-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Tournaments RBYPL VI - Commencement
- Thread starter igiveuponaname
- Start date
I thank everyone on my team. You all put in the utmost energy and excitement you could, and tried your hardest. The Wartortles Discord server was probably the nicest Discord server I have ever been in. I am sorry I let you down when you needed me this week. I would like to say to YBW specifically that you were an amazing assistant to RBY Ubers for me, with your useful suggestions and tweaks to the teams I made. To LNumbers, you made some mistakes as all humans do,but you've learnt from them and don't deserve any of the current hate your getting. To nicole7735, you were an amazing manager throughout the last two years and I could and should write an entire second post just to thank you alone. I wish you all success in the future, no matter where you may end up.
However, I would like to thank one person for giving the most to not only the Wartortles, or even the Wartortles through its past generation, but to the entire RBY community, as well as being my best friend on this site and helping me through everything. I apologise if it may come across as a mess of a post, as I am writing it from pure emotion:
Sceptross, I remember when we first interacted, with you seemingly randomly challenging me to a game of RBY PU while I was online one day. I had no clue who was challenging me as you were under an alt and were being very secretive. I had legitimately no clue what I was doing and don't even remember how I did in those games XD. But, what I do remember is your kind, welcoming attitude right from the get-go towards me, a nobody who had done nothing except talk nonsense on Discord. I also met your two friends, who were spectating the games, Kaz and chuva de perereca. I admit, I thought they were a bit strange at the time, but that was due to my lack of knowledge of anything or how anything worked on Smogon. I had interacted briefly with Kaz before, as I remember him lecturing me once on the secret-hidden-ultra-awesomeness of Sub Slowbro, but of course, I did not recognise him when playing. I walked away from that interaction confused, yet happy and content. I only learnt of your true nature and intentions to scout me as a potential PU starter with that PU challenge when I got drafted by you in my first ever team tournament, RBYPL, coincidentally in your first edition as a manager as well. Despite not even making it past Round 1 in that tournament, and Kaz getting viciously attacked throughout, I consider that my favorite tournament I've ever been in because of how fun you guys were, as well as the sheer effort you and your friends put into training me as a player.
You and your friend's entire ethos with the Wartortles is something I admire you so much for. The selflessness of being able to put to your back the desire to win at all costs in order to help cultivate the RBY community 3 years in a row, putting all your effort and time into educating and training up and coming stars is simply amazing, and you don't even ask for a single thank you from anyone.
I especially admire you for always being there for me, some of the things you've said to me I will carry with me for the rest of my life. You always had an open ear no matter how bad things got for me and always stuck up for me from the things I've been called and said about, at times, even at the cost of your own reputation. I will be frank, half of the reason I even returned to Smogon and have stuck with RBY is because I did not want to leave behind you and your friends. Personally, I do not think I could continue or ever do an RBYPL without you guys, you make the tour for me and your absence would be heartbreaking.
I am so, so sorry I couldn't and still can't stand up for you as you have stood up for me countless times. The attacks on you have been relentless and barbaric, and I feel like a bystander, idly watching from a void of denseness, unable to swim forward and reach out to help. I am especially sorry for being the catalyst of even a small amount of the hate that you have received recently, as I have seen the screenshots of people attacking you and Nicole for drafting me, demanding your ban and calling you both transphobic scabs. You bought me in spite of me going above your price estimates, which just proves your absolute resolve and loyalty to those you consider a friend in spite of all repercussions.
People take for granted your willingness to take what they dish out, and I want to say that, no matter what you decide to do from here on out, your work towards this tour and the community will always be cherished and thanked endlessly. Everyone who has ever been on the Wartortles through the past 3 years knows it, and the teachings you've given them will surely go on to help make them star studded leaders of the community in the future.
However, I would like to thank one person for giving the most to not only the Wartortles, or even the Wartortles through its past generation, but to the entire RBY community, as well as being my best friend on this site and helping me through everything. I apologise if it may come across as a mess of a post, as I am writing it from pure emotion:
Sceptross, I remember when we first interacted, with you seemingly randomly challenging me to a game of RBY PU while I was online one day. I had no clue who was challenging me as you were under an alt and were being very secretive. I had legitimately no clue what I was doing and don't even remember how I did in those games XD. But, what I do remember is your kind, welcoming attitude right from the get-go towards me, a nobody who had done nothing except talk nonsense on Discord. I also met your two friends, who were spectating the games, Kaz and chuva de perereca. I admit, I thought they were a bit strange at the time, but that was due to my lack of knowledge of anything or how anything worked on Smogon. I had interacted briefly with Kaz before, as I remember him lecturing me once on the secret-hidden-ultra-awesomeness of Sub Slowbro, but of course, I did not recognise him when playing. I walked away from that interaction confused, yet happy and content. I only learnt of your true nature and intentions to scout me as a potential PU starter with that PU challenge when I got drafted by you in my first ever team tournament, RBYPL, coincidentally in your first edition as a manager as well. Despite not even making it past Round 1 in that tournament, and Kaz getting viciously attacked throughout, I consider that my favorite tournament I've ever been in because of how fun you guys were, as well as the sheer effort you and your friends put into training me as a player.
You and your friend's entire ethos with the Wartortles is something I admire you so much for. The selflessness of being able to put to your back the desire to win at all costs in order to help cultivate the RBY community 3 years in a row, putting all your effort and time into educating and training up and coming stars is simply amazing, and you don't even ask for a single thank you from anyone.
