Tournaments RBYPL VI - Format Discussion

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Hello everyone,

RBYPL VI is on the horizon, so we are looking to discuss the tour's format. This ranges from what tiers are included, to how many teams there are, to the duration of the tour.

1. Teams and Slots
  • RBYPL V had 6 teams and 10 slots. We are looking to keep this format, depending on feedback from last year. If there is enough interest, expansion to 8 teams or 12 slots is a possibility. We are not interested in shrinking the tour (6 teams 8 slots will not happen)
  • The slots consisted of 1x RBY OU Bo5 / 4x RBY OU Bo3 / 1x RBY Ubers Bo3 / 1x RBY UU Bo5 / 1x RBY NU Bo5 / 1x RBY PU Bo5 / 1x Random Battles Bo5
    • For RBY UU, RBY NU, and RBY PU, players were allowed to gentleman to Bo3 if both players agreed. Although this rule was in place, there were no Bo3 gentleman agreements throughout the tournament.
  • Due to the growing lower tier playerbase in the past few years. It is no longer required that at least 50% of the slots must be RBY OU for RBYPL VI. Options with less than 50% RBY OU slots are on the table for discussion.
  • No tier is guaranteed except for RBY OU. Tiers that were present in RBYPL V can be cut in RBYPL VI.
2. Schedule
  • RBYPL V used the Belgian Pro League Format (highlighted in Proposal C of this thread). We will either run back this format or go back to a 5 week regular season based on player feedback.
Projected Schedule
Sunday, September 14 - Manager Signups
Sunday, September 21 - Player Signups
Weekend of October 3 - Live Auction
Monday, October 6 - Week 1
Sunday, November 23* - End of Finals (If regular season is 5 weeks long)
Sunday, December 6* - End of Finals (If regular season is the Belgian Pro League Format)
*Both ending dates assume no tiebreakers

Proposed topics for discussion:

1. Inclusion of RBY ZU: RBY ZU has established itself to be as legitimate as the other RBY lowtiers, being included in Grand Slam and the Lower Tier Circuit. Because of this we are open to including it in RBYPL based on player feedback

2. Bo3 vs. Bo5: RBYPL V experimented with making RBY UU, RBY NU, and RBY PU best-of-five. We want feedback on if this should be kept for RBYPL VI. If RBY ZU is included, it will follow the same format as these three tiers.

We also want feedback on if there should be more than one Bo5 RBY OU slot, and if Ubers should be Bo5. We are unlikely to remove the existing Bo5 RBY OU slot.

Additionally, the random battles playerbase has expressed some interest on expanding their format from Bo5 to Bo7. If this is a popular opinion please let us know in the thread.

3. Format + Teams in Playoffs: As mentioned previously, we want feedback if we should continue with the Belgian Pro League format or opt for a more traditional 5 week regular season. If the regular season is five weeks, how many teams should advance to playoffs? Three teams results in the first seed getting a bye into finals, while four teams generally makes the final week of regular season less competitive as multiple teams have typically already locked playoffs.
 
1. Inclusion of RBY ZU: I think RBY ZU should be included in the tour for the reasons I brought up in the OP. I can say with confidence that present-day RBY ZU is more established/developed than RBY NU and RBY PU were when they were added to RBYPL. I don't think there will be a playerbase issue since the RBY Lowtier playerbase has expanded drastically.

In order to keep an even number of tiers I propose either cutting OU5 or adding an OU6 and expanding the tour to 6 teams 12 slots. I do not think rands should be cut since a lot of rands players have joined the RBY community as a result of RBYPL, so keeping rands in PL as a form of connection is ideal. The downside to cutting OU5 is of course that there is less RBY OU, but I think this is fine to do since there are other tours like RBYWC and RoAPL where you can play RBY OU with other RBYers on your team. Although ZU has the cross-generational teamtours, you run into the issue of not having other RBYers on your team, so you feel kinda isolated. A chance to play RBY ZU in a teamtour where you actually play with other RBYers is a huge upside.

OU6 makes everyone happy, more people get to play RBY OU and more people are drafted overall. The biggest issue with this is of course playerbase concerns. I already mentioned I don't think we will have playerbase issues with ZU, but I am worried about filling up 36 total OU slots. I'd like to hear what other people think about this.

