.

true. I mentioned it because, everyone will MOST Likely (most being the key word) be using their first two picks, so I found it important to be able to grab counters as neccessary.

It has been mentioned before though, counters to certain pokemon can probably be picked up in Rounds 6-10.

 

[Better_Sandw1ch]

I don't see how anonymous drafting would be an advantage in any way, as a large part of the drafting process would involve taking hard counters to certain teams and picking up other pokemon specifically to shut other people out of certain combinations (for example, preventing a player from getting Skarm/Bliss or the everpresent Gyara/Vire, or setting up a full BP or Sandstorm team, or helping one's own team by grabbing a Steel type earlier than planned simply because they're all being snatched up, etc). Without knowledge of what other teams look like, draftees would have no basis to judge what pokemon would be best for them to pick up. Of course, actual match-ups in the tournament would not be revealed until post-draft, so that people would not start a hard counter-race against their first opponent.

If each person is given 8 or 9 pokemon to choose from, enough variety is available so that teams will be able to surprise each other. If a player is poorly matched against another team, it gives him a chance to piece together counters, instead of being ruined by having the misfortune of facing a team that he/she was completely unprepared for (mainly because he/she did not know such a team was being amassed, and thus did not block it from forming in the drafting stage).

 

[ANinyMouse]

Personally, with so many random teams I think the Doubles format would be the most fun. The number of potential combos in Doubles increases greatly from 1vs1, blah blah blah.

Eh? Eh?

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

I don't see how anonymous drafting would be an advantage in any way, as a large part of the drafting process would involve taking hard counters to certain teams and picking up other pokemon specifically to shut other people out of certain combinations (for example, preventing a player from getting Skarm/Bliss or the everpresent Gyara/Vire, or setting up a full BP or Sandstorm team, or helping one's own team by grabbing a Steel type earlier than planned simply because they're all being snatched up, etc). Without knowledge of what other teams look like, draftees would have no basis to judge what pokemon would be best for them to pick up. Of course, actual match-ups in the tournament would not be revealed until post-draft, so that people would not start a hard counter-race against their first opponent.

If each person is given 8 or 9 pokemon to choose from, enough variety is available so that teams will be able to surprise each other. If a player is poorly matched against another team, it gives him a chance to piece together counters, instead of being ruined by having the misfortune of facing a team that he/she was completely unprepared for (mainly because he/she did not know such a team was being amassed, and thus did not block it from forming in the drafting stage).

Yes, I agree that anonymous drafting really isn't all that great. It seems that you not only want to build your own team but you also want to prevent a person from making a perfect team. (the gyarados/electivire example you used) However, doing the latter can hinder you from making a good team yourself. If you take six poke's that are overall great counters, you may find it tough for the six of them to function together well.

 

[General Tso]

Is it possible that, instead of letting people know which pokemon was picked by you, all participants PM in their top 3 choices for each round and get whatever is left (i.e. If choice one was Blissey was already taken, then choice two Salamence would be taken.) Then, you take off the first 8 pokemon chosen without revealing who took which poke.

You'd really have to come up with a good strategy this way.

 

[porygon3]

That's what some people do though. They pick good enough teams to win and make sure the other people can't do that. In FF, I could take a great RB with 3 of my first 4 picks so that other players don't have them, and if someone picked Peyton Manning in r1, they probably won't have a good RB at all, and they'll be struggling because their team won't work well.

And remember... you can pick Gliscor, Electivire, and Medicham (to counter Heracross and Blissey, and Electivire to stop the Gyarados/Electivire thing) and still have a good team. All 3 of those can be good on their own even if the other person doesn't have one of the things you're specifically counter, or you could use some of the other 5+ pokemon you chose.

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

That's what some people do though. They pick good enough teams to win and make sure the other people can't do that. In FF, I could take a great RB with 3 of my first 4 picks so that other players don't have them, and if someone picked Peyton Manning in r1, they probably won't have a good RB at all, and they'll be struggling because their team won't work well.

And remember... you can pick Gliscor, Electivire, and Medicham (to counter Heracross and Blissey, and Electivire to stop the Gyarados/Electivire thing) and still have a good team. All 3 of those can be good on their own even if the other person doesn't have one of the things you're specifically counter, or you could use some of the other 5+ pokemon you chose.

exactly. In my first year of fantasy football (2005) i had the number 1 pick. Instead of picking manning first, i took LT because RB's are such a crucial part to the game. Picking LT is like picking Blissey, because you know that Blissey is going be able and perform for you. Know sure if you could see the future, you may want to pick t-tar first and build a perfect sandstorm team.

 

[AlleyViper]

I don't see how anonymous drafting would be an advantage in any way, as a large part of the drafting process would involve taking hard counters to certain teams and picking up other pokemon specifically to shut other people out of certain combinations (for example, preventing a player from getting Skarm/Bliss or the everpresent Gyara/Vire, or setting up a full BP or Sandstorm team, or helping one's own team by grabbing a Steel type earlier than planned simply because they're all being snatched up, etc). Without knowledge of what other teams look like, draftees would have no basis to judge what pokemon would be best for them to pick up.

Go back and read what I've said. It's not blind drafting, it's anonymous, it's a distinct difference. Of course you're going to know what pokes are on what team, you just don't know WHO owns those pokes. If Blissey's taken first overall, and then, say, Alakazam at the end of the scond round, clearly they'd be on the same team (as if the moderator saying "Player/Team 1 chooses Alakazam" wouldn't be clear enough).

 

[porygon3]

yes but after 1 battle, everyone's team ends up getting revealed anyway, so there's not really any reason to keep it all secretive.

