Announcement OMCL Format Discussion Thread

dhelmise

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OM & UM Leader
Hello, as decided by our ranked choice voting, we are running OM Champions League instead of OM World Cup. However, there are still some details to work out before the tour starts.
  1. 6 or 8 teams?
  2. Should we match the OMPL format (7 weeks -> top 4 seeds go into playoffs)?
  3. How are players assigned to a team (auction, snake draft, blind draft)?
  4. 8 or 10 starting slots per team?
  5. Do we want to enforce franchises for this (potentially allowing for retains in the future)?
  6. Any non-flex slots? Would we like to enforce our permaladder OMs as slots?
  7. Allow duplicate metagames?
  8. Allow reusing metagames across weeks? Should we allow a team to pick Godly Gift as one of its slots for every week? Or should each team have a 1-week cooldown for each metagame they pick?
  9. Should we include old gens?
  10. Do we need 3 managers?
  11. Should manager self buys be a thing here?
  12. How should weeks work? Should Monday-Saturday be playing days, and Sunday is the day for submitting the tiers and then lineup? Tuesday-Sunday, with Monday being the submitting day? etc.
  13. Should tiers not played be an aspect of player signups?
  14. How should tiebreaks be handled?
  15. Should archived OMs be allowed?
Anything else that we missed? Please give your opinion!
 
Here are my personal responses, not the views of the OM team.
  1. This feels like a no-brainer, we should have 8 teams
  2. Again, no-brainer, this feels like the best choice.
  3. I would assume we are going with an auction, since we would've seen Snake Draft or Blind Draft win the ranked choice voting otherwise.
  4. I have no opinion on this but would not be surprised if we just went with 8 starting slots per team. 10 feels like a lot for a tournament where we don't know how many signups we would get.
  5. No preference, but this would make the potential for retains more realistic for future iterations.
  6. We can't justifiably include all 5 (6 if counting Shared Power) permaladder OMs as slots in an 8-slot tournament because they take up too much space. However, I'm personally not a fan of excluding any specific permaladder OM either, so I would like every slot to be a flex slot, with each team picking 50% of the slot formats (4x or 5x depending on starting size).
  7. NUCL/UUCL allow duplicate metas if the same format is picked by both teams. However, they don't allow the same team to pick one format more than once. Ex. Team 1 and Team 2 can both pick Godly Gift, but Team 1 can't pick Godly Gift for two slots.
  8. No preference.
  9. I personally think probably not unless they have solid resources (ORAS/USUM PH-level or RBY OM-level).
  10. We've never really needed 3 managers before so I don't see why we would want 3 now.
  11. I personally think the open-ended nature of this tournament means that 13.5k (what is used on a manager in OMPL) risks being criminally low, but I do know that NUCL/UUCL made it where having both managers self-buy was a bit more than the price of one self buy multiplied by 2 (15k for one manager, 35k for both). This could be a nice compromise but I think 13.5k is still somewhat low.
  12. I think Tuesday-Sunday with Monday being used for submitting works best and still allows for peak weekend gameplay.
  13. Considering just how many OMs are allowed in this, I think this would be way too hard on the hosts and managers alike and would be better off left out.
  14. NUCL had SV NU as its default and then both teams picked another tier; we don't have a 'default' unless we use AAA as that, which I would not be opposed to.
  15. NO!
 
im a bystander who got pinged to give thoughts. feel free to disregard
  1. 8 teams
  2. yes but if you do auction pls raise the money
  3. dont do blind draft + flex slots learn from ums
  4. 8 slots per team this shouldnt be more grand than ompl
  5. yes yes but also you dont need franchises to do retains so
  6. nah
  7. only if both teams select into it. dont let a team draft the 4 <low activity OM> council members and pick into it weekly
  8. yes, yes, no
  9. no
  10. doesnt hurt imo
  11. doesnt hurt imo
  12. what we did in ums was allow the full sunday-to-sunday but we had an additional deadline of saturday midnight gmt to get flex options in
  13. no
  14. idk sry.
  15. no
 
So before going into my personal preferences for each bullet I did want to throw out a wild, probably infeasible and not considerable idea that is mostly recycled from my post from the previous thread. Putting it first because it includes some of the other points.

