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Rules Draft League Rules and Announcements

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Princess Autumn

Princess Autumn

Anyways - so then I cursed her.
is a Tournament Directoris a Site Content Manageris a Community Leaderis a Top Programmeris a Top Community Contributoris a Top Metagame Resource Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Host
Draft Leader
Welcome to the Draft forum! This is Smogon's onsite hub for all things relating to draft leagues. Please take a minute to read through our forum rules:

Smogon Draft Discord Server.
  • All of Smogon's Global Rules apply.
  • Ask for moderator approval before posting a new thread and avoid posting duplicate threads. Moderators have the right to lock any unapproved or duplicate threads.
  • Do not insult or flame other users.
  • Avoid double posting in threads, there's an edit button for a reason.
  • Do not create threads just to ask questions - refer instead to the Simple Questions, Simple Answers thread.
  • Do not create threads plugging your draft league - refer to the League Advertisement thread.
  • In-game topics belongs either in Orange Islands (for discussion of in-game content) or the Wi-Fi forum (for in-game trading/battling/breeding).
The current Draft staff team is:

Community Leaders
Princess Autumn
Hacker
OdinRM

Forum Moderators
a fairy
vmnunes
goldmason

C&C Moderators
jscurf
Princess Autumn

Discord Moderators
Aleksanteri
ComputerWhiz
Happygate
LeBomboclats
Lupla
theuncultured
Thomas18
Tidal
trace
TwentyTwan

Rissoux - Community Leader, Forum Moderator - Nov 2022 - Dec 2024
Tjb145 - Community Leader, Forum Moderator - Nov 2022 - May 2024
Maia - Subforum Founder, Forum Moderator, Discord Moderator - Nov 2022 - Dec 2024
kumiko - Subforum Founder, Forum Moderator, Discord Moderator - Nov 2022 - Apr 2023
abriel - Forum Moderator, Discord Moderator - Dec 2022 - Mar 2026
ultraplayer - Forum Moderator, Discord Moderator - Dec 2022 - Jan 2026
scionicle - Forum Moderator, C&C Moderator, Discord Moderator - July 2024 - Aug 2026
SlickPanther - Forum Moderator, Discord Moderator - Nov 2022 - Jun 2023
SparksBlade - Forum Moderator, Discord Moderator - Dec 2022 - Mar 2024
Techno - C&C Moderator, Discord Moderator - Dec 2023 - Apr 2026
Aberforth - Discord Moderator
AngularPenny5 - Discord Moderator
Avacodoh - Discord Moderator
Concept - Discord Moderator
lucouk - Discord Moderator
olivia - Discord Moderator
Professor Shuckle - Discord Moderator
PZZ - Discord Moderator
TONE - Discord Moderator
TRowePrice667 - Discord Moderator
UT - Discord Moderator
ausma, autumn, BagelJohn, dhelmise, Eve, Hazv, Lily, shiloh, yuki - Helped get this project off the ground

As a rule of thumb, remember that the application of each and every rule is subject to moderator discretion. If you have questions about the rules, their interpretation, or anything else related to the Draft forum, then feel free to contact one of the Draft forum moderators above via private message.

Thank you for reading and we hope you enjoy your time in the Draft forum!
 
Please note that a ban from the Discord server will result in an indefinite circuit ban from all future Draft League subforum tours, as well as any tours in the draft pools phase. It will not remove you from any ongoing tours in the battle pools/bracket phases. This is because you must be in the Discord server to be able to take part in the draft. While this has been an implied rule since day one of the forum, we're posting this now to make it abundantly clear.
 