I especially admire you for always being there for me, some of the things you've said to me I will carry with me for the rest of my life. You always had an open ear no matter how bad things got for me and always stuck up for me from the things I've been called and said about, at times, even at the cost of your own reputation. I will be frank, half of the reason I even returned to Smogon and have stuck with RBY is because I did not want to leave behind you and your friends. Personally, I do not think I could continue or ever do an RBYPL without you guys, you make the tour for me and your absence would be heartbreaking.
I am so, so sorry I couldn't and still can't stand up for you as you have stood up for me countless times. The attacks on you have been relentless and barbaric, and I feel like a bystander, idly watching from a void of denseness, unable to swim forward and reach out to help. I am especially sorry for being the catalyst of even a small amount of the hate that you have received recently, as I have seen the screenshots of people attacking you and Nicole for drafting me, demanding your ban and calling you both transphobic scabs. You bought me in spite of me going above your price estimates, which just proves your absolute resolve and loyalty to those you consider a friend in spite of all repercussions.
People take for granted your willingness to take what they dish out, and I want to say that, no matter what you decide to do from here on out, your work towards this tour and the community will always be cherished and thanked endlessly. Everyone who has ever been on the Wartortles through the past 3 years knows it, and the teachings you've given them will surely go on to help make them star studded leaders of the community in the future.
Last edited:
First of all, ggs Haymakers and congrats. I suppose it's about time I shared my thoughts about what went down last week and finally clean the air, but before I do that I'd like to thank my team and literally everyone in the chat for having made this rbypl an unforgettable experience. After having been gone for like 2.5 years, it was super refreshing to have an active chat with people constantly seeking to improve and trying their utmost to win. I see great potential in every newcomer we had on the team/server, I'm sure that you will get to where you wanna be in no time if you keep grinding like this. It was a pleasure to team up with you all and play for the Wartortles together. I also wanna shoutout some people in particular.
chuva de perereca Kaz spies for having been a part of this the whole time despite not officially being on the team. To me though you were part of our squad all along. I don't think that our chat would've been the same without you and we greatly benefitted from your input and sheer chat presence. You deserve credit for the success we've been seeing each week. Thank you.
NotVeryCake I'm ngl when I watched the draft and how people were reacting to your buy, I was asking myself what kind of person you were to make people attack you so much. Ofc I didn't know you at all back then. Fast forward, I can only say that I really enjoyed teaming up with you and you deserve to be treated better. I think most of the problems you face around here are due to misunderstandings and one kinda has to get to know you well in order to see that. Also, you're goated af in RBY Ubers and owned in that slot, good job.
nicole7735 I didn't know much about you before this tour other than that we faced like 1-2 times 3 years ago, and you've been seeing tons of success in the past years to get you where you are now, and goddamn, you didn't disappoint. I really enjoyed discussing the meta with you in dms or playing some rby games every now and again. As a manager, you were nothing short of formidable. You really carried in terms of scouting and giving advice for most if not all of our slots, and you were there whenever somebody needed help or advice (even despite being sick and on a plane lol). I hope you eventually decide to sign up for spl, you've definitely committed to the derust that you were feeling at the beginning of the tour, and I'm excited to see how it'll transfer to your performance in spl.
Sceptross My man. Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I was super happy when I saw your dm about you wanting to pick me up. You immediately made me go like "This is the team where I wanna end up on". Not only did your message convey that you are super serious about this tour but you're also just super kind and friendly. No wonder people around here frequently call you "friendliest user on smogon", you definitely live up to that reputation. During rbypl itself, you were just what I had imagined - a super capable manager (and player!) that knows exactly what he does and helps wherever he can. I really enjoyed our calls for prep (even though we probably spent more time discussing other things than actually hardcore prepping lmao) and just talking to you in general. I know that the past week(s) haven't been easy for you, but I just want you to know that you can be proud of how you handled every obstacle that came in your way. In my honest opinion, you showed a lot of character and there's really nothing else you could've done better. This actually brings me to why I made this post in the first place:
As we all know, things got kinda tense after my rbypl series last week vs Acetylaldehyde. First of all, I wanna apologize to you for having taken so long to show up. I won't go into the details of why I ended up being late, but I do want you to know that it wasn't on purpose and I tried to inform you as soon as I found out. Unfortunately, it ended up getting this late. I also want you to know that the breaks I took between the sets were obviously neither to tilt nor to timestall you (I don't see any merit in doing that). I used it to talk to my team and discuss things. Yet, I have a bad habit of forgetting to look at the clock and well this is how 5 mins turned into 7 mins for instance. Look, I understand why you were mad especially after a loss when having waited for so long. It was also a deciding game, so emotions were high, it happens. However, I would've wished for you to come talking to me to sort things out before making a public post and infracting me. This is something that I wouldn't have done in your stead. Again, emotions were high so I do understand. I just think what ended up happening after is something that neither you or me could ever anticipate and I think everyone involved ended up losing in that one.
Anyway, what I don't understand is everyone who was not involved in neither the Pampus or Tortles jumping in and accusing Sceptross or nicole7735 for having a part in this when in fact it was proven that neither of them were online around the time that the series happened. Everything these two have done for the community in the past couple of years as well as now for us Tortles in this team tour was to make RBY more appealing to not only newcomers but also experienced players. They're actively seeking to bring people together and make our tours more competitive. If anyone deserves an apology or to hear the words "you deserved better", it's them. They're one of the best manager pairs this community has ever had and weird accusations like these bring people to eventually decide to stop managing. This would be a big loss for not just the Tortles but for the entire tour. This tournament was only this exciting because they created an environment for people to engage with each other and grind together... imagine if every manager pair took it this seriously and created that? RBY would be on another level. So if you feel like you've attacked them in any way, go talk to them and make it up. They will understand.
chuva de perereca Kaz spies for having been a part of this the whole time despite not officially being on the team. To me though you were part of our squad all along. I don't think that our chat would've been the same without you and we greatly benefitted from your input and sheer chat presence. You deserve credit for the success we've been seeing each week. Thank you.