Instead of limiting to a standard 8 slots which limits the flexibility between flex slots and locked slots, expand number of slots without running into issues of too many players required.
6 locked slots (OMPL tiers), 3/4 flex slots per team, for a total of 12/14 slots. Players are allowed to slot into 2 different tiers.
This comes with the following benefits:
+ Every OMPL tier is guaranteed representation and thus all players are demanded.
+ A good number of flex slots for the theme of this tour.
+ Number of required players is a reasonable amount (considering number of players that can double slot lineups are around 8-9 players probably)
+ Aligns well with pannu's idea of player getting to play different metas, since these players that can play different metas are way more likely to be able to do so when they can be slotted into two different tiers each week.
+ Encourages multi-tier players and metagame communities to merge more instead of being disjoint.
+ Single-tier players benefit from the guaranteed locked slots, where without them they might be less sought after.
Drawbacks:
- Rather non-intuitive and complex system.
- Variable number of players showing on lineup -> how many players would be required on draft.
- Players have to prep and play 2 tiers every week, kind of like a slightly less Bo3 case, which can lead to burnouts.



Anyways for the normal responses:
1. Obviously 8 teams.
2. OMPL format works and is the best.
3. Auction is best.
4. See below.
5. Don't really care?
6. See below.
7. For flex picks per team I think teams should not be able to pick multiple of the same tier, but if both teams pick it then doubling up is fine. Otherwise you would run into cases of teams drafting excessive amount of a tier and hitting a critical mass kind of stuff while picking the same tiers over and over again which I don't think anyone is keen on.
8. I don't think this is a good idea at all since it adds imbalance and asymmetry where a team might be unable to load its best lineup because of these 1 week restrictions giving an advantage to the other team.
9. Old gens seem to always get a lot of hype but then don't actually get good playerbases and/or interesting games and we have seen this in both HPL and AAAPL. People often just end up reusing teams for the tiers that are established while the not so established probably don't have sufficient resources to fuel enough competitiveness. Having an active ladder is also really important from the aforementioned tours to test out ideas and such. Really don't think these should be included. Old gens have representation anyways in the various tier PLs.
10. I think 3 managers is an unnecessary thing for OMs, I haven't looked into the proper reasoning some tours had for incorporating this but from what I've heard in some talks some points are more meta coverage from managers and easing managerial duties etc, but OMs communities are generally not so individual anyways, and we have never needed this in the past. 3 managers also seem like it would reduce the number of manager group signups which seems pretty undesirable when we usually don't have a large number.
11. Yes but self buy prices are always debated upon every time. Dynamic self buy pricing seems to never be popular among the community so maybe something like 2nd self buy more expensive or something works.
12. Tuesday to Sunday is for sure the best. Monday to Saturday just cuts out a day of weekend gaming for no benefit, while something like Monday to Sunday games with tiers due like Sat night and lineups on Sun night adds a rush element for no benefit, since Monday gaming is exceedingly rare anyways. Additionally considering the picking flex slots is a big part of this tour you want teams to be able to have ample time to discuss about it, especially considering it would preferable for the majority if not all of the games to have concluded for lineup adjustments and such. As such arguably better to have flex slots due like Monday morning ET and lineups due Monday midnight ET.
13. I think they should be, but see below on clarification.
14. AAA lock + 2 picks that are not AAA seems like a pretty sensible approach.
15. See below.

Regarding tier lineup:
I think 8 slots is a significantly better number in terms of tour performance here than 10 slots. However if necessary 10 is not like unplayable.
I think the only tiers that should be considered are the OMPL tiers (AAA, BH, GG, MnM, PiC, STAB), and maybe if the argument is quite convincing, big OMs like Shared Power (this one in particular I am not very familiar with the competitiveness and non-overlapping playerbase). The other tiers, including every other OM, simply lack resources, development, ladder, probably playerbase, and guarantee of competitiveness for this CA tour to feature.
This is why I think tiers not played is a perfectly reasonable thing to have.

