Proposal re: "Draft" in Smogon Champions League

[Princess Autumn]

You can find last year's thread here.

Draft on the other hand is a much newer format that has only been present on Smogon for ~2.5 years at this point and is not yet an Official tier. Many concerns (obviously not all) about Draft in this thread stemmed either from a lack of understanding of how it worked in a team tour setting (drafting multiple teams, having a mids to make edits) or a lack of familiarity with the tier in general (compared to Monotype where everybody knows exactly what it is and how it works). Posts also touched on wanting to see Draft become more established across tournaments before it's in SCL (it only had its first Ribbon circuit last year). The Policy team was actually mostly in favor of including Draft in SCL, but obviously isn't going to push that through this year overriding general sentiment. However, we do see many of Draft's problems as solvable by increased recognition (like becoming Official) and integration in the tournament's community so people become more familiar with how it's played and how it can co-exist in a tour with other tiers. All this being said, Draft is certainly not guaranteed to have a future spot in SCL or other trophy tours, but we have a more positive outlook here.

A lot's changed in the last 9 months since this post was made regarding the addition of a Draft slot in SCL and a lot of the points mentioned in Star's post have either changed or become outright false at this point so it's worth revisiting the topic. If you don't wanna read further, my proposal is:

Expand SCL to 12 slots and add a Draft slot + OU 4​

Spoiler on how Draft works for those who don't know

Teams will be placed into 2/3 "pools" in which they will have control of 1 draft each. The drafting orders for these pools will be randomised (with the 2nd/3rd pools being weighted based upon the first so that no one team gets exclusively good or bad picking slots) and be in a snake-style order, similar to the auction.They will have 90 points with which they can "draft" 8 Pokémon from the draft board (which is determined by a council of top players), you can find examples of how this works here. No Pokémon may be on multiple drafts within the same pool and this is part of what makes Draft unique, there's only one of each Pokémon and subsequently, Pokémon that are otherwise the "second best" choice become a lot better. The draft phase often lasts up to a week and in SCL's case, this drafting would take place during the PR week.

Prior to each week, each team must submit the draft they are using that week alongside their player, which leads to matchups looking something like this:
SV Draft: (1) Princess Autumn vs lax (2)
The numbers before/after the player names dictate which of their team's drafts they are using, you can see a full example here. These matchups are then put onto a sheet and look similar to the ones below:

Draft also allows for a midseason, similar to the player midseason that the tour already has. In SCL's case, it would run alongside week 4 or 5 and allow teams to swap out Pokémon for undrafted ones/trade with other teams. All rules from the original drafting phase still apply and come the end of the midseason, all drafts are locked for the remainder of the season.

The midseason is part of what leads to Draft rarely (almost never at high level play) having unwinnable matchups; drafting is a skill and being able to draft well into the meta is what good players aim to do consistently but everyone's also aware that teams being punished for a whole season for missing a meta call during drafting week also makes little to no sense, hence the midseason.

If anyone wants a further explanation on the format itself, feel free to ping myself or Hacker in tourscord, this should cover most broad strokes though. I'd also suggest reading the OP to lax's thread last year as that covers similar topics too.

Draft on the other hand is a much newer format that has only been present on Smogon for ~2.5 years at this point and is not yet an Official tier.

To point out the obvious thing, feen graciously abolished the distinction of official tiers (read: if I'm wrong, blame feen) and Draft now exists as a top level format, just like the other SCL tiers; this was a somewhat big point last year and it's mentioned in Star's post so I wanted to clear that before the other points.

Posts also touched on wanting to see Draft become more established across tournaments before it's in SCL (it only had its first Ribbon circuit last year) ... and integration in the tournament's community so people become more familiar with how it's played and how it can co-exist in a tour with other tiers.

Hi, we've had our second ribbon circuit now and it was an even bigger success than the first, with our tours consistently being amongst the biggest on the site :D. Our previous seasonal hit 675 signups, and all of our tours generally hover between 250-500 players, with out smallest circuit tour still hitting 207 (far above what a lotta tiers see for their current gen seasonals). Regardless, in the 9 months since, Draft slots have been added to a decent number of tours and have largely been met with positive reception.