NotVeryCake I'm ngl when I watched the draft and how people were reacting to your buy, I was asking myself what kind of person you were to make people attack you so much. Ofc I didn't know you at all back then. Fast forward, I can only say that I really enjoyed teaming up with you and you deserve to be treated better. I think most of the problems you face around here are due to misunderstandings and one kinda has to get to know you well in order to see that. Also, you're goated af in RBY Ubers and owned in that slot, good job.
nicole7735 I didn't know much about you before this tour other than that we faced like 1-2 times 3 years ago, and you've been seeing tons of success in the past years to get you where you are now, and goddamn, you didn't disappoint. I really enjoyed discussing the meta with you in dms or playing some rby games every now and again. As a manager, you were nothing short of formidable. You really carried in terms of scouting and giving advice for most if not all of our slots, and you were there whenever somebody needed help or advice (even despite being sick and on a plane lol). I hope you eventually decide to sign up for spl, you've definitely committed to the derust that you were feeling at the beginning of the tour, and I'm excited to see how it'll transfer to your performance in spl.
Sceptross My man. Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I was super happy when I saw your dm about you wanting to pick me up. You immediately made me go like "This is the team where I wanna end up on". Not only did your message convey that you are super serious about this tour but you're also just super kind and friendly. No wonder people around here frequently call you "friendliest user on smogon", you definitely live up to that reputation. During rbypl itself, you were just what I had imagined - a super capable manager (and player!) that knows exactly what he does and helps wherever he can. I really enjoyed our calls for prep (even though we probably spent more time discussing other things than actually hardcore prepping lmao) and just talking to you in general. I know that the past week(s) haven't been easy for you, but I just want you to know that you can be proud of how you handled every obstacle that came in your way. In my honest opinion, you showed a lot of character and there's really nothing else you could've done better. This actually brings me to why I made this post in the first place:
As we all know, things got kinda tense after my rbypl series last week vs Acetylaldehyde. First of all, I wanna apologize to you for having taken so long to show up. I won't go into the details of why I ended up being late, but I do want you to know that it wasn't on purpose and I tried to inform you as soon as I found out. Unfortunately, it ended up getting this late. I also want you to know that the breaks I took between the sets were obviously neither to tilt nor to timestall you (I don't see any merit in doing that). I used it to talk to my team and discuss things. Yet, I have a bad habit of forgetting to look at the clock and well this is how 5 mins turned into 7 mins for instance. Look, I understand why you were mad especially after a loss when having waited for so long. It was also a deciding game, so emotions were high, it happens. However, I would've wished for you to come talking to me to sort things out before making a public post and infracting me. This is something that I wouldn't have done in your stead. Again, emotions were high so I do understand. I just think what ended up happening after is something that neither you or me could ever anticipate and I think everyone involved ended up losing in that one.
Anyway, what I don't understand is everyone who was not involved in neither the Pampus or Tortles jumping in and accusing Sceptross or nicole7735 for having a part in this when in fact it was proven that neither of them were online around the time that the series happened. Everything these two have done for the community in the past couple of years as well as now for us Tortles in this team tour was to make RBY more appealing to not only newcomers but also experienced players. They're actively seeking to bring people together and make our tours more competitive. If anyone deserves an apology or to hear the words "you deserved better", it's them. They're one of the best manager pairs this community has ever had and weird accusations like these bring people to eventually decide to stop managing. This would be a big loss for not just the Tortles but for the entire tour. This tournament was only this exciting because they created an environment for people to engage with each other and grind together... imagine if every manager pair took it this seriously and created that? RBY would be on another level. So if you feel like you've attacked them in any way, go talk to them and make it up. They will understand.
