Proposal 24 Teams in WCoP Main Stage

[ken]

Pretty self explanatory title tbh.

It was brought up quite a bit during the 5-way tiebreak after qualifiers R1 last year as a way to solve it mid-tour, but, for what should be obvious reasons, we weren't going to entertain changing the structure midtour.

Now's your chance to support or oppose moving from 20 to 24 teams in the main event.

Practically, should the expansion be implemented, this means:

• [proposed number] 5 teams would drop back to qualifiers from pools each year
  • Used to be 3/16, currently 4/20, no clean ratio here unless we up to 6
• Qualifiers shrinks slightly in size (until more new teams sign up...) (less 5-way tiebreaks! in theory!)
• Pools expands from 200 players / 50 pools to 240 players / 60 pools (30 SV/6 each SSOU/SMOU/ORASOU/SVUU/SVUbers)
• The likelihood of larger tiebreaks between pools and playoffs increases on paper
• Number of 'Established' teams likely increases, depending on where teams finish each year of course

Feel free to discuss. We would like to have this closed before Manager signups close (current timeline estimate is ~end of March).

 

[ego]

No matter how you look at it, the next four teams that would qualify are probably going to be about the same level of quality, on average, as the current teams that make it out of qualifiers. The four teams that qualified last year averaged 12.5 wins in the qualifying stage, the next four teams that would have made it (Asia, Mexico, Latin America, Peru) averaged...11.5. Looking at their rosters now, the teams that made it out of qualifiers have 13 players with SPL/SCL/Snake games collectively, while the next four teams have 16 collectively. So it's not like the talent drops off after the best 20 teams.

On the other hand, even if the extra teams aren't much worse than the current teams making it out of qualifiers, those current teams aren't really that good. Of the 14 teams to make it out of qualifiers in the SV era, only one team has finished in the top half of main bracket pools (2024 Chile), with another pair of teams just making the top half on tiebreak (2023 UK, 2024 Brazil). The four qualifying teams finished 16th/20 on average last year and 14th/20 the year before, and they comprise the bottom two spots each year. Adding four more teams of comparable quality probably means adding a couple bottom-feeders and a couple middle-of-the-pack teams.

That said, if the quality of teams is pretty similar at the bottom of the main pool versus the top of qualifiers right now, I think it's better to have them in main draw. The reduced number of games per team in qualifiers compared to main draw and the wider talent distributions overall make it so that there's more bracket volatility in the process, and while tiebreaks are hype it's probably in the best interests of competitiveness to reduce how much they determine which teams qualify. I don't really think that's controversial; the three rounds of tiebreakers last year to select three out of five teams last year all with 12 wins were definitely a worse way to distinguish between them holistically than just letting them all play in main bracket and seeing how they do. I guess from a spectator's perspective, expanding the bottom end of the tournament makes for worse games on average (more SPL players beating up on rookies as opposed to other heavyweights), but as that spectator I like the idea of reducing the odds that someone like Storm Zone or JJ09LIE don't make it to main draw because their SM slot dropped a game to Guatemala.

TL;DR: expanding to 24 teams is probably net-neutral for the existing 20 teams, net-neutral for the spectators, and a big net positive for the four extra teams that get to play in main bracket. If the fear is that doing so dilutes the tournament too much, I think the obvious solution would be to reduce each team to 8 slots to compensate, probably to 4 SV OU and 4 others, but I don't know if that's so feasible (or uncontroversial) for this year.

 

[Paprikaflow]

This feels nearly like rage bait.
The last years a good amount of the team qualifying teams were far away from the main tour level.
This was neither pleasant to watch nor did it add any value to the tour. Considering this is supposed to be a major event, adding any slots seems to go against this concept.
There are teams here and there that come from qualifying and do well on the main stage, and they still have a chance. Then there are teams that come from qualifiers and obviously can't compete at that level. So adding new teams would just mean adding more teams that can't compete on the main stage.

 

[Drifting]

This feels nearly like rage bait.
The last years a good amount of the team qualifying teams were far away from the main tour level.
This was neither pleasant to watch nor did it add any value to the tour. Considering this is supposed to be a major event, adding any slots seems to go against this concept.
There are teams here and there that come from qualifying and do well on the main stage, and they still have a chance. Then there are teams that come from qualifiers and obviously can't compete at that level. So adding new teams would just mean adding more teams that can't compete on the main stage.

I think you are making generalizations without looking at the actual context of the event.

