Announcement UM Team Tour 2 - Format Discussion

[a fairy]

Hello there! We have a few weeks before the start of our secondary team tour here in the top layer of UMs. As of right now, the world is our oyster, we have a very wide range of options and possibilities, from a world cup to an old gens tour to a blind draft to a flex slot tour to something else entirely. We need to both decide the format of the tournament, as well as what metagames are included. The UM CLs withhold the right to determine the nature of how and when these decisions are made.

Things that are not up for debate about this tournament:

• This will be a team tournament. We will not be running an individual tournament in this slot.
• This tournament will have a CA prize. This means we are limited to whatever would be reasonably expected to be approved by PS admins for a CA tournament, which is not a significant limitation but may mean that particularly outside-the-box thinking may be unable to be acted on if it would result in the CA prize being rescinded.
• We are not going to run formats that are not under the UMs umbrella, and while there is not a strict definition on what this means, you're welcome to run potential stuff by me. I am open to being reasonable, but this is a tour for UMs. Not "could be a UM let's try it out", not "close to the UMs community", not "UM with a challenge code twist".
• This is not UMPL. We will not be running UMPL's structure again, any tournament must have some meaningful distinction from UMPL.
• We are running the tournament around where the time on the schedule thread says it will be ran. Whether that's manager signups or player signups is somewhat flexible (though preferentially is player signups), but "let's punt this to june" isn't on the table. There are a lot of UM format team tournaments, and this slot is well positioned to reduce overlap with those tournaments as much as possible.

With all of that said, most of these are just basic ground rules. No kidding the UM team tour is a team tour about UMs, yknow? But given that we have truly a huge range of possibilities, I did want to set a few ground rules for discussion. Please do not waste this thread on single-line posts like "free umwc" or "jail umwc" - I will delete and potentially infract these. Let's have a conversation - leave chatter to the Discord and PS rooms, we need to have a good insight into what the community thinks when we make this decision, given that no matter what decision is made, there will be some people unhappy with it. Not everyone is going to agree, so we need more than Discord throwaway comments here.

Will ping some folks who I'd quite like to hear their opinions: entrocefalo Rose Felucia lost heros Tuthur sleid Celeste Kry yuki zastra Clas gephicka dhelmise

 

[a fairy]

Me as me. I expect that my involvement in this tour will be either as a player signing up as equally as everyone else, or as a host, formally or not. That being said, I do have pretty strong opinions on a small part of the tournament structure, and with full disclosure, it will be one that shapes how I as a CL guide the final conversations of what this tournament should be. It is my opinion that Monocolor and 4v4 Doubles UU are as close to mandatory presences in this tournament as you can get.

UMPL is, in my opinion, a solved tournament. We can run what we did in 2025 again into infinity, only ever needing to change it should one of the included formats become a standalone format untethered to UMs logistical layer and therefore not valid for a UM team tour further past that point. Should such a time come, discussion can happen, but UMPL represents a, however you define or call it, core subsect of UMs. Whether it's "the original 6" or "the biggest" or "the longest-lived" or whatever, I don't really care how you define it. The reality to me is that any definition when it comes to UMPL must include all six and that further expansion at the cost of any of those six seems unreasonable.

Both of these tournaments are planned to have had a ladder spotlight by the time this tournament begins, bringing further testing and development to these metagames before they hold presence in a team tournament. Monocolor and 4v4 Doubles UU have proven to be structurally sound metagames, with established communities and resources, and both should be considered shoo-ins for presence in this team tournament. Whether it's WC or a flex slot tour or even some big chungus friend tour, I kinda don't care (I care a lot but I don't have strong opinions), but we are doing a great disservice to the larger community, the future of the UMs as a section, and the communities of Monocolor and 4v4 Doubles UU if we approach this tournament in a way that disregards the potential we have to expand the community and create a strong team tournament that has a distinct identity to UMPL.

So, bless the world we live in, we have the opportunity to mold our second CA team tour into something that allows UMs as a whole to grow, to spotlight new potential formats in our generation and in future ones, and we should start that here and now. There will be more metagames in the future, I know for myself I already intend to bring up one idea for the start of Gen 10 should it not materialize into existence before then. Let's start this tournament off on the right foot.

 

[Horii]

Personally talking about the 2nd tour i would like to see it being umwcop and see how it'll end up, last year it was UM blind draft which was fine but also not very fun and talking about umcl its basically the same as umbd but with a proper auction- umbd also had flex slots unless we're talking about 6 slots + 6 flexs in umcl? that's open to discussion so both of the tours arent very different from each other (i feel).