Last edited:
Hi everyone, I was considering not making this post but since the end of the tournament things haven't sat quite right with me and I feel the need to address the events that unfolded during this season
I'll start this off by congratulating the Haymakers on their win, you guys had a strong team and pushed us extremely hard in finals. dangerk1d particularly impressed me for someone so new to rby tournaments, definitely a name to watch going forward
Now, to give a bit of background to the drama, the Tortles philosophy is basically that prep doesn't end before the game starts and that midset adaptations are an important part of that. In individual tournaments I will sometimes build teams on the fly before g3 to adapt to what my opponents brought g1g2 if my prep hasn't been hitting. The only difference here is that we work as a team during these breaks, but the core concept stays the same. I understand that not everyone shares this philosophy and that people might not like it but at the end of the day this is something that we're entitled to and that must be respected
A couple of issues related to these breaks arose during the season. The first of these was in week 3 when Clark took several long breaks without notifying his opponent, Cow. This incident was 100% on Sceptross and I as managers, as we had not made it clear to our players that they needed to communicate to their opponents and ask to take longer breaks. The outcome of this was a community discussion and rules being outlined granting 5 minute breaks between games, up to around 10 minutes with communication between players. Failure to meet these requirements was expected to be met with warnings and/or infractions. We definitely agreed with these rules as 10 minutes feels like the appropriate place to draw the line, and took steps to inform our players of the new rules and proper procedure
A few weeks later, Clark took several uncommunicated breaks against Acetylaldehyde, actions which saw him eat an infraction as per the newly defined rules. Even though Clark was already adequately punished according to rules the community had agreed to, this set the community into a frenzy. For the rest of the tournament, countless discussions popped up disparaging the Wartortles and the breaks as a whole with several exceedingly unfair and false arguments. Being a manager is extremely hard and stressful work at the best of times, but having to respond to dogpiling week in week out made for the worst experience i've ever had in competitive mons. I regret some of the ways i handled these discussions but the community response was frankly revolting and made me lose a lot of the faith and goodwill I had
I'll outline some of these arguments here but I don't want this to be the focal point of this post so I'll keep it brief
"Tortles maliciously exploit the rules and try to waste people's time" - when you play competitive pokemon you commit to spend a lot of time on this hobby between prep and long games, dealing with 5 minute breaks between games (or agreeing to 10 every so often) is really not much more. To say we're acting maliciously is an awful accusation, we're doing our own thing here for the love of the game and you don't have to like it but it's clear as day we're not trying to screw people over
"Tortles constantly take long breaks almost every game" - demonstrably false, we didn't even take 5 minute breaks for the majority of our games. If you really want to press the issue we have the logs in our server and I will spend an afternoon compiling everything with proof
"Tortles argue for extremely long breaks" - Sceptross and I made it crystal clear in the rbycord after the first incident that we were only pushing for 5-10 minute breaks, nothing more. We made several announcements and talked to our players about staying within the time limit
The worst part of this wasn't the arguments themselves, but the fact they kept being made again and again after being debunked, often by the same people. I can't even begin to describe how demoralising it felt responding to these for the nth time, and it genuinely made me question whether people were acting in good faith
Beyond the community response, I believe the mod team handled this issue poorly and only alienated Sceptross and I further for no good reason. I'll preface this by saying that modding is tough, important work and is horribly underappreciated - this community would get nowhere without the mod team keeping things in order, so thank you for your service to RBY
That said, in the aftermath of Clark's infraction, the mod team approached Sceptross and I with a warning that we could be banned from managing next year if this behaviour continued. The outcome of this discussion should have been obvious - we had already done everything we could to inform our players, and both happened to be absent during the incident, so there was absolutely nothing we could do to prevent it. We told the moderators that we would simply keep doing what we had already been doing since the first incident and left it at that, but our managerial integrity being questioned in such a way for something we had no part in left a bad taste in our mouths
Things worsened when Volk went on a tirade against us in the rbycord manager chat, fully questioning our ability to manage and using one of the most condescending tones i've ever seen. As Sceptross put it, managers are not responsible when their player cancers or gets ghosted, so why should we be held responsible and threatened with a manager ban when our player makes a minor offense (and has already been punished, mind you!)
The outcome of this was that we no longer feel accepted or wanted in this community and both plan on minimising our community engagement. We will leave the RBY discord and will certainly not be returning to manage the Wartortles next year after this debacle. I know people say they quit and end up coming back all the time, but people who know me can vouch that I never do this kind of thing and that I fully mean what I say
I think this ties into the wider discussions we've had in the past about the downfall of the RBY discord. When I first joined, it was a vibrant place with tons of in-depth discussion and it was one of the best environments for learning that I've ever experienced in any game. Nowadays, barely anyone talks there during games and in-depth discussion about tiers is basically absent in their respective channels. People have tried to pin this on a few bad actors but I see it quite differently. Several top players were driven out as a result of this dogpiling and focus on drama above play, and without these active top players the quality of discussion has significantly worsened, and is currently almost dead entirely. Us leaving now is just part of a wider trend we've seen for a couple of years now, and I hope it serves to show people that there is a problem
Despite all this, Sceptross and I are not committed to leaving the community forever, but there are several measures we want to see taken before we feel comfortable returning
We first of all need to see the community genuinely apologise for this behaviour and recognise the issues with it - dogpiling the flavour of the month trendy thing to hate on just serves to create a toxic environment that doesn't concern itself with player growth at all, and fosters the creation of cliquey side jerks. It's also intensely demoralising seeing people so up in arms and talking so much about this issue and then say absolutely nothing during the games themselves, for the love of god please rethink your priorities
I also hate to single out one person, and they only played a role in our departure, but Volk acted in a manner that was completely out of line. I've never seen anything like it from a moderator and I don't think the mod team should let that behaviour slide. It sends a terrible message to have someone act in that manner with 0 repercussions, and Sceptross and I believe they should be demodded if we are to feel able to return
To end on a more positive note, I'd like to shoutout my team a little. I knew coming out of the draft that this was one of the strongest teams in rbypl history and you guys absolutely did not disappoint. I know it's bittersweet to have things end the way they did but we created something really special here, I've never seen such an environment full of grindy tryhards. You guys were an absolute pleasure to work with and you're honestly all so incredibly goated, please keep grinding and improving - you all know it's the journey that matters above all anyway
Special shoutout to spies Vitoran Kaz chuva de perereca, your help was priceless