Full list of tours to avoid adding an uncloseable list

Links will link to the most recent week of any given tour

• Let's Go Premier League II (LGPE Draft)
• Portugese Spring League (SV Draft with Tera Captains)
• National Dex Champions League II (SV NatDex Draft without Tera/Z-moves)
• ORAS Champions League II (ORAS Draft)
• Doubles Derby IV (SV Doubles Draft)
• RBY Other Metagames Premier League II (RBY Draft)

It's also slated to be in the following tours

• National Dex World Cup IV (drafting week - SV NatDex Draft without Tera/Z-moves)
• National Dex Ubers Premier League I (drafting week - SV National Dex Ubers Draft without Tera/Z-moves)
• DPP Premier League VI (signups soon)

Draft's managed to integrate itself into numerous tours across the community in the past 9 months, and we've seen a lot of non-mainers pick up the tier through these tours. I'd also like to note that most of these are without having the luxury of a week baked in to the tour for drafting naturally (which PRs week gives), people have been receptive to pushing back the start of tours to accommodate for drafting and that isn't even something which SCL has to consider. We've seen the format and its players begin to integrate themselves within the community, and its been a resounding success.

I also want to reiterate that Draft is a slot that anyone can help with, yes the drafting phase will largely be handled by the starter and their dedicated supports but on a week to week basis, the only thing that matters are the 8 Pokémon on your side and your opponent's side - each week is a micro-meta of sorts itself. Each week does not require players to have extensive metagame knowledge, it simply requires them to be able to look at each draft and spot how its weaknesses can be exploited and help their teammates abuse the opponent's weaknesses while making sure that they have checks and counters to their own. While this might sound scary at first, it's pretty easy to get a hold of and people often end up adapting well.

As for OU 4, this <could> be any other format in theory but as of now, there's no other contender for new slots - this shouldn't be the focal point of the thread and discussions regarding other formats should have their own threads. Doubling up on any existing slots would undoubtedly cause more upset and we've seen that there is a large enough high level OU playerbase to see that this could work. Adding Draft shouldn't come at the expense of removing other tiers, but that isn't a point against the format, it's simply another reason to expand the tour.

tl;dr Expand SCL to 12 slots and add a Draft slot + OU 4​

 

[Malekith]

This year I discovered Draft thanks to some friends and I can say to all of you that is an insanely fun and of course, super competitive format. The essence of pokemon is in that format, where you can use Screech Crunch Flygon and while your brain is exploding because you are using "shit" you can understand that is in fact the best set to use for that game, is like playing ingame matches, without losing the competitiveness of formats like OU.

Draft is also a better option than another low tier because more low tiers is super boring, you end up watching almost always the same (so you end up not waching shit), lower competitive games too. Draft is competitive AND fresh, and this should be super important to decide what slot you are including in the tournament.

I fully support this idea, last year I didn't even know what Draft is, but now that I have played a couple of games I can say that this is serious and you should include it.

Also to match SPL and SCL in slots, this is less important but should be the "same" tournament.

 

[DugZa]

While I have nothing against Draft, the current SCL format is ideal and should stay the same for the foreseeable future. Most of the arguments presented in the OP were also made in all previous Monotype in SCL threads. Just to be clear, I'm not saying Monotype should be included either. If any format change is made, though, ZU should be considered before any other tiers. For tiers like Draft and Monotype, alternative individual trophies should definitely be looked into; they deserve official representation, but I don't think it should be in SCL.

Draft is also a better option than another low tier because more low tiers is super boring, you end up watching almost always the same (so you end up not waching shit), lower competitive games too.

Calling lower tier games "super boring" and less competitive is super disrespectful to all lower tier players. You'd get mogged by most of these "less competitive" players, as you already have in every SCL/Snake you've signed up for. Besides, you of all people would know what actual less competitive games look like: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-823142.

 

[Malekith]

While I have nothing against Draft, the current SCL format is ideal and should stay the same for the foreseeable future. Most of the arguments presented in the OP were also made in all previous Monotype in SCL threads. Just to be clear, I'm not saying Monotype should be included either. If any format change is made, though, ZU should be considered before any other tiers. For tiers like Draft and Monotype, alternative individual trophies should definitely be looked into; they deserve official representation, but I don't think it should be in SCL.


Calling lower tier games "super boring" and less competitive is super disrespectful to all lower tier players. You'd get mogged by most of these "less competitive" players, as you already have in every SCL/Snake you've signed up for. Besides, you of all people would know what actual less competitive games look like: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-823142.

Thanks for knowing all my matches by memory, fan. I guess we all play bad matches, the difficult thing is to find one good from you reputated ""PU Leader"".

 

[hex]

I'm agreement with DugZa, while I love Draft and it's one of my favorite tiers to play and engage with, the OP does nothing to set Draft aside as something more unique than Monotype. Monotype has made all these arguments before and it has gotten nowhere. Like sure, anyone can help with Draft. I'm currently slotted in Draft for ORASCL and my team has openly exclaimed that it's "too much work". So whether or not a Draft mainer gets help from a teammate instead of dedicated support is really a gamble (just one example of many things I could throw out). These threads should be proposing why SCL's format needs to change, otherwise getting a trophy can be done through another tournament. I also find it a little dismissive to suggest OU4 instead of trying to throw another tier a bone when Draft is in the same spot as Monotype has been and you just say to "make your own thread" reads as "don't plague our thread even though you guys supported us". Other tiers have been doing this rodeo for multiple years.