Many of the qualifying teams did in fact perform fairly impressively. Argentina and the Netherlands were roughly middle of the table, surpassing some of the US Teams even, which I'm sure many would agree all field rosters of the quality you'd typically expect for a Tier 1 event. Argentina frankly stands a snowball's chance in hell against Italy in a potential playoffs (no offense intended, we also got smoked last time!), but they certainly earned their place, which is why they aren't relegated.

But I suspect you're talking about the two last place teams, Portugal and the United Kingdom. I think criticizing the United Kingdom is a bit asinine, their lineup is largely players with an SPL/SCL history or former admirable performances in WCoP, and it was only a matter of a couple years ago they found themselves in playoffs. Portugal undeniably has a "who are these people" factor to them, but if you look at the qualifiers they looked to be a cut above the rest; 14 wins to 2nd places 12 wins.

The truth is that there's just a lot of variance involved, not just in pokemon but especially in a WCoP pools format where the margins are razor thin and one game can be life or death, just look at the major shifts in performance for teams like Bangladesh and US Midwest. There are definitely worlds where Portugal win just a couple close games and they look much better.

In my opinion it's very pessimistic to look at a chart like this where all these teams are basically putting up the same numbers, and assuming worst case scenario that these will be wastes of space in the tournament, doomed to come last, when in reality a lot of these teams are plenty able to keep up in main event, and even make playoffs.

Don't get me wrong, there are teams towards the bottom end of qualifiers that would likely compromise the balance of main event, and that's unfortunate, but for all these teams that were on the cusp of making it last year, I say let in as many as we can! The more's the merrier.

 

[Paprikaflow]

Making general assumption was kind of the point of it. Yet I did look at the context. To repeat myself: Coming from the qualifying stage there are teams that do well and then there are teams that clearly don't. Last year it was Portugal and UK, the year before it was Asia and Bangladesh, the year before that it was only Bangladesh. We are not discussing cutting the qualifying stage or reducing the teams from there, but increasing the size. When the higher end of the qualifying teams fits in well in main and the lowers doesn't it leaves pretty much one conclusion and that is that there is no reason to increase the number of those teams eligible for main stage.
Personally I wouldn't want to be the judge of how good a roster is, but there is a clear trend of a number of qualifying teams struggling in the main tour.

Almost certain is that teams from the qualifying rounds do not compete to win the tour and if their team would be that good that year, they would have no problems passing the qualifying stage either way.

I am very much opposed to the idea of devalue the tour by making it accessible to everyone.

 

[Spitfire]

Please do not increase the number of teams in the main stage.

I am all for integrating more players into the competitive scene. I am aware that wcop is one of the best chances to do so. However, I think the compromise on the quality of games is something that cannot be understated. I will address it from two aspects.

In terms of the qualifiers -
The teams that make it through qualifiers (in the current setup) do so because of a mixture of reasons - whether it be historic strength, good scouting/prep leading upto the tour, or simply a hot streak of games. If we were to further categorize the qualifier teams, I do think that the disparity between the "best" and the "next best" is substantial. Even some of the "better" teams that ride the wave of fortune are not able to translate to serviceable showings in pools because of the big upgrade in competition ( See 1st seed Asia in 2022 with their 11-0 qualifiers run, Portugal last year etc).

In terms of teams that do qualify -
There already is a degree of luck involved in getting "favourable" draws in pools, and I think that will be amplified to a disproportionate extent if we include more qualifier teams. Of course you will have outliers (the wesley-gxe-seperation-pais pool comes to mind), but most of the time, these "weak" players are not at all able to surmount the skill difference is both prep/play and end up being a "free win" to others in their pool. Given the setup of the tour, all games irrespective of quality, contribute to your chances of qualifying for playoffs, which is a good thing. The downside, however, is this lucky draw aspect in pools - a feeling that is already accentuated among competitors and spectators alike during the final weekend, as teams are fighting for the last playoff spots.

I would request to look beyond "sheet games" and try to look at the games themself. For a community that is so adamant about tour quality (as seen by the vehement opposition to expanding smogon tour times to less euro-american friendly times), I feel that the same logic should be applied here as well. If you want high quality games, make sure that you want it everywhere. Being on a longstanding qualifier team myself, there are a LOT of aspects of the game that you cannot magically figure out on the spot - they are a result of constant effort and practice that culminates long before you get access to the stage itself.

The cons clearly outweigh the pros in my eyes.

