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Coming to the end of Most Wanted Nayrz and I wanted to gauge the opinions of the tournament and consolidate discussion on new developments / teams. Feel free to format you team / set dump and discussion as you see fit. If you post in regards to format discussion try to identify an objective strength or weakness of the tour format, and then subsequently suggest implementable changes that improve said aspect without introducing other problems. In my experience hosting and working through the statistics of the Tournament Standings Sheet, these are my conclusions:
Strengths:
- The entire framework of the tour demands strategy in addition to the games played within its framework
- In contrast to UPL this tour is climatic and builds momentum
- Teams have to severely underperform to be considered out before the final week, where in UPL teams can easily be out after just the 3rd or 4th week
- Players are matched against players of similar bounty, often resulting in more exciting pairings each week
- The bounty system adds hype to individual player streaks, and as a constant metric of tour performance
- The aspect of player eliminations in a team tour setting raises stakes and adds a sense of permanence to wins that cause elimination
- There is more freedom and flexibility in drafting strategy since a locked number of tiers don't need to be filled each week
- The format incentivizes players to try tiers they are less familiar with or we don't usually get to see them in
- The tour begins with teams on more equal footing as compared to UPL
- The bounty system was simple to manage and can easily be automated
Weaknesses:
- There is an under-emphasis on old gens
- The final week was largely overshadowed by Garay vs. Dom as this was the major decider in team standings
- The ability for a single player, even with incredible performance, to entirely carry their team to victory is questionable for a team tour
- Assassin matchups too greatly undercut excellent player performance earlier in the tour
- High numbers of assassin matchups in a given week invalidate some of the benefit of being an assassin
- The degree of player elimination was arguably too high due to the pool size compared to the number of weeks played
- The bounty cap of 300,000 was too high to create any substantial short-term pressure
- The format is unfriendly to inactivity or players who cancer
- Post-lineup correspondence and movement of players outside their selected tiers to create even pools are not desirable
I tried to identify an equal number of strengths and weaknesses; however, I think the strengths of the format outweigh the weaknesses and that said weaknesses can be addressed in a future iteration. In conclusion, considering how different the tour is from anything we've done before it mostly ran smoothly. As expected six teams of nine ended up being too small to maintain healthy pools for six tiers, and also meant not many players were able to survive the full length of the tournament. I'll likely post my thoughts on some strategies and changes to the format that would play up the strengths and minimize the weaknesses.
Victory:
• The first team to achieve 300,000 bounty by the end of a given week is the winner
• If two teams manage to achieve 300,000 bounty by the end of the same week, the team that exceeds by a higher margin is the winner
• If no team achieves 300,000 bounty by the end of Week 7, the team with the highest bounty upon the conclusion of Week 7 is the winner
Team Formation:
• Teams will be formed though a snake draft
• Draft order is randomly assigned
Bounty:
• Bounty is held by each player and a team’s bounty is equal to the sum of all its player’s bounties
• A player’s initial bounty is determined by draft position
• All captains have an initial bounty of 20,000
Team & Player Quantities:
• There will be exactly six (6) teams
• Each team will have exactly nine (9) players
• The total number of initial players will therefore be fifty-four (54)
Tier Support & Registration
• Only strict generation tiers will be supported. This means no special tiers such as Best of Three Smogon Tour, etc.
• All battles will be best of one
• At signup, players will register for exactly three (3) of the supported tiers
• Captains may not submit lineups with more than three (3) players in a given tier per week
• Players may freely change tiers every week, but may only play tiers that they registered for at signup
• Tiers that receive less than two (2) matchups in a given week will be declared dead and will be removed for the remainder of the tournament. All remaining players registered in a tier that is declared dead will swap their registration for one of the remaining tiers.
Benching:
• A team may bench no more than one (1) player per week
• A player may not be benched for consecutive weeks
• Activity losses are treated the same as normal losses
• Players in a "dead game" will not lose bounty, but will lose a life. A player killed by a dead game will have their bounty split between the highest valued players that are not on their team.
