I thot everyone wanted the d
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SPL X - Commencement Thread
- Thread starter Saria
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you have to win games to have "Victory" in your name
Because we were the first one done, and got the idea to add that feature after it was already published and we were talking about doing the rest of the teams.
Please take your time and watch this video explaining menci's side of the situation. I think this situation as a whole has been super unfortunate and I am of the opinion that you guys should rethink your decision of (team)tournamentbanning him for a year. Menci never caused trouble in his teamchat and you ban him for being a teamcancer? Maybe you should start working on a definition of the term 'teamcancer' as I personally didn't know that you can get banned for 'low overall activity'. It seems obvious that the Raiders might want a more useful slot there and that's completely okay but are we really banning people from the teamchannel and everything now before giving them the chance to explain their side of the story? Is this really the way situations like this should be handled? Come on...
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Could you please kindly go back to wondering about Zygarde's (questionable) ban instead please? Thanks.
For the record I'm not stopping anyone questioning the menci situation.
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Could you please kindly let us go back to someone getting tourbanned because the managers wanted someone else
I, too, am waiting for #justiceforchras.
If there was a place where I could openly disagree with you guys, not fearing punishment, I'd go there.
Guess I'll kindly go back to wondering about menci's ban instead
You guys really think xray cares about another team's player getting tour ban... Hes just mad because he has just lost one of his wcop players :cwl:
hikari's been banning people since before most of you were born. i'd let him ban my own mother if he thought it was deserved. don't fuckin question the governor.
So our tourban for team cancer policy has existed since SSD1 without complaints. And we announced the new SPL sellback policy that we would only allow sellbacks in cases of cancering and that selling back a player meant you'd have to prove they were banworthy back on November 3, and this is the first time anyone has brought up issues with it:
Now granted, that's from a tour policy thread back in the beginning of November. I'd hope that any potential manager would read all those SPL policy threads, but I guess it's easy to miss. I mean it's entirely possible that the Raiders management skipped that one, and therefore didn't understand the implications of selling menci back when they...
...oh.
So to me, there are really only two ways to look at this: either menci was a team cancer, and therefore should be tourbanned, or he wasn't, and so he shouldn't be sold back. So was he a team cancer? Hell, I don't know. I can't actually answer that question. I don't have access to the Raiders chat or the PMs between menci and his managers. That said, I do trust Hikari's judgment, and Raiders did have to invite Hikari into their chat and provide evidence to support their claim. From how the hosts have described the situation, menci wasn't just quiet; he was actively asked to participate, both in the tiers he agreed to play and in tiers he does not, and outright refused. If menci has evidence that contradicts that, he's more than welcome to provide it, and should send it directly to Hikari.
So yeah, ultimately the only question that matters to me here is whether or not menci qualifies as a team cancer. If you sign up to be on a team tour you're expected to meaningfully contribute in SOME way. I don't think a manager should be able to force you to play a tier you didn't sign up for (lol sorry Mana), and if that's the only basis for the Raiders claim that menci is cancering, then yeah it's probably unjustified. But from what I've been told (and again, I don't have access to logs and so I don't know everything about the situation), there was more going on than just that.
What I DON'T think should be an option is the mealy-mouthed in-between option of letting him be sold back but otherwise face no consequences for cancering. That's how you go back to the days of players trying to dictate what teams they land on, or getting butthurt that they didn't get to start and spending the whole season sulking instead of helping. And if he didn't actually cancer... well, why should the Raiders get a free pick off the undrafted list because they screwed up and drafted a BW sub instead of an RBY sub or whatever? Should we just let teams ditch all the players that didn't meet expectations at mids and start fresh? Should there be zero consequences for managers making risky draft choices? Why should teams hold money in reserve to shore up weak spots in their roster at mids, like the Tigers did, when they can instead just shuffle out anyone who isn't as useful as they'd hoped?
For what it's worth, I WOULD be OK with eliminating sellbacks entirely next year. As a manager, you make your bed and you lie in it—I'm 100% OK with that idea. This way there's no "advantage" to trying to prove a player is banworthy (though any manager who would actively try to get one of their players banned unjustly in exchange for a 3k undrafted pick is, um, not a nice person). You can still report players for cancering to have them officially removed from the team roster next year, and so there are still consequences for cancering, but there won't be an incentive for managers to report less clear-cut cases. We kept sellbacks in its current form because from talking to people, folks did want teams to have some recourse from active bad behavior by their players. But we could also eliminate them entirely and not have to worry about this, or use the existing policy but move the sellback deadline to week one (so that you can still use it for people who just like refuse to join the chat or throw a fit because they didn't get on their buddy's team, but can't try to use it for people who just didn't fit on the team in the way you'd hoped). If that's a direction people want to go, I'd support that.