 

[maybca]

hi, this is maybca's point of wiew, and if you don't agree, reply to this so we can argue, ( i'm opposed to world cup, i'm for cl or blind draft, but blind draft need a re work)
One of the biggest issues with a World Cup format is that teams are determined by players regions (country/continent), which inherently creates imbalance: some regions simply have way more high-level players in certain UMs than others. That means a region with an extremely strong player base in a specific UM could dominate, while a region with only a few mains in that tier gets left behind — even if they have talented players. This is often referred to as “birthplace roulette”, where players competitive opportunities are tied to where they were born rather than how good they are.
Example : In case i would like to play nfe during world cup, i would bench or or I'll be moved to another tier because pandadoux is much better than me in SV NFE.


For example:

• If Region A has multiple strong SV UUbers players and Region B has only one, Region A gets a huge advantage, you would say : yes but it doesn't determine the game, ok ye i agree, but player from region A would have less way fun at prep, and might have no help at all, even if they will win the end will be the same, they will not have fun.
• A second-best player in a region might never play because the best gets the slot, even if they’re arguably better than everyone in another region.

This essentially punishes players for their region, not their skill.

2. Smaller Regions Can’t Field Full Rosters
Because World Cups require a full team across multiple UM formats, smaller or less active regions won’t have enough high-level players to fill their slots. This leads to forced region combining or rest-of-world teams, which undermines the purpose of “regional representation.” Without that combining, some regions simply won’t be competitive, and with combining, the identity of the region gets blurred.

3. Every Player Doesn’t Get a Fair Shot
Under World Cup rules, the top player from each region gets priority over the second or third best, regardless of how close their skill levels are. This can feel extremely unfair for example, a second-best player in a deep region could be objectively stronger than a region’s best in another spot, yet never be able to compete at all.


This contrast creates a competitive imbalance that reduces overall tournament quality and player morale.

4. World Cup Isn’t Great for Meta Growth
A World Cup restricts teams by region, which means often the metagame develops separately within regions, and cross-region meta interaction becomes limited. That’s not as beneficial to the community as formats that encourage mixing players across regions and skill types, like draft-based leagues or CL-style auctions (UMCL), which encourages broader competition and strategy diversity.

why i am for UMCL ?
1. Competitive Equity for Players
Draft or auction formats like UMCL give every player a real shot to play because it doesn’t depend on region. The focus is on player skill and team building, not geography. This removes the “birthplace roulette” effect entirely.

2. More Strategic Depth
A draft or flex slots system where teams can choose which UMs they want to field adds a layer of strategic planning. Teams have to consider which UMs they want to prioritize and how to counter opponents picks.


3. Helps Newer or Less Played UMs
The two newer UMs in question have a chance to be actively included and played in a draft structure because teams choose their slots. In a World Cup format, regions that don’t have mains in those UMs might simply pass on them, leading to less representation. In a draft or CL-style setup, teams are encouraged to diversify, so those UMs get more exposure. flex slots also encourage developpement of meta, by adding more games to them, it's all about draftplan strats but it still gives to a meta more showing than world cup could.


4. More Inclusive and Fun for Players
Drafted leagues tend to make it so more players even those not at the top of the ladder get meaningful participation. This generally leads to a healthier scene with more engagement, especially for UMs that are still developing community interest.

Blind draft re work :
Last year we had umbd, where i was one of the managers. At first i liked the style, but i don't really know why every managers decided to vote for the dumbest choice, we had to choose between :The option 1 was to get the second most expensive bid on the player by adding 0.5 to the price , or to add 0.5 to the price we put in the box. However, as you may have noticed, the first option was chosen, and it made the draft completely ridiculous and not competitive at all. I remember very well spending, I think, 30k for Yuki, for example, and the second most expensive player was 12k. According to the rules, I was right to do that because Yuki was the last person in my draft plan for the 2v2. However, in hindsight, I find it quite ridiculous not to be punished for spending 30k and getting Yuki for 12k. I think that by choosing the second option, the draft would immediately become much more interesting, and the managers would have a much harder time making the right choices. I also find it much more competitive and fun to watch/do.
So :
1) UMCL/UMBD ( with the re work i suggested or an other re work but with the second option) ( 10 slots) 8 um + 2 flex slots, or 8 + 4, but 12 slots might be a lot, i don't really know
2) World cup
3) Same UMBD as last year.

 

[Celeste]

Writing some ideas I have while I'm in class, might elaborate more but I don't have any super strong opinion on what actually happens

UMBD
Yeah no, I think how flex slots felt in this tour just wasnt great since it let teams focus a lot on specific slots, and didn't lead to as much variety as I think we could see from a tour like this. Also, I think a blind draft is cool in theory and kind of rough in practice ngl. I would not like to see this come back.