With that I think there are some main formats for consideration, in order of preference:
AAA + OMPL Bo3 + 6 Flex (3 each)
This covers 4 of the 6 tiers guaranteed in the lineup while leaving plenty of flex slots. The two locked here are also (I think) rather reasonable, with AAA being popular and double represented in OMPL, while Bo3 featured generally top quality games between top players. 3 flex picks each is also reasonable

AAA + BH + GG + MnM + PiC + STAB + 4 Flex (2 each)
Does all of the thing I posted at the very top, main drawback is 10 slots, which can be too much to fill out, though I think 8 x 10 is like barely enough to fit reasonably assuming we get a similar turnout to OMPL.

AAA + AAA + 6 Flex (3 each)
Actually not that bad, you trade the potential bias of OMPL Bo3 for the 2nd AAA and you just prevent AAA from being pickable as a flex. Happens to also remove any situations of a tier showing up thrice (lock + both teams pick), and 5 choose 3 is a pretty good number of options.

AAA + BH + MnM + GG/STAB + 4 Flex (2 each)
Basically the 2nd one but you force the 8 slots by cutting non-Permaladder PiC and one of the 2 least played permas. Current state I would say STAB would be the one getting cut considering GG's more stability and inclusion in OMPL Bo3. I'm actually fine with this but I can see a lot of problems coming up from picking which one to exclude.

8 Flex (4 each)
Zero bias in terms of tiers. Though with only 6 pickable tiers and no duplicates there is some case of flexibility not actually being much since 6 pick 4 is the same as 6 pick 2 to not include which leads to less unique tier lineups.

Everything else. I think you need at least 4 flex slots 2 each to distinguish this from OMPL enough.
 
  1. 8 teams
  2. Yes
  3. Auction
  4. 10
  5. No preference
  6. Maybe 1-2 rotating slots that are dedicated to permanent ladders? A bit hard to make that work for playoffs and the 7-week format makes that awkward to align for 6 permanent ladders, unless its chosen randomly from the pool of permanent ladders
  7. Doesn't feel like any reason not to
  8. No preference
  9. Maybe just a curated pool? Maybe not completely random things like ADV Stabmons but some stuff like USUM PH should probably be allowed
  10. No
  11. Yes
  12. Monday as submitting day is definetly better than Sunday, given how many times games are pushed to the weekends
  13. Yes, although might want to specify just the permanent ladders otherwise each signup would probably be like 10 lines long
  14. Each player chooses a tier and then one metagame is randomly chosen(probably just limited to the permanent ladders if choosing a random OM with like 8 players and 0 resources is a concern).
  15. Judging by the fact the archived OMs list seems to consist of 3 OMs, 2 of which are AFD jokes and one of which is a format that never really took off, probably not
These are just the thoughts of a player who doesn't do teamtours often and mostly plays funny OM mashups so feel free to disregard
 
  1. 8 teams
  2. OMPL format (if somehow 6 teams is chosen i guess do double round robin)
  3. auction for sure, the other options would've been picked if desired
  4. 10 slots, ill go into more detail below
  5. Yes for retains, definitely as a unique element to set the tour apart.
  6. See Below
  7. Only if each team separately picks it for a flex spot.
  8. I don't think there should be cooldowns - the nature of flex slots adds a unique spin to draft strategy which gets kneecapped if you can't pick the same tiers each week. The decision to change which tiers you play should be purely strategic based on the opposing lineup.
  9. Depends on signups.
  10. If the teams are 10 slots, 3 managers may be nice. However, I think only two managers should be allowed to play to avoid having too much consolidation of power.
  11. Yes, managers should be allowed to selfbuy
  12. Monday lineup submission, Tuesday - Sunday playing week.
  13. Yes, but only for the common (read: OMPL) tiers.
  14. Each team picks a meta and the last is randomized. Maybe randomization can happen after tiers are selected by each team for the spicy chance of having a repeat. Maybe AAA and then each team picks an OMPL meta.
  15. See below