In preparation for the 2023 Summer Seasonal we asked the ever-talented Kris to create a custom version of our SV dex Draft and National Dex Draft tiers to include the terastallization mechanic in a new way: Tera Preview! Getting a look at your opponent's tera options at the game's onset, we hope, will further help people adapt to this generation's new mechanic in Draft League. The tiers are now publicly available for anyone to use, pictured below for your reference:

Untitled_design_81.png


Additionally, the 4v4 draft tier has been edited to allow evasion boosting abilities because this format is based off of the VGC ruleset.

image.png
 
Yesterday we relaunched the Draft room on PS! and hope to host community polls, draft factory tournaments when it debuts, as well as various games like pokemon hangman and uno! Come join us if you haven't already QOTDs and more as we discuss Draft League and all it's intricacies.
:Squad:

https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/draft

The current staff team for the room is as follows:
Room Owners: Rissoux Nyx Theia
Mods: vmnunes a fairy Tjb145 Hacker ComputerWhiz UT SparksBlade abriel
Drivers: TRowePrice667 ultraplayer Happygate Thomas18
 
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Rissoux said:
In preparation for the 2023 Summer Seasonal we asked the ever-talented Kris to create a custom version of our SV dex Draft and National Dex Draft tiers to include the terastallization mechanic in a new way: Tera Preview! Getting a look at your opponent's tera options at the game's onset, we hope, will further help people adapt to this generation's new mechanic in Draft League. The tiers are now publicly available for anyone to use, pictured below for your reference:

View attachment 526602

Additionally, the 4v4 draft tier has been edited to allow evasion boosting abilities because this format is based off of the VGC ruleset.

View attachment 526604
Click to expand...
The Draft League admin team is dedicated to ensuring maximum efficiency pertaining to the organization of channels in the PS! teambuilder. While we may not readily offer an exhaustive list of formats, we do offer those most used and routinely update the naming conventions and formats consistent with the most popular formats in the community. This is in effort to best use the limited category space we offer.

We will always take considerations for validation suggestions (for what's legal/banned) in our formats, as well as suggestions for new formats to add when the interest arises. Please utilize the general discussion thread to discuss and request such changes so we can field them appropriately. I've been getting more and more individuals DMing me asking for changes to the formats so putting the "official" process to paper should be the best way to field these requests.

Understandably, we can't add every format that we want, so I implore you to familiarize yourself with the following resources on generating challenge codes to get the correct battle rules in your games:
Custom Rules and Verification Help
/buildformat (In any PS! chat room, type /buildformat and the client will walk you through the clauses for your format based off a pre-existing format)
 
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This post will formally describe how Draft Factory will work. This is an endeavor originally started by a separate private PS! client, however it is no longer maintained. I feel it is absolutely worthwhile to expand the Draft League player base and provide a much needed method for new and seasoned players to practice the format without the massive organization that it usually requires:

Draft Factory will mirror Battle Factory in structure (I'll link the official description of Battle Factory for those unfamiliar) and will recreate a matchup that has occurred in one of our SV draft league tournaments. ("Matchup" in this instance means a pairing of player 1 vs player 2 and the corresponding teams that they drafted.)
1. It eliminates the need for players to find/organize a Draft League, draft their own team, and prep with that team versus another team. Essentially piggybacking off of other's effort to quickly participate in the format.

2. Draft Factory will help standardize and offer quick familiarization for what Draft League offers as a competitive format. For players unfamiliar with how intricate the Draft League format is, this will provide invaluable insight into the format's potential.

3. Draft Factory matchups will feature high replicability, as we will generate up to or around 200 pairings per round per tournament. (With anywhere from 6-10 rounds per tournament, there will be no shortage of teams for individuals to practice the format with.)
- All competitors in Draft League tournaments are given a budget to draft eight Pokémon from a tier list in which Pokémon are priced according to their general value. I've linked an example tournament post that has all the pertinent format details. These rules will be largely the same for all Gen 9 SV Tournaments held this year by the Draft League sub-forum.

- For the 2024 Winter Seasonal, competitors were asked to send the team of 6 Pokémon that they are bringing to each round's match (in a pokepaste) to a Winter Seasonal tournament host. Those hosts will compile and organize the pokepastes into pairings for each round. For subsequent Gen 9 SV tournaments, PS! administrators will have the ability to download the pokepastes automatically without competitors sending them to hosts (whether or not we choose to utilize this approach will be decided at a later date.)

