Implemented WCOP Format (tiers)

[RoiDadadou]

physically cringed from this post. bro if you needed to search for people on goddamn tumblr to fill a wcop team maybe ur country shouldnt be in the tournament to begin with? go try to play for europe or smth? hello?? like u clearly dont have an engaged community in sv ou in belgium if u have to go fetch players on random social media sites to fill a quota for cg ou 10 slots, so why the fuck are you complaining abt a format change? this legit could make it easier for u to find players LOL if you needed to scroll through tumblr, facebook, tinder and linkedin to find 10 sv ou players already, worst case scenario u just add shit like instagram and bumble and im p sure you could find players in ss - oras as well at this point. crazy stupid post fr.

anyway, voicing my support for dou addition despite brazil not having any dou players. dou is a balanced tier with an active and engaged playerbase, which should be welcomed into the official circuit more. like a fairy said, 1 more sv ou slot doesnt rly make a difference in any aspect p much, while 1 dou slot brings a whole lot more to the tournament. should be a great addition.

Famous moment when adding underplayed tiers makes it easier to find players at all. You're just saying nonsense, but try to keep it civil. Excuse us for not having the player quantity US have.

On another note since all of this has been discussed on Discord and you're dembele tarde:

Speaking of the matter of DOU, while it is true that a lot of teams, BE included ngl, will maybe struggle to find a player, since most VGC players have the real circuit that brings them real money going on rn, and will mostly invest themselves in that, I do feel like it's a great addition and is THE tournament you can expect a Doubles player not to be casted aside in the team. For the sake of it, I think having a DOU slot is a great thing that we should push.

 

[Exotic64]

I really enjoy playing DOU, just as much as spectating the games in official tours. Although I am primarily a current gen OU main, I've immersed myself in Doubles a lot recently, having started in DWCoP and DPL, and I do not mind bringing DOU to WCOP. However, there are a few concerns I have about this.
As outlined previously in this thread, a big issue with the introduction with DOU to WCOP is accessibility and finding players to fill into that slot. Grandmas Cookin's post states that the transition from VGC to DOU is not that significant, and I would have agreed 1 month ago, however ever since the Flutter ban and the absence of Urshifu I can say with confidence that Reg F and DOU is most definitely 2 completely different metagames; a VGC player might be able to pilot teams well but as for getting more involved with the format such as building and prep work, it would be much more challenging, and perhaps that might be an issue when it comes to getting together a roster for WCOP. Another point to take into consideration is most definitely the identity of WCOP - it has stayed as a singles format tournament ever since its creation, should wanting to move off a completely CGOU format really warrant breaking this status quo? Putting those points aside, I'd like to echo that DOU is a fantastic tier with a very welcoming and great community, I would definitely lean DOU > 5 SVOU slots in that regard.

 

[ratpacker]

I agree with the fact that if you're struggling to fill a DOU slot your team will probably be "thrown to the wolves" regardless.
I captained France for DWCOP this year and my criteria to finish the roster had to be eagerness and being able to find an SV DOU replay of every player. We ended up 9th out of 13 but I'm pretty sure everyone has fun.

anyway, voicing my support for dou addition despite brazil not having any dou players.

My brother in Christ, Brazil had a DWCOP team. With subs. Do check out the link Grandmas Cookin posted for the rosters.

Regarding learning the tier, there are a huge amount of resources, articles, ongoing tours, spreads, teams available to help. There is an active community and discord and, unlike crusty-old GSC, an active ladder which some of the best players still play on. Any good player could pick up the necessary skills within a couple weeks.

Finally, I think it's a good idea to include DOU in WCOP and I think we should go further and also include a singles slot in DWCOP to better cement a bridge between both communities.

 

[Railgun]

Personally, this is an excellent idea!
Adding different formats to World Cup gives other players the opportunity to play for their country (not only in the World Cup of the specific tier, for example Doubles World Cup).

In Mexico there are many players who want the opportunity to play with us in this tournament but it is not possible for them since they are not familiar with the OU format, this will give more variety to World Cup and will be fun, please implement it

 

[Eoward]

physically cringed from this post. bro if you needed to search for people on goddamn tumblr to fill a wcop team maybe ur country shouldnt be in the tournament to begin with? go try to play for europe or smth? hello?? like u clearly dont have an engaged community in sv ou in belgium if u have to go fetch players on random social media sites to fill a quota for cg ou 10 slots, so why the fuck are you complaining abt a format change? this legit could make it easier for u to find players LOL if you needed to scroll through tumblr, facebook, tinder and linkedin to find 10 sv ou players already, worst case scenario u just add shit like instagram and bumble and im p sure you could find players in ss - oras as well at this point. crazy stupid post fr.

anyway, voicing my support for dou addition despite brazil not having any dou players. dou is a balanced tier with an active and engaged playerbase, which should be welcomed into the official circuit more. like a fairy said, 1 more sv ou slot doesnt rly make a difference in any aspect p much, while 1 dou slot brings a whole lot more to the tournament. should be a great addition.