UMWC
I believe this is doable, it seems we do have interest despite the fact that WCs are kind of a shot in the dark when it comes to balancing things out, and can lead to some more staunch inbalances. I think that if it were to be run, it would be best to just have it be 1 each of AG, 1v1, UUbers, NFE, ZU, 2v2, Monocolour, and Doubles UU. I don't think this format lends itself well to any form of flex slots, and the only way we could really expand this is probably by doubling up on an AG/1v1/ZU slot to reach 10 slots, or opting to remove Monocolour and DUU and doing 2 each of our UMPL formats which would be sad tbh, I think the formats deserve a chance to shine and UMWC in this way would just mean UMPL with jerk teams. There is probably a way this could be made to work, but it would require more planinng from people who aren't me before I could really support it.

I do want to disagree with Maybca on some points, even if I am not the biggest fan of UMWC as a format.

2. Smaller Regions Can’t Field Full Rosters
Because World Cups require a full team across multiple UM formats, smaller or less active regions won’t have enough high-level players to fill their slots. This leads to forced region combining or rest-of-world teams, which undermines the purpose of “regional representation.” Without that combining, some regions simply won’t be competitive, and with combining, the identity of the region gets blurred.

I think as long as proper handling of this comes from the Mod team, this won't be an issue. In the recent UWC, 2/4 of these combination teams were able to make playoffs in a 20 team tour (being Asia, and Europe), while teams like LATAM which have a lot of strong players ended up finishing dead last, despite fielding a pretty decent roster. It feels like you have correctly identified the issue that is solved by combining regions to preserve competative integrity, and decided that it is an issue anyways. I get the idea of wanting to preserve "identity" of regions (and perhaps as someone from Canada I'm biased, tho note that in 1v1WC canada merged with some of the US) but its unreasonable for us to say that the format shouldn't be done for these reasons. If the hosts manage it well, merges will be done in a way where players will not be punished for their country not being able to form, leaving this as something I would consider somewhat of a non-argument.

3. Every Player Doesn’t Get a Fair Shot
Under World Cup rules, the top player from each region gets priority over the second or third best, regardless of how close their skill levels are. This can feel extremely unfair for example, a second-best player in a deep region could be objectively stronger than a region’s best in another spot, yet never be able to compete at all.

This one is fair, but this is also why WCs for formats like this tend to include multiple slots for the larger format. While it would be unfortunate if a region happened somehow have say 3/5 best players of a given format, subs and multiple weeks exist to attempt to alleviate this. I do overall agree with this though. I think it is one of the most notable issues with WC, and also what leads to unbalanced teams, largely out of control of the players. I know that CAPWC dodged this, but it is a semi-consistent issue that is worth discussing.

4. World Cup Isn’t Great for Meta Growth
A World Cup restricts teams by region, which means often the metagame develops separately within regions, and cross-region meta interaction becomes limited. That’s not as beneficial to the community as formats that encourage mixing players across regions and skill types, like draft-based leagues or CL-style auctions (UMCL), which encourages broader competition and strategy diversity.

I disagree with this wholeheartedly, as I think with some small exceptions, region's approaches to metas are not all the same. For example, Iride, FC, feen and I all have vastly different approaches to UUbers, and I feel like i have benefited from discussing my ideas with them because of their different approach. Is this really limiting meta growth just because FC and I both happen to be Canadian? Is our contribution to UUbers harming meta growth because of that fact? Even if we did agree on our meta takes, does the fact that fact that Iride and I teamed in UUBPL mean that I never interacted with the rest of the community? This is not a good argument, as it implies that UMCL would inherently create more meta growth, which you cannot really prove beyond this assumption that each region will always be an echo chamber where everyone agrees on how a given meta works, and also leverages an assumption that UMWC would result in all meta growth being slowed to a halt because no inter-communication between teams happens. During UMPL, I reached out to Taka because I found his ideas interesting, and thought his meta ideas were something worth leaning about, and ultimately vouched for his spot on UUbers council because of this. I would hope that other players would be able to have the open-mindedness to welcome ideas outside of the people they team with.

Even in a UMCL environment, you can't discount the idea that people may draft in a way to get people they know work well together and have similar ideas, which would create the exact scenario that would make UMWC a problem according to you. Idk, I think there are good reasons to advocate against WC but I'm not sure that this illustrates that well.