I'll start this off by congratulating the Haymakers on their win, you guys had a strong team and pushed us extremely hard in finals. dangerk1d particularly impressed me for someone so new to rby tournaments, definitely a name to watch going forward
Now, to give a bit of background to the drama, the Tortles philosophy is basically that prep doesn't end before the game starts and that midset adaptations are an important part of that. In individual tournaments I will sometimes build teams on the fly before g3 to adapt to what my opponents brought g1g2 if my prep hasn't been hitting. The only difference here is that we work as a team during these breaks, but the core concept stays the same. I understand that not everyone shares this philosophy and that people might not like it but at the end of the day this is something that we're entitled to and that must be respected
A couple of issues related to these breaks arose during the season. The first of these was in week 3 when Clark took several long breaks without notifying his opponent, Cow. This incident was 100% on Sceptross and I as managers, as we had not made it clear to our players that they needed to communicate to their opponents and ask to take longer breaks. The outcome of this was a community discussion and rules being outlined granting 5 minute breaks between games, up to around 10 minutes with communication between players. Failure to meet these requirements was expected to be met with warnings and/or infractions. We definitely agreed with these rules as 10 minutes feels like the appropriate place to draw the line, and took steps to inform our players of the new rules and proper procedure
A few weeks later, Clark took several uncommunicated breaks against Acetylaldehyde, actions which saw him eat an infraction as per the newly defined rules. Even though Clark was already adequately punished according to rules the community had agreed to, this set the community into a frenzy. For the rest of the tournament, countless discussions popped up disparaging the Wartortles and the breaks as a whole with several exceedingly unfair and false arguments. Being a manager is extremely hard and stressful work at the best of times, but having to respond to dogpiling week in week out made for the worst experience i've ever had in competitive mons. I regret some of the ways i handled these discussions but the community response was frankly revolting and made me lose a lot of the faith and goodwill I had
I'll outline some of these arguments here but I don't want this to be the focal point of this post so I'll keep it brief
"Tortles maliciously exploit the rules and try to waste people's time" - when you play competitive pokemon you commit to spend a lot of time on this hobby between prep and long games, dealing with 5 minute breaks between games (or agreeing to 10 every so often) is really not much more. To say we're acting maliciously is an awful accusation, we're doing our own thing here for the love of the game and you don't have to like it but it's clear as day we're not trying to screw people over
"Tortles constantly take long breaks almost every game" - demonstrably false, we didn't even take 5 minute breaks for the majority of our games. If you really want to press the issue we have the logs in our server and I will spend an afternoon compiling everything with proof
"Tortles argue for extremely long breaks" - Sceptross and I made it crystal clear in the rbycord after the first incident that we were only pushing for 5-10 minute breaks, nothing more. We made several announcements and talked to our players about staying within the time limit
The worst part of this wasn't the arguments themselves, but the fact they kept being made again and again after being debunked, often by the same people. I can't even begin to describe how demoralising it felt responding to these for the nth time, and it genuinely made me question whether people were acting in good faith
Beyond the community response, I believe the mod team handled this issue poorly and only alienated Sceptross and I further for no good reason. I'll preface this by saying that modding is tough, important work and is horribly underappreciated - this community would get nowhere without the mod team keeping things in order, so thank you for your service to RBY
That said, in the aftermath of Clark's infraction, the mod team approached Sceptross and I with a warning that we could be banned from managing next year if this behaviour continued. The outcome of this discussion should have been obvious - we had already done everything we could to inform our players, and both happened to be absent during the incident, so there was absolutely nothing we could do to prevent it. We told the moderators that we would simply keep doing what we had already been doing since the first incident and left it at that, but our managerial integrity being questioned in such a way for something we had no part in left a bad taste in our mouths
Things worsened when Volk went on a tirade against us in the rbycord manager chat, fully questioning our ability to manage and using one of the most condescending tones i've ever seen. As Sceptross put it, managers are not responsible when their player cancers or gets ghosted, so why should we be held responsible and threatened with a manager ban when our player makes a minor offense (and has already been punished, mind you!)
The outcome of this was that we no longer feel accepted or wanted in this community and both plan on minimising our community engagement. We will leave the RBY discord and will certainly not be returning to manage the Wartortles next year after this debacle. I know people say they quit and end up coming back all the time, but people who know me can vouch that I never do this kind of thing and that I fully mean what I say
I think this ties into the wider discussions we've had in the past about the downfall of the RBY discord. When I first joined, it was a vibrant place with tons of in-depth discussion and it was one of the best environments for learning that I've ever experienced in any game. Nowadays, barely anyone talks there during games and in-depth discussion about tiers is basically absent in their respective channels. People have tried to pin this on a few bad actors but I see it quite differently. Several top players were driven out as a result of this dogpiling and focus on drama above play, and without these active top players the quality of discussion has significantly worsened, and is currently almost dead entirely. Us leaving now is just part of a wider trend we've seen for a couple of years now, and I hope it serves to show people that there is a problem
Despite all this, Sceptross and I are not committed to leaving the community forever, but there are several measures we want to see taken before we feel comfortable returning
We first of all need to see the community genuinely apologise for this behaviour and recognise the issues with it - dogpiling the flavour of the month trendy thing to hate on just serves to create a toxic environment that doesn't concern itself with player growth at all, and fosters the creation of cliquey side jerks. It's also intensely demoralising seeing people so up in arms and talking so much about this issue and then say absolutely nothing during the games themselves, for the love of god please rethink your priorities
I also hate to single out one person, and they only played a role in our departure, but Volk acted in a manner that was completely out of line. I've never seen anything like it from a moderator and I don't think the mod team should let that behaviour slide. It sends a terrible message to have someone act in that manner with 0 repercussions, and Sceptross and I believe they should be demodded if we are to feel able to return
To end on a more positive note, I'd like to shoutout my team a little. I knew coming out of the draft that this was one of the strongest teams in rbypl history and you guys absolutely did not disappoint. I know it's bittersweet to have things end the way they did but we created something really special here, I've never seen such an environment full of grindy tryhards. You guys were an absolute pleasure to work with and you're honestly all so incredibly goated, please keep grinding and improving - you all know it's the journey that matters above all anyway
Special shoutout to spies Vitoran Kaz chuva de perereca, your help was priceless
Last edited:
First of all congratz to the haymakers and well done tortles for being so competitive and almost winning the tour. It as a great final. Second of all, ignore the spelling and grammar mistakes, I am a bad writer, am basically blind to spelling mistakes or missing words and do not have the time to proof read it for the next 2 hours.