2. Bo3 vs. Bo5: I personally enjoyed Bo5 lowtiers in RBYPL so I'd like them to stay. However, I only played two weeks of RBY NU then switched to OU last year so I don't have much firsthand experience of playing Bo5 throughout the entire tour, so if people have issues with exhaustion then that's totally a valid point. But from a spectator standpoint, Bo5 was hype. I would also LOVE for ubers to be Bo5 but Ubers games have the potential to be long sometimes, so this might be difficult. However if OU can get a Bo5 slot, Ubers can as well since they have roughly the same game length.

I don't have an opinion on Bo7 rands but if the playerbase wants Bo7, let them have Bo7.

3. Format + Teams in Playoffs: Please don't do the Belgian format again, 8 week regular season for a 6 week tour is too long and by the time finals hit it's your third time playing that particular team. I would love to go back to the traditional five week format. I think the bye week can be a momentum sink so I would ideally like it if four teams made playoffs, even if it makes week 5 of regular season less hype.
 
Okay so, I think we should expand to 12 slots. For these 2 extra slots, include ZU, and Nintendo Cup 1997. I personally see no reason NC97 shouldn't be in here if we are including rands. The Only argument is "It's in OMPL!!!" Which i personally dont think holds much weight. It's a popular tier, it's playerbase is so interractive with ours that any competent manager knows who to draft, and it's unique, you need to go about building it slightly differently and account for stuff like levels, something no other tier here brings. Oh yeah also just include ZU, man. Like, Cmon. No one is not calling ZU solidly a mainstay low tier at this point, especially in rby where SU nearly also has that title.

Give us 8 Teams. This solves literally every single issue the belgian format solved, which we should ditch for a standard poff format. The only issue i see here is with playerbase as I also want us to expand to 12 slots, however other gens do 8x12 fine, i dont see why we wouldnt be able to, especially with more people having their eyes on the gen as of late. I couldnt care less about whether or not we have my slot suggestion. However, we need 8 teams. Belgian sounds awful to me and others have openly said it sucks.

I personally would like low tiers to be bo3 to fit with literally every single tour ever. However I dont watch replays and more likely than not wont be playing low tiers in this tour so this is not my place to speak much. Just dropping my opinion.

Goofy Ass Suggestions that i would like to see but dont fit into my actual wants:
Triple Threat, or an "OU6" slot that is one of Stadium Tradebacks and OU at random every week. I personally like stadium and tradebacks and would love to see them especially with neither getting opens this year.
LC. Another one of those tiers with an RBY Playerbase as well as one from their own community. Would serve a similar purpose as rands.
 
I think that the playerbase has expanded enough to be able to accommodate 8 teams (also belgian sucks)

idm ZU inclusion, cutting one of OU5/rands is fine by me but i dont really like 12 slots, also this goes without saying but keep bo5 ou that slot is kino

im 100% for bo5 lowtiers, 5 teams is not that big of a workload imo and its more peak (more games more fun!)

nc97, stad/tbs, lc, etc are all unserious suggestions, ou6 seems OD imo
 
only speaking on the things I have strong opinions on/affect me:

1) keep rands it's sheist

2) the team number/sizes should be what's best to accomodate any non-belgian format. if the TDs want to expand the size of the tournament, first it should increase the number of teams from 6 to 8 such that we can run a clean round robin into top 4 playoff tournament. 8 teams 12 slots sounds crazy, idk if we have the playerbase for that, but if we do then that's sick.
 
3. Format + Teams in Playoffs: As mentioned previously, we want feedback if we should continue with the Belgian Pro League format or opt for a more traditional 5 week regular season. If the regular season is five weeks, how many teams should advance to playoffs? Three teams results in the first seed getting a bye into finals, while four teams generally makes the final week of regular season less competitive as multiple teams have typically already locked playoffs.