(Emphasis mine.)
Now granted, that's from a tour policy thread back in the beginning of November. I'd hope that any potential manager would read all those SPL policy threads, but I guess it's easy to miss. I mean it's entirely possible that the Raiders management skipped that one, and therefore didn't understand the implications of selling menci back when they...
...oh.
So to me, there are really only two ways to look at this: either menci was a team cancer, and therefore should be tourbanned, or he wasn't, and so he shouldn't be sold back. So was he a team cancer? Hell, I don't know. I can't actually answer that question. I don't have access to the Raiders chat or the PMs between menci and his managers. That said, I do trust Hikari's judgment, and Raiders did have to invite Hikari into their chat and provide evidence to support their claim. From how the hosts have described the situation, menci wasn't just quiet; he was actively asked to participate, both in the tiers he agreed to play and in tiers he does not, and outright refused. If menci has evidence that contradicts that, he's more than welcome to provide it, and should send it directly to Hikari.
So yeah, ultimately the only question that matters to me here is whether or not menci qualifies as a team cancer. If you sign up to be on a team tour you're expected to meaningfully contribute in SOME way. I don't think a manager should be able to force you to play a tier you didn't sign up for (lol sorry Mana), and if that's the only basis for the Raiders claim that menci is cancering, then yeah it's probably unjustified. But from what I've been told (and again, I don't have access to logs and so I don't know everything about the situation), there was more going on than just that.
What I DON'T think should be an option is the mealy-mouthed in-between option of letting him be sold back but otherwise face no consequences for cancering. That's how you go back to the days of players trying to dictate what teams they land on, or getting butthurt that they didn't get to start and spending the whole season sulking instead of helping. And if he didn't actually cancer... well, why should the Raiders get a free pick off the undrafted list because they screwed up and drafted a BW sub instead of an RBY sub or whatever? Should we just let teams ditch all the players that didn't meet expectations at mids and start fresh? Should there be zero consequences for managers making risky draft choices? Why should teams hold money in reserve to shore up weak spots in their roster at mids, like the Tigers did, when they can instead just shuffle out anyone who isn't as useful as they'd hoped?
For what it's worth, I WOULD be OK with eliminating sellbacks entirely next year. As a manager, you make your bed and you lie in it—I'm 100% OK with that idea. This way there's no "advantage" to trying to prove a player is banworthy (though any manager who would actively try to get one of their players banned unjustly in exchange for a 3k undrafted pick is, um, not a nice person). You can still report players for cancering to have them officially removed from the team roster next year, and so there are still consequences for cancering, but there won't be an incentive for managers to report less clear-cut cases. We kept sellbacks in its current form because from talking to people, folks did want teams to have some recourse from active bad behavior by their players. But we could also eliminate them entirely and not have to worry about this, or use the existing policy but move the sellback deadline to week one (so that you can still use it for people who just like refuse to join the chat or throw a fit because they didn't get on their buddy's team, but can't try to use it for people who just didn't fit on the team in the way you'd hoped). If that's a direction people want to go, I'd support that.
*steps up to the podium and fixes tie*
gentlemen. i understand that the cryos season hasn't been going the way many of our ardent fans have wanted. for this, i take full responsibility, and issue a heartfelt apology. of course, i love this team more than anyone on smogon, and want nothing more to see it succeed.
i have heard the issues regarding our current opponents - the raiders. i've heard stories about how they have betrayed one of their own, tourbanned him and ruined Germany's world cup solely to get a new RBYer player after their initial choice faced difficulty in deciding whether it was worth it to use the four by far best pokemon in the tier where only like 11 pokemon total are viable. in fact, we've been given new evidence that proves this was an inside job, done by a callous management with no regard to the sanctity of life. screenshot of proof:
as such we consider it our prime mission, our holy charge to come back from the depths of despair and punish this team for the gall to betray one of their own in this way. while our backs may be against the wall, while we may have people predicting a 11 game loss in the week 4 thread, i promise i will work overtime to help end the raiders menace.
thank you all for your time. please wish us luck going forward.
gentlemen. i understand that the cryos season hasn't been going the way many of our ardent fans have wanted. for this, i take full responsibility, and issue a heartfelt apology. of course, i love this team more than anyone on smogon, and want nothing more to see it succeed.