 

[Kimi3013]

Is it possible that, instead of letting people know which pokemon was picked by you, all participants PM in their top 3 choices for each round and get whatever is left (i.e. If choice one was Blissey was already taken, then choice two Salamence would be taken.) Then, you take off the first 8 pokemon chosen without revealing who took which poke.

You'd really have to come up with a good strategy this way.

You'd be better off submitting a list of your top X (X being number of people in draft). Once all the lists are in, run down them and assign pokemon. Tell people who they've got and request the next list. That way you don't have a problem if more than one person hands in the same list (The person in forth want's Blissy, 'Mance and T-Tar, but they've gone then there's a problem)

 

[Kimi3013]

yes but after 1 battle, everyone's team ends up getting revealed anyway, so there's not really any reason to keep it all secretive.

It stops picking teams with other players in mind. Makes things a little more fair than having an open draft.

 

[rbygsc kid 251]

Heres a short example of what could Possibly go down (this is purely theoritical. lol)

NOTE: The following is not my personal feelings of how pokemon should be ranked. I'm just trying to use an example of how some people may think in regards to drafting and supporting their teams.

Player A- 1st pick- Heracross
Player B- 2nd pick- Blissey
Player C- 3rd pick- Tyranitar
Player D- 4th pick- Salamence
Player E- 5th pick- Cresselia
Player F- 6th pick- Gyarados
Player G- 7th pick- Porygon Z
Player H- 8th pick- Skarmory
Player H- 9th pick- Magnezone
Player G- 10th pick- Glisor
Player F- 11th pick- Electivire
Player E- 12th pick- Garchomp
Player D- 13th pick- Suicune
Player C- 14th pick- Heatran
Player B- 15th pick- Gengar
Player A- 16th pick- Togekiss


Lets start with Player H. They grabbed Skarmory with the 8th pick and then with the 9th pick they took Skarmory's ULTIMATE counter. Now This person will never fear being trapped down the road (and does not have to worry about that shedskin crap and can put lefties on Skarmory.) magnezone (as seen in so many warstories) can win matches. So Player H killed two birds in one stone: eliminated skarmory's problem and picked up a good offensive person.

Player g- Well Porygon Z's only weakness is fighting, although he is pretty frail overall. However when someone comes in to switch on z, it will most likely be a physical person with moves such as stone edge, eq, close combat, aerial ace, etc. Well, Gligar has to worry about none of these problems.

Player F- pretty obvious why they did this. They used their second pick to form a nasty combo with their first pick.

Player E- player E choose a wall with their first pick, so they took a very good offensive person to compliment their first pick.

Player D- The exact opposite of Player E. Took an offensive player in the first round, and picked a wall that can eat up ice beams in the second round.

Player C- simply drafted Heatran for great offensive plus the fact, that steel is not hurt by tar's sand.

Player b- Blissey's one true problems: Fighting moves, a switch to gengar takes care of that. If someone goes with shadow ball on gengar, then they can switch back to blissey.

Player A- Choose a physically sweeper in round one, and a possible special sweeper in sound two. NOTE: This person picks 17th, so since they grabbed two heavy offensive players they can grab somebody defensive.



One final thing that has not been mentioned in this entire thread is that there MUST be an EVEN amount of pokemon chosen. The reason being is simply that if there is an ODD amount of pokemon choosen then the people who pick 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th will have an advantage, because they pick in the first half of the FIRST and LAST rounds. The person who picks FIRST in the draft must also pick LAST in the draft

 

[porygon3]

You'd be better off submitting a list of your top X (X being number of people in draft). Once all the lists are in, run down them and assign pokemon. Tell people who they've got and request the next list. That way you don't have a problem if more than one person hands in the same list (The person in forth want's Blissy, 'Mance and T-Tar, but they've gone then there's a problem)

But there's a big problem with that too. When you make a priority list of the pokemon you want, you have no control over weaknesses your team is going to have. It's very possible to get, say, Tyranitar, Jirachi, and Heatran, with no good Ground Resist/Flying type. You have almost no control of your team, and huge weaknesses like that will be there on most teams if you just make a list and the mod (or whoever assigns the pokemon) chooses your team based on it.

 

[Kimi3013]

But there's a big problem with that too. When you make a priority list of the pokemon you want, you have no control over weaknesses your team is going to have. It's very possible to get, say, Tyranitar, Jirachi, and Heatran, with no good Ground Resist/Flying type. You have almost no control of your team, and huge weaknesses like that will be there on most teams if you just make a list and the mod (or whoever assigns the pokemon) chooses your team based on it.

You still have control. You've miss understood. You make one list, then submit it and the first round of the draft it done. After that round you get to know what you got. Then based on who you get you can make another list and submit it for the next round.

Example. For the first round you list the best pokemon (T-tar, 'Mance, Blissy and such). You come out with a T-tar. Form this you make you next list. You've got your physical sweeper, and want to take the best counter for it or maybe you want to make a team based around Sand Storm. Your next list has pokemon like Donphan, Gliscor and Lucario who are immune to the storm, Breloom who's a good T-tar Counter, and Ninjask who's a good baton passer to set up your T-tar. You get Lucario. From here you say I'm weak against Earthquake and Fighting, so you make the next list to pick up a flying type.

You still have control over what you get, just need to think a little before you make each list. You can evolve your plan as each pick comes

 

[AlleyViper]

yes but after 1 battle, everyone's team ends up getting revealed anyway, so there's not really any reason to keep it all secretive.

If you decide to share with each other player what exactly you faced, sure.