Finals Smogon Masters III - Finals [REPLAYS MANDATORY]

[Princess Autumn]

Art by Blazenix
​

Welcome to the third edition of Smogon Masters! This is a Swiss bracket, Bo3 tournament with each set consisting of ORAS OU, SM OU, and SS OU. Players will decide which metagame to play first (with the higher seed choosing come Top Cut), then the loser picks a different generation for the following game. If both players cannot agree on a metagame to play first, each round will have a default generation randomized at the start of each round. After several rounds of the Swiss bracket, all players with 2 or fewer losses will be advanced onto a single elimination, Bo3 bracket which will culminate in a grand finals where we'll crown our winner of Smogon Masters III and the purple trophy

! Last year's Masters was won by none other than Empo in a closely fought finals, do you think you have what it takes to take his title?

Rules & Tournament Format

General Tournament Rules

• This is a tournament that will employ the standard rulesets for ORAS OU, SM OU, and SS OU, being a Best of Three with one game of each tier.
• Smogon Masters III will be a Swiss tournament with a to-be-determined Top Cut size depending on signups.
  • Players will be automatically dropped when they hit three losses as they are no longer in contention for top cut. Players who achieve top cut scores before the end of Swiss will not be matched up for the remainder of the Swiss rounds.
  • Players will be assigned a random opponent out of the pool of players with the same record as them each round, although on rare occasions, players may face someone with a better/worse record to avoid having more than 1 bye in any given round. Players will not face the same opponent during the Swiss portion of the tour.
• Matches are to be played on Pokémon Showdown!. If you can't agree on which server to play on, the Smogtours server is the default option.
• Saving replays is required and must be posted in each winpost starting in the second round.
• There are no extensions due to the nature of a Swiss tournament, so please get your games done on time. This will be removed for the single elimination Top Cut stage of the tournament.
• Princess Autumn is the primary host of this tournament and the co-hosts will be a fairy, Eledyr, goldmason, and vmnunes.

Swiss information and specifics

This tournament uses a Swiss format, where everyone plays until they lose three times, or until Top Cut begins after Round 10 (or 11). The Top Cut will be single elimination and based on a 32-player bracket, although this may vary depending on the tour's player count. All matches will be a Best of 3, involving ORAS OU, USUM OU, and SWSH OU.

This tournament is expected to fall into of the following sizes:
384 - 512 players = 10 rounds of Swiss, 32 person Top Cut with varying numbers of byes
513 - ~978 players = 11 rounds of Swiss, 32 person Top Cut with varying numbers of byes
~978 - 1024 players = 11 rounds of Swiss, 64 person Top Cut with varying numbers of byes

Byes will be awarded based off of seeding which will be calculated by the following tiebreakers: fewest number of losses, highest opponent's resistance, highest opponent's opponent's resistance.

Opponent's Resistance and Opponent's Opponent's Resistance

Opponent's resistance is defined as the average win% of a player's opponents expressed as a decimal, for example:

• I have a record of 3-0
• My R1 opponent's record is 0-3
• My R2 opponent's record is 1-2
• My R3 opponent's record is 2-1
• My opponent's resistance is (0 + 1/3 + 2/3)/3 = 1/3 = ~0.33
• This value has a hard coded minimum of 0.25

Opponent's opponent's resistance is the average of each of a player's opponent's resistances, and is calculated in a similar manner.

If players are still tied after these, their seeding will be determined by a coin flip.

There will be no substitute slots this year, instead week 1 will last for 2 weeks; substitutes will be allowed to signup for the duration of week 1 and come Sunday, inactive players will be replaced on a first-come first-serve basis.

Players who achieve a Top Cut-qualifying record before the final round of Swiss will be removed from the Swiss rounds. They will be seeded in brackets depending on when they qualified.

You can find the full standings and bracket here.

Finals
4) c0mp vs 14) BAGANHA13

If there are any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to myself or any of the other hosts!

 

[Corvikafka]

c0mp

 

[Paprikaflow]

that is so hype! Both of my guys in the final - can't wait for this one, let's get it

 

[Malekith]

Best of luck c0mp!