I hear people who want to see new tiers, we're here to discuss it and I'm happy to see debates.

But i can't understand the "your country is too small, so go to Europe" argument.

1) The country has too few players, mainly BECAUSE of the existence of Europe. Honestly, I spoke to Mcmeghan about it last year, and I understand that he prefers to play with Europe with his buddies and with hand-picked guys from a multitude of countries. what bothers me is that this choice is still allowed when the player's country of origin is in the main event. If a guy like Ruft had no choice but to play for Belgium, he'd probably come. I consider it an "illegitimate privilege" to be allowed to choose under these conditions.
2) "go try to play for europe or smth?".... It's ridiculous to give priority to continental teams over national teams. By definition, a World Cup is between countries. You denigrate the fact that small countries are trying to get by and then complain about decisions that bury them. I find it so natural to do so. Especially when you're trying to bring about discussion and do it objectively. And we're not the only ones.

I know I come across as a bit of a complainer, and I'm sorry about that. I would have preferred not to be seen in this light, but I have to do it to represent and defend ideas that I think are right.

I take great pleasure in participating in the wcup with my boys, and if I take the time to write, it's not just for us but also for the community.

 

[Rigas]

physically cringed from this post. bro if you needed to search for people on goddamn tumblr to fill a wcop team maybe ur country shouldnt be in the tournament to begin with? go try to play for europe or smth? hello?? like u clearly dont have an engaged community in sv ou in belgium if u have to go fetch players on random social media sites to fill a quota for cg ou 10 slots, so why the fuck are you complaining abt a format change? this legit could make it easier for u to find players LOL if you needed to scroll through tumblr, facebook, tinder and linkedin to find 10 sv ou players already, worst case scenario u just add shit like instagram and bumble and im p sure you could find players in ss - oras as well at this point. crazy stupid post fr.

Why are you aggressive towards RoiDadadou because they want to represent their own country? Telling them to go play for another team does nothing to address the issues that their own team, the one they actually want to play for, is facing.

They explained why the suggested changes would make it harder for their team to participate. Your response was to claim that they shouldn't complain about these changes that are hurting them, then that "this legit could make it easier for u to find players" without providing a clear explanation as to why that's the case.

Not every country has large pool of known players already on Smogon. If a small country needs to find players who play but are not on Smogon, then what is the problem with that? New players coming in for the sake of the WCoP means that the playerbase of Smogon will increase + there'll be a stronger local communities for the future. Assuming that the point of a World Cup is to have countries compete, then wouldn't that mean the feedback provided by this member of Belgium's team is something at least worth considering, regardless of whether it's ultimately followed or not?

Setting aside the issue of Belgium in particular; if several small teams believe that a SV DOU slot will make it harder for them to participate, then it's worth taking their concerns seriously, as the big teams will be able to find players either way. But if the small teams don't believe a SV DOU slot will make finding players harder, then I don't see any big issues with the addition of SV DOU to the tournament.

 

[SoulWind]

This thread has made it very clear that it's a pretty overwhelming opinion currently that the WCoP tiers should change from all CG OU. After reading through it and discussing within the TD team, we've decided on going with one of the 2 formats below. Given the 10 slot format we will also be increasing the sub count. Teams will be allowed to have 3-5 subs making the overall roster size 13-15.

1. 5 SV OU, SS OU, SM OU, ORAS OU, SV Ubers, SV UU
2. 4 SV OU, SS OU, SM OU, ORAS OU, SV Ubers, SV UU, SV DOU

We decided on a mix of old gens and lower tiers to keep an overall balance of the two within our team tournament circuit. This is in turn essentially necessitated a 10 slot format, as it's extremely difficult to fit a mix into 8 slots and we also felt that 12 slots would be burdensome to smaller regions. We chose the most recent old gens since they're undeniably the most accessible. Many WCoP players were around when these tiers were CG, they're the most similar mechanics-wise, and they are represented in other official tours (Smogon Tour/Masters). As for the lower tiers, UU and Ubers have generally been the most popular singles lower tiers. There's also no concerns with them being ready to play in time for qualifiers in new gen release years.