UMCL
I like this idea, and believe this is the option that leaves us with the most ability to facilitate the inclusion of other formats, but it does raise the question of how exactly we handle it. The way it makes sense most in my head is probably 6 Set slots and 6 flex slots with each team picking 3, meaning the setup would be sm like this:

UMCL Slot Idea

MAIN SLOTS:
AG
1v1
2v2
NFE
Ubers UU
ZU

6x Flex Slots, each team picks 3
Main slots + the option for Monocolour and Doubles UU

I think this does allow for the flex slots to feel a lot less unbalanced then they did in UMBD, allowing for much more strategy and requiring more diverse drafts to allow for more thorough coverage of the formats. That being said, it does create an opposite issue where the tour could have over-represented "main" ums. This could maybe be solved by choosing some of the more long-standing UMs (AG/1v1/ZU) to be the main starter slots, and then removing them from the flex pool? I'd be interested to here how people are interested in running a UMCL, because it is certainly the format that excites me the most.

Overall, I support
1. UMCL
Distant 2nd: UMWC
Never Touch it with a 41 1/2 Foot Pole Grinch Style: UMBD

 

[gephicka]

speaking for only 4v4duu as that's obviously my area,
i'd generally second maybca's points about world cup, our playerbase is distributed in such a way that we probably wouldn't end up with the highest quality or most interesting games (which is half of the point of a teamtour anyways) because a lot of the talent is centralized in a few places

i would greatly prefer UMCL with a dedicated 4v4duu & monocolor slot— i know of a significant amount of both VGC & doubles players who would absolutely be willing to pick up 4v4duu in a team tour (especially for a CA prize) and would generally prefer that it's as accessible as possible to players regardless of region, giving us the room to field both doubles clickers and established 4v4duu community members.

i felt very positively about UMs vs the World and regardless of what's actually decided I'd be delighted to have 4v4duu in a another team tour :)

 

[bern]

i can't believe i didn't get pinged smh

writing as possible player, manager, or host? idk what i'm doing yet.

UMBD Format... sucks!

Blind Draft is sort of outdated no one rlly does it anymore i think i saw PU do it last year and then they switched it over to CL this year, not much else to say also flex slots suck so terribly bad it's so horrible holy.

As to what maybca said in his post, I am in complete agreement with, I even told FlamPoke this at the time, it encourages max bidding players that aren't willing to, and it's especially bad when 2 teams want a player so badly they put in 25 or 26, only for it to end up with the person that put 26 buying them for 25.5, that just feels kind of absurd to me, this is how super-teams were created and teams with more sensible buying methods were punished, because what else were you supposed to do about this?

If we're making UMBD again (which i believe is something that will leave everyone extremely unhappy), then we should make the max bid the max bid, not the second highest + 500, it just rewards bad bidding.


UMWC also sucks, but what would its format be?

Do we just roll with 8 slots of each UM? i think it's the post practical but at the same time WC comes with literally every logistical issue that every single world cup is plagued with and, in my opinion, is not worth using the 3rd custom avatar on. If people want to play an UMWC, I feel like we should make it a non-prized tour, outside of maybe money, and yeah idk i don't think it's worth a custom avatar prize imo.

this leaves us with a last choice

UMCL should be the de-facto 3rd custom avatar tour, the question is the format.

I'm heavily against Celeste's idea of the 6 flex slots, not only is that, well, a lot of flex slots, it's also impractical for a lot of reasons, mainly you have to stretch your team extremely widely and some teams just can't cover that much ground without buying a really good flex battler and some other middling options, it's also just a lot of money to throw into these flex battlers that are going to end up wasted would this be UMPL and we had designated slots, i believe lost heros has a more in-depth view on how flex slots just don't really work in a competitive setting.

this leaves us with the WORST choice imaginable... that we have to pick 4 UMs to double up on and 4 UMs to not, A.K.A, choosing the 4 biggest communities and giving them a second slot, which is similar to what we did in past UMPLs, when the size of NFE and 2v2 didn't justify a second slot.

The three slots that i think are Guaranteed in the double-up are AG, 1v1, and ZU, with the fourth being not quite sure between Ubers UU and NFE, keep in mind that NFE has been growing quite steadily. Same goes for 2v2, although i'm not as sure on that one.

My UMCL Format

- SV AG
- SV AG
- SV 1v1 Bo7
- SV 1v1 Bo5
- SV ZU
- SV ZU
- SV Ubers UU
- SV Ubers UU/SV NFE
- SV NFE
- SV 2v2 Bo5
- SV Monocolor
- SV 4v4 Doubles UU (team-locked Bo3)

I think this is the most fair, and while it might make some people mad, it's the best solution i can come up with that doesn't involve god damn flex slots again.

TL;DR
- Make UMWC a non-prize tournament, with no real incentive to play outside of maybe bragging rights and playing/building alongside people from the same country/region.
- The 3rd CA tour should be UMCL, with a format not including flex slots for the love of christ. Otherwise, if Blind Draft is done again, it should have a couple tweaks done to the draft itself so it's not terrible.