SCL's format should stay the same anyway irregardless of Draft and Monotype. Again, these tier threads don't set themselves apart from each other and seemingly bank on popularity within the community to get into the tournament.

Matching the # of slots between SPL and SCL also materially means and does nothing. The tiers are different, the players are mostly different*, and there's just really not much overlap. There's more OU tiers than there are CG tiers so having this "same" format doesn't rly make sense. General reception from the tours community / stours Discord is usually that SCL is a lolcow tournament compared to SPL which is just more of a reasoning for me to question why these tours would need to be similar at all, it's clearly not appeasing anyone unless you extend to 14 slots and include Draft+non OU. Edit to add that even if anything were to change, I'd voice my support for ZU over other things first.

u have no business losing in tiers that you've been playing for 15 years and calling low tiers less competitive. u got packed by a magneton that comes from said boring low tiers, or maybe its more exciting since it was in an ou game now? free thinkers these days huh..

 

[MZ]

I'd like to break with my fellow TL's position because even though I don't actively play draft, it's pretty cool to watch and I think would positively benefit the tournament. SCL is a tour I've always enjoyed watching for the variety and newer gens on display, and the times I've taken part it's been a lot of fun to see the different prep across these tiers that tend to be less settled. Draft seems like it fits in so sure, why not.

If anything, I think the issue with the proposal is the OU 4 part. While OU is personally boring to me, I'm not stupid enough to think that's a real argument for how the tour should be run. However, SCL's defining trait is how it celebrates other tiers and sections of the site and I'd rather not dilute it more by adding yet another OU slot. The identity of the tournament is celebrating the other bits of Smogon aside from the flagship meta that already has all the representation it needs, even down to the team names and theming of different areas of the site. I come to watch low tier specialists play the tour players who want to try their hand at a different meta, I enjoy seeing prep spread out across different slots doing totally different things, and my instinct based on low tier players that I've talked to is that I'm not alone here. I mean, this is a major trophy tour impacted by tier shifts every year. That's cool and different! This is PU's big tournament for crossover with the rest of the site and it's been pretty good to have, and I know the same is true for other tiers. Adding another person to the OU section seems like the most stale and unnecessary solution possible for expanding the tournament next to draft when ZU and Monotype are right there and keep that idea going. This tournament is for celebrating more of Smogon, so I'm all in favor of draft but let's bring more in while we're at it.

Also, since this seems to be a constant concern for people more heavily involved in tournaments, I'm not convinced OU 4 would be a more competitive slot than Mono or ZU, although idk how deep the OU pool would go to say that definitively.

 

[olivia]

Fully on board with the proposal to include Draft in SCL. It's a wonderful subsection that has integrated fantastically with the tours it has been a part of. I've really enjoyed seeing the input from 'non-mainers' in the prep room in the servers I've been a part of this last year. As we frequently see in our team tours, Draft is a format that rewards those willing to put in the time and effort alongside those who work well as part of a team, those who don't put in the necessary effort will lose 99 times out of 100. These are qualities I believe would be a great addition to SCL and should be strongly considered.

I would personally be more in favour of including Draft alongside another tier and an expansion to 12 slots. Agree with the general consensus R.E. OU4 but am not incredibly strongly opposed to OU4 either.

For those who's posts serve mainly just to fling shit at each other please leave it out this thread and sort out your personal beef with eachother somewhere else. It's not constructive at all here.

 

[Hacker]

To the surprise of many people, I do in fact support putting Draft in SCL.

First things first, me (or any Draft players, really) really don't care what else gets added alongside it. I personally think a change to the tour with the inclusion of ZU alongside Draft would be great for this tour. Ultimately I do think Draft with any slot being added with it would be good in the end though. SCL's identity isn't a lower tiers tour though lower tiers are the main thing that fit into its identity as the current gen tour so dDaft is still well within the scope of what is and isn't allowed to be in the tour. Alongside that, Core and Official tiers being killed doesn't really leave any room for the arguments last year about it not being a official metagame. This also works in favor of ZU as the official requirement to be in SCL just no longer exists. ZU is well established in many PL's across the site which has gotten a lot of people invested into the tier and its main PL gets a good amount of signups to the point im certain theres enough interest in the tier and theres enough people familiar with it where I think it'd be a net positive for the tour. Very much so not the entire point of this thread and please do not get hanged up on this though.

