Amazing artwork made by vmnunes
Primarily reusing last year's OP, originally stolen from Fc
The Draft League subforum is ready to announce the schedule for the 2027 calendar year! The schedule will show tours in the 2027 Circuit, unofficial tours and team tours. Please note that not all individual tours in this post will be apart of the circuit.
The circuit is a collection of individual tournaments spread throughout the year with varying classifications, generations, and formats all coming together to allow players to earn points for the final showdown - the Draft League Championship, where the top 16 performers will battle to earn the title of Circuit Champion, the Draft League Circuit Champion ribbon
and a custom avatar on PS!
Tours that are individuals but not apart of the circuit are unofficials. These tournaments will have distinctly different rulesets and formats, from trusted individuals within the community using the subforum's extensive resources. They may be added at any point throughout the year and the tiering/ruleset will not be held to as high a scrutiny as an official circuit tour. Feel free to reach out if you have a format you'd like to run as an unofficial.
Tours that are individuals but not apart of the circuit are unofficials. These tournaments will have distinctly different rulesets and formats, from trusted individuals within the community using the subforum's extensive resources. They may be added at any point throughout the year and the tiering/ruleset will not be held to as high a scrutiny as an official circuit tour. Feel free to reach out if you have a format you'd like to run as an unofficial.
Type A: Tournaments given a significant weight in the circuit, awarding the most points,. Doing well in Type A tournaments will be of the greatest help to a budding Championship contender. NEW: There will only be one seasonal this year.
Type B: These tours will primarily feature the 3 main past generations of draft as a format (ORAS, USUM and SS) due to their formats being not only past gens but also being far more developed than those formats in type C. While they award fewer points than type A, doing well in each tour will still be worthwhile for those aiming for the Championship. NEW: We've made Champions a Type B tour.
Type C: Tours that are here will tend to revolve around less explored metagames, with the idea being to flesh them out through play testing. There is scope in future years to move some of these tours to type B if they end up flourishing (both on Smogon and in the wider draft community as a whole). This will also be the classification in which OMs and other format draft tours will be placed if we go down those routes. Type C tournaments should be seen as a small bonus towards a Championship run.
Type B: These tours will primarily feature the 3 main past generations of draft as a format (ORAS, USUM and SS) due to their formats being not only past gens but also being far more developed than those formats in type C. While they award fewer points than type A, doing well in each tour will still be worthwhile for those aiming for the Championship. NEW: We've made Champions a Type B tour.
Type C: Tours that are here will tend to revolve around less explored metagames, with the idea being to flesh them out through play testing. There is scope in future years to move some of these tours to type B if they end up flourishing (both on Smogon and in the wider draft community as a whole). This will also be the classification in which OMs and other format draft tours will be placed if we go down those routes. Type C tournaments should be seen as a small bonus towards a Championship run.
Key: Tournament Name | Signups date | Expected Finals date | Tour Type | Host
:deerling-winter: Winter :sawsbuck-winter:
:gardevoir-mega: ORAS V: 3rd January - 29th March (Type B), hosted by ? & ? :keldeo:
:tyranitar: BW III: 17th January - 29th March (Unofficial), hosted by ? & ? :reuniclus:
:deerling: Spring :sawsbuck:
:gallade: NatDex Low Tier V: 22nd February - 9th May (Type C), hosted by ? & ? :shaymin:
:dragonite-mega: Champions II: 29th March - 20th June (Type B), hosted by ? & ? :greninja-mega:
:floette-mega: VGC V: 11th April - 20th June (Unofficial), hosted by ? & ? :basculegion:
:deerling-summer: Summer :sawsbuck-summer:
:chi-yu: Summer Seasonal V: 23rd May - 19th September (Type A), hosted by Happygate & ? :smoliv:
:mewtwo-mega-y: NatDex Ubers IV: 30th May - 15th August (Type C), hosted by ? & ? :marshadow:
:tapu-koko: USUM V: 20th June - 12th September (Type B), hosted by ? & ? :gallade-mega:
:raikou: ADV II: 4th July - 12th September (Unofficial), hosted by ? & ? :snorlax:
:deerling-autumn: Autumn :sawsbuck-autumn:
:diancie-mega: NatDex IV: 5th September - 21st November (Type C), hosted by ? & ? :tinkaton:
:garchomp: SS V: 13th September - 5th December (Type B), hosted by ? & ? :melmetal:
:infernape: DPP III: 26th September - 5th December (Unofficial), hosted by ? & ? :metagross:
:meowscarada:Draft League Championship V :terapagos-terastal:
6th December - 6th February 2028, hosted by ?