The open question is a 5th SV OU vs a Doubles for a final slot. SV OU is obviously Smogon's flagship tier and it having half the slots in a tournament that's been 100% CG OU for the past 4 years would make sense. Doubles on the other hand does have a large general playerbase and official tournament of it's own. Doubles opens the tournament up to players who would otherwise not be able to participate, and allows singles players to experience a new aspect of competitive Pokemon. However, it would obviously be the most different of the included tiers and there have been valid concerns raised in this thread about it's inclusion. It would have the largest barrier of entry and the size of the playerbase in Smogon tournaments is much smaller compared to its ladder activity.

We plan on leaving this thread open for another week or so to let people debate regarding the last slot (5th SV OU vs Doubles) and will decide on a final format afterwards. Also tagging last year's captains for awareness on the changes (this isn't a vote though)

Vileman Ikaishi Eoward Raahel Analytic Mysterious M zS Eternal Spirit Oshim Fluore elednb Starmind Glue Perish Song Astoria ElectricityCat Huargensy obii false Aurella ima Stone Cold London Beats MANNAT Ruft Genesis7 So Noisy mind gaming Cicada Airi

Nobody wants SS on this tour, it's been pretty clear from the replies to this thread. Masters tiers are not needed. Instead of giving us the "choice" of choosing between two dogshit formats, I suggest taking more time to think about it so WCoP doesn't become a load of garbage again.

 

[Mada]

physically cringed from this post. bro if you needed to search for people on goddamn tumblr to fill a wcop team maybe ur country shouldnt be in the tournament to begin with? go try to play for europe or smth? hello?? like u clearly dont have an engaged community in sv ou in belgium if u have to go fetch players on random social media sites to fill a quota for cg ou 10 slots, so why the fuck are you complaining abt a format change? this legit could make it easier for u to find players LOL if you needed to scroll through tumblr, facebook, tinder and linkedin to find 10 sv ou players already, worst case scenario u just add shit like instagram and bumble and im p sure you could find players in ss - oras as well at this point. crazy stupid post fr.

anyway, voicing my support for dou addition despite brazil not having any dou players. dou is a balanced tier with an active and engaged playerbase, which should be welcomed into the official circuit more. like a fairy said, 1 more sv ou slot doesnt rly make a difference in any aspect p much, while 1 dou slot brings a whole lot more to the tournament. should be a great addition.

Straight up telling a country that beated you last year that it shouldn't exist it's incredibly pathetic. There should be no need for smaller teams to, again, restart looking for and "growing" players in order to have a decent-looking roster for the tour. Of course all the teams with competitive DOU slots will be more than welcoming towards such a decision, but as previously mentioned by other people, that's straight up a biased discussion / votation with the only difference that if DOU ends up being added, all the countries that didn't want it would end up being relevantly disadvantaged within the tour.

Some of these teams can't come up with enough OU players to be competitive

Europe: Yoda2798, Lily Voltix
US West: eragon11145 EternalSnowman qsns
Spain: SMB JRL
France: ratpacker Nephtyrix
Germany: MichaelderBeste2
Midwest: Nails tyo bage1
Oceania: YoBuddy
UK: Charlotte NinjaSnapple
India: Nido-Rus, AIRedzone
South: Xrn Fangame10 Spurrific
Northeast: zee Actuarily Lunar.
Canada: Grandmas Cookin GenOne
LA: Meminger21 GasaiYunoSan
Italy: MADARAAAA, Amaranth
China: xqiht MetapodVGChannel
Brazil: Oblivion Wing (seraphz) Staraptor
Argentia: Enzonana.
Chile: Jhonx~
Pakistan: raf
Mexico: Akaru Kokuyo Railgun (luisin)
Asia: Idyll (memoric)
Belgium: BIKharma

This list is just off the top of my head from someone who can't remember what they ate for lunch yesterday, there's plenty of players I missed and some teams I even missed because i'm too lazy to finish it.

You mentioned that there are players that you missed but I guarantee you that those would just be added to the "big names" and we can clearly see that there are several countries with no mainers, and even if you tried to mention some, which aren't completely accurate, you still only can find one single player for those countries, leaving no subs for them.

Also, you can try to argue the fact that the DOU slot won't be on an island, but all the server being busy with OU's / Singles preparation, being in ladder calls, trading ladder alts and brainstorming about new ideas and cores, will make you feel and will exclude you from all the rest of the team, and even in the casual discussions, you won't feel as involved or caring anymore.