I also do think its important to nail down why making any changes to SCL is a good thing. My main current complaint with the tour is how isolating it can feel. For example, in the Doubles and LC channels for many team servers you don't really see many people outside of the dedicated starter and their sub or helpers if they have any. Alongside that, most lower tier players have minimal interest in OU. Exceptions to that obviously exist, but if I went in some of the lower tier discord servers and asked people what they thought about OU the majority of it would just be they find it boring and don't care about it. I'm sure this inherently applies to most lower tiers as well as they all require meta specific knowledge to give any worthwhile input. Point is, this tour really can just feel like an individual tournament for a lot of people where I think adding tiers people are familiar with or easily have the ability to give input in is a good idea to improve the tournament.

With all of that being said I think Draft is a wonderful add due to the inherently collaborative nature of the format itself. Draft doesn't require any metagame specific knowledge and is a slot that literally anybody has the capability to contribute to and will want to with the high stakes in this tour. The only thing you need to be able to do in a given week to work with others is the ability to look at the 8 pokemon you and your opponent have and think of ways you can win. No other tier in the tournament is like that, and I think its a good thing and would certainly make the tournament more fun and interesting.

Only other real thing to look at is if it passes the competitive benchmark which Draft certainly passes. The posts last year explaining the competitive nature of the format all do still hold up well, though I particularly recommend these two posts as reads and the OP for how it would function. I hope everybody enjoys their Sunday.

 

[lax]

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is if the TDs decide that adding Draft + ZU/OU4 will make SCL a more competitive tour and a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Truthfully, nobody really cares about how anyone can be involved in Draft prep, I’ve realized. People mostly care about The Sheet, so it’s not really in tournament player culture to GAF about supporting their Draft player unless they’re particularly passionate. I’m abandoning this line of thinking and focusing on how Draft is simply Sheist and worth it.

I’d be rly surprised if the TDs made the boss call and a year from now threads are being made to remove Draft. The decision to include it might have brief backlash, but then players will still sign up for SCL and forget all about why they’re pressed, maybe realizing they even enjoy watching the new tier(s) if given the shot.

I obviously do think Draft elevates the tournament scene whether that’s including it in a great team tournament or giving it its own coveted Individual Trophy, so I hope Something is done to reward the efforts of the players & the team

 

[Tuthur]

I do not wish to derail the discussion about Draft, but given some have mentionned ZU, I would like to comment on it. As Hacker said, ZU wasn't elligible for SCL until the official/unofficial rework late 2025, which is why you've never any thread to include ZU in SCL. If SCL is expanding, I would hope that ZU gets a chance to support its case for the 12th slot, as this is something the ZU playerbase has wished for a long time.

 

[Envy]

Draft and ZU communities grew a lot in the last year and giving them the opportunity to be in SCL would be really cool in my opinion, specially now with the official tiers rework. Some tournaments changed their format to include Draft and the majority of people liked it. About ZU, the main appeal of SCL is being able to play low tiers, so I do think that adding one more OU slot wouldn't add much to the tournament, but a ZU slot would, like Draft, include a bunch of new people in the tournament and could create a more diverse and healthy environment in the teams. I'm on board with adding Draft and ZU.

 

[HAVOCKNIGHT]

Hi,
I would like to support the proposals from DugZa, Hacker, Tuthur and Envy on adding Draft + ZU as the 11th and 12th slots for SCL.
I haven't really played Draft myself at all in Smogon, but I've took part in Draft Leagues elsewhere (mostly on Discord), so I can speak a bit about it. I agree with what Malekith said about the essence of Pokémon being in the format, really feels like it, it's a lot of fun to brainstorm in the preparation for the game and cook super specific sets that actually do well there.

OP covers the points about Draft now having successfully integrated with Smogon Tournaments that aren't Draft-only and how it is still conquering more space, so I'm not gonna repeat those. Draft's circuit tournaments' signup numbers are also incomparable to.... everything else.? The ongoing SV Draft Seasonal just hit 548 signups, a number that even OU, the flagship metagame of the website haven't been hitting since a while. Numeric comparison, the last three SV OU circuit tournaments including the ongoing Spring Seasonal hit 323, 351 and 261 signups respectively. Note that Last Chance Qualifier, (the one that hit 261) isn't a Type A tournament though, for transparency's sake.

Not adding Draft would be trolling quite hard imo. I totally plan on getting into the format here on Smogon once more time frees up irl, but so far it's been cool to see the section thrive from distance.