i have heard the issues regarding our current opponents - the raiders. i've heard stories about how they have betrayed one of their own, tourbanned him and ruined Germany's world cup solely to get a new RBYer player after their initial choice faced difficulty in deciding whether it was worth it to use the four by far best pokemon in the tier where only like 11 pokemon total are viable. in fact, we've been given new evidence that proves this was an inside job, done by a callous management with no regard to the sanctity of life. screenshot of proof:
as such we consider it our prime mission, our holy charge to come back from the depths of despair and punish this team for the gall to betray one of their own in this way. while our backs may be against the wall, while we may have people predicting a 11 game loss in the week 4 thread, i promise i will work overtime to help end the raiders menace.
thank you all for your time. please wish us luck going forward.
why do you think managers want to get players banned? you think managers like going through parts of the season down a player? you think managers like having auction picks blow up in their face? you think managers like having to deal with this kind of bullshit? you think managers want to boot somebody they invested time, auction funds, or both into?
there is no tactical advantage to "getting a player banned". the cryos have been playing all season with 1 sub. by the time mids are over, they'll have been playing with 13 players for 5 weeks, more than half the season. they'll only have a full roster for 4 weeks. the raiders have been trying to find some consistency in their rby slot, and the earliest they can get a replacement in is week 6. you think theres an advantage to that, just because they can get a do over for weeks 6-9? there's solid players available at mids but this year in particular there's no mid-season august or heist to save a team.
sellbacks are never good for a manager, for the team, or for the players. if you sign up in spl, be prepared to play some mons. if you're a sub, try and help out as much as you can. managers aren't looking for miracle workers, we look for effort. from what i've read, there was little effort put forth in this case even after the managers asked for help.
whether or not there should be a year long tour ban is up for debate. however, sellbacks should absolutely remain a last-ditch option for managers to recoup at least some value from a shitty situation, and not permanently penalize the team for one player's actions (or non-actions). the fact that the only way to get full value on a sellback is if you only bought the player for the min in auction, coupled with having a dead spot on your roster for 5/9 weeks (and not being able to retain the player after either!) is enough disincentive for managers so they don't pull the trigger without a damn good reason.
Alright so I pretty loosely follow SPL. Honestly I only watch UU and I barley know half of these players. I couldnt care less about World Cup or any of that stuff.
But that being said, this system is literally the dumbest garbage I have ever seen. It doesnt benefit anyone and hurts literally everyone involved. I am going to give a full hypothetical and show you how stupid this is.
So SPL starts up and I sign up for UU. I'm not super well known but one manager takes a risk on me because they have seen me do well in some other minor tours. I get bought for 3000 and I'm wicked pumped to get to be part of the team.
Unfortunately my manger, his/her name is ManagerX in this hypothetical, already drafted the best UU player in the pool. Let's call them UUGod. So it's whatever I know I will never get to play but it will still be fun to be part of the team and help UUGod prep and all that.
So week 1 comes around and I message UUGod on Showdown and say hey man, this is the match up I expect and this is what I think and I made a rough outline of what I expect our opponent to bring so I can use it versus you so you can practice. UUGod says sorry man, I'm actually pretty busy and I have already prepped. So I think okay that's fine and do nothing. Realistically UUGod just doesnt really respect me because they dont know me and they think I cant really help so they dont want to waste their time. Either way I dont have much else to contribute to the team because I only UU.
So three weeks go by and I basically say nothing in discord because what do I have to say. UUGod is 3-0 and just smashed every week and I just got knocked out of Seasonals R2 so they respect me even less and never want me to help them prep even though I always try to talk to them on PS.
However, our NU player has basically shit the bed and got slammed all three weeks and we have no NU subs. On top of that our team is 0-3 and struggling. So ManagerX messages me and says hey I know you only play UU but I would like you to try to sub for NU next week.
So this give me EIGHT fucking days to learn how to play a whole new tier I have literally never played and then I am expected to play this tier against one of the best NU players in general.
Well since I'm 25 years old I have a job so I cant play during the day. I also have a girlfriend who I like to spend a few nights a week with. So this give me five nights from 7pm-12am to learn NU. That's only 25 hours of play time. Luckily my girlfriend is cool as shit and says it's okay if I practice PLAYING POKEMON ONLINE instead of hanging out with her for a few days so I can get the extra hours in. So I practice and prep the best I can and two days before ManagerX says hey Cash sorry we are actually just gunna let our RU sub play because he said he can play NU decently.
Kind of a relief to me honestly because now I dont have to go get beaten down in some random tier I dont play in front of the whole community on STours.