I would also like to bring up a point about continental teams.
We just decided to get 10 starters and 13-15 players on a roster, when those last years a lot of new countries tried making competitive teams, just to fuck them completely up by adding those new slots.
I love continental teams and I tried to help some of them past edition, but at this point I think rules should be completely changed (just like as the tiers format) and not allow any of those controversial situations or players with established countries / countries that really are trying to get a competitive roster, in the continental teams. I know by a fact that even 1 good player can make a huge difference in a smaller team, and reforming continental teams (by drastically changing the rules or just making 1 ROW team) could make the tour way more enjoyable for a lot more people and also more enjoyable to spectate.

I have a lot of actual fun and I love playing different tiers on the site, but to me it's weird how virtually all tiers on the site have a side WCOP completely for their tier, but OU is going not to have one, so at least if you really want such a big change to happen, do it gradually, by giving teams actual time to familiarize with completely newer tiers like DOU and with their playerbase; or at least help those smaller countries by revisiting continental teams, instead of just saying "don't play the tour with your Country lol"

 

[Glue]

Team UK fully supports Doubles OU to be included.
We have several players that would be happy to play Doubles OU for this upcoming WCOP.

 

[Mizuhime]

You mentioned that there are players that you missed but I guarantee you that those would just be added to the "big names" and we can clearly see that there are several countries with no mainers, and even if you tried to mention some, which aren't completely accurate, you still only can find one single player for those countries, leaving no subs for them.

Also, you can try to argue the fact that the DOU slot won't be on an island, but all the server being busy with OU's / Singles preparation, being in ladder calls, trading ladder alts and brainstorming about new ideas and cores, will make you feel and will exclude you from all the rest of the team, and even in the casual discussions, you won't feel as involved or caring anymore.

Pretty much everyone on that list given would be someone I consider a staple within the doubles community and I made the list fairly quickly at 1 in the morning, I know there's players I personally missed in the US and other places because I simply just don't know where they live and didn't want to get it wrong.

As far as the "island argument", Pokemon is Pokemon at the end of the day. Fundamentals transfer across every tier and it's not like you're playing a new game when you play a new tier. It's really not a hard game to learn and be good at. If the doubles player in question chooses not to learn how to play OU and help their team, they're probably a shitty teammate. If the singles players choose not to learn dou and help, they're probably a shitty teammate. The game isn't rocket science. You yourself tried to learn doubles and had a passable knowledge of the tier, you would be able to help your doubles slot.

World cup is a silly tournament where the best teams will always be the best teams, this isn't new and never will be. A random team that just formed is very rarely going to be one that will be able to compete a top level and not be "thrown to the wolves". Most established countries can't fill out a full roster of high level OU players and always end up using people who "main other tiers", why are we acting like they can?

 

[Fangame10]

Put Doubles OU in WCOP!

That'd be pretty cool!

Though I have myself been on that "island" in a few team tours before compared to the singles players on my team, WCOP I think would work well for DOU.

I find that people are much more willing/motivated to participate in "world cup" tours like this if they are representing their country (with a bit of patriotism and nationalism here and there) compared to a bland SPL/SCL team that simply bought a player. So I think that the DOU players won't be as isolated as you would think here in a tour like this.

 

[pulsar512b]

As far as the "island argument", Pokemon is Pokemon at the end of the day. Fundamentals transfer across every tier and it's not like you're playing a new game when you play a new tier. It's really not a hard game to learn and be good at. If the doubles player in question chooses not to learn how to play OU and help their team, they're probably a shitty teammate. If the singles players choose not to learn dou and help, they're probably a shitty teammate. The game isn't rocket science. You yourself tried to learn doubles and had a passable knowledge of the tier, you would be able to help your doubles slot.

im sorry what. i don't have any stakes here other than as a spectator but you are seriously suggesting that the singles players pick up what is most likely a completely foreign metagame, to support? while trying to build and play and test for their own slot and whatever other slots they actually know? this reads like you have never played doubles in your life it's a completely different sort of tier. the same is true in the other direction - you're expecting a doubles player (who likely has to go completely solo on their own slot! remember that!) to be able to magically flex into singles tiers? this is nonsensical and that's the fact here.

i said this in smogtours disc and i stand by it.

