Tiers in SCL

[Hogg]

As this is the time when everyone johns until week three WCOP slows down a bit, I thought this would be a good time to discuss the next big SCL topic: tiers!

We’ve already had a decent bit of discussion on this topic in the St. Patrick’s thread, so I don’t want to spend too much time reiterating what we discussed there. I’m on mobile right now, so linking the post itself is a pain, but based on the previous discussion I think a good starting point is ten playing slots, using the following format:

OU / OU / Ubers / DOU / UU / RU / NU / PU / LC / ???

Why ten? And why not OU x4 over (insert random tier)?

I think this past SPL demonstrated that ten is a great sweet spot for playing slots in a team tour. I know that words like “competitiveness” get tossed around so much that they start to lose their meaning, but for team tournaments, I think that there is always a delicate balance between team support and individual results. Too many playing slots and the former becomes all that matters (who cares about individual results, it’s more valuable to pick up players who can increase the overall team’s winrate by small percentages because with such a large number of games played, those incremental changes will be worth far more than one or two players putting in a great record). Too few playing slots and the opposite is true: there’s no incentive to draft anyone but the absolute superstars, because a single good or bad record has an outsized influence on a team’s outcome.

In my mind ten is the ideal balance. Every individual game still matters, representing 10% of the potential points in any given week, but it’s a large enough number of slots that managers get some flexibility in drafting people who might put out a lower individual record but in turn might boost the records of enough other players by one or two games over the course of a season that they produce value overall. The shift to ten players was by far my favorite part of this year’s SPL, and I would like to see us echo that for SCL.

As for the number of OU slots, four OU slots in Snake always felt just a bit off, and was one of the most common complaints about the Snake format. Especially if we’re talking about ten slots total, having just two or three dedicated to OU seems ideal.

As one of those involved in the original decision to remove Ubers from Snake and Slam (plz don’t kill me), I have to say that the state of Ubers is better than I have seen in years and years. The community is vibrant and active, the metagame is better than it has been in at least two gens (at least from this outsider’s perspective) and the games are genuinely fun to watch. Ubers has a long and storied history within Smogon and has been a part of its major tournament scene for over a decade, and they’ve clearly made great strides to overcome the many obstacles that have been tossed in their way over the past few years. I think it’s time for them to return.

It would be pretty easy to make the last slot a third OU slot and call it a day, but several people in the previous thread proposed another idea: including Monotype. Mono has been an official metagame for several years now, but has yet to be included in a trophy tournament. Now, when the official metagame policy was instituted, one of the explicit caveats was that becoming an official metagame did not guarantee tournament inclusion. I don’t want to imply that we should include it simply because of that official status. However, many of those within the Mono community have been lobbying for inclusion for years.

So, I’d like to narrow the debate to the following: third OU slot or Monotype?

• PROS OF MONOTYPE:
  • New blood. Monotype is a huge and well-established community, with the third-highest forum activity of any official metagame (it’s just a hair behind UU), and significantly more ladder activity than ANY lower tier (consistently breaking 250k battles per month). Adding Monotype could be an opportunity to bring in a significant amount of new talent that otherwise didn’t see a reason to become involved in the tournament scene.
  • Unique format offers lots of opportunity for hype. This one is definitely subjective, but from talking to non-Doubles players, one of the most consistently exciting elements of Doubles in SPL was always getting to see the cool techs that Doubles players would come up with that either wouldn’t work or had never been explored in singles metagames. It led to a ton of hype around Doubles games, and as much as I like the current SPL format it's definitely one of the things I missed the most this year. Monotype is a bit similar in that way, with a lot of wild Mono-specific sets geared toward its unique format. There’s definitely opportunity for some extremely cool games with a lot of hype.
• PROS OF OU x3:
  • Balance with SPL. If SCL is intended to be the showcase of current gen talent, while SPL showcases OU talent across all gens, then it makes sense to have some balance between the two formats. This would mean SCL was OU x3 plus seven non-OU tiers, while SPL was current gen OU x3 plus seven non-current gen OUs.
  • Fewer siloed tiers. One of the oft-referenced issues with Doubles and to a lesser degree Little Cup in SPL was siloization: there just wasn’t a ton of cross-over between Doubles and other tiers/metagames, meaning many teams ended up with DOU as an isolated slot (or else they had to dedicate resources toward multiple players to support a single playing slot). Most other slots didn’t have this problem - in SPL there was almost always enough cross-over with players who played multiple gens, and you see the same thing with most lower tiers. Too many siloed tiers and drafting proper team support becomes a nightmare. SCL will already be including DOU and Little Cup, and Ubers will be seeing a return to an official team tournament for the first time since SSD1. Will adding Monotype mean too many siloed tiers?
  • Avoiding potential ”matchup” issues. I’m a bit wary of including this one, but it was referenced several times, so I wanted to at least include it on the list. Is Monotype too dependent on matchups from team preview to be a valuable addition to the tournament? Several of the Mono players I spoke to actively sought to debunk this argument, pointing out consistency of winrates among top players and tournament games where players overcame terrible matchups to pull off a win, and almost every tier has matchup issues to some degree (see the current discussion on BW OU, for example), but it remains one of the most common concerns people voice whenever Monotype is discussed.