IMO I think 10 players spots is the best. I can understand from a signups perspective how it may seem daunting, but I like the idea of having more flex slots since it makes the draft, and ultimately the weekly matchups, much more interesting and unique. In addition, more slots can help introduce new players into the tour scene as well as let less inactive metas have a chance to be featured and grow.

I liked how UMPL has two slots contingent on signups. Im envisioning: 2 SV AAA + 6 OMPL metas (not AAA, each team picks 3) + 2 niche metas (each team picks one). There can be a list of lesser played (but still semi-active) OMs that, if enough signups are garnered, can be eligible for one of these 'niche flex slots'. Oldgens can also be included in this because if they get enough support then why not. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking that this list can be even be comprised of all OMotM formats from the past year.

Point is, there are a lot of different options, and I think it would be cool to try and incorporate more lesser played metas into an annual teamtour. If signups are poor then going down to 8 slots is understandable, but I think trying to distinguish this tour as much as possible from OMPL is important for the sake of not having a bland, repetitive tour cycle.
 
I think we need a curated list of OMs as much as I'd like every single one to be featured as a choice, ultimately some are more developed then others. As an example I will use my own metagame, Sharing is Caring, it's only ever been featured once in a OMotm or LCotm and is highly undeveloped and under explored such that I'd say it is very imbalanced and not a great choice to allow in this tour. We want this tour to remain competitive and as such we should probably survey the community or have some sort of vote (whether public or otherwise is undecided) for opinions on various metagames aside from the obvious permaladders.
 
  1. 6 or 8 teams? 8
  2. Should we match the OMPL format (7 weeks -> top 4 seeds go into playoffs)? Yes
  3. How are players assigned to a team (auction, snake draft, blind draft)? I like blind but auction is ok; blind > auction >>>>> snake
  4. 8 or 10 starting slots per team? 10 for now imo
  5. Do we want to enforce franchises for this (potentially allowing for retains in the future)? sounds cool but idrc
  6. Any non-flex slots? Would we like to enforce our permaladder OMs as slots? yes non flex, do not enforce permaladders but prioritize them
  7. Allow duplicate metagames? no thanks (one team cannot pick the same tier twice)
  8. Allow reusing metagames across weeks? Should we allow a team to pick Godly Gift as one of its slots for every week? Or should each team have a 1-week cooldown for each metagame they pick? allow reuse
  9. Should we include old gens? I err on the side of caution so probably not unless the people really want them
  10. Do we need 3 managers? not necessary, but maybe leaving it as an option is nice
  11. Should manager self buys be a thing here? if three managers, cannot buy all 3; otherwise self buys are probably fine but like 13.5 then 15 idk
  12. How should weeks work? Should Monday-Saturday be playing days, and Sunday is the day for submitting the tiers and then lineup? Tuesday-Sunday, with Monday being the submitting day? etc. Tuesday-Sunday playing
  13. Should tiers not played be an aspect of player signups? Yes
  14. How should tiebreaks be handled? random permaladder, team 1 pick, team 2 pick
  15. Should archived OMs be allowed? No
 
  1. 8
  2. why not
  3. auction
  4. either works depending on playerbase interest, though betathunder's idea sounds neat
  5. why not
  6. ye cause full flex sounds bad
  7. yes; I'm assuming this is from 2 teams picking the same and in that case idk how you'd run it otherwise
  8. 1 week cooldown sounds cooler but either sounds fine
  9. no
  10. 2 managers is fine, 3 sounds like too much
  11. why not
  12. no sundays gaming would result in half deadgames
  13. idk haven't looked into those policies too much
  14. aaa default tier sounds fairest to me
  15. not exactly sure what "archived" extends to but I say if there is interest in the tiers then let the people play it
 
please go back to omwc. absolutely silly that it won every single round but because it lost the last one by 3 votes we're doing something a minority favored. omcl will just end up being ompl 2, which i guess if people want it then fine, but it really ruins team tour diversity when every team tour plays the same.