 

[feen]

As for team Bangladesh's piece on this, here's how we believe this should go [5xSV, SS, SM, ORAS] > [Some combination of currrent gen ou uu ru] > [Some combination of SV OU, SV DOU, and other SV/ old gen tiers]. DOU is the absolute worst case for us because of our limited playerbase it is incredibly hard to find skilled and passionate players and as a result we tend to add promising new players under the guidance of our existing OU players who can guide them through the prepping process with their knowledge of the metagames allowing the players to bridge the gaps between players with far more experience. In the case of DOU, there will be absolutely no one to guide or in the case of an atleast semi-competent DOU player, even suggest teams for them and they'd just be sitting and playing alone with no interaction with the rest of the team whatsoever. Not to mention finding someone who fits both the criteria of being a skilled player and also passionate enough to play with 0 interaction from the rest of the team is also not an easy task given the limited size of ours and many other smaller communities.

Also I physically cringed at the fact that the countries with a less dominant playerbase are being told / inferred "If you cant get players for xyz tiers you shouldn't sign up". WCoP is an inclusive tournament that ideally allows all nations to have a chance of winning the tournament, of course that is not the case because some nations have a much more dominant playerbase, but it should always allow all teams to have equal odds in winning in theory. This should be done by having tiers that most of the playerbase can easily pick up and play at a high level, which sadly DOU is not at the moment, since it is vastly different than singles format. Also the statement itself is literally a fucking double standard when you need to make 4 separate teams for USA for having an overstacked roster but that's a story for another thread. Adding a tier that is vastly different than the singles metagames the previous iteration of the tour had skews the balance heavily on teams that have a higher DOU playerbase. Moreover, the timing is also too late, if we learn the tier in the 2-ish months, we will still be heavily disadvantaged from teams that have a more solidified playerbase.

I also agree with Genesis7 's argument that the DOU players will have an island of their own and most of the players will be unable to either A. Give their input at all, or B. Give optimal inputs. Some posts I've seen here claim that Pokemon is Pokemon and cannot differentiate between singles or doubles, but you're either a very exceptional player or just a straight up idiot trying to give bullshit logic, no matter what you say, singles and doubles are vastly different. However, I am open to the idea of introducing DOU to WCoP 2025, but it is too late for a change this drastic.

 

[obii]

making statements like "dou has a large playerbase" or "there are so many great dou players around the world" fall flat when there's testimony from multiple teams straight up saying that they will have difficulty finding someone to put into that slot. those are the voices that matter the most here since those are the actual participants of the tournament.

then the next question is: how many teams are actually unable to field a dou player and is it worth not adding the tier to wcop for that reason? or do we even care about that and just tell them to suck it up since the majority of teams can field a dou player?

i think if we want the most balanced tournament where every team has the best chance of competing, the format should be 5 sv.

if we want something new and exciting at the cost of screwing over a few teams, go with 4sv + dou.

we should probably just be honest about that instead of making empty statements and be honest about what we want

 

[Laurel]

DOU should be included. The community is huge and the tier itself is good.

If we’re going to include old gens can we please vote instead of forcing in the 3 most current gens.

I don’t see why we wouldn’t go off popularity, when ADV dwarfs both in monthly ladder games.

ADV has double the games as SS and ORAS combined……. Please let that sink in.

I’m not saying it should automatically be 3, 7, and 4 but let’s at least vote.

 

[Laurel]

You mentioned that there are players that you missed but I guarantee you that those would just be added to the "big names" and we can clearly see that there are several countries with no mainers, and even if you tried to mention some, which aren't completely accurate, you still only can find one single player for those countries, leaving no subs for them.

Going to respond to this because it’s pretty silly.
In SPL you don’t have a sub for every tier and in WCOP there won’t be enough subs for every tier as well. Teams will have to pick and choose their subs so it really isn’t an issue if you have only 1 DOU player, another team might have only 1 Ubers player. If your argument is “support” people will have friends on other teams that will be more than happy to test.

Mizu listed a quality starter for every single region from last year (as far as I know)… and if you don’t believe me in terms of “quality” just watch replays from Doubles WCOP, OSDT, etc.

There’s also more than enough time before WCOP for an OU mainer to learn doubles anyways if you want to go that route…..

 

[ratpacker]

I totally agree with Laurel, if the argument is support there is a large playerbase for every timezone for DOU, there are teambuilding, team rating resources and VRs to take advantage of.
And the way to learn DOU is the same as any other tier. Grab a sample and start laddering.

Furthermore it's not uncommon in bigger tours to be slotted in tiers that aren't your best or where you have limited support but in my experience that doesn't limit team interactions or success, as long as you're dedicated.

 

[Cicada]

Just voicing my own opinion, but i think it's best to go with 5 SV instead of adding a DOU slot this year.