This list is hardly exhaustive; I just wanted to include some of the talking points that I saw brought up when I queried folks. What do you all think? Please voice your thoughts, but also be respectful. Discussion of what to include or not include can be extremely touchy, so I’d like to ask everyone to both argue in good faith, and assume others are doing so as well. Criticism is OK (we can’t really have a discussion without it) but let’s not use it as an excuse to just mindlessly bash a tier, or assume that any criticism is a personal attack.

 

[Vulpix03]

I don't want to write a whole lot, and for the record I am neutral on whether it's ou or mono, however I do want to touch on the "siloed tiers" discussion.

For starters I think mono has more similarities to pu, nu, ru, uu, ou, and ubers than differences. Sure you can only use one type on your team, however the way you play the tier is the same as the rest of gen 8 singles (bar lc). This means that it wouldn't be hard for someone who plays another gen 8 lower tier and/or ou to hop into monotype if needed, as long as they have a team. I believe this is highlighted in many forum PLs that happen throughout the year, most notably mono PL and the Smogon Exhibition, as a lot of non monotype players play mono in these tours and do perfectly fine.

I know this was short, but in conclusion mono is no different from the rest of the ubers-pu tiers in how it's played, so I don't think that it should in any way be considered a siloed tier when discussing it's inclusion.

 

[Ticken]

Monotype 100% deserves to be included into SCL's lineup.

I am no CG Monotype player, and haven't been for years, but I am a Monotype Forum Mod who is still heavily involved in the scene as the main person dealing with its resources, such as creating the Monotype Team Tour Record Compiler, made strides to create comprehensive Seasonal Stats sheets for each Circuit Tournament, aside from MLT, and I have managed in many Monotype Premier Leagues at this point.

I don't think the connotation of Monotype being a matchup reliant metagame will ever go away because it's way too easy to make that connection even without playing a single game of it. It's the easiest argument to make to not include Monotype and it's frankly a lowball to the metagame when there's a lot more it can offer if you take the chance to play and actually try to learn it on a deeper level. There's nothing I can really add that others haven't already mentioned regarding the type matchup and how types that you think would naturally perform poorly vs another, such as Flying having a solid matchup against Electric, actually perform well in practice. I haven't exactly read the entire previous thread, my apologies, but from my perspective as someone who has dabbled in and watched a plethora of metagames apart from Monotype, dare I say the matchup idea also extends to them.

Excuse me if I make any inaccurate claims here but other tiers generally have different playstyles that determine the matchup of a game, think like balance, stall, semi-stall, stallbreaker, HO, bulky offense, screens, webs, weather etc.. Essentially, each playstyle can be translated as a type in Monotype terms, granted many types can use different styles too and still perform well, but the idea is if you really take a look at Monotype's structure and how the metagame is shaped, there isn't much different between it and regular tiers as we think of them. The main difference is you have less Pokemon to choose from when initially building but the limited Pokemon pool is also something that exists in regular tier styles since it's unlikely you'll see a Ttar on HO, for example. Webs perform well vs HO, balance can struggle vs stall, stallbreaker does well vs stall but is more vulnerable to other styles due to how the team works together... If people really think the type matchup is an issue, albeit I won't stand here and say they are all bogus and don't exist because it's unlikely you'll see Psychic beating Ghost, I would be interested to hear what others think when it comes to the playstyle vs type idea as that should definitely be considered.

I would also like to second those who say the people who do well in Pokemon generally do very well in Monotype too. Many, many managers in our major Monotype Team Tournaments like to prep with multiple tournament players on their draft because not only do their skills translate into Monotype still but it's one of the major drafting strats still used today. Going back years there were teams such as the Amber Aeros, led by Lax, who had an entire team stacked with tournament players and they went deep into the bracket narrowly losing in Playoffs Semis-Tiebreaker and the season winning team was also heavily invested into tournament players with people such as Pak, Leru, Lycan, Sabella, etc.. If you look at our most recent Team Tournaments, similar names and new faces remain to do well. Leru's team made finals in back-to-back team tournaments, SoulWind went undefeated in a meta with many established players.. Most of the people who won a Monotype Team Tour season are well-established Tournament players! There's a list names of people who hold rings on the Compiler's Overall Totals sheet to the far right if you don't believe me. Needless to say, if you do well in Pokemon, chances are you stand a solid chance of not only performing well but also thriving well.

Take a look at the Compiler I linked earlier and see how the records for many tournament players everyone knows are. You can also look on the Alt Page to see which tournament they were in and you can go to that Tour's individual record sheet from the Intro Page using the links on the top left. The Intro Page even has links to the Replay threads if you are interested! If you are still skeptical I encourage you to go out and educate your opinion further with the Monotype resources we have available. I didn't bother grammar checking this but I wanted to get my thoughts out on everything considering I stayed out before and I wanted to give another take people in charge of deciding should consider.

 

[Sabella]

I don't want to write a whole lot, and for the record I am neutral on whether it's ou or mono, however I do want to touch on the "siloed tiers" