On 12 slots
I see overwhelming support to expand 12 slots, so I think we can go ahead and
lock that in and move on to discuss different topics.
On PU
Since I confirmed the expansion to 12 slots, I will also be
confirming that PU is in. It is an official metagame and excluding it was a mistake as it is one of the most popular PU tiers (oras that is). And as someone who is playing it in PUPL, it is very fun.
On credit
The credit will be 150K with 3 subs. Manager self buys are a bit iffy. 20K is what SSPL/SMPL did but we don't have to follow through. Personally I prefer 15K but I also have skin in the game and I'm biased so I wanted to see what the community thinks. I think from what other people have discussed both here and in discord, and also to aid with 3 managers that I will mention later, I think going to 15K self buys (with 2 self buys for each team) is very reasonable. Let's not over discuss this and leave this up to the hosts and mod team as it is kind of a minor point.
On managers
There is heavy support on 3 managers. I think
hex and
Dj Breloominati♬ are two people I really respect their opinion and have very valid concern that it mitigates the draft. From my POV as both a manager and a player, I think I support it. I will say managing with 2 for 10 slots already felt difficult and with going up to 12 it will definitely be too much. I also think there is a valid argument that "strong players" are more likely to sign up or at least be consistently available if they have more support, as they tend to be busy with many tours or bigger tours (e.g. WCoP, SCL, etc.) and don't have the time to do their own scouting and prepwork. As someone that falls in that category and a starter in SSPL, I will definitely say that I feel very well supported w/ 3 managers and is the only reason I didn't ask to get subbed out during a very serious week for me in WCoP finals.
3 managers with 2 self buys (esp at the slightly cheaper rate of 15K) I think is reasonable and will not detract from the pool or drafting too much. Many of the managers are not "top players" or are "top lower tier players" so I think it evens out. However, any less would not be enough of a fee for a strategy that can be abused. A good example is my team last year that self bought both managers for 30K. I think it's a good strategy but with heavy cost.
Also since I do a lot of these PLs, it is very common for a manager to average at least 1 week of them being very busy and not being able to help. And although uncommon, it does happen where 1 manager has to take a leave of absence due to IRL. I think having a 3rd manager can account for that.
Finally, like last year, we will limit the retains to 3 INCLUDING SELF BUYS, so this means that if self buys do happens, the # of retains drops, and I think that will also help the pool.
On Monotype
Monotype is an official metagame and it has very popular demand, so the momentum is for keeping it and not removing it.
HOWEVER, that being said, we had problems with monotype unfortunately. There was more than one instance of a monotype player having poor motivation and commitment.
Monotype players are not easy to replace as the tier is very different. As I played a lot more monotype last year, I will admit that it's not as mu-based as I thought, but it is objectively true that in monotype way more happens behind the scenes (prep & team bring) than during the actual game. And without a monotype specialist that slot crumbles easily (e.g. monotype players easily farm non-mono mainers even if they are good players) is my analysis. Also in the recent lower tier tour we had, ORAS Underground, monotype sign ups were very low.
I'm not sure why this is, maybe it's because the tier is more monotone than others? Like at least in ORAS there are clearly a couple of types that were overrepresented compared to the rest (dark & psychic) and the best teams in a type tend to be very similar.
I think I would love to hear the thoughts of the monotype community on this.
For now,
we will keep it. However, one thing I want to implement (and I will talk more about this later) is post-tour surveys and we will ask both players and managers what they think of many things including monotype.
On the 2nd extra slot
Ngl, I'm a huge fan of 4th OU slot. This gives more opportunity for the spotlight of newer faces. As one of the fastest growing OU's, I think ORAS needs it. It's also not wild as SSPL did it too.
Analyzing last year's sheet, there was an average of ~6 players that touched OU at least one game. Now obviously some of this is the teams letting their subs play last week, but I think it's true that many teams including mine had competent OU players in their subs.
That being said, there seems to be overwhelming support for ZU. With their recent improvement in the tier I think many people are looking forward to playing the tier, that is on top of ZU being a very active community. However, I am a little concerned that ZUPL is happening in the same time. I would love to hear more about this.
On Bo3
I think having 1 OU slot be Bo3 is a really good idea and I support it.
Other Additions / Changes
- Every manager needs to be in the oras discord with no exceptions. We might have gave leeways last year but we will not this year, especially with 3 managers.
- Every single game needs to be posted live in the discord and pinged appropriately. We have never done something like this before so I don't want to have harsh consequences like having the game not count if it wasn't posted, but this time around the ORAS mod team wants to encourage this heavily and will constantly remind the managers / players to post their game in discord.
- Post-tour surveys for players to comment on managers and the tour overall and for managers to comment on the tour overall and any troubles they had in any slot.