About arguments that it's not hard to pick up and there's still time before WCOP, there can still be a delay for smaller teams to find someone who is motivated in taking the slot before taking time to commit in learning the tier.

You can argue that there can already be DOU players able to be picked for almost every teams but again we need time to make decisions before commiting. This kind of planning doesn't take one day and that's it.
Personally when making our own line ups we take a lot of time to judge players on several criterias other than ingame skills, be it knowing them personally to see how they behave on a team tour setting or how solid their mindset is competitively as they'll still be on their own when playing.

Quality is not only about playing but also how you would fit in a team environment and that's something that has been hugely overlooked.
Just picking randomly some name we saw because we had to fill the slot can have disastrous consequences if we don't think it through in every aspects.

I've read that other teammates can help etc but again learning the tier is a commit and people will prioritise their own things first.
It can already be taxing for a player to prep for their own games especially as the tour goes on, making the commit even harder to do, it's not about being a shitty teammate as i've read above.
And anyway, the past few years we had on this site have been showing more and more that mons players are pretty lazy at their core which explains a lot of complaints that have been voiced about competitive quality lmao.

The fact that OSDT already started doesn't help as it could've been a good way for players who are willing to commit to learn the tier to give a sample of how they feel about the tier and how they fare in it.
It could've also served as a good motivation for singles players who want to hop in WCOP to immerse themselves even more in the tier, or giving more incentive for potential teammates to give it a try to help the DOU player better.

I don't really mind discussing it next year as people would know by then that having this slot would be an option, and there should be bigger motivation to give it a go and imo the tier deserves more recognition.
The community looks like active enough to not be as big of a jump as when RBY was included back then when old gens weren't exploited apart from SPL and outside forums. For instance when RBY was included, we had to take a retired player from the grave because we had issues to fill the spot.

I think it's less of an issue here given the tier is more active than RBY was at the time, but i'd rather not be hasty for this year.
There already has been a big change with lower tier being included as well as the return of old gens.

If the decision was taken before OSDT started there could be more of a discussion, but timing-wise it's not optimal in my opinion.
For the time being, I think the best course of action is to take things one step at a time to make for a more competitive tournament.

 

[ratpacker]

About arguments that it's not hard to pick up and there's still time before WCOP, there can still be a delay for smaller teams to find someone who is motivated in taking the slot before taking time to commit in learning the tier.

Absolutely, I mean, OSDT only has around 340 players this week, it's gonna be exceedingly hard for most teams to find at least one or two currently active players from their regions that can play DOU.

You can argue that there can already be DOU players able to be picked for almost every teams but again we need time to make decisions before commiting. This kind of planning doesn't take one day and that's it.
Personally when making our own line ups we take a lot of time to judge players on several criterias other than ingame skills, be it knowing them personally to see how they behave on a team tour setting or how solid their mindset is competitively as they'll still be on their own when playing.

Quality is not only about playing but also how you would fit in a team environment and that's something that has been hugely overlooked.
Just picking randomly some name we saw because we had to fill the slot can have disastrous consequences if we don't think it through in every aspects.

I've read that other teammates can help etc but again learning the tier is a commit and people will prioritise their own things first.
It can already be taxing for a player to prep for their own games especially as the tour goes on, making the commit even harder to do, it's not about being a shitty teammate as i've read above.
And anyway, the past few years we had on this site have been showing more and more that mons players are pretty lazy at their core which explains a lot of complaints that have been voiced about competitive quality lmao.

Yes, it's going to be a daunting task to find a player that can function within a team or to find someone that can direct you to a player that can function within a team. The sample size of team tours is just too small, what else can you expect from Smogon that includes doubles players only within SCL, DPL (90 players), DWCOP (160 players), PTPL, Teamballo, NDPL, Doubles Derby, NDFL, HGPL, 2v2 teamtours, VGC Classics and VGC Premier League, unless there are other tours I'm forgetting about. It's certainly above what a mon player lazy at his core could ever do.

For the time being, I think the best course of action is to take things one step at a time to make for a more competitive tournament.

The purpose of the tournament is to be inclusive and give chances to players across all nationalities and playerbases.

 

[Dj Breloominati♬]

Dropping by to say that Team India supports the addition of DOU to this wcop. Agree with what mizuhime said in their posts.

 

[tyo]

I'd like to put forth some arguments for VGC to be considered for this tournament over Doubles OU.