So I have already said as well, I am taking a step back as well from the community and agree on all the points you touched upon, but I will also add some points that I don't like. And these include points that you (nicole), sceptross, amaranth or other players that have left earlier have participated in some way. And seeing that you are airing your grievances, I will also air my grievances with the community.
Just to start, I fully understand you leaving due to the more drama-heavy, younger community that RBY seems to be headed too (also important to note that most of the people that have made public post about leaving here on the discord are getting older than some of the new active members.) I hope the best for you all, since you are great friends and people, and hope you can find a better community. This is not a defense of the discord, of the bad actors that you have dealt with during RBYPL or the mod team. This is my point of view reading this post and the other posts of people. I also want to improve or fix all the issues of the community and discord, so I will give my 2 cents as well.
So first of all, I fully agree that there was publically a witchhunt at certain points against the tortles and that a lot of people, especially younger members, overgeneralize how bad the "time-wasting" is.
I think the feeling I had with "time-wasting" is that it was not all tortles games, but it was always a tortles game, where it would happen.
Even if it was not frequent at all.
I do think the rules were a good addition, albeit changes are needed, but I also believe clark was punished accordingly.
Furthermore, Clark being infracted should have been that and imo the managers should not have been contacted or be considered manager banned, that is just too far.
Imo volk went too far and I do not condone the statement as well as manager bans, even if I am not a mod.
However, I have tried to explain this in the chat, but people are very selective in reading the discord and just responded to the bad actors/mad people, than the more reasonable crowd that was trying to be productive.
The way to deal with these actors is to ignore, not feed them with responses.
This is something that I have seen happen quite a lot, where you (general) ignore the reasonable comments and just generalize the community opinion to the worst possible position made by bias people or bad faith actors.
Unfortunately, you fell into the same overgeneralizing trapdoor and that is something you have to careful of.
Even the examples were for sure written by those bad-faith actors, that just like drama, which you should have ignored.
Also even if you say, you do not think it is time wasting, it still is. People are here to play pokemon not too wait to play pokemon. Similarly to your desire to have good rby discussions, not RBY discussions derailed by bad faith actors. This is our hobby and we like playing pokemon or discussing it, we do not like waiting or the constant infighting. For sure, someone more literate than me can say that this is a false equivalent but I do not care. You might think waiting is an important part of playing pokemon, which is your opinion, but it is demonstably the minority opinion.
I agree that the RBY discord is not a fruitful place for discussion but this is for a couple of reasons. You have people talking about stuff that they have no idea about or constantly need to butt in with false viewpoints.
Modding this is hard, since it is a general discord that will generally have players of all calibers discussing and muting newer players from commenting on games, moves or strategies is quite elitist.
The current more aggressive, drama-loving, bad faith acting is something the mod team needs to stamp out but that is fortunately part of a younger community and it gets worsened by older players leaving.
I do not have a recipe how to solve that, so I would love to hear your feedback about that.
But again, you have or are participating in part of the problem of the RBY discord community and it is important to recognize this.
First of all, "clique-y side-jerk" is just a general smogon culture and it makes sense, because people like to hang out with friends so they build these jerks to be able to speak and hang out with just their friends.
This human nature and you cannot stop this, this is just what friend groups are to people outside of them.
I bet both of you have participated or are still hanging out in groups that others would call clique-y side jerks.
Secondly, you and amaranth are also people who can be very harsh/mean when discussing games (this point does not count for sceptross let me be clear.)
I would classify that also as a toxic/bad part of the community, where even I do not want to talk in that chat because I might be called stupid.
Furthermore, I do not watch the chat back when I have played for exactly the same reason where people do not understand that players are also human sometimes.
And both you and amaranth (also other known/high-level players) participate in that sometimes and I do not like this.
This is why I generally refrain from praising both of you, because that harshness/meanness is not good.
Like I have both seen you be very unpleasant to players when they are playing and I understand that it is tough love or you are passionate, but dont expect that contribute to good in game discussions when this is the example you give to newer players.
Again, I do agree with all of the points and there is a large push needed to improve the community further. But there needs to be some introspection as well, since you have unknowningly participated in parts that contributed (in)directly to the community being this way. And to fix the community fully, that has to be understood as well.
EDIT: parts are edited out after discussions in dms.
Last edited:
I am sorry for bringing something up, next time I will refrain and will just leave the discord.
I am not perfect, I like reading drama, I can be overgeneralizing (I edited parts after talking to sceptross) or talk without having full knowledge about situations.
I like shake's power rankings of all things, im far from perfect.
And I have definitely contributed to some dogpilling issues that sceptross and Nicole faced or other negative parts of the community.
Does that mean that I need to now shut up and be quiet when 1) someone makes a post about issues or 2) point out issues that I seen myself?
Do I need to include a paragraph about my own shortcomings, so that his grace amaranth does not think I think I am perfect?