:dondozo: Team Tournaments :tatsugiri:
(These will NOT count towards the circuit)
:ninetales-alola: Draft Winter League II: 2nd January - 11th April, hosted by ?, ?, & ? :sandshrew-alola:
:unown-question: Placeholder: 31st January - 11th April, hosted by ?, ?, & ? :unown-question:
:latios: Draft Champions League V: 27th June - 10th October, hosted by ?, ?, & ? :latias:
:flapple: Draft Farm League IV: 25th July - 31st October, hosted by ?, ?, & ? :appletun:
:rotom-heat: S.I.T.R.U.S. Team Circuit VI: ? - ?, hosted by ?, ?, & ? :floette-mega:
Tournament Information
Unless stated otherwise below, all tours will consist of the following: 8 Pokémon per draft, battle pools of 4 players, with all 3-0 or 2-1 players advancing to the single elimination bracket. All games are best-of-one.
Type A
Summer Seasonal: The only Swiss tour within our schedule. SV standard Draft with a Swiss-style schedule into a single elimination bracket. Players can reach the single elimination stage by going X-2 or better in the Swiss.
Type B
ORAS/USUM/SS V/Champions II: Standard individual tours, SS being played with the post-DLC Galar Dex; Champions will be 6v6 Singles in the latest regulation.
Type C
NatDex IV: Classical Champions NatDex but in draft form. Z-Moves, Terastallization, and Hidden Power are banned.
NatDex Ubers IV: Lets unleash almost everything, this will be fine. The only non-8 Pokémon format in the circuit, drafts will consist of 10-12 Pokémon and have a budget of 200 points. There may be more than 8 people per draft pool. Z-Moves, Terastallization, and Hidden Power are banned.
NatDex Low Tier V: Draft's take on RU, what happens when you ban the best Pokémon in standard draft?
Unofficials
BW III: Generation 5 draft.
DPP III: Generation 4 draft.
ADV II: Generation 3 draft.
VGC V: Champions VGC draft, more details will be published once we know the exact timing.
More unofficial tours may be added as the year progresses.
Changes from 2026
There have been a few major changes since the 2026 circuit being:
- Given that we're going into the fifth year of SV, we've cut a seasonal from the schedule entirely and replaced it with a Type B Champions tour.
- To account for the timing of new Champions regulations, its been slotted between ORAS and USUM which have respectively moved slightly to account for this.
- We've also left the last 6 weeks of the year empty to have space for a Winds & Waves Kickoff tour if that becomes a possibility down the line.
- AAA has been removed from the schedule due to low turnout.
- DPP has been moved to the end of the year to account for VGC's regulation time changes and the addition of ADV.
- Low Tier has been changed to NatDex Low Tier.
- All NatDex individual tours will be Champions NatDex.
- This will be played at Lv 50 with the modern SP system.
- Items and Pokémon will be taken from SV NatDex, with new Megas and mechanics being added.
- DCL has been moved forward slightly to allow for a more even break between it and DWL 2028.
- DWL will have ADV added to the pool of flex slots.
- We will be running some kind of tournament for those not in DWL. This has been marked as Placeholder and more information about it will be released down the line.
Tournament Staffing & Hosting
To run this circuit, we'll need people who are willing to staff and tier it. If this interests you, reach out to any Forum Moderator (Princess Autumn, Hacker, OdinRM, vmnunes, goldmason, jscurf, Happygate, or Tidal) via Smogon or Discord. Staffing tours gives you the Tournament Staff role in the Discord, as well as the potential pre-Contributor/Community Contributor/Metagame Resource Contributor badges on Smogon if done consistently well.
A reminder that this is not an exhaustive list of tours that we'll host. We may add more unofficial tours throughout the year. If you'd like to host an unofficial tour, DM a Forum Moderator with an outline.
Here's a graphic with an overview of this year's calendar as it stands. The numbers refer to weeks within the year.