anyway to provide actual substance to my post:
  • 8 teams is the only way to go
  • if we want ompl 2 then yes, if we don't then do something else, maybe top 6 playoffs instead
  • anything but auction please
  • 7 or 9. we don't have the metas to justify 10
  • franchises for ompl but not omcl imo
  • there should be two flexible slots belonging to the omotm and leaders choice of the month. this is where people would put their general good players, or force people to learn a tier.
  • there shouldn't be dupes if we do 8, but if we do 10 then there still shouldn't be any
  • each team gets to choose two slots to lock in for each week at the beginning of the tour, maybe more or less
  • lol no, name a single old gen om that gets consistently played any more. the 18 games of ss aaa per year do not count
  • 2 is fine
  • you get one manager self-buy. this prevents people from signing up as managers, buying them, and already starting out ahead
  • monday-sunday. people do not need a whole day to do lineups, they're just lazy
  • yes
  • odd number of slots because tiebreakers suck, having to wait a week for 6 people to john until sunday ruins momentum for teams not in the tiebreaker and just stops the tour for spectators until these 3 sunday games can be played
  • no
 
  1. 8 teams
  2. Sure
  3. Regular auction is fine, however i'm not opposed to blind or snake
  4. 10, allows for more flex spots per team and allows for more non-core om's to shine
  5. sure, why not
  6. I would like to see the 6 meta's as enforceable slots, but I dont really care
  7. nah
  8. I don't think so, i feel like having like a wide variety of tours to showcase other than just spamming core om's for slots would be ideal, and allowing repeats just allows for what i just said
  9. I don't think so
  10. If signups allow for it but sure
  11. yeah but put em at like 17k per manager selfbuy, make them really think about if they wanna selfbuy or not
  12. Tuesday-Sunday, with monday to select tiers
  13. yeah
  14. random permaladder + both teams pick 1
  15. nah
feel free to disregard my opinions, as i'm not really that good enough to get drafted, but for the "spectator experience". i wanna just say my piece
 
whatever old gen ph is being pushed at that time probably wouldn't be going in omcl. it's also still only one old gen, and it's a meta where the current gen is more likely anyway. having all tiers be cg except one old gen tier would be strange and make it even more of a niche slot than it already is.
 
whatever old gen ph is being pushed at that time probably wouldn't be going in omcl. it's also still only one old gen, and it's a meta where the current gen is more likely anyway. having all tiers be cg except one old gen tier would be strange and make it even more of a niche slot than it already is.
? Gen7ph is played much more than Gen9ph, likely mostly due to the lack of a permanent pure hackmons ladder, but also due to factors like Eternamax Eternatus. Back in July when Gen9ph was availible as a ladder it got eclipsed by gen 7 ph, with 20148 battles for gen7ph compared to 266 battles for gen9ph
 
I am really in favour of allowing more om's to be picked as 'flex slots' in OMCL. Not only does it help differentiate this tour from OMPL by allowing a wider selection of metagames to be featured, it also helps unite the community alot. I feel as if there is a large gap between our tour players and our OMOTM ladderers / non perma tier players.

I understand that there may be worries about the competitive intregrity of these metagames, and what to do if your opponent chooses some random tier nobody on your team has any experience with, but i dont think thats a worry. Many of these tiers (notably 7ph, inheritance, and camo, but im sure others) are very competitive and have well developed resources and a dedicated playerbase, anyone who has a solid amount of pokemon knowledge and fundementals should be able to pick the tier up well enough for a tour game, consulting tools like the resources. Many of our tournament staples are also involved in these tiers (for example sammy and ghostlike play camo, dp is on bnb council, clas leads/councils a bunch of shit, chessking leads forme), i bring this up to say that the tiers have competitive metagames and competent people behind them. Ive talked to a bunch of friends (and clas) and asked them about the metagames they play/lead, and i have heard nothing but praise about enjoyability and competitive intregrity, but im sure that if i were to ask someone involved in a tier where this isnt the case, they'd be honest and wouldnt lie to get their tier included in the tour.