I happen to like a lot of things that the Belgian format brings. In every 6 team tournament, the last week is always 100% unserious in that one to three teams will have their fate already decided at the start which really hampers how competitive the matches are while also being unfair to some teams (like you'd rather play the 6th seed when they have a 0% chance of making playoffs since you are more likely to get a higher differential). Sometimes the 4th week also is a bit silly as well if a team drastically under or overperforms. The Belgian format really helps with this, in RBYPL 4 & 5 there was less tomfoolery going around on the first 5 weeks than in a standard teamtour because if you trolled too hard you could get dumped out of finals during the second round robin. This is a good thing since I feel that there weren't as many questionable games in terms of player motivation. The Belgian format's main issues is that it takes a long time and also playing the same team 3 times is kinda dumb, but I think you can alter the format to account for this? I suggest running the Belgian format again but you seed the teams for the second round robin, and only have two weeks. So you have the 1st seed playing the 4th seed and 2nd seed playing the 3rd seed Week 2, and the 2nd seed playing the 4th seed and the 1st seed playing the 3rd seed Week 7, and then you do finals. It would be only one week longer than the standard 6 team tournament and the fact that the 1st and 2nd seed don't play eachother in the second round robin means the triple rematch probably doesn't happen. More importantly, it means that all teams are trying in the first 5 weeks of the tournament which IMO is worth all the sacrifices. This is me shooting from the hip, I'd love to hear suggestions on this.

Or you could do 8 teams. I think the playerbases are large enough for that (but no ZU in that case)
 
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i think last year's format with the replacement of belgian is perfect. i'm not convinced that we can support 8 teams or 12 slots. ou would be fine, but adding more low tiers seems super sketchy since there's been a lot of burnout with those tiers from mainers recently. i'd say wait until next year before expanding slots
 
Wanting to play 5 weeks is psychotic
Let's play 7 weeks. Ideally let's get 8 teams, but 6 teams with a modified version of last year's format is fine too. Wanted's post seems to propose a pretty decent alternative (I agree 8 weeks is just a touch on the 'too long' side). Just DO NOT make this shit 5 weeks, we are better than that.

Lowtier playerbases are ass, but they probably should be included
The lowtier playerbases are not strong. I don't know how to break it to you lowbros I should not be waltzing into your tournament with minimal prep and basically winning every game I play bar getting turbolucked in grand finals. For how much the size of the lowtier playerbase has grown over the last few years, the level of play is still not high. Random players from other tiers who autofill into RBY OU in tournaments like RBY Cup often give me more trouble than the average lowtier opponent in their main tier. This is simply my lived experience over the course of the 2025 Grand Slam and previous encounters with these playerbases.

WITH THAT SAID. It's not like RBYPL pulls that much heat in OU either, tons of top players skip it, the level of the lowtier playerbase probably averages out to around the level of OU3 or OU4. The tournament as a whole is not the pinnacle of competitiveness. We should not make decisions trying to fool ourselves into thinking we want consistent high level RBY out of this tournament, cuz if we were serious about that we'd just run back a second invitational to watch the actually good players fight it out. Instead we are here because we WANT the michael mouse players mixing in with the good ones and learning and developing a healthier stronger overall community.

Our Grand Slam circuit has decreed that ZU has a right to exist, our PL should likely match. Even though it will suck fucking balls 1000% this is the pathway to a healthy lowtier scene and therefore a healthy symbiosis between OU and LTs in the future. 4 OU + 5 Grand Slam tiers + Random Battles seems to me like the best option.
HOWEVER if ZU is struggling for numbers I could see 8 teams w/ 5 OU + 4 Grand Slam tiers + Random Battles being much more sensible for THIS year in particular. Maybe the play is to let signups run for a week w/ ZU included, and then decide based on the numbers whether to go for 6 teams ZU, 8 teams no ZU, or maybe even the utopian dream of 8 teams ZU

Obviously do not entertain adding any of the OMPL tiers. That does not need saying. RBY OMPL is good fun but those tiers should stay there.

Bo5 all the lowtiers
The goal is to play more games to make people improve. Bo5 achieves that goal. Bo5 it up all across the lowtiers, the games are fast (even Ubers tends to be very quick nowadays that people have stopped going for the full on amnewars every game). OU playerbase is already good and does not need the practice as much, plus the games can last seven thousand hours. Rands Bo7 is also fine if they want it, maybe hold a vote between the starters after auction
 
Tbh I am not that personally involved with rby tiers to make a big structured post but as someone who has interacted with rby low tier playerbase as a helper and tester for rby zu in ZU Olympiad, I have come to understand that RBY ZU has over time stabilized and matured into a legit tier.

Besides that, fwiw the pool of players for RBY ZU seems to be abundant enough for a tour as well as seen from popularity since the Zoomer tournament and inclusion in RBY Grand Slam. As such, I believe adding a RBY ZU slot seems feasible.
 