Matchups:
• Weekly matchups are determined by a player’s bounty at the start of the week
• Players in a given tier are sorted by bounty and matched against their closest neighbor from top to bottom
• Two or more players with equally close neighbors will be randomly determined
• In the event that an odd number of players register for a tier, the lowest bounty player will be required to select another tier in which they are registered. If no alternate tier with an odd number of entrants is available, said player must be benched that week
Assassin Status:
• Assassin Status can only be gained upon a fourth win and a sixth win, and is effective the following week
• A player with Assassin Status may challenge any player within the tier they selected
• In an Assassin Status matchup, the loser is automatically eliminated from the tournament
• This status is optional and does not have to be taken advantage of by the potential assassin
Bounty Transfer and Player Lives:
• The winning player takes 50% of their opponent’s bounty
• Bounty will not be split into denominations lower than 500, rounded up
• The minimum bounty transaction is 1,000
• Players start with three (3) lives
• A life is lost for every game a player loses
• Players that lose their third life are eliminated for the remainder of the tournament
• When a player eliminates another player, they receive 100% of their remaining bounty
Trades and Administration:
• Trades will not be supported under any circumstances
• Captains may replace those designated as "team cancer" prior to the posting of Week 1 with any player remaining from the draft pool
• These replaced players will be set at the same initial bounty as the removed "team cancer"
This list is not completely exhaustive of every edge case scenario possible - we're trying to keep it readable. Contact the hosts with any further questions.
• The first team to achieve 300,000 bounty by the end of a given week is the winner
• If two teams manage to achieve 300,000 bounty by the end of the same week, the team that exceeds by a higher margin is the winner
• If no team achieves 300,000 bounty by the end of Week 7, the team with the highest bounty upon the conclusion of Week 7 is the winner
Team Formation:
• Teams will be formed though a snake draft
• Draft order is randomly assigned
Bounty:
• Bounty is held by each player and a team’s bounty is equal to the sum of all its player’s bounties
• A player’s initial bounty is determined by draft position
• All captains have an initial bounty of 20,000
Team & Player Quantities:
• There will be exactly six (6) teams
• Each team will have exactly nine (9) players
• The total number of initial players will therefore be fifty-four (54)
Tier Support & Registration
• Only strict generation tiers will be supported. This means no special tiers such as Best of Three Smogon Tour, etc.
• All battles will be best of one
• At signup, players will register for exactly three (3) of the supported tiers
• Captains may not submit lineups with more than three (3) players in a given tier per week
• Players may freely change tiers every week, but may only play tiers that they registered for at signup
• Tiers that receive less than two (2) matchups in a given week will be declared dead and will be removed for the remainder of the tournament. All remaining players registered in a tier that is declared dead will swap their registration for one of the remaining tiers.
Benching:
• A team may bench no more than one (1) player per week
• A player may not be benched for consecutive weeks
• Activity losses are treated the same as normal losses
• Players in a "dead game" will not lose bounty, but will lose a life. A player killed by a dead game will have their bounty split between the highest valued players that are not on their team.
Matchups:
• Weekly matchups are determined by a player’s bounty at the start of the week
• Players in a given tier are sorted by bounty and matched against their closest neighbor from top to bottom
• Two or more players with equally close neighbors will be randomly determined
• In the event that an odd number of players register for a tier, the lowest bounty player will be required to select another tier in which they are registered. If no alternate tier with an odd number of entrants is available, said player must be benched that week
Assassin Status:
• Assassin Status can only be gained upon a fourth win and a sixth win, and is effective the following week
• A player with Assassin Status may challenge any player within the tier they selected
• In an Assassin Status matchup, the loser is automatically eliminated from the tournament
• This status is optional and does not have to be taken advantage of by the potential assassin
Bounty Transfer and Player Lives:
• The winning player takes 50% of their opponent’s bounty
• Bounty will not be split into denominations lower than 500, rounded up
• The minimum bounty transaction is 1,000
• Players start with three (3) lives
• A life is lost for every game a player loses
• Players that lose their third life are eliminated for the remainder of the tournament
• When a player eliminates another player, they receive 100% of their remaining bounty
Trades and Administration:
• Trades will not be supported under any circumstances
• Captains may replace those designated as "team cancer" prior to the posting of Week 1 with any player remaining from the draft pool
• These replaced players will be set at the same initial bounty as the removed "team cancer"
This list is not completely exhaustive of every edge case scenario possible - we're trying to keep it readable. Contact the hosts with any further questions.
