I think peng pretty much said the same thing in his posts, but here are some more thoughts and a proposal:
- Snake as a whole need to be rebranded/remade; the current iteration of the tournament is simply not good for many reasons. Before you think this just comes from a boomer who don't wanna get into new gens, I just want to say that EW's survey result clearly shows I'm not the only one who thinks that. It's actually sad that a team tournament has such bad notoriety, especially when it only features current gens, which should have the most attraction.
- To further talk about Snake, the Draft system is genuinely straight up bad and not as interesting as an auction system. I understand it was made just so we don't have another SPL, but at some point you gotta face reality and acknowledge it's bad. Many reasons were already mentionned in the thread, granted I havent read every single words of it but I gotta mention that the retain system of SPL is actually good to create a sense of history and dynasty through retains, which is a thing that doesnt exist with the Draft.
- I've read many times that "Snake still gotta grow to become established and its own thing". We're on the 4th year and it's still ass. SPL was amazing from the get-go. Not that previous SPL didnt have its share of issues but the level of hype and prestige was there from the start. Clearly still not a thing with Snake.
- Lot more personal/biased here, but I think the Snake gimmick/names are really bad and doesn't add prestige to it at all. Would be interested to gather opinions on the matter through another survey.
- To go back on one of the biggest issue that surfaces every year with SPL: the inclusion (and deletion now) of tiers in the tournament. No matter what opinion/reasonning you bring up to justify the final decisions, some tiers and subsequent playerbases are gonna feel shafted. Ideally, everything should be included but it's not possible as is.
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So now, here comes the proposal (which is not new, it's just Hogg's idea lol):
- Rebrand Snake completely. Make it more prestigious. Give it a SPL system so we can create history and dysnaties there too. This new Snake/SPL must be CG only. If it was up to me I'd give it a new name and possibly a new trophy while nuking the old one (easy to say as someone who didn't care much about Snake until now, so I understand if many people disagree here).
- As a result, the Old and Historical SPL becomes OU only. This way we have two prestigious/hype tournaments, one that includes every gen and the other that includes every CG tiers. There is no problem to include/delete tiers anymore, at least for a very long time until we get into double digit number of generations. Everyone should be happy with that right?
However one issue remains if this passes: the schedule. I feel like Team Tours need some time in-between for the hype to build up. Currently, having two SPL-like tournaments follow each other (in an hypotherical world where SSD becomes New-SPL) would feel wrong to me (subjective take) but yeah, I feel like this can just be worked around anyway.
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Completely separate subject, but WCOP should be kept imo, it's SUCH a big deal for non-english communities at least. It's not a balanced tour, but it's not meant to be one from its very core. That's how nations-based tournaments work in every sports in the history of ever. Make the trophy non-permanent if you want to reduce the lack of balance has on the online clout long-term maybe?
- Snake as a whole need to be rebranded/remade; the current iteration of the tournament is simply not good for many reasons. Before you think this just comes from a boomer who don't wanna get into new gens, I just want to say that EW's survey result clearly shows I'm not the only one who thinks that. It's actually sad that a team tournament has such bad notoriety, especially when it only features current gens, which should have the most attraction.
- To further talk about Snake, the Draft system is genuinely straight up bad and not as interesting as an auction system. I understand it was made just so we don't have another SPL, but at some point you gotta face reality and acknowledge it's bad. Many reasons were already mentionned in the thread, granted I havent read every single words of it but I gotta mention that the retain system of SPL is actually good to create a sense of history and dynasty through retains, which is a thing that doesnt exist with the Draft.
- I've read many times that "Snake still gotta grow to become established and its own thing". We're on the 4th year and it's still ass. SPL was amazing from the get-go. Not that previous SPL didnt have its share of issues but the level of hype and prestige was there from the start. Clearly still not a thing with Snake.
- Lot more personal/biased here, but I think the Snake gimmick/names are really bad and doesn't add prestige to it at all. Would be interested to gather opinions on the matter through another survey.
- To go back on one of the biggest issue that surfaces every year with SPL: the inclusion (and deletion now) of tiers in the tournament. No matter what opinion/reasonning you bring up to justify the final decisions, some tiers and subsequent playerbases are gonna feel shafted. Ideally, everything should be included but it's not possible as is.
------
So now, here comes the proposal (which is not new, it's just Hogg's idea lol):
- Rebrand Snake completely. Make it more prestigious. Give it a SPL system so we can create history and dysnaties there too. This new Snake/SPL must be CG only. If it was up to me I'd give it a new name and possibly a new trophy while nuking the old one (easy to say as someone who didn't care much about Snake until now, so I understand if many people disagree here).
- As a result, the Old and Historical SPL becomes OU only. This way we have two prestigious/hype tournaments, one that includes every gen and the other that includes every CG tiers. There is no problem to include/delete tiers anymore, at least for a very long time until we get into double digit number of generations. Everyone should be happy with that right?
However one issue remains if this passes: the schedule. I feel like Team Tours need some time in-between for the hype to build up. Currently, having two SPL-like tournaments follow each other (in an hypotherical world where SSD becomes New-SPL) would feel wrong to me (subjective take) but yeah, I feel like this can just be worked around anyway.
------
Completely separate subject, but WCOP should be kept imo, it's SUCH a big deal for non-english communities at least. It's not a balanced tour, but it's not meant to be one from its very core. That's how nations-based tournaments work in every sports in the history of ever. Make the trophy non-permanent if you want to reduce the lack of balance has on the online clout long-term maybe?