Hi, I can't chime in much since I pretty much only play rby randbats, but bo7 is the standard for randoms where bo5 is considered the short end of acceptable

Rands is more competitive than many lower tiers I'd say but it has obvious volatility as well. Bo5 is okay though, I don't hate it like I do bo3

Last note: if you're open to doing 12 slots rby lc is honestly very playable and I'd love to see it included.
It has decent competitiveness and lots of options in builder favoring creativity and making good resource management important as it's not trivial to guess team structures
 
1. leave the current formats. .
2. RBY ZU seems interesting but much too niche and use bo5 for all tiers only in play offs
3. using wcp systems can work better.
 
Hey yall I wanted to take a second to drop some thoughts on this years format. I think the tour can expand to more teams, there’s been a clear indication of a growing player base to fill up slots and have them still be competitive.

As far as lower tier go, I’m not particularly familiar with ZU but I hear a lot of discussion and interest around the tier so if others feel the same then it should be included. I think every lower tier from last year should make a return. I don’t have any thoughts on Rands whether or not to cut it so I will make no comments.

The Belgian pro league format did not look fun to play or entertaining to watch. I think going to a regular weeks tour format is better and should be the standard going forward.

That’s all my thoughts have a great day!
 
ZU is fun, I'm in favour of getting it in this year, but we really should keep the rands slot. It gets people to sign up that wouldn't otherwise, doesn't compete with the other slots (quite the opposite actually, rands people signing up could play lower tiers), and it's clearly a high quality slot. Amaranth exaggerated a bit, but I mostly agree about the level of play in lower tiers, except for OU rands had the highest level last year.

My personal favourite would be changing OU5 to ZU and keeping it at 10 slots. 12 slots would also be fine, but that might make my second point more difficult:

Everyone complained about belgian format last year non-stop. I personally think it's fine, but it probably shouldn't stick around, when the majority hates it.

Every other option for 6 teams also has problems, so I really think 8 teams would be better. Idk if it's possible with getting enough captains and players, but if it's feasible, we should really expand to 8 teams this year.
 
Self-Buys

Self-buys currently operate on a 2 allowed, first 15k second 20k system. This is way too easy to abuse and too powerful.

At the bare minimum, the first self-buy should be raised to 20k, for a total of 20k for one self-buy and 40k for two self-buys. Making the second self-buy 25k would also be a good idea but I'm fine with 20k and I don't expect people would support it.

Most managers are top players in OU and/or lower tiers, and a 15k self-buy is an extraordinarily cheap guarantee to a player who can give great quality support to bare minimum 4 tiers and potentially way more weeks before the auction begins. The guarantee alone should add a ton to the price tag, let alone that self-buys are usually steals compared to expected auction value regardless.

Realistically 2 self-buys being allowed period is also overpowered even at 40k, but I understand that the manager signup flexibility and subjective fun of 2 self-buys are still valuable to retain.

Schedule

Absolutely agree with Amaranth, a 5 week regular season is intolerable. Considering the size of the playerbases, I think it's very worth exploring 8 teams. If we stay with 6, then it should absolutely be a modified schedule or even a return to Belgian rather than a 5 weeker, even though Belgian has its own litany of issues, including dragging a ton.

If for some godforsaken reason we do in fact implement 6 teams 5 weeks, playoff format should basolutely be top 4. Top 3 is horrendous.

Tiers

5 OU should be kept. I understand that lower tier playerbases have grown a ton, but OU is still the main stage for RBY gameplay and has by far the largest playerbase and space for quality and up-and-comers. Do not sideline OU.

I would rather cut random battles for ZU than leave ZU out, personally. I enjoy what RBY rands provides to the tournament and game quality is usually solid, but ZU is still more connected to the rest of the tournament given that it actually requires prep/teambuilding. Don't have a terribly strong opinion here though.

If rands is kept, then it should probably be bo7. I've seen very few rands players who don't want bo7.

Lower tiers should be universal bo5. Games are generally not lengthy, it improves competitiveness, teambuilding is not extremely difficult, and it just puts more on showcase which is always a positive.

12 slots with both rands and ZU is ok, but 6 OU seems like a lot. Would only consider in a 6 teamer.
 