Now for the 12th slot, I would think the choice should mostly be between ZU and Monotype. It should be obvious, but if it isn't know that I have nothing against OU, and I'm aware that it is for the most part the main metagame of the site thus demands more representation. I'm also aware that concepts like "SCL is meant to have all usage/lower tiers" aren't perfectly accurate, but I still see ZU as the better fit for the tournaments' organization and identity. I'm not trying to bash or start a war with Monotype, it's just that the TDs issues with adding it seem more related to the metagames' concept in itself rather than anything else. While ZU being in completes the usage tiers' ecosystem in the tournament, and also gives it a spotlight and more visibility for the player base to grow further. The format has already been expanding a lot in the last two years in the oldgens side, going from only being in BWPL to now being present in both ORASPL and ORASCL, SMPL, SSCL and ADVPL as well. SCL would be the best incentive possible for current gen, which naturally for a Lower Tier is the most important metagame, for people to play the format at a high level. Give us this and let us grow as a community, please.

 

[Drifting]

OP covers the points about Draft now having successfully integrated with Smogon Tournaments that aren't Draft-only and how it is still conquering more space, so I'm not gonna repeat those. Draft's circuit tournaments' signup numbers are also incomparable to.... everything else.? The ongoing SV Draft Seasonal just hit 548 signups, a number that even OU, the flagship metagame of the website haven't been hitting since a while. Numeric comparison, the last three SV OU circuit tournaments including the ongoing Spring Seasonal hit 323, 351 and 261 signups respectively. Note that Last Chance Qualifier, (the one that hit 261) isn't a Type A tournament though, for transparency's sake.

Meanwhile OST got 1046 signups, so the implication that Draft is more popular is pretty asinine. There is no Draft official so the seasonals are obviously going to be the flagship individual events for the Draft community. Meanwhile with the wealth of official opportunities to play OU throughout the year, OU seasonals do not have the same appeal. I am quite an active OU tournament player and could not care less about the major time-sink that is the circuit frankly. You are unintentionally drawing a major false equivalence.

As for the OP, I don't want to get into it again since I made a couple posts in the last thread that you can go back and read, but I just don't think it's a good idea to make major changes to the SCL format without a very compelling reason. I've played/observed more Draft tournaments since the last thread and had a lot of fun in Distortion Draft, but i still think it's too different from standard Smogon formats and I think teams that are struggling circa Week 5 will just be frustrated and exhausted without the ability to meaningfully revitalise their prep. Monotype is a format I'll always have a soft spot for but its issues from the TDs perspective are well-litigated at this point, and I strongly believe that if ZU is given too much of a leash and treated in an official capacity and infested with high-level tour players then a significant portion of people will just move to their new passion project of SU and the cycle of begging for representation will start again; you have to cut the bleeding at some point. As for additional OU slots, at this point of SV it doesn't feel worth expanding the tournament for frankly.

If you do decide to expand SCL, then with the removal of Official/Core tiers as a concept then I suppose there's no ontological reason to say no to Draft, so go for it, I'd be happy for Draft players. I just think it's seriously worth considering the merit (competitive or otherwise) of expanding SCL in the first place.

 

[jeronis]

Like sure, anyone can help with Draft. I'm currently slotted in Draft for ORASCL and my team has openly exclaimed that it's "too much work". So whether or not a Draft mainer gets help from a teammate instead of dedicated support is really a gamble (just one example of many things I could throw out).

People are lazy as hell if they can't prep for a singular draft game with a team of ~20 people... Same type of people to reuse teams from 4 years ago for the nth time and lose and blame it on bad mu

 

[Pokeslice]

I’ve been doing a little bit of thinking on this and I don’t know if I really understand why Draft even wants to be in SCL in the first place. I think it’s a step backwards for a format with a ton of momentum currently and the best future for Draft would come from focusing this energy elsewhere.

What I mean by that is that a year ago when the OG thread was made, Draft was a relatively new and dynamic Smogon format looking to gain legitimacy and visibility amongst the larger site wide community (or at least that’s how I interpreted it). Since then, a lot of attention and hype has deservedly gone Drafts way with an huge influx of players and the tier definitions being changed to basically give Draft that legitimacy that it wanted. I’ve personally seen a ton of NU community mains on my side of Smogon start playing it casually/seriously post that thread and I have no doubt that the format as a whole is about to become a modern pillar of the website if it isn’t already one of them. Draft is very cool and deserves all of that and more.

At this point though, I’m curious why Draft mains think the future of this tier should be to be in SCL? Currently, Draft is highly respected, top Smogoners are trying it, and it seems like the momentum of the format can’t be stopped. I can only imagine that the main goal at this moment is to have a trophy tour, but if so, why all this effort to try to fit into SCL? It’s pretty clear that people overall enjoy the tournament as is already so change will be nearly impossible + it has this perceived identity of the lower tier official that makes it even harder for something as different as Draft to make it. Like DugZa said, if we’re actually looking at the theme of the tournament, ZU would make a lot more sense to add than anything else. This feels more like a prize that people had their eyes set on a year ago and they can argue for it from sturdier ground after all these changes, but it still doesn’t make too much sense to me.