 

[lost heros]

If a World Cup can be done with minimal drama with regards to region drawing, it should be done. Despite all of the negatives that are above, there are more than enough positives to warrant it. I'm not going to go into too many details but just a summary of pro's:

The pools style format is different from standard weeks and is a cool way to run a tour.

Consistent year to year teams allow for not just tier growth but community growth.

Very newcomer friendly as even non-playing participants can easily assign themselves to a team based on where they are.

Non-mainers and newbies are given an explicit opportunity to play in the tour as if there's a region that lacks a certain expertise they can come in and fill the role.

It can be scaled upwards pretty easily for UM community growth, as theoretical new regions can apply to join future editions of the tour.

However, that minimal drama thing is hard. Very hard. You can point to whatever team tour you want where the super team lost, but the fact of the matter is, it's way too easy to make a super team, and even if the super team does eventually lose it's existence / threat of existence will be an incredible headache for literally everyone, especially with a CA on the line.

As for the slots, 4v4UU and monocolor should 100% be included. Flex probably shouldn't be (and can't be if there are any pools) in the tour. BD flex slots were just very boring, as you just had a second or third mainer for a certain tier and you just submitted that each time. I don't think the flex slots addressed the issue of siloing tiers very well, and unless we introduce a Grand Slam style slot, we probably can't address that very well.

 

[sheepie]

personally, i would love to see a umcl format with the inclusion of flex slots, namely monocolour and 4v4 as well as oldgens / extensions of other ums (e.g. sm ag or 1v1uu or the like) or just additional slots of main ums if thats too weird / off kilter. the format would be imo something like 1 of eeach of 1v1, 2v2, ag, nfe, uubers and zu, and then 4 flex slots (each team choses 2). alternatively, i am in support of gephicka's idea of both of the newer ums a main slot instead (1 of each um ig) but i would prefer a flex slot system. umwc is not somehting i have much interest in, i would much prefer a umcl format, though i think other people have explained why umwc would be difficult to pull of better then me.

 

[Celeste]

Coming back to say that I completely agree that how flex slots existed in UMBD sucked, but I think a larger system similar to what we have seen from other CL style tours (such as UUCL) does still require a lot of flexability in drafting players, and means teams will not be as grossly rewarded for getting a really strong 2 player core in one format and ignoring the others (which I think we did see a bit of in UMBD tbh). I agree that my 6 main slot 6 flex system prob sucks which is why I said my "suggested" format has issues, but the concept of a flex slot itself isn't bad - a limited flex slot in a smaller tour is. Probably won't add much beyond that, but I do believe that a flex system with a potential UMCL is the way to go. Deciding what that looks like is not my strong suit and I'd rather pick my favourite from other ppls suggestions haha

 

[Shadow079]

Heavily against umwc as the second cava tour. I feel cava tours should have a larger emphasis upon competitiveness than other tours, and a wc format simply doesn't align with this idea due to the automatic advantage given to countries/teams with larger player populations to draw from. I do recognise however that wc formats carry a unique type of enjoyment, and as such i would be happy to see a umwc tour, just not as the second umtt cava.

 

[maybca]

My UMCL Format - SV AG
- SV AG
- SV 1v1 Bo7
- SV 1v1 Bo5
- SV ZU
- SV ZU
- SV Ubers UU
- SV Ubers UU/SV NFE
- SV NFE
- SV 2v2 Bo5
- SV Monocolor
- SV 4v4 Doubles UU (team-locked Bo3)

It’s true I didn’t make my << perfect umcl format >> as for me it would be
-Sv Ag
- Sv 1v1
- Sv Zu
- Sv Ubers UU
- Sv NFE
- Sv 2v2
- Sv monocolor
- Sv 4v4 doubles UU
With two flex slots, 8 teams, 10 slots tournament where teams have 1 flex slot to choose per week.
Also

The pools style format is different from standard weeks and is a cool way to run a tour.

No ? I don’t have a lot of experience in wc, probably 3-4 I think, but when I was playing this pool style, it was chaotic, first two weeks is a lot and as Pandadoux mentionned you just wait for last Friday to have every results and the rule of one game must be played before the second week is never respected. Secundo, pools are probably 50% about luck, especially in this type of tiers, we have 8 tiers imagine for example team France doesn’t have ag player ( I know you are there rl and lyna dw) and have a Skyiew fc entrocefalo pool, if this happen to every France slot, it’s not about skill it’s about luck. One team with a really lucky pool could qualify really easily while for example a super strong team loose because of a random pool generator ?