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BeeOrSomething said:
Self-Buys

Self-buys currently operate on a 2 allowed, first 15k second 20k system. This is way too easy to abuse and too powerful.

At the bare minimum, the first self-buy should be raised to 20k, for a total of 20k for one self-buy and 40k for two self-buys. Making the second self-buy 25k would also be a good idea but I'm fine with 20k and I don't expect people would support it.

Most managers are top players in OU and/or lower tiers, and a 15k self-buy is an extraordinarily cheap guarantee to a player who can give great quality support to bare minimum 4 tiers and potentially way more weeks before the auction begins. The guarantee alone should add a ton to the price tag, let alone that self-buys are usually steals compared to expected auction value regardless.

Realistically 2 self-buys being allowed period is also overpowered even at 40k, but I understand that the manager signup flexibility and subjective fun of 2 self-buys are still valuable to retain.

Schedule

Absolutely agree with Amaranth, a 5 week regular season is intolerable. Considering the size of the playerbases, I think it's very worth exploring 8 teams. If we stay with 6, then it should absolutely be a modified schedule or even a return to Belgian rather than a 5 weeker, even though Belgian has its own litany of issues, including dragging a ton.

If for some godforsaken reason we do in fact implement 6 teams 5 weeks, playoff format should basolutely be top 4. Top 3 is horrendous.

Tiers

5 OU should be kept. I understand that lower tier playerbases have grown a ton, but OU is still the main stage for RBY gameplay and has by far the largest playerbase and space for quality and up-and-comers. Do not sideline OU.

I would rather cut random battles for ZU than leave ZU out, personally. I enjoy what RBY rands provides to the tournament and game quality is usually solid, but ZU is still more connected to the rest of the tournament given that it actually requires prep/teambuilding. Don't have a terribly strong opinion here though.

If rands is kept, then it should probably be bo7. I've seen very few rands players who don't want bo7.

Lower tiers should be universal bo5. Games are generally not lengthy, it improves competitiveness, teambuilding is not extremely difficult, and it just puts more on showcase which is always a positive.

12 slots with both rands and ZU is ok, but 6 OU seems like a lot. Would only consider in a 6 teamer.
Click to expand...
Elaborating on my post:

My thoughts on tiers and OU 5 vs ZU vs Rands are mostly with respect to 6x10. That being said, 6x10 should be lowest on the priority list. I would much rather see 8x10 with 4 OU or 6x12, both having both ZU and Rands. The playerbases are large enough to support these two and it keeps OU slots relatively the same (6x12 still has 30 and 8x10 w/ 4 OU has 32).

With regards to 6x12 specifically, I believe the 6th OU slot should be a second OU bo5 or a blitz bo7. I don't see much reason to make it just another bo3 slot, it seems like a waste when there's already four other bo3 slots. Could also cut the 6th OU for a second Ubers slot, which would be kinda sick.

Additionally, I think there is potential for the tiebreaker format to be altered in a 12 slot tournament. I understand this may be a little out there, but what about a 5-pick tiebreaker? You can do OU bo5, grand slam Ubers-ZU Bo5, and even potentially something like a global championships style slot (best of 3 best of 3 OU) as default tiers, and the last two picks are the normal each team gets one pick. I think it could be quite cool, and in a 6x12 tournament, each team is going to have minimum 15 players (almost certainly more), so there's no serious issues with size support. I understand though that this may come off as watering down the tension of a tiebreaker or that this would be a lot of work. Sleep on the idea though.

Lastly, tiebreaker slots should by default be bo5, regardless of if the normal slot equivalent would be like OU bo3 or Ubers bo3. There's no reason not to. The one tiebreaker that happened last year even had an OU bo3 gentlemanned up/set to a bo5 anyway.
 
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Something I briefly mentioned but would like more feedback from people who play the tier on is Bo5 Ubers. I genuinely think it can be done this year. More games generally means a better competitive experience, and the tier as a whole has become much more fast paced than it was a few years ago. There are also arguments where the tier is volatile and matchuppy right now (barrier2, kinesis zam, paraspam, etc) so having more games can make the tier more competitive since each individual volatile element will be less impactful.