In my opinion, Draft trying to take SCL as their trophy tour is a very shortsighted approach to handling the huge potential that the format has. If I were part of the community, I wouldn’t be asking to change this tour, but instead I’d be looking at Draft as this future bastion of Smogon and arguing that it deserves its own unique trophy tour because of it. The format is so different from usage based singles and so popular that this feels like a much better natural progression for the format, even if it takes a little longer. Adding Draft to SCL is a long fight that probably pushes off that future by a good bit. Draft would become no different than NU site standing wise when it’s an entirely different, fun, and dynamic way to play mons with an awesome future on the site. Don’t hamstring yourselves over SCL, work towards something greater.

By this logic add ZU>DOU to SCL as well, but that’s a separate thread for a separate time that anyone who wants to rage bait half the site can write because it won’t be me.

 

[Addison]

Meanwhile OST got 1046 signups, so the implication that Draft is more popular is pretty asinine. There is no Draft official so the seasonals are obviously going to be the flagship individual events for the Draft community. Meanwhile with the wealth of official opportunities to play OU throughout the year, OU seasonals do not have the same appeal. I am quite an active OU tournament player and could not care less about the major time-sink that is the circuit frankly. You are unintentionally drawing a major false equivalence.

I think the point is that draft is absurdly popular, especially compared to non-OU tiers. Your point about active OU players not playing seasonals also applies to draft players too. With so many tours on our end throughout the year only a fraction of the player base actually plays the seasonals yet we're still putting up insane numbers. Plus the format exists outside of the umbrella of Smogon so there's added popularity and play there too. AND most of our top players exclusively play in team tours. Yet, again, biiiiig numbers in the main events that I've been told go well beyond other formats.

As such, I reckon it deserves some official representation somewhere and soon yet everytime its brought up its blown off by some folks. Echoing lax, include it, people will enjoy it, and people will forget why it was even an issue in the first place and even enjoy spectating the games (theres nothing like spectating draft matches).

 

[Drifting]

I think the point is that draft is absurdly popular, especially compared to non-OU tiers. Your point about active OU players not playing seasonals also applies to draft players too. With so many tours on our end throughout the year only a fraction of the player base actually plays the seasonals yet we're still putting up insane numbers. Plus the format exists outside of the umbrella of Smogon so there's added popularity and play there too. AND most of our top players exclusively play in team tours. Yet, again, biiiiig numbers in the main events that I've been told go well beyond other formats.

As such, I reckon it deserves some official representation somewhere and soon yet everytime its brought up its blown off by some folks. Echoing lax, include it, people will enjoy it, and people will forget why it was even an issue in the first place and even enjoy spectating the games (theres nothing like spectating draft matches).

Sure, the draft section of Smogon gets a lot of signups but you could just as easily argue that if you include the ladder then the amount of say, Ubers being played absolutely dwarfs the amount of Smogon Draft being played. Maybe if there was a world where Draft had a ladder it’d be more popular but the point is we don’t live in that world so anyone who wants to play Draft has to signup for these forum tournaments —that is to say I’m not surprised that the signup numbers are so inflated.

But to avoid going down that rabbit hole, the main problem I have with your premise is that it treats popularity as the ultimate factor in what should be in SCL. But by that logic a tier like Monotype which is much more popular in all regards compared to say, NU, would already be in SCL. The reality is that things like competitive value, pedigree, history on Smogon and a feeling of cohesiveness with the other tiers in SCL matter more, which I think draft is lacking, especially the latter. Case in point; The recent Randbats circuit tournament also got ~550 signups, just like the Draft seasonal in question, but nobody is expecting to see Randbats in SCL any time soon despite the fact that the gameplay experience is more similar to standard formats, especially non-team preview ones, compared to Draft. The argument shouldn’t be “Draft is a popular way to play pokemon and therefore needs to be in SCL”, it should be trying to convince people of why the SCL format needs to change in the first place, and if it does, why draft would be the best pick in terms of cohesion with the other tiers and competitive value added for players and managers, which currently many people including myself are skeptical of.

 

[Django]

The SCL format is fantastic and doesn't need to be changed. The starting point of this conversation should be: "Does SCL need to change?" and then if the answer yes, decide in what way and which tiers suit that goal the best. All the arguments for Draft inclusion (popularity, integration with other team tournaments, transferability) can also be applied to ZU, Monotype, and even Randbats. But none of those factors answers the core question of why SCL needs to change.

I do think that Draft is somewhat at odds with the rest of the tiers in SCL given that your resources are locked in at the start of the tournament. Of course this can be mitigated but it's still a fundamental difference to the usage based tiers that make up SCL currently. If a team is struggling in a particular slot because their building sucks, a manager can grind the tier and improve their chances from a level playing field (which we've seen many examples of in SCL). In Draft, your playing field is fundamentally not level from the start and this could be season ending.