- By signing up for our Gen 9 SV tournaments, competitors agree to comply voluntarily or involuntarily with the parameters outlined in this breakdown. Submitting teams is a participation requirement and will always be listed in sign up OPs. While we understand competitors may want to keep their prep a secret, that privacy is waived when choosing to voluntarily compete in these tournaments. Users who do not comply with the mandate described above will not be infracted or otherwise punished, however, consistently not complying as described above may make it less likely a competitor will be chosen to participate in further sub-forum events.

- Sub-forum staff will comb through the team pairings after the tournament has concluded (to avoid any appearance of impropriety in case staff are also participating in the tournament) and quality check teams, removing any that are objectively non-competitive or otherwise unfit for official use on the PS! client (such as having offensive nicknames). At this time, staff will also make a note of which Pokémon that were brought to each match were tera captains. For Battle Factory's purpose, only the Pokémon drafted as legal tera captains will be able to terastallize into their predetermined tera type.

- After the teams and pairings have been collated, they will be forwarded to PS! admins for entering into the client. Once this happens, anyone will be able to play a randbat that loads a competitively balanced and unique matchup that actually happened in one of our official and ribbon'd tournaments.
As the 2024 Draft League Circuit continues throughout the year and we have our other two Gen 9 SV tournaments, Draft Factory will either see teams swapped or added to the current large database of pairings (depending on limitations related to memory and storage capabilities of the PS! client and the developers thereof). Sub-forum staff may also choose to impose a round-requirement in order to further filter the quality of teams inputted into the Draft Factory tier. Please reach out to myself or another sub-forum staff memeber if you have questions about this initiative!
 
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We worked with the developer team to implement some QOL updates to the Draft tiers:

"[Gen 9] Paldea Dex Draft" became "[Gen 9] Draft"
"[Gen 9] Tera Preview Paldea Dex Draft" became "[Gen 9] Tera Preview Draft"
We added the "best of 3" feature to the 4x4 Doubles Draft tier

Many thanks to Kris for continuing to help us streamline the Draft League experience!
 
Please congratulate Nyx on her promotion to Community Leader, as well as Hacker and ultraplayer on their promotions to Forum Moderator!

The amount of work Autumn has put into this project since its inception is extraordinary. From doc work, to logistics to hours upon hours of future planning, she has been a pillar of this project since the beginning and is more that deserving of her newfound title.

Hacker's been in charge of Draft C&C since its inception, being a driving force behind it's unprecedented growth, and has been a valuable member of the Discord's staff team for over a year. ultraplayer in a similar vein has been a member of the staff team since Draft's Kickoff tour, while also being the Draft room's most active owner, pushing forward activity and tours alike. Both have shown great promise, and we're super excited to see them join our mod team.
 
Rissoux said:
This post will formally describe how Draft Factory will work. This is an endeavor originally started by a separate private PS! client, however it is no longer maintained. I feel it is absolutely worthwhile to expand the Draft League player base and provide a much needed method for new and seasoned players to practice the format without the massive organization that it usually requires:

Draft Factory will mirror Battle Factory in structure (I'll link the official description of Battle Factory for those unfamiliar) and will recreate a matchup that has occurred in one of our SV draft league tournaments. ("Matchup" in this instance means a pairing of player 1 vs player 2 and the corresponding teams that they drafted.)
1. It eliminates the need for players to find/organize a Draft League, draft their own team, and prep with that team versus another team. Essentially piggybacking off of other's effort to quickly participate in the format.

2. Draft Factory will help standardize and offer quick familiarization for what Draft League offers as a competitive format. For players unfamiliar with how intricate the Draft League format is, this will provide invaluable insight into the format's potential.

3. Draft Factory matchups will feature high replicability, as we will generate up to or around 200 pairings per round per tournament. (With anywhere from 6-10 rounds per tournament, there will be no shortage of teams for individuals to practice the format with.)
- All competitors in Draft League tournaments are given a budget to draft eight Pokémon from a tier list in which Pokémon are priced according to their general value. I've linked an example tournament post that has all the pertinent format details. These rules will be largely the same for all Gen 9 SV Tournaments held this year by the Draft League sub-forum.