The main counter-argument I could see being brought up is that a Bo5 Ubers set can take a very long time. Although the overall tier is faster-paced now, there are still sometimes games where two Amnesia Mewtwo sit on each other and pp stall to death. Although uncommon, this is a possibility and this happening once or twice in a Bo5 can really drag out the turn length. However, this is not something unique to Ubers. OU has seen long games like this before, and last year NU's Bo5 featured a good amount of Magneton mirrors which were also stally. However I think these cases of very long games are rare, and the length of a Bo5 will be comparable to an OU set, if not less.
 
Continuing from last year, I'm still opposed to best-of-five low tiers being standard. Preparing that many teams and, more importantly, squaring away an amount of time that can vary from 20 minutes to 2 hours is such a pain. It doesn't fit my schedule well at all and can really mess up a weekend. It's a big commitment for what I ultimately think is kind of a diminishing return. I want to put this opinion out just so best-of-five doesn't look unapproachably unanimous to any other potential opponents of it.

Let's please not bring back the Belgian Format. Almost everyone complained about it both years it was run. It really doesn't solve any of the problems of the normal format outside of just giving more games. Expanding to 8 teams or somehow modifying the format to trim Round 2 are much better ideas. I think I would sooner take the 6 teams into top 4 approach than running this back again. An 8×12 system is probably ideal, but accomplishing that sounds a bit difficult. Maybe we aim for that and then adjust as signups come in. I think 6×12 and 8×10 are both perfectly fine, but the desire for a longer season without the Belgian Format seems to make the latter more favorable.

I think ZU easily clears the playerbase requirements and I think suggestions otherwise are just wrong. Other arguments like it takes a slot from OU or it's not overly competitive or it makes the tour too big are opinions you are allowed to have, but I think the idea that a playerbase won't show up is just flat out incorrect. RBY ZU definitely has mainers and the greater ZU Community has shown the ability to step up for tournaments like this. I'm not worried. I'm ultimately pretty ambivalent about its inclusion though. I'm not particularly interested in it and I think it shares a lot of gameplay feel with PU, which is another tier I'm already not that crazy about. Though a note to the ZU players: if we don't get ZU into RBYPL, I'll try to get you guys into RBYOMPL so you have an RBY Forum Team Tour.

Regarding tiebreakers, I'm not a fan of including tiers that aren't already in the tour. A Grand Slam is pretty cool, but I don't think it makes sense to kind of force people to draft a Grand Slam player just for the possibility of a critical tiebreak. Expanding to five tiers or whatever for tiebreaker is fine if people want it.

Keep Random Battles, obviously. It draws a ton of signups, integrates the communities, and Rands players getting upsets in LTs and even OU is always extremely exciting.

Regarding tier inclusion, ZU and best-of-three versus best-of-five should be the only thing that's up for debate. I love RBY's OMs more than probably anyone else, but they simply do not have the playerbase for this tournament, especially if we jump to 8 teams. A handful of them also admittedly have some issues with competitiveness (though others may be more competitive than you might think). I think the less OM-ish tiers like Stadium OU and Tradebacks OU could technically be eligible for this tournament, but good luck finding 8 players for either, especially when most would rather just play Standard OU. I would love to be proven wrong here though if the TBs Community wants to rise up suddenly. I also don't think Blitz belongs. I think it lowers the quality of the tournament just to appease some top players that don't feel like taking RBYPL seriously for whatever reason.

Cheers.
 
Just do regular league phase please, 6 teams x 10 slots. Top 4 make semi's = 7 week tour. Perfect length and it also removes playing the same team 3 times in the same tournament which was a negative last year imo. 6 teams is fine. I feel like general tour signups in both quantity and quality across all of RBY have been on the downturn this last year, and I think 8 teams stretches depth to the limit.
(edit: Also 8 teams is a genuine concern as to wether we even hit the managerial application capacity to fill it. Last year we only had 7 manager duos apply)

Remove OU5 for ZU. ZU has grown a lot and is a reasonably fun tier, it deserves to be in. Ubers, UU, NU, PU are obviously staples at this point and Rands is good to have for:
a) high quality slot, probably the strongest last year (all 6 starters were Hall of Famers) and I'm including OU Bo5 in that
b) playerbase is deep and well honed with the RBY Rands circuit being as old as RBYPL itself, separate pool so easy to fill without weakening other slots
c) it gets rands players, who have traditionally adapted well to LTs exposed and potentially playing them in future. Good examples recently being Virae and Inazuma