 

[Drifting]

Paprikaflow snip

But by your logic, Portugal would be one of those high-end qualifying teams, they looked by far the most dominant, and they ended up being the cautionary tale of main event inclusion when all was said and done. It was very recently that France won starting from qualifiers (I think another team did too but I can’t remember), imagine if France lost 1-2 games from bad matchup or freeze or crit and ended up in some tough tiebreakers situation.

Don’t get me wrong, I care about competitive integrity as much as anyone, I’m not exactly the kumbaya let’s include everyone and hold hands in a circle guy. Adding bad teams DOES make the event worse and advantage the teams who end up getting those weaker players in their pools (arguably a problem with the format as a whole), but I genuinely think these are all competitive teams. Just use the eye test on a team that barely missed out, like Latin America.

LA Roster

Our opinions may vary, but by my eye test these are all established/good players, most of whom have a history in SPL/SCL or respectable indiv/circuit performances. The only guy I don’t know super well here is Ky, and he ended up going undefeated.

Again this is just one team, but I think it’s a good example of a team that looks really solid and dare-I-say main event caliber barely missing out by a single win in qualifiers. Inclusion should not be prioritised over competitiveness, I fully agree, but inclusion is still inherently a good thing and if we can do it without harming competitive integrity I really think we should.

 

[Paprikaflow]

But by your logic, Portugal would be one of those high-end qualifying teams,

No? I never mentioned anything about the absolute relevance of the standing in the qualifiers. There are many factors interfering with it, that's why a broader perspective is necessary. France doing it once is impressive and shows that it is possible. If they would have failed to make the qualifying rounds they probably wouldn't have deserved to win it either. However, it does not contradict the things I said prior.

Again I don't want to judge rosters. Especially names itself are not the most important thing, Spain being a good example of that last year. What I did do was watching games and - everyone is free to disagree here - enough of them were, at least in my opinion, not on a level where their addition to a main stage level would benefit the quality the tour.

I also don't want this a personal discussion thread. So I hope that this can be the last of my messages here

 

[Malekith]

Make pools like in real world cup and 32 teams.

 

[yone]

The last years a good amount of the team qualifying teams were far away from the main tour level.
This was neither pleasant to watch nor did it add any value to the tour. Considering this is supposed to be a major event, adding any slots seems to go against this concept.

Are you deadass ?

 

[One Last Kiss]

Thinking that the quality of games will be affected doesnt sound very realistic, tbh. Currently, you have two teams in qualys that were recently world cup champions ( spain and midwest ) in addition to continental teams with well known players, such as those from Asia and Latin America. with that, the 4 ascen slots would already be filled hypothetically speaking.

Then you have teams like UK, which has been on the main stage for years, Belgium, which has maintained a presence on the main stage for two years, Bangladesh, which also did so for the last two years, and Portugal, which reached the main stage last year.
All these teams make up a total of 8 (the number of ascent slots that could be added to reach 24). And we still havent mentioned teams like Mexico and Peru, which performed well last year, mexico who even played tie breaks vs UK and others teams. If it hadnt been for how stacked the ascent slots were, they would undoubtedly have qualified, and this year they will be even stronger since several players from the continental teams will be moving to play for them. and Im talking about quality players.

The first 8 teams have all participated in the main event one or more times, and there has never been a lack of quality of games as some of you are mentioning. In fact, many of these rivals have given USA teams a hard time in the last two years, even forcing them to play relegation tie breaks, something that hadnt happened for a long time. I dont understand what lack of game quality yall talking about.

 

[ninjadog]

No strong opinion on 20 vs 24 teams but if it goes to 24 teams I think increasing the number of playoff spots is a must - I’d probably lean keeping it at 20 because of this.

8/24 making playoffs would be significantly lower than in any other tournament on the site, would give teams little margin for error and would increase the number of meaningless games (albeit some with relegation to qualifiers at stake, which seems less daunting given how much easier a 24 team main stage would make qualifiers).

Not sure what the best playoff format would be, my first thought is a top 12 with seeds 1-4 getting a bye in the first week, only downside to this is they may go a long time without playing if there’s multiple tiebreaks.

 

[toshimelonhead]

Make pools like in real world cup and 32 teams.

This would be my vote even if it meant cutting down the roster sizes. The real World Cup before expansion actually fits this tournament quite well. Go pools with four teams then a sweet 16 style knockout. If we already have that many teams fighting for qualification, might as well just let everyone fight it out and let the chips fall where they may.