- For the 2024 Winter Seasonal, competitors were asked to send the team of 6 Pokémon that they are bringing to each round's match (in a pokepaste) to a Winter Seasonal tournament host. Those hosts will compile and organize the pokepastes into pairings for each round. For subsequent Gen 9 SV tournaments, PS! administrators will have the ability to download the pokepastes automatically without competitors sending them to hosts (whether or not we choose to utilize this approach will be decided at a later date.)

- By signing up for our Gen 9 SV tournaments, competitors agree to comply voluntarily or involuntarily with the parameters outlined in this breakdown. Submitting teams is a participation requirement and will always be listed in sign up OPs. While we understand competitors may want to keep their prep a secret, that privacy is waived when choosing to voluntarily compete in these tournaments. Users who do not comply with the mandate described above will not be infracted or otherwise punished, however, consistently not complying as described above may make it less likely a competitor will be chosen to participate in further sub-forum events.

- Sub-forum staff will comb through the team pairings after the tournament has concluded (to avoid any appearance of impropriety in case staff are also participating in the tournament) and quality check teams, removing any that are objectively non-competitive or otherwise unfit for official use on the PS! client (such as having offensive nicknames). At this time, staff will also make a note of which Pokémon that were brought to each match were tera captains. For Battle Factory's purpose, only the Pokémon drafted as legal tera captains will be able to terastallize into their predetermined tera type.

- After the teams and pairings have been collated, they will be forwarded to PS! admins for entering into the client. Once this happens, anyone will be able to play a randbat that loads a competitively balanced and unique matchup that actually happened in one of our official and ribbon'd tournaments.
As the 2024 Draft League Circuit continues throughout the year and we have our other two Gen 9 SV tournaments, Draft Factory will either see teams swapped or added to the current large database of pairings (depending on limitations related to memory and storage capabilities of the PS! client and the developers thereof). Sub-forum staff may also choose to impose a round-requirement in order to further filter the quality of teams inputted into the Draft Factory tier. Please reach out to myself or another sub-forum staff memeber if you have questions about this initiative!
Click to expand...
Draft Factory is finally live! Massive thanks to Karthik Mathy dhelmise for their work in coding the tier, and to Maia for the monumental task of collecting over 650 unique matchups worth of pokepastes from the 2024 winter seasonal! We are planning on hosting an inaugural Draft Factory charity tournament in March to celebrate the format and benefit Doctors Without Borders! The format will be single elimination, BO3, and hosted in the Draft room on PS! The charity tournament winner's prize will be a custom avatar on PS!
a fairy posted a great introduction to the randbats forum, check it out here for more information

The Draft sub-forum will be routinely updating Draft Factory's matchups with pokepastes from our competitive SV tournaments held throughout the year in order to simulate the most competitively equal games in the community. Pokepastes obtained from singles tournaments can be requested to not be included in Draft Factory, but no pastes will be incorporated into Draft Factory while that tournament is still ongoing to preserve competitive integrity of competitor building habits and techs. We will utilize pastes from the following tournaments for inclusion in Draft Factory:
  • Seasonal Tournaments: Top 128 or top 64 to Championship
  • Draft League World Cup
  • Draft Champions League
You can help us maintain the format by submitting bugs via this link (please include a replay)!
All pokemon on the pokepastes have been screened to remove inappropriate nicknames, blatantly incorrect movesets and abilities (light metal scizor or no attacking moves iron valiant for example), but with the huge amount of teams we launched with there are bound to be things that get missed. Please feel free to also report teams with uncompetitive move sets/abilities, but understand not every team reported may be pulled depending on review by staff. Everybody preps and plays draft matches differently. Just because one set may not be optimal does not mean it is inherently uncompetitive, it likely means decisions were made by the builder to account for the other two opposing Pokémon that didn't come to the match.
We are currently aware of issues related sleep clause not being implemented, palafin sometimes being unable to become hero form, battle bond not working, among others.
 
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Ever since his promotion to Forum Moderator earlier in the year, Hacker has been a vital pillar of our staff team, taking the lead on tiering and streamlining the process massively, while also being a helpful presence across the entirety of the section. For these reasons, Rissoux and I both want to acknowledge his hard work and would like to welcome him as our co-leader for the section!
 
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