That week goes by and ManagerX messages me again and says he we actually need a sub for BW OU this week and I want you to do it. So I am not leaning another whole tier to maybe/maybe not get to play. I already sacrificed a week of my life for this once before and got nothing out of it. So I tell ManagerX look but I dont think I can really do that. It's a lot of time for me to put in and I have some IRL stuff I would like to do since I skipped it all last week to learn NU for the team. ManagerX says no problem buddy, but realistically our team is complete ass and they need to try to fix things.
ManagerX and I are cool but not really friends. So they need the credits back because we need a BW player badly to turn the season around. Realistically I will never start because UUGod is on a hot streak so I dont really have any value. ManagerX realizes that I cant do anything for the team and sees a way to use me as a scapegoat so they can get some credits back by midseason to buy someone else. So the TDs come to discord and see I never contributed and I get banned for year.
So now I am banned for a year, ManagerX looks like a total scumbag and then tries to tell me they didnt want me banned, and the TD's get all sorts of heat for the ban.
What did I do wrong in that situation? Like honestly what the was I supposed to do? Am I really team cancer for that?
I play one tier, UU but I am supposed to sacrifice so much IRL to maybe get a chance to play a random tier for a team Manager who doesnt give a fuck about me?
I am not trying to say that is what happened to menci. I dont know menci at all, he might be the biggest dickhead on the planet and was actually team cancer. Maybe Kaori is the one at fault and was just shit talking their players behind their backs and just threw menci under the bus. I have no clue what happened.
All I am trying to say is that is absolutely INSANE to me that a situation like that could even be a possibility. It's straight up disgusting that that is how the rules work.
How someone who did nothing really wrong could get so easily punished for a whole year. People love this site and people love mons. This is what makes them happy and this is what takes them away from the real world and I think everyone here would agree sometimes that's needed. But now because of basically doing nothing wrong, I cant enjoy what I love for a year? How could that ever be fair?
I dont know all the Tour Directors but I know Hogg and you are a really good dude. So change some of this because it really is ridiculous. And honestly Hikari, I dont really know you personally but I always respected the hell out of you because you are one of the only people who have been on PS as long as I have. You have seen how far we have come over the last 7+ years but I was could not have been more disappointed by seeing your response in that video. That was so passive aggressive and just unneeded.
So yeah that's all I have to say. If you need help fixing this and restructuring or whatever literally let me know. I do workplace leadership as part of my professional career and I would be happy to hop on discord and try to fix this for the community. Goodluck with the games everyone. Later
But that being said, this system is literally the dumbest garbage I have ever seen. It doesnt benefit anyone and hurts literally everyone involved. I am going to give a full hypothetical and show you how stupid this is.
So SPL starts up and I sign up for UU. I'm not super well known but one manager takes a risk on me because they have seen me do well in some other minor tours. I get bought for 3000 and I'm wicked pumped to get to be part of the team.
Unfortunately my manger, his/her name is ManagerX in this hypothetical, already drafted the best UU player in the pool. Let's call them UUGod. So it's whatever I know I will never get to play but it will still be fun to be part of the team and help UUGod prep and all that.
So week 1 comes around and I message UUGod on Showdown and say hey man, this is the match up I expect and this is what I think and I made a rough outline of what I expect our opponent to bring so I can use it versus you so you can practice. UUGod says sorry man, I'm actually pretty busy and I have already prepped. So I think okay that's fine and do nothing. Realistically UUGod just doesnt really respect me because they dont know me and they think I cant really help so they dont want to waste their time. Either way I dont have much else to contribute to the team because I only UU.
So three weeks go by and I basically say nothing in discord because what do I have to say. UUGod is 3-0 and just smashed every week and I just got knocked out of Seasonals R2 so they respect me even less and never want me to help them prep even though I always try to talk to them on PS.
However, our NU player has basically shit the bed and got slammed all three weeks and we have no NU subs. On top of that our team is 0-3 and struggling. So ManagerX messages me and says hey I know you only play UU but I would like you to try to sub for NU next week.
So this give me EIGHT fucking days to learn how to play a whole new tier I have literally never played and then I am expected to play this tier against one of the best NU players in general.
Well since I'm 25 years old I have a job so I cant play during the day. I also have a girlfriend who I like to spend a few nights a week with. So this give me five nights from 7pm-12am to learn NU. That's only 25 hours of play time. Luckily my girlfriend is cool as shit and says it's okay if I practice PLAYING POKEMON ONLINE instead of hanging out with her for a few days so I can get the extra hours in. So I practice and prep the best I can and two days before ManagerX says hey Cash sorry we are actually just gunna let our RU sub play because he said he can play NU decently.