 

[Mirbro]

I would say that the natural step forward would be to go UMWC. However, the intrinsic nature of UM is a myriad of different formats that do not share most of their unique features. I know that many people play the UM circuit as a whole, but to me this is not enough to have a high quality UMWC. Imo, the best approach should be to go with a UMCL format, even though I do not know how I would choose the specific format.

 

[lettuce]

Felt like typing smth up on my phone, which is perfect because my laptop is dead.

I’m pro-WC. I think it’s fun. I agree with the beginner friendly point and I’d love to see new people trying out these tiers. I’m US West so whatever I say about roster eligibility and competitiveness is probably not relevant since I’m in region that is merging with US Midwest at worst and perfectly fine at best. If we’re worried abt fielding rosters we could do some really insane gerrymandering and have stuff like Spain + Australia if needed. I don’t see a problem with hosts doing that for a first run of a WC. I also don’t feel too strongly either way.

If we’re considering a CL, why not go oops all flex slots? UMs are weird because we can’t have 1-2 static slots, frankly the minimum is 6 if we relegate Monocolor and 4v4DUU to flex only, and I don’t think that’s ideal. If we run UMCL with like 10-12 flex slots (5-6each), I think it could result in a competitive way to emphasize roster flexibility and showcase multiple formats. UMs inherently don’t have a lot of flexibility, but there’s an arguable amount of crossover between NFE/ZU, 2v2/4v4DUU, 1v1/2v2, and AG/UUbers. And I mean arguable amount, if you said I was wrong I wouldn’t disagree. Still, if we want to feature multiple formats and have flex slots, I think this is the way to do it because going with a low amount of flex slots means whoever is relegated to them is more likely than not going to be a support slot for the guy starting in the static tier. You’re still going to have starters you always send in if we go Oops all flex slots, but there’s always the ‘does this choice mean we double up’ layer to a flex slot tour (which is harder to get with low flex slot counts). I think it’d be fun to maybe allow doubling up in flex picks if we go oops all flex slots, but it would have to be limited to maybe 1 double up (eg. allowing a pick of AG AG NFE ZU 1v1 2v2). This sounds like a bad idea in my head but it’s worth throwing out.

Alternatively, what if we do a WC pools format without WC eligibility? Have 16-24 8-slot drafted teams duke it out in pools for 3 weeks with like top 8 making playoffs or smth. (Gonna call it UM Pools Championship or Cup to form UMPC, because I’ve got nothing better that doesn’t become PL CL or LC). I feel like the premise is pretty self explanatory, it’s draft + pools. The biggest issue I see would be that this is a lot of people. 16 manager signups sounds crazy esp for a non-wc tour, and if there are 16 teams that’s 160 players. Theres a ‘will this even work’ that comes from taking the World Cup part out of a World Cup format. I feel like there’s a way this works with 12 teams but I’m not changing every 16 I typed via phone.

Probably would rank my ideas as:
oops all flex 6 each (+ 0 or 1 double up allowed) > 5 each (no doubling) > wc > static slots CL 3-4 flex slots > pc (or swap this and WC, I’ll stand behind this if there’s support) > normal tour > CL 1-2 flex slots

 

[PandaDoux]

Before going into this i was gonna favor UMWC because i think it's the most standard 2nd team tour to have and it differenciates itself enough from the Premier League, putting a step back for the competitiveness for a more fun and casual tournament. However, if a Custom Avatar is gonna be given to this tournament, and if the representation of new UMs is essential, then UMWC is definitely not the best tournament to run for it in my opinion. UMCL tho, is literally perfect for the inclusion of more UMs while keeping a competitive tour scene, unlike UMWC where it will inherently be incredibly unbalanced, which isn't great for a first inclusion of Monocolor & 4v4 Doubles UU.

To me, __CL team tournaments are tournaments where the slots are picked by each team every week, with maybe some fixed slots like 2 SV of a tier. Here in UMCL, that would be hard to have fixed slots because how would we decide each slot is being picked? Sure we can reduce to ZU, 1v1, and AG pretty easily based on them being the biggest communities, but we still have to remove one.
My suggestion for UMCL is: 12 flex slots, it's that simple.
Every week, each team will choose 6 different tiers (from 8 tiers: 1v1, 2v2 Doubles, 4v4 Doubles UU, AG, UUbers, ZU, NFE, Monocolor), so naturally we will see the inclusion of the newer metagames without having to sacrifice a player in there (unless bad draft) like it would be the case in UMWC.
If 12 slots sounds like too much for whatever reason (mainly for managers i would guess?) then reducing to 10 slots is fine too.