I think a currated selection of the OM index (this list notably includes our circuit tiers) is the ideal way to list what tiers should be allowed to be picked in the flex slot, what i mean by currated is making sure that each of the tier has an active council, up to date resources and not any large problems irt. tiering or competetive intregrity. Some of these tiers (trademarked comes to mind) have already seen tour representation through the freezai live tours (1, 2), and those were very well received.

The OM index notably doesnt include any oldgen ph tier, which i think could definetly be included in an otherwise all CG tour, but im not sure about that? PH is quite a large subcommunity but idk if it fits in the tour. Notably non ph players have done well in ph in the past, so either oras or sm PH could definetively be included? cc Glory aerobee NToTheN @ other ph players, curious if you guys think ph would fit in this, if you want PH to be in this, and if so, would oras or SM be the better fit, i think both is quite a large ask.

anyways i really want to include these tiers and these playerbases in OMCL, i think this tour is an excellent idea to try out new things, and if it doesnt work we can just change the line up next year (in the 4 years ive been in this community idt ompl has had the same line up of tiers once). cc Mossy Sandwich there will be inverse and camo in this tour, in an idealized world.


---

As for other stuff in the OP, ill only respond to what i have strong feelings abt



I think 8 teams, ompl format and regular auction should be no brainers, but i do like fairy's suggestion about raising the amount of money, a tour like this warrants more players and bigger rosters than ompl. I also think 8 slots is a nice starting point for this edition of the tour. There shouldnt be non flex slots, as those would usually be CG or flagship metagames, and we dont really have those, it also kinda goes against the spirit of the tour imo. Both duplicate and reusing metagames should also be allowed. I dont think we can field 8 teams of 3 managers, and even if we could that'd be lame irt. selfbuys, basically getting half your starting LU guranteed is boring, but manager selfbuys should still be a thing, 13.5 is a nice price point.
 
curious if you guys think ph would fit in this, if you want PH to be in this, and if so, would oras or SM be the better fit, i think both is quite a large ask.
Just my personal opinion (and I haven't read this thread in detail) but if non-OMPL formats are included then either PH gen should definitely be considered – to my understanding both PH gens have a larger serious (non-ladder) playerbase than almost every non-core OM, and while I love to complain about the state of both metas both are suitable enough for a tour that's mostly for fun and isn't yet as prestigious. Slight preference towards ORAS for meta stability
 
There shouldnt be non flex slots, as those would usually be CG or flagship metagames, and we dont really have those, it also kinda goes against the spirit of the tour imo.
pannu's post is really good, but as someone who really wants to see as much flexibility from this tour as possible we should still have our flagship four/five (AAA BH MnM STAB/GG). Maybe you can cut it down to 3 with just AAA/BH/MnM with some sort of random OM as 10th slot (or Bo3 AAA/BH/MnM, despite how much I think BH is a terrible Bo3 fit bc of its average game length) but there still should be some guaranteed stable tiers since without these there's a lot of inherent matchup fish for a CA team tour. Otherwise, what's stopping my team from choosing 5 metas we know we have a strong matchup in and our opponents doing the same? Not to mention that fishiness varies between OMs, and some metas have more inherent fish than others.

To clarify, I think having flex tiers is a good thing. I actually would prefer flex tiers to not allow for AAA/BH/MnM/etc to be chosen if they're a static tier. However, here's two versions of what I think would be best for OMCL (i made them spoiler boxes to highlight them, theres nothing in them)
made you look
made you look again
1758627159601.png
This way, there's still stability while emphasising the other OMs we have in the section. I'm not against the addition of ORAS/SM PH either, but I would personally like to suggest a limit of 1 PH flex slot per team per week just so there's no bloat, much like how I'd suggest flex/slot OMs follow this rule, same with no guaranteed OMs being allowed in flex slots.
 