I'm also not particularly convinced Draft fits well alongside more traditional teambuilding tiers in a team tournament setting - my experience in ORASCL has been that there is no one other than the Draft players prepping in those channels. While inclusion in the tournaments mentioned in the OP is valid progress, it doesn't prove that Draft is easy to pick up or easy to engage with, my experience so far has been the opposite (of course this is anecdotal and presumably will vary wildly based on the team environment and players involved).

For balance, I think Draft is cool and I'm happy it's becoming so popular. I think it should get more representation across the site. I just don't feel SCL is the right avenue for that. A trophy tour (like OSDT?) would be awesome and / or a full Draft team trophy tour also sounds great. Scheduling those is of course difficult but feels worthwhile to properly harness the popularity of the format and keep those people on Smogon rather than forcing them elsewhere by not representing them.

 

[Bernardo]

As a manager main, having one more tier to support with a set of skills that can’t just be borrowed from other tiers, and with a very different population of top players is tough.

Personally, I’m against any change. I share Django’s opinion:

The SCL format is fantastic and doesn't need to be changed. The starting point of this conversation should be: "Does SCL need to change?" and then if the answer yes, decide in what way and which tiers suit that goal the best. All the arguments for Draft inclusion (popularity, integration with other team tournaments, transferability) can also be applied to ZU, Monotype, and even Randbats. But none of those factors answers the core question of why SCL needs to change.

Even if I feel that SCL V had less hype than SCL IV, I don’t think that was a format issue.

I genuinely feel that the SCL format is already optimized as the major official team tour to highlight low tiers.

But in the end, Lax was on point:

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is if the TDs decide that adding Draft + ZU/OU4 will make SCL a more competitive tour and a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

I think Smogon’s biggest objective should be player enjoyment, community inclusion, and promoting a competitive environment. So if a change is made to accomplish that ,even if I’m personally against it , I understand.

That said, one alternative option to give different formats a chance would be to introduce a rotational invite slot.

For example:
Year 1: ZU
Year 2: Draft
Year 3: Monotype
...

 

[olivia]

In my opinion, Draft trying to take SCL as their trophy tour is a very shortsighted approach to handling the huge potential that the format has. If I were part of the community, I wouldn’t be asking to change this tour, but instead I’d be looking at Draft as this future bastion of Smogon and arguing that it deserves its own unique trophy tour because of it. The format is so different from usage based singles and so popular that this feels like a much better natural progression for the format, even if it takes a little longer. Adding Draft to SCL is a long fight that probably pushes off that future by a good bit. Draft would become no different than NU site standing wise when it’s an entirely different, fun, and dynamic way to play mons with an awesome future on the site. Don’t hamstring yourselves over SCL, work towards something greater.

This post is incredibly baffling to me as the general sentiment boils down to "Why are you asking for something you have a low chance of getting when instead you could be asking for something you have zero chance of getting instead?"

Once again most of the people against Draft in SCL haven't really provided any tangible reasons as for why it doesn't belong other than "Well I like SCL as it is and am against change so we should do what I want"

Trying to discredit Draft's chances of inclusion by moving the goalposts and derailing the thread with nonsense non-starter solutions is admirable but unfortunately incredibly transparent. Why are we even talking about ZU? Go make a ZU thread ffs.

Y'all are so repulsed by the idea of this nonstandard format being represented in a big tour that I eagerly await the big leagueing and crab in a bucket mentality when the 'Draft deserves a trophy tour' thread comes around.

 

[dice]

Once again most of the people against Draft in SCL haven't really provided any tangible reasons as for why it doesn't belong other than "Well I like SCL as it is and am against change so we should do what I want"

… what more are you expecting? Highly recommend reading every tier inclusion policy thread for the last decade prior to engaging in one. These are quite literally the most subjective bickerings that exist in policy. And ultimately, the onus is not on them for arguing to effect change. Welcome.

 

[olivia]

… what more are you expecting? Highly recommend reading every tier inclusion policy thread for the last decade prior to engaging in one. These are quite literally the most subjective bickerings that exist in policy. And ultimately, the onus is not on them for arguing to effect change. Welcome.

tragically it would appear that in your rush to share your condescension you forgot to say anything of substance whatsoever. Anyway there are plenty of great arguments towards including Draft in SCL shared in both this thread and the last thread. While I spend my next few hours reading the decades worth of policy posts I would greatly appreciate if you could perhaps rub a few braincells together and get through a post or two of your own.

 

[Triangles]

I personally support whichever option will cause the most outrage.