Last edited:
Share your real opinion instead of being snarky
Everyone can be snarky, share your thoughts so we can judge you. If you don't want that don't speak, fin
was just a shitpost/satire.
if you want my 2c i do really think people should be looking inwards rather than outwards if they want to fix RBY. you dont fix a community by "fixing" other people. you do your best and people will follow.
if you want to give genuine advice to other people, certainly a pm is better than a public callout post out of nowhere
i'll keep doing my thing, i don't know how you can be accusing me of being the problem with rbycord in any capacity where i literally quit the server permanently until i am forced to rejoin it as part of rbypl and barely talk during the games at all. i dont think ive watched a single game of your team this rbypl outside of the ones where we played each other / scouting.
this is not to say that i cant be toxic, i know more than anyone exactly when and how much. and im sure i will have watched and commentated on like 3 or 4 sets this season where i said someone threw or whatever but i struggle to imagine this is the main issue of the rby community at the moment. ive already literally removed myself from community spaces cuz i realized it wasn't a good fit anymore, so what else do you want? i need to never speak ever? stop posting on forums too? just delete my smogon account because i used to be mean many years ago?
you will see in my winpost i apologized to my own players for being too harsh at times. i basically havent interacted with anyone else about their games. calling ME out just reeks of old grudges cuz ive done everything possible to surgically remove myself from talking to any of you 99% of the time. and im not gonna make it 100% because i do still WISH for rby to be decent.
involving me in your post at all is completely baffling, just seemed like you did it to have a "both sides" thing or smth. or maybe you really do hate m e from years back. whatever. youre wrong. thank you goodbye
I'm sure very few people want to hear more about this issue, but when there are calls for your resignation, you kind of have to say something.
Let me start by laying out some principles. When the rules regarding taking time between games within a set were written, they were deliberately vague. The goal of these rules was to encourage players to play their games quickly, without punishing players automatically because of extenuating circumstances or emergencies. Whether this allowance was being abused was left up to the discretion of hosts and moderators.
After the initial incident involving LNumbers had occurred, I believed it was appropriate to warn the managers of the Washed Wartortles that their team's behavior regarding the new rules was not acceptable. Specifically, the way they were using their time between games, while perhaps within the letter of the law, was defying the intent and spirit. The time between games was not supposed to be taken as a blanket ten minutes between games that you can use if you so choose, but as a coverage for players who need a quick reset or are dealing with something sudden and urgent. Perhaps it was unclear, and for that I apologize, but I wanted to explain that this behavior cannot continue. When the warning was issued, it was immediately regarded as a "threat," and the managers insisted that they cannot be held responsible for the actions of their players. I see this response as a misunderstanding of the warning.
Based on what has been said, the Washed Wartortles seem to have had a shared belief that they could, if they wanted to, take a full 5–10 minutes between games for prep. They did not exercise this belief in every set, but they do seem to have held it, and they did exercise it from time to time. Firstly, I don't think this belief should have been promoted amongst the team in the first place because, as previously stated, it violates the spirit of the rules. Secondly, if this belief is shared amongst the players of the team, it should not be surprising when a player accidentally goes over the time limit when the managers aren't watching. This is why I believe the managers are at least somewhat responsible for the incident, even though they weren't present at the time of the incident. They held and propagated a misunderstanding of the rules and, in so doing, were unintentionally acting towards the detriment of the tournament and setting their team up for an incident, like the one that ended up happening with LNumbers. The warning was issued to deter this use of the time. Issuing a warning for violating the rules was outlined in the rules.
As stated above, the managers called this a threat and did not accept any responsibility. My "tirade," which consisted of a total of seven messages interspersed with messages from three other people, was aiming to explain why there was some responsibility to be had by the managers. I am willing to admit that I was perhaps not perfectly clear in making this point, but a refusal to acknowledge the possibility of wrongdoing or misunderstanding by the managers made forging an understanding very difficult, and the conversation was ultimately cut short entirely when one manager said that they will "get mad" if it continued.
From there, the conversation broke containment after being brought up by a different party. It then erupted into the issue that this thread is now primarily about.
From my perspective, the managers were informed of their mistake and refused to engage with the possibility of it being a mistake. I tried repeatedly to explain that the issue extended beyond LNumbers, and that it was a cultural problem that stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules. The actions of the team were upsetting other players and in tension with the ruleset, but they did not apologize for this or even acknowledge that there was a real issue. I fully understand that the Washed Wartortles had a different philosophy for what their time between games was supposed to be used for, but their philosophy was in tension with the rules, and the purpose of the infraction of LNumbers and the warning to the managers was to get them to recognize that their philosophy was not acceptable to the community and needed to be adjusted. I believe that if the managers engaged with the initial warning such that an understanding could have been reached, this greater situation largely could have been avoided. Warnings are not something that should just be ignored. If a warning is believed to be unwarranted, request that it be explained. Calling the warning a threat and displaying blatant disregard for it is also not acceptable.
While I remain upset by the response the managers extended to the situation, I will offer some apologies to nicole7735, Sceptross, and LNumbers.
First, I regret that that the rules were not made more clear and that I was not more clear when explaining why what you were doing was wrong and why I believed that you as managers needed to be warned.
Second, I apologize for the extent to which the topic broke containment and became public. I do think the managers should have been more receptive to the warning so we could have had a real discussion in private to better address the problem upfront. However, regardless of this belief, the moderation team should have stopped the discussion sooner when it did ultimately go public. I can imagine that it was a very stressful and uncomfortable situation, and it really had no chance at being productive. This situation should have been terminated much sooner, and I apologize for allowing it to be prolonged. Us on the moderation team are currently discussing how we can best address situations like this, should one happen again.