Allow option for Bo5 Ubers and Bo7 Rands. Preferably a vote on the playerbase if and when they signup for each slot because their opinion counts for more than managers/other slot playerbase
 
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I suggest biting the bullet and running 12 slots with another OU slot. There is enough people who care about RBY to do that. Last RBYPL, every team had someone who could have feasibly started but sat on the bench. Cunos had Frrf, Kristyl, and Cow to name a few, Dewgongs had KJ, avarice, and Justamente, Magmars had Tuthur and also started with Toxin Boost on bench (royzin would later be sent to OU from the lt mines), Tortles had Spoiledberries and Bedal and also started 3 SPL players in the lower tiers, Caterpies had SANKE and Fogbound Lake. Pampus didn't do so hot in the OU slots but they also spent 30k on Maris Bonibell so their situation is somewhat of a special case. I think I can include more people in this category but if you are just going to sheetlook and be stringent in who counts, there still is enough players to fill another OU slot.
 
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8 teams 10 slots, no belgian format, 4 OUs, Ubers-ZU + Rands, BO3 instead of BO5 because it’s exhausting over the course of a long tour even if I agree BO5 is more competitive (one OU BO5 is cool), especially do not do BO5 Ubers because I’m not blocking out 3+ hours on the weekend for a potential 5 game stally set

8 teams 4 OU per team is still more OU slots than 6x5 so OU players should be fine with it. Lower tiers are always mickey in every tour but RBYPL has invariably resulted in leaps and bounds in every lower tier meta every time they get included and will only help them catch up in development to OU, which has like 5x more tours with way more players than any individual lower tier ever will. This development means we get the tiering kinks out quicker now that we’ve settled the partial trapping question so we can have actual semi-settled metagames that develop and people can get good at them instead of OU players routinely coming in and destroying everyone. Some teams will draft some mickey players to fill out lowers but that’s where support shows its value and encourages players to interact + anyone can learn these tiers to a decent level with any effort at all in like a week with a little bit of help.

I care more about the team/slot count and tiers than BO3 vs 5, because i think 8/10 + ZU is just the correct thing to do, but as someone trying to touch more grass please do not make me spend more time helping with prep or god forbid playing an ubers BO5 and having to block out 2+ hours minimum to ensure i don’t run over
 
8 teams, 8 slots, 7 week format with 2 additional for semi + finals, no Belgian format just the standard PL format. 4 OU slots (1 bo5), Ubers, UU, NU, PU should be the format. All series should be BO3 except 1 OU slot. If ZU needs to be added, keep it standard PL format with 6 teams 10 slots, 5 week format with 2 more for playoffs and a bye for #1 seed and #2 vs #3 for semis. Remove randombatts for ZU and keep 5 OU slots with one being BO5
 
No Best of 5 Ubers, thanks. That sounds bad with the length of RBY Ubers games. Not everyone has 5 hours to play RBY Ubers a week and I know personally I wouldn't sign up for RBY Ubers if it was bo5, and I assume many more wouldn't either, thanks.

Keep Rands 151%, and make it bo7, thanks.

Please, please, please do not go with less than 50% RBY OU, RBY OU is the tier that deserves to  shine in this tour, it's the star tier, the lower tiers are in no way even close to being marginally on par with it (aside from Ubers, which can only afford to do 1 slot as the playerbase is too thin). The idea of going <50% just to make room for a lowtier that, even if it gets signups would, to be frank, be filled with not very high quality players. I get wanting to make the tour more inclusive, but it shouldn't be thatinclusive. OU can easily fill 50% of slots with quality players, both mainer and non-mainer, thanks.

If you want to include ZU, remove one of the worser RBY lower tiers that doesn't get high quality signups and isn't very popular. Such as UU, NU, or PU. Not any of the OUs.

My proposal for tiers would probably be something like:
Ubers x1
OU x4
OU Bo5 x1
Random Battles Bo7 2x
ZU x1
One of UU / NU / PU Bo5 or merge them into one Bo3 where loser picks the next tier, thanks.

Rands x2 is controversial however it's playerbase is so much larger than the lowertiers, and the player signup quality is always incredibly great, where 1 slot always results in horrific snubs, thanks.