6 or 8 teams?
Should we match the OMPL format (7 weeks -> top 4 seeds go into playoffs)?
8 or 10 starting slots per team?
Any non-flex slots? Would we like to enforce our permaladder OMs as slots?
Allow duplicate metagames?
Should we include old gens?

I saw many people seem interested in following OMPL formats in terms of duration but I believe it might be great to reduce the duration to 5 weeks and subsequently the number of team to 6.

OMs grew really big and now has a schedule full of tours between individuals like Open, Seasonal, OMGS, Championship , etc and teamtours with OMPL, metagame-PL and now this new teamtour replacing WCuP. And overall, that is a good thing to see OM section growing and have such high activity. However, it also leads to tour burnout. If the invest of people during individuals may vary a lot from one to another due to how serious they are about trying to win it all, the invest is almost always very high during teamtours where people talk and build a lot and where managers make sure people get their job done. It's getting even worst for builders having a lot of clikers on their team and where they have to build for multiple slots every week. It's no surprise some people just need to take a break after a teamtour just cuz they are exhausted.

My feeling is that, to keep enjoying and playing the game, you also need those moments to catch your breath and take some rest. One may say, "well, people can always not enter a tour if they're not feeling to cuz they are tired" and, that's fair. However, maybe people don't have to choose between their will to play and their will to take a break? The idea is just to include those moments of rest within the schedule. This also allows people to invest differently by participating to meta they discovered during teamtours or meta they were looking at but never got the time to really try, play more casually on PS by reviving ladders, writing posts, analyses, holding small events, etc. This also allows smaller metas to hold various events people may be interested in because they are free from teamtours and thus participate to their growing.


The idea is then to reduce the duration of the tour to 5 weeks + PO by making it a 6 teams tour. The issue is that, for such a tour promoting meta diversity with a clear will to reach as many people as possible, reducing the number of team is not a good thing cuz it also means reducing the number of participants.

That's without taking into account a degree of freedom we have: the number of slots. We can ensure the tour allows many people to participate while staying competitive by picking a coherent number of slots.

So basically what you do is keeping OMPL metas, AAA, BH, MnM, STAB, GG and PIC for 6 slots and add 6 flex slots this way:

- Each team pick a regular OMPL meta to add.
- Each team pick a non-regular OMPL meta to add (eventually from a pre-chosen list for balancing/development issues).
- Each team pick an old gen OMPL (+ PH?) meta to add (from a pre-chosen list).

This allows for 6 x (12 + 6) = 108 people to get in for sure with respect to those 12 x 8 = 96 people entering OMPL following Pannu's will to get a bigger rooster.

The way flex slots are chosen is ofc up to debate ; this one just felt right to still attract regular OMPL players, other metas players and older gens players (especially our fellow PH community). If one wants to promote diversity more, just pick another non-regular OMPL meta instead of an OMPL one which is also an option I like tbh.

The amount of money for the auction will not necessarily have to be raised cuz we're still close from the number of participants of OMPL though a little higher.


I do understand the will to make this a 8 weeks teamtour though and perhaps this is fine. Nevertheless I think it will be necessary to look at next year tours schedule to allow for more breaks and maybe less overlap between tours if possible (not saying this is an easy task however!!).