I understand that DOU is Smogon's flagship doubles format but it already has so much representation on Smogon with OSDT/DPL/Doubles World Cup and many other team tournaments with a Smogon Doubles slot. However the VGC section on Smogon does not attract many high caliber players due to there being no incentive in playing them. However, there is one thing that motivates VGC players to join Smogon tournaments and that is custom avatars. There is only one tournament on Smogon which attracts high level VGC players and that is the VGCPLs which offer custom avatars ( now known as NPA). As someone who managed in nearly all VGC PLs, the average player level is extremely high due to interest in custom avatars. In the ongoing NPA which recently moved to Smogon to bridge the gap between the VGC community and the Smogon community, you have multiple regional and international champions playing alongside some of Smogon's very best singles players (for example mind gaming and Justin Tang together on a team/bruno and marcofiero together on a team).

As for arguments against DOU, I think a majority of them can just be solved with VGC.

1. VGC Players will not be as invested due to them being more engaged with the IRL circuit.

This is true to an extent but VGC does not require building specific teams week to week like DOU, you will still receive very high quality of games as in VGC team tours the norm is to just use premade teams or teams the VGC players are testing for events anyway. VGC Players LOVE custom avatars as there is very little opportunity to gain them apart from NPA or winning a VGCPL so you will have plenty of high quality players wanting to play. Last VGCPL in 2023, players like Eric Rios, Alex Gomez , Jiseok Lee, Justin Tang signed up just for a chance to get an avatar through winning the tournament, it wasn't even a tournament where everyone who got drafted received an avatar. Aside from that, you still have many VGC players participating in various team tournaments with majority singles slots (Nails, Spurrific, zee, etc).

2. Smaller teams will not be able to find Doubles OU players.

A lot of the arguments against this were 'find a VGC player and put them in there'. At that point, why not just make the slot VGC anyway instead of benefitting bigger teams which already have prominent DOU players. Every country has a competent VGC player which levels the playing field a bit more. Here is a link to the VGC World Cup which had 60 countries participating https://worldcupvgc.com/. I noticed Team Belgium expressing difficulty finding doubles players, in VGC Belgium already has multiple players qualified for this year's World Championships. Many other smaller countries will also have no trouble finding good VGC players.

3. Doubles players will be isolated in the team discord.

As someone who played doubles in team tours with majority singles slots, I really don't think this is an issue at all. Doubles players do not expect singles players to help them with their teams and honestly whenever I joined those tournaments, I found it really interesting to see how singles players prepped and the games were really fun to watch as well. This argument in my opinion does not matter for DOU or VGC, any doubles player will just prep with their friend group anyway and enjoy the team experience.

I would personally love to see VGC integrated more into Smogon as it is the biggest format on Showdown after Random Battles and OU. NPA was a great start and I really believe this World Cup could be the next best way to do that. It would really be beneficial for both communities especially since more and more singles players are gaining interest in VGC as well.

 

[fade]

DOU in wcop is a meme if we are going to do 3 old gens we should also have 3 low tiers I think this is the perfect opportunity for Monotype to get its chance to shine in the tournament scene

 

[freezai]

What about random battles, it is the most popular format on PS by a mile and is reasonably competitive in a best of 3 setting. You don't team build but it has everything else you could ask for

• high skill
• entertaining
• popular

 

[avarice]

I'd like to put forth some arguments for VGC to be considered for this tournament over Doubles OU.

I understand that DOU is Smogon's flagship doubles format but it already has so much representation on Smogon with OSDT/DPL/Doubles World Cup and many other team tournaments with a Smogon Doubles slot. However the VGC section on Smogon does not attract many high caliber players due to there being no incentive in playing them. However, there is one thing that motivates VGC players to join Smogon tournaments and that is custom avatars. There is only one tournament on Smogon which attracts high level VGC players and that is the VGCPLs which offer custom avatars ( now known as NPA). As someone who managed in nearly all VGC PLs, the average player level is extremely high due to interest in custom avatars. In the ongoing NPA which recently moved to Smogon to bridge the gap between the VGC community and the Smogon community, you have multiple regional and international champions playing alongside some of Smogon's very best singles players (for example mind gaming and Justin Tang together on a team/bruno and marcofiero together on a team).

As for arguments against DOU, I think a majority of them can just be solved with VGC.