I genuinely think there is not a better opportunity for UMCL to happen considering UMs are taking a new route with the possibility to create new ones and see more diversity, also __CLs generally look like they are very much appreciated by most people that have played one so it also sounds like a solid tournament to go for, rather than a shaky UMBD with a weird format, or a UMWC that is quite controversed.

Edit: UMCL should NOT have the original 6 tiers being fixed slots, because then we will very rarely see Monocolor and 4v4 Doubles UU be picked and it will just become a 2nd UMPL with a slight twist like UMBD was with the 1 flex slot per team each. I think it would be an insane mistake to go for that route and i would much rather see a UMWC happening with 8 slots (one of each) rather than this.

UMCL all flex slots >>>>>> UMWC >> UMCL with fixed slots > UMBD

 

[Heatranator]

Just wanna throw my hat in for monocolour support. Definetely a very fun format that has a decently sized community and resources (300+ mons I would assume we had to rank for the VR, which is a very big achievement to get done). Definetely think it should at worst, be a flex slot. It+4v4 Doubles UU are definetely able to keep up to an extent with the other formats that are lock ins.

Only other thing I can comment on is UMWC. Frankly put, I think WC's are pretty bad aside from the main OU one because it can be really awkward fielding enough good players and is usually very unbalanced for smaller regions and such. Doing some gerrymandering would help with the unbalanced part, but also is very abitrary and like, how do you determine which regions don't have sizeable rosters. Its just an all around headache for frankly put, not too much reward. If you want to give new players a chance, then UMFL is a very good option and could potentially expand into more slots with Moncolour and 4v4 Doubles UU (FL's in general I am a big fan of since it allows lesser known players to be more seen while learning about teamtours), but thats prob a bit outside of the scope of this thread.

 

[Zcarlett]

Blind Drafts are bad for all the reasons stated above, but I take more issue with WC as a format in particular with UMs. Because of the fact that we have 6 "core" UM's its very difficult to make a good format in terms of slots. 6 slots if far too few and I don't think anyone would majorly disagree, but 12 slots is also a ton for a WC style format, and I don't think there's any reasonable way to cut that evenly down to 10 and especially not 8. 1v1 and 2v2 are highly specialized slots that some regions may struggle to fill, while going down to 1 slot risks leaving out a significant portion of the top player base simply because they live in similar parts of the world. The latter is also true for NFE, with US Northeast, France, and Europe immediately coming to mind. I'm sure its a similar situation in other UMs that I'm simply not as familiar, as NFE is the playerbase I'm most acquainted with. One may argue that old Gen formats in other World Cup's (See UWC or LCWC) have these exact same issues, but it's nowhere near as bad due to the fact their relative niche in comparison to the relative popularity that even the less popular UM's have. This is all compounded on top of the issues that any typical WC styled tour has and I simply don't think UMWC is a good fit for the 2nd CA team tour for the UM sub forum.

While I do think UMCL is the ideal format for the next CA tour, I don't really have much of a stake in this. Celeste's proposal sounds good though.

 

[maybca]

I’m not sure why people keep saying all flex slots would be good, and even after reading, re reading, re re reading I still don’t understand. Pandadoux mentionned that

(unless bad draft

But, with 12 tiers each week that you don’t know before, you need a << balanced draft >> where you go for the same price in every tier, tho we all know that some players are better than others example : Pandadoux > me it means panda would go way way higher and the team who picked panda will have less money for let’s say monocolor and so this will not help meta development because the team who had a 3k for monocolor will never choose monocolor and will have hard time to face other team’s monocolor player. Also 12 flex slots mean every UM might no be played, even if during the tournaments every um will be played it’s still not a perfect way to play every meta. I’m taking the example of OMCL, I was a manager of it and scouting players, and try to have one person per non ompl meta was impossible because there was like 10 tiers we could choose as a flex slot, it’s impossible to have a balanced draft and there will always be someone taking on the dirty work will lose, and that will only make people want to give up rather than persevere. And yet, I think I'm very persevering in life, and that would remain my impression if it happened to me in the future.
Celeste mentionned UUCL, yes it was good format because it’s about generation and not different tier, wich tier have the right to have a slot more than an other ???? because ag have a bigger community it means they have more rights ? It’s why I am clearly for a format where we have each um every week, each have one slot + 1 flex slots per teams ( so 10 tiers per week) or 2 flex slots per teams ( so 12 tiers per week).
10 tier per week seems more realistic but umpl showed us that 12 is easily affordable, and this format with flex slot would even be better for it because there will be more diversity assuming team A can’t choose two times the same tier as flex slot in the same week.

 

[a fairy]

wich tier have the right to have a slot more than an other ???? because ag have a bigger community it means they have more rights ?