Thanks for reading and have a good day! :heart:
 
  1. 6 or 8 teams? 8
  2. Should we match the OMPL format (7 weeks -> top 4 seeds go into playoffs)? Yes
  3. How are players assigned to a team (auction, snake draft, blind draft)? i already managed in a blind draft, i'm not a fan of it. auction > blind draft > snake draft
  4. 8 or 10 starting slots per team? 10 2 flex slot by teams
  5. Do we want to enforce franchises for this (potentially allowing for retains in the future)? no.
  6. Any non-flex slots? Would we like to enforce our permaladder OMs as slots? yes non flex, do not enforce permaladders but prioritize them
  7. Allow duplicate metagames? no. a team can't pick godly gift twice for example
  8. Allow reusing metagames across weeks? Should we allow a team to pick Godly Gift as one of its slots for every week? Or should each team have a 1-week cooldown for each metagame they pick? this is This is very interesting and I really like the idea so I would say yes
  9. Should we include old gens? i love old gen, but no.
  10. Do we need 3 managers? 3 managers would be great, but maybe for a bigger numbers of slots like 12, also i don't think cl in general needs a third manager
  11. Should manager self buys be a thing here? yes ? if there is 3 managers, only two can and for like 15k
  12. How should weeks work? Should Monday-Saturday be playing days, and Sunday is the day for submitting the tiers and then lineup? Tuesday-Sunday, with Monday being the submitting day? etc. Well, regular week monday to sunday but sat is the submitting day for flex slots.
  13. Should tiers not played be an aspect of player signups? idk
  14. How should tiebreaks be handled? 1 team pick, the other pick and strike, 1 team strike and then host randomize the last tier
  15. Should archived OMs be allowed? idk i would say no but i'm not against.
 
  1. 8
  2. If you can think of an alt format, yes. Otherwise OMPL.
  3. auction
  4. 10, 2 flex
  5. no
  6. yes non flex | do not enforce permaladders but they'll likely be included anyway
  7. no
  8. you can only run a meta 2 weeks in a row, after that a 1 week cooldown
  9. yes, if you're including pure hackmons. otherwise no.
  10. Do we need 3 managers? no
  11. Should manager self buys be a thing here? yes
  12. How should weeks work? Should Monday-Saturday be playing days, and Sunday is the day for submitting the tiers and then lineup? Tuesday-Sunday, with Monday being the submitting day? etc. monday-sunday, saturday flex
  13. Should tiers not played be an aspect of player signups? yes
  14. How should tiebreaks be handled? something similar to how it works in ompl
  15. Should archived OMs be allowed? no opinion
 
after looking at some data chessking provided me and going through metagame threads, I'm here to propose the inclusion of these 10 metagames in OMCL (idrc if theyre flex options or rotation or anything else):

Permaladders

Shared Power SP has been a permaladder for ages, it's about time we give this tier the spotlight it deserves. I know there are concerns about meta balance or whatever, but what better place to develop a meta and work on its balancing than a team tournament with a prize?

[Gen 7 / Gen 6] Pure Hackmons PH has run a PL before; its playerbase is big. Give them representation, connect them with the OM tour playerbase. I don't have much PH knowledge but my sources tell me Gen 6 PH is better and more competitive so yeah.

Top non-permas

Fortemons: Rank #1 in the [X]oTM sheet. Got 100k plays both times it had a ladder. Add it.

Frantic Fusions: Rank #2. 200k+ overall playercount. This meta is popular and quite balanced.

Tier Shift: Rank #3, another 200k+. TS concept is pretty interesting, and I'm guessing it could potentially attract lower tier players.

Alphabet Cup: Nearly 200k overall. This tier crossed 100k in a month recently and has even successfully run a suspect test.

Trademarked: Crossed 100k plays in a month when it was LCoTM. Money roomtour.

Wildcard metas

Inheritance: Popular meta, was in OMPL last year.

Camomons: Camomons' ladder play kind of pales in comparison to the above tiers, but it was an OMPL tier a few years back. Camo has a passionate playerbase and has always had pretty strong players at the upper echelon. Updates keep happening and its resources seem to be fairly updated too. It's worth giving Camomons a shot this OMCL imo.

Cross Evolution: CE has seen decent [X]oTM play in the past and tmk is one of the most popular roomtour metas. It also has 20 pages of discussion in the meta thread which is really impressive.
 
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