1. VGC Players will not be as invested due to them being more engaged with the IRL circuit.

This is true to an extent but VGC does not require building specific teams week to week like DOU, you will still receive very high quality of games as in VGC team tours the norm is to just use premade teams or teams the VGC players are testing for events anyway. VGC Players LOVE custom avatars as there is very little opportunity to gain them apart from NPA or winning a VGCPL so you will have plenty of high quality players wanting to play. Last VGCPL in 2023, players like Eric Rios, Alex Gomez , Jiseok Lee, Justin Tang signed up just for a chance to get an avatar through winning the tournament, it wasn't even a tournament where everyone who got drafted received an avatar. Aside from that, you still have many VGC players participating in various team tournaments with majority singles slots (Nails, Spurrific, zee, etc).

2. Smaller teams will not be able to find Doubles OU players.

A lot of the arguments against this were 'find a VGC player and put them in there'. At that point, why not just make the slot VGC anyway instead of benefitting bigger teams which already have prominent DOU players. Every country has a competent VGC player which levels the playing field a bit more. Here is a link to the VGC World Cup which had 60 countries participating https://worldcupvgc.com/. I noticed Team Belgium expressing difficulty finding doubles players, in VGC Belgium already has multiple players qualified for this year's World Championships. Many other smaller countries will also have no trouble finding good VGC players.

3. Doubles players will be isolated in the team discord.

As someone who played doubles in team tours with majority singles slots, I really don't think this is an issue at all. Doubles players do not expect singles players to help them with their teams and honestly whenever I joined those tournaments, I found it really interesting to see how singles players prepped and the games were really fun to watch as well. This argument in my opinion does not matter for DOU or VGC, any doubles player will just prep with their friend group anyway and enjoy the team experience.

I would personally love to see VGC integrated more into Smogon as it is the biggest format on Showdown after Random Battles and OU. NPA was a great start and I really believe this World Cup could be the next best way to do that. It would really be beneficial for both communities especially since more and more singles players are gaining interest in VGC as well.

it's great that NPA was able to get more VGC players into smogon, but I do not think it's reasonable to shut out the site's main doubles format for VGC. For smaller regions, this is being announced a good enough time before the tour so someone could realistically pick up doubles ou if they wanted to/find someone not as connected on the site. My main issue with "getting a custom avatar will attract VGC players" is that you get one just for participating. It does not inspire much confidence beyond getting them to sign up, which just goes back to the concerns raised before about general interest in putting in time to prep and such. I do agree the doubles player isolation has been exaggerated a fair bit in this thread though, it's really not hard to get a decent feel for the different dynamic and help out with tests or even just spitball ideas.

 

[FFK]

Hi, I’d like to share some thoughts I read or think it’ll be relevant :

- First of all, I’d like to point out the fact that many people that posted here wants some changes but it doesn’t represent the whole playerbase at all, from what I’ve read, US people are almost the only ones in favor of adding lower tiers, notably because they won’t find ANY issues finding competent players that won’t get farmed by top players (because US also have the top players), and this applies to old gens like ORAS OU. What’s more, 11/14 TDs are US too, I don’t have anything against them of course, but I don’t think they can objectively realize how hard it is for minor countries to find competent players in lesser played tiers. And some players are just arguing for changes because they just don’t like the tier, this is clearly a tiering issue and not a format one. You don’t have to sign up for every trophy tournament if you don’t like the tier, I’m pretty sure if any other tier was current gen, nobody would have supported a format change.

- If people really want to change the format, as Soulwind said, nobody supported the addition of SS OU, and personally, I don’t find the current format of all CG OU particularly boring, if players are re using, even if it can be quite boring on paper, many teams tried to find counter plays to these teams, like the German 6 in last wcop, many countries or at least the best ones, tried to innovate to make the German 6 or others teams less good, and I don’t find this boring, this just develop the meta. Although, even if I saw some supports in favor of adding DOU to grant more variety in the tour, and I’m not against it at all, do you guys really think every 25+ teams competiting in WCoP will find a competent player ? I just think this will enhance a poor level quality, and the tournament will be even more boring if some players are just eating up others.

- I searched a bit about the old WCoP format, it was all gens OU but we moved to full CG OU because we, as a community, wanted a more stable format, since always changing the WCoP format would just lower its prestige.

- Finally, why tf are there so many low tiers when smogon‘s main tier is OU, I mean, it just forces the format to be 10 slots > 8 and as other people already mentioned it, adding 2 extra slots just fuck up too many teams like Belgium or Bangladesh (not even talking about the tiers but only the slots), and I could easily mention many more but too lazy for that and will wait for biased players to argue with this. I have many others arguments that people already mentioned as to why we shouldn’t change the current format.

PS: I also would like to point out that TDs already stated some format changes after only 4 days since this thread was posted. We should definitely wait more since WCoP starts in 3 months.