7 Weeks at Bo5 is extreme for the OU and the lowertiers (aside from Rands) and will result in player burnout. However with my proposal there is only 2 lowertiers and the OU bo5 is incredibly rotatable. Please make it so we can lock bo5 OU without Bo3 by the way, thanks. If Every low tier is decided to be included, this becomes a bigger issue since teams definitely won't have more than 1 of each player for low tiers. So, more reason to keep low tiers at a low number (that or make them Bo3), thanks.
 
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Addressing some points in the thread. Everything below is my personal opinion.

Other Tiers:
I agree with Volk that the only tiers worth considering are Ubers-ZU and Random Battles. Every other tier has a small playerbase and isn't developed enough to be in RBYPL. If RBYOMPL becomes a yearly thing, it is a much better environment for those tiers.

8 Teams:
This was something I mentioned in passing in the OP but the more people have mentioned it, the more I think 8x10 is the move. The playerbase has grown to account for this, and we get a nice 7 week regular season with a normal 4 team playoffs. Additionally, even if we cut OU5, 8 teams still results in more RBY OU slots overall than last year. This lets us cut OU5 in favor of ZU without actually decreasing the amount of RBY OU games.

Regarding the "can't find managers" issue. I know at least two previous managers that are running it back this year, and know a few people who didn't manage last year but want to this year. As a result I think we won't have a problem finding eight managers.

If we stick with 6 teams either do a 5 week regular season or Wanted's modification to the Belgian Format

Bo5 and Bo7 stuff:
The support for Bo5 Ubers seems unpopular which I'm fine with. Bo7 rands seems popular so this seems like the ideal format. UU-ZU being Bo3 vs. Bo5 seems more split in the middle so I think it is best to wait for signups here. My personal opinion is that the lows should stay bo5 but again can go either way.

Tiebreakers:
I agree with Bee all tiebreak tiers should default Bo5. These should be when the best players of each team duke it out, so more games results in more skill expression and a better experience for spectators. Tiebreakers also have very few people playing in them so if you are a manager you don't have to prep as much as a normal week, and if you don't have time for a bo5 during the tour you can opt to not play the tiebreaker.

If the tour remains at 10 slots, a 3v3 tiebreaker is ideal. One OU Bo5 slot then each team picks a tier.

Self-Buys
20/45 is the way to go, an SPL player managing then self-buying for 15k is a really good bargain.

The 50% OU Rule:
Obviously, OU is the most played and "important" tier so it should be represented the most, but having half the games being in one specific tier is too much in my opinion. Although lowtiers are now featured in cross-generation teamtours, there is one crucial component of RBYPL that differentiates it from these tours: In RBYPL, you are playing the RBY Lowtiers with other rbyers on your team. As someone who has played RBY lowtiers in crossgen teamtours, I am often just thrown into the RBY slot and forced to do everything for myself. In RBYPL, I have the chance to actually talk to other RBYers about the tier, get help from them, help them prep their own tiers, and so on. The only other instance of this happening for lowtiers is ALTPL, which doesn't even feature PU and ZU! This is why RBYPL is often where we see these metagames develop the fastest.

Odd number of slots:
The issue with this idea is that it makes ties practically impossible. Ties are good for teamtours because it makes the last game in a close week less of a decider (if a team is up 5-4 in a 10 slot tour they are playing for win vs. tie, if a team is up 5-5 in a 11 slot tour they are playing for win vs. loss). Because of this there should be an even number (10 or 12). Also from a subjective standpoint tiebreakers are fun!

2x Rands:
I could see this working. Rands is a very competitive pool so even with 8 teams I don't see any issue with fining 16 rands players, and rewards good manager prep on finding rands players as well. The one issue is that since I personally want to keep all the lowtiers, it seems hard to fit in a second rands slot into a 10 slot tour.

My ideal format:
My proposed format the tour is as follows. It is similar to Sabelette's but I like bo5 lowtiers:
8 teams, 10 slots
OU Bo5
OU Bo3
OU Bo3
OU Bo3
Ubers Bo3
UU Bo5
NU Bo5
PU Bo5
ZU Bo5
Random Battles Bo7
 
i didn’t include this in my initial post but i’d also like to advocate for the return to bo3 in low tiers. bo5 is fine in principle but like i said last year its just too many games and it causes a lot of scheduling issues and burnout. low tiers have plenty of tournaments already so i don’t think they need the extra games in this one
 
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