Finally, I want to make it very clear that at no point during this entire incident, including now, did I ever believe that the Washed Wartortles were acting maliciously. I never believed that they were taking their time between games to be annoying or to get into the heads of their opponents or whatever. I always understood that it was for additional prep. I have been accused of assuming malicious intent and I want to assure you that that was never my intent and I don't believe that I have ever said as much, and I know that I explicitly stated the opposite. The issue at heart was always that the way the time between games was being used was in tension with the rules and upsetting to the community.
Thank you for reading.
Let me start by laying out some principles. When the rules regarding taking time between games within a set were written, they were deliberately vague. The goal of these rules was to encourage players to play their games quickly, without punishing players automatically because of extenuating circumstances or emergencies. Whether this allowance was being abused was left up to the discretion of hosts and moderators.
After the initial incident involving LNumbers had occurred, I believed it was appropriate to warn the managers of the Washed Wartortles that their team's behavior regarding the new rules was not acceptable. Specifically, the way they were using their time between games, while perhaps within the letter of the law, was defying the intent and spirit. The time between games was not supposed to be taken as a blanket ten minutes between games that you can use if you so choose, but as a coverage for players who need a quick reset or are dealing with something sudden and urgent. Perhaps it was unclear, and for that I apologize, but I wanted to explain that this behavior cannot continue. When the warning was issued, it was immediately regarded as a "threat," and the managers insisted that they cannot be held responsible for the actions of their players. I see this response as a misunderstanding of the warning.
Based on what has been said, the Washed Wartortles seem to have had a shared belief that they could, if they wanted to, take a full 5–10 minutes between games for prep. They did not exercise this belief in every set, but they do seem to have held it, and they did exercise it from time to time. Firstly, I don't think this belief should have been promoted amongst the team in the first place because, as previously stated, it violates the spirit of the rules. Secondly, if this belief is shared amongst the players of the team, it should not be surprising when a player accidentally goes over the time limit when the managers aren't watching. This is why I believe the managers are at least somewhat responsible for the incident, even though they weren't present at the time of the incident. They held and propagated a misunderstanding of the rules and, in so doing, were unintentionally acting towards the detriment of the tournament and setting their team up for an incident, like the one that ended up happening with LNumbers. The warning was issued to deter this use of the time. Issuing a warning for violating the rules was outlined in the rules.
As stated above, the managers called this a threat and did not accept any responsibility. My "tirade," which consisted of a total of seven messages interspersed with messages from three other people, was aiming to explain why there was some responsibility to be had by the managers. I am willing to admit that I was perhaps not perfectly clear in making this point, but a refusal to acknowledge the possibility of wrongdoing or misunderstanding by the managers made forging an understanding very difficult, and the conversation was ultimately cut short entirely when one manager said that they will "get mad" if it continued.
From there, the conversation broke containment after being brought up by a different party. It then erupted into the issue that this thread is now primarily about.
From my perspective, the managers were informed of their mistake and refused to engage with the possibility of it being a mistake. I tried repeatedly to explain that the issue extended beyond LNumbers, and that it was a cultural problem that stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules. The actions of the team were upsetting other players and in tension with the ruleset, but they did not apologize for this or even acknowledge that there was a real issue. I fully understand that the Washed Wartortles had a different philosophy for what their time between games was supposed to be used for, but their philosophy was in tension with the rules, and the purpose of the infraction of LNumbers and the warning to the managers was to get them to recognize that their philosophy was not acceptable to the community and needed to be adjusted. I believe that if the managers engaged with the initial warning such that an understanding could have been reached, this greater situation largely could have been avoided. Warnings are not something that should just be ignored. If a warning is believed to be unwarranted, request that it be explained. Calling the warning a threat and displaying blatant disregard for it is also not acceptable.
While I remain upset by the response the managers extended to the situation, I will offer some apologies to nicole7735, Sceptross, and LNumbers.
First, I regret that that the rules were not made more clear and that I was not more clear when explaining why what you were doing was wrong and why I believed that you as managers needed to be warned.
Second, I apologize for the extent to which the topic broke containment and became public. I do think the managers should have been more receptive to the warning so we could have had a real discussion in private to better address the problem upfront. However, regardless of this belief, the moderation team should have stopped the discussion sooner when it did ultimately go public. I can imagine that it was a very stressful and uncomfortable situation, and it really had no chance at being productive. This situation should have been terminated much sooner, and I apologize for allowing it to be prolonged. Us on the moderation team are currently discussing how we can best address situations like this, should one happen again.
Finally, I want to make it very clear that at no point during this entire incident, including now, did I ever believe that the Washed Wartortles were acting maliciously. I never believed that they were taking their time between games to be annoying or to get into the heads of their opponents or whatever. I always understood that it was for additional prep. I have been accused of assuming malicious intent and I want to assure you that that was never my intent and I don't believe that I have ever said as much, and I know that I explicitly stated the opposite. The issue at heart was always that the way the time between games was being used was in tension with the rules and upsetting to the community.
Thank you for reading.
Finally had time to finish the bingo winner drawings! virae PHB11677 here are your shitty MSpaint alien cat and frog man, respectively. Drawing hands is fucking hard so uh. Don't judge me too hard pretty please. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, good solstice, or whatever else y'all may be celebrating <3