 

[fakenagol]

lets goooo c0mp

 

[ego]

It's probably not crazy to argue that this finals has on paper the clearest favourite of the year (more than even MichaelderBeste2 over Colin in Slam). Maybe since like ABR-crucify Classic finals, even? I don't know, maybe someone feels like ranking that later. But it was clear that whoever made it out of the c0mp-Giannis set would be favourites for the trophy, and while it wasn't pretty, it's c0mp in the driver's seat now. This is their first time in the top 16 of an individual since OST 2015, but they've been SPL fixtures for a couple years now, and they're clearly in the upper echelons of the site in both ORAS and SM.

I made a variation of this post during Slam, but I have a bit more data now; for players like BAGANHA13, who make the finals in their first-ever playoff appearance, how do they do? Specifically, I looked at all players who a) made the finals on their first appearance in an individual top 16 since Slam 1 (i.e. the first non-OST/STour/VGC trophy tour), who b) didn't face another playoff first-timer in the finals (because that pair together would have by definition a 50% finals winrate), and who c) played in a finals whose result still stands (i.e. excluding Slam 4 and OST 12). That gives us the following list:

the list

- Colin (Slam 2025, finalist)
- SeaLife (OSDT 2025, finalist)
- clean (OLT 2024, finalist)
- LpZ (Slam 2024, winner)
- Antonazz (OST 2024, finalist)
- xavgb (OST 2022, finalist)
- crucify (Classic 2021, finalist)
- Lord_Enz (OST 2021, finalist)
- Separation (OLT 2020, finalist)
- pdt (Slam 2020, finalist)
- mncmt (OST 2020, finalist)
- Adaam (Slam 2019, winner)
- Punny (OST 2019, finalist)
- mael (OST 2018, winner)
- craing ;_; (OST 2017, finalist)
- Posho (STour 2016, finalist)
- ABR (OLT 2015, finalist)
- blunder (OST 2015, finalist)
- Lyconik (OLT 2014/15, winner)
- Tesung (STour 2014, winner)
- boudouche (STour 2013, finalist)
- kokoloko (Slam 2013, finalist)
- BKC (STour 2012, finalist)
- Nelson (Slam 2012, finalist)

That's an interesting group! It contains some great players, who collectively have 18 individual trophies (although admittedly ABR/BKC/Tesung account for 8 of them). However, on their first playoff appearance, this group went 5-19 in the finals, for a 21% winrate. They're only 1-10 this decade, with LpZ's win over a rather snakebitten mncmt completing maybe the greatest Cinderella run of the decade? Debateable, I'm sure, but the point that I'll make is that even if you think this is BAGANHA13's big breakout into being a Smogon tournament fixture, it's still an uphill battle here. For what it's worth BAGANHA13's 1-2 sheet record isn't actually that unique in this group. Six of these players had zero sheet games when they made the finals on their first playoff appearance (and I'll spoiler tag because this is a fun one).

trivia

ABR, Antonazz, crucify, pdt, SeaLife, Separation

What does the upset path look like? Well, it's probably not going to happen via SM. c0mp is a fixture in the tier in SPL and is 8-3 in the tier so far, and BAGANHA13's claim to fame here is going 5-4 while losing against the best players in the tier they've faced. I don't see it happening.

But with that said, BAGANHA13 is undefeated in ORAS, and while the competition hasn't been amazing, that record does contain a win over Garay oak, their lone win in a set that Garay won. To be clear, I don't think they're better than c0mp in the tier, who's 11-1 themselves with a whole host of huge wins, most recently beating Giannis here. But if the upset happens, it would have to be because BAGANHA13 notched a career-defining win in their strongest tier.

A few week ago, I said that the most likely world for a c0mp upset is one in which they run into an ORAS or SM specialist who can pull out a messy SwSh win. Someone who's better than c0mp in two of the three Masters tiers wouldn't really be an upset anymore (that's not a long list), but the list of players who are good enough in one of these tiers to give themselves odds at an upset is much longer. Does beating Giannis in a long and messy SwSh game give you more confidence that c0mp is better than their 4-8 record in the tier? That's for you to decide. But if you don't think that's at least a potential weakness, then this looks like a very lopsided series. Do those 79-21 odds of "playoff first-timer in the finals vs playoff vet" that we bolded earlier seem too one-sided?