 

[Tjb145]

I'm just gonna hop in here and leave my two cents, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody since I formerly ran the tier, I am in fact an advocate for Draft's inclusion in SCL, and I feel that it would be a privilege that at this stage Draft has shown it would be deserving of.

The format itself has only been on the site for just over 3 years, but in that time we have had one of the biggest events ever hosted on the site, consistently hosted events during our circuit with vast signup numbers that shows an incredibly healthy tier and community both here and in our community Discord (not even mentioning the amount of privately hosted leagues held off site in a wide variety of tiers with their own philosophy's), hosted team tours showcasing the highest calibre the community has to offer and more recently, integrated the tier into other Smogon team tours that Princess Autumn outlined in the OP. All of this highlights the fantastic place draft is in right now, and I personally believe that the logical next step is to platform the format on a more site wide recognised stage.

Draft is most certainly a different format compared to the others that are in this event, due to its different nature entirely from the inclusion of a drafting phase (that actually fits in nicely with PR week instead of other solutions used elsewhere) and the relatively simple to grasp nature of "you have to prep for these 8 mons" instead of covering for every possible viable metagame threat and replay scouting to put together the best possible catch all solution of a build. The OP outlines the collaborative effort that this tier can bring in a team environment, and while yes I am an advocate for as active a team server as possible to figure out the best possible solutions for the matchup at hand, this will not be everyone's cup of tea. The solution? There are plenty of fantastic players that can be relied upon to play or support the tier, some of whom are incredibly familiar faces across the community that have picked up the format on the side at different times and have fallen in love with it (or some who started from draft and then decided to try other tiers because they enjoy competitive Pokémon). The core ideas are the exact same as any other team tour game, the techs are just even more specific and can lead to some incredible moments to watch, because watching high quality draft league games live is a pretty cool experience, regardless of your know how of the format.

I have seen plenty of people say that the format of this event is great the way it is and in all honesty, I don't really have a rebuttal to that if that's the feeling of the majority. I personally feel that this event would be the perfect way to highlight draft at a higher level to more people that aren't as connected to the format, and it might lead to more people wanting to try it out and fall in love with it, and the more people loving draft the happier it makes us at the end of the day. As lax said, the hard part is going to be getting the format integrated but if it does, I have a feeling it won't be going anywhere any time soon.

As a sole draft head, I'm not majorly fussed about what the other tier included is, but it seems as though there are other tiers that have somewhat similar ideas of wanting to take their tier to the next level with inclusion in an event of this calibre, and it would be pretty cool to get to shine the spotlight on these tiers.

TLDR: Include draft, it won't be a regretted decision!

 

[Addison]

Sure, the draft section of Smogon gets a lot of signups but you could just as easily argue that if you include the ladder then the amount of say, Ubers being played absolutely dwarfs the amount of Smogon Draft being played. Maybe if there was a world where Draft had a ladder it’d be more popular but the point is we don’t live in that world so anyone who wants to play Draft has to signup for these forum tournaments —that is to say I’m not surprised that the signup numbers are so inflated.

But to avoid going down that rabbit hole, the main problem I have with your premise is that it treats popularity as the ultimate factor in what should be in SCL. But by that logic a tier like Monotype which is much more popular in all regards compared to say, NU, would already be in SCL. The reality is that things like competitive value, pedigree, history on Smogon and a feeling of cohesiveness with the other tiers in SCL matter more, which I think draft is lacking, especially the latter. Case in point; The recent Randbats circuit tournament also got ~550 signups, just like the Draft seasonal in question, but nobody is expecting to see Randbats in SCL any time soon despite the fact that the gameplay experience is more similar to standard formats, especially non-team preview ones, compared to Draft. The argument shouldn’t be “Draft is a popular way to play pokemon and therefore needs to be in SCL”, it should be trying to convince people of why the SCL format needs to change in the first place, and if it does, why draft would be the best pick in terms of cohesion with the other tiers and competitive value added for players and managers, which currently many people including myself are skeptical of.

You're presupposing my intentions in my post. I'm merely fact checking your original point that assumes most of the draft community "has to" occupy the seasonals, which is a massive misrepresentation. I don't really care personally whether Draft is in SCL, nor am I even familiar with the current SCL format. However, if SCL exists, in part, to honor some of Smogons most popular formats then I do beleive Draft, alongside potientially Monotype or even Randbats deserve that recognition. But you're right, SCL might not be the place for that, but then my question is: what is?

Maybe that comes in the form of promoting DCL to a trophy tournament (given its probably about as competitive as SCL). Maybe it comes in the form of a new tournament, maybe theres a different trophy tour it would be better included in. Point is, Draft deserves some recognition of its popularity on the site somewhere on this level.

Thats all I wanted to point out. Enjoy your day.