Kind of a relief to me honestly because now I dont have to go get beaten down in some random tier I dont play in front of the whole community on STours.
That week goes by and ManagerX messages me again and says he we actually need a sub for BW OU this week and I want you to do it. So I am not leaning another whole tier to maybe/maybe not get to play. I already sacrificed a week of my life for this once before and got nothing out of it. So I tell ManagerX look but I dont think I can really do that. It's a lot of time for me to put in and I have some IRL stuff I would like to do since I skipped it all last week to learn NU for the team. ManagerX says no problem buddy, but realistically our team is complete ass and they need to try to fix things.
ManagerX and I are cool but not really friends. So they need the credits back because we need a BW player badly to turn the season around. Realistically I will never start because UUGod is on a hot streak so I dont really have any value. ManagerX realizes that I cant do anything for the team and sees a way to use me as a scapegoat so they can get some credits back by midseason to buy someone else. So the TDs come to discord and see I never contributed and I get banned for year.
So now I am banned for a year, ManagerX looks like a total scumbag and then tries to tell me they didnt want me banned, and the TD's get all sorts of heat for the ban.
What did I do wrong in that situation? Like honestly what the was I supposed to do? Am I really team cancer for that?
I play one tier, UU but I am supposed to sacrifice so much IRL to maybe get a chance to play a random tier for a team Manager who doesnt give a fuck about me?
I am not trying to say that is what happened to menci. I dont know menci at all, he might be the biggest dickhead on the planet and was actually team cancer. Maybe Kaori is the one at fault and was just shit talking their players behind their backs and just threw menci under the bus. I have no clue what happened.
All I am trying to say is that is absolutely INSANE to me that a situation like that could even be a possibility. It's straight up disgusting that that is how the rules work.
How someone who did nothing really wrong could get so easily punished for a whole year. People love this site and people love mons. This is what makes them happy and this is what takes them away from the real world and I think everyone here would agree sometimes that's needed. But now because of basically doing nothing wrong, I cant enjoy what I love for a year? How could that ever be fair?
I dont know all the Tour Directors but I know Hogg and you are a really good dude. So change some of this because it really is ridiculous. And honestly Hikari, I dont really know you personally but I always respected the hell out of you because you are one of the only people who have been on PS as long as I have. You have seen how far we have come over the last 7+ years but I was could not have been more disappointed by seeing your response in that video. That was so passive aggressive and just unneeded.
So yeah that's all I have to say. If you need help fixing this and restructuring or whatever literally let me know. I do workplace leadership as part of my professional career and I would be happy to hop on discord and try to fix this for the community. Goodluck with the games everyone. Later
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I just read through all the information aviable to me and I can't believe this is really happening.
1. "Team Cancer" is such a pathetic term to classify bannable behaviour. What kind of TD would put such a vague slang phrase in a serious set of rules? Please tell me this is a joke.
2. menci got tourbanned without being able to make a statement in any way. Not only that but he is not allowed to PROPERLY defend himself afterwards.
3. Hikari's answer in the infraction appeals thread is COMPLETLY INAPPROPRIATE for a judge. Attacking the accused is not what an admin is supposed to do. Do all admins here behave like that?
Curious how danilo got banned btw. His sign-up post says "just put me in vs ojama ". Why would you draft that guy and expect him to do anything especially if the thread says that people who dont sign up in the proper format will be ignored?
If I go in for the next SPL and write "I do not want to play for SPL" in the Sign-up thread can a manager draft me and call me "team cancer" because I refuse to play?
1. "Team Cancer" is such a pathetic term to classify bannable behaviour. What kind of TD would put such a vague slang phrase in a serious set of rules? Please tell me this is a joke.
2. menci got tourbanned without being able to make a statement in any way. Not only that but he is not allowed to PROPERLY defend himself afterwards.
3. Hikari's answer in the infraction appeals thread is COMPLETLY INAPPROPRIATE for a judge. Attacking the accused is not what an admin is supposed to do. Do all admins here behave like that?
Curious how danilo got banned btw. His sign-up post says "just put me in vs ojama ". Why would you draft that guy and expect him to do anything especially if the thread says that people who dont sign up in the proper format will be ignored?
If I go in for the next SPL and write "I do not want to play for SPL" in the Sign-up thread can a manager draft me and call me "team cancer" because I refuse to play?
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