Hi not ready to really chew on detailed thoughts and provide my own but I'm following most things in this thread but I've been quite blindsided by this - where did this come from?

 

[lost heros]

I do like the idea of UMCL with oops all flex / oops mostly flex tour. If you want the tour to remain competitive with a distinct identity from PL that’s not a pools based format this is easily the best way to do it.

The # of flex slots is however really important. With 8 tiers, you’d probably want 3-5 flex slots per team. With only 1 or 2 flex slots, you’re not really making interesting decisions during lineup submissions or draft. What you are doing is just drafting a second dedicated mainer for a tier and submitting that tier every week. It’s boring and dull. I know it’s appealing because it feels like it’s just a free addition of a slot without the need to show preferential treatment to any one tier, but it will make that slot feel uninteresting.

On the other side if you have too may flex slots per team (relative to the pool you’re picking from) you run into the same problem. If there are 8 tiers, and I have to pick 6 of them, I’m just going to not pick the 2 tiers I don’t have players for. It’s again a very uninteresting decision. And funnily enough, it makes the draft plans even worse. Because if you miss out on a high profile player for a tier, you’re easily forgiven.

The best way to do flex in my opinion, where it’s most interesting is right in the middle. I’d do oops all flex with 8 slots, 4 from each team or 10 slots with 2x a grand slam-esque format and 4 flex from each team. In this format draft plans and weekly rosters are both very interesting. During draft you have to prioritize getting a wide range of tier coverage and support while also identifying which and how many tiers you want to get the top players in, then each week you have to consider your opponent and your team to try and figure out what the best possible line up is. It’s very dynamic and very different from PL.

 

[maybca]

Hi not ready to really chew on detailed thoughts and provide my own but I'm following most things in this thread but I've been quite blindsided by this - where did this come from?

Huh Celeste was taking UUCL as an example where it was I believe two sv uu + 4 flex slot per teams. In UM case we can’t, even if some ums have bigger community than other i don’t like the idea of giving ag 1v1 or zu a defined slot every week

 

[Tuthur]

UMCL with 4 flex slots from each team sounds fun enough. 5 could be fine too, but I don't think we need that many slots and it makes the quality drop really fast. CL has the nice property of letting you have as many different formats featured as you want, so you dont even need 10 slots to fit everyone.

UMCL with fixed slots and UMBD are too similar to UMPL and shouldn't be considered at all imo.

UMWC is a nice proposition too, but probably less fun than UMCL and will probably lead to endless discussions on team elligibility (continental and rest of the world most) and team balance. Also it can be a nightmare to plan as team numbers have to fit right for pools.

 

[Celeste]

Huh Celeste was taking UUCL as an example where it was I believe two sv uu + 4 flex slot per teams. In UM case we can’t, even if some ums have bigger community than other i don’t like the idea of giving ag 1v1 or zu a defined slot every week

That wasn't the point of my argument, i was illustrating what i believed was a successful implementation of flex slots in response to Bern's no flex slot suggestion, and I noted that I felt there were issues with choosing fixed slots already. I do like a fairy's suggestion of monocolour and DUU as set slots with everything else being flex, i'm far from suggesting that the only way forwards is to have an extreme focus on the "core" metas.

 

[crow crumbs]

Not hugely invested either way (would prob play umwc, prob skipping a draft tour - overall neutral on which would be better to run) but just wanted to pop in to say we should take note of some lessons from OMCL.

I would be cautious about the doubles metas being overincentivized. In OMCL, The meta representation ended up being really skewed as Partners in Crime (the one included doubles meta) ended up being extremely disproportionately played. The structure of the tour and having exactly 1-2 mainers strongly encouraged at least 1 team picking it. I had a fun time that tour, but I don’t think it was ideal from a cross-tier meta development/general experience pov.

Common situations:
“Our pic mainer is favored, lets pick it”
“Their pic mainer is favored and they will always pick it, lets pick it too so they also need to send in their one other weaker player”

I think the best solution would just be for both teams to have 1 “doubles meta flexslot” (alternatively 1 4v4 duu and 1 2v2 slots are locked but that is very aesthetically displeasing). It does make drafting “easier” since you only need 1 mainer for both but I don’t really see that as the end of the world. Drafting to have flexibility would still be beneficial in this setup. (These numbers are assuming 8 slots total ftr).

Obviously theres some differences (om singles generally have more overlap and we have 2 doubles metas), maybe its fine to just ignore and see what happens. Regardless, I think it’s at least worth being aware of this possible pain point with cl.

The other thing to note is that if cl is chosen, monocolor is probably getting very little (if any) representation if left to managers. Look at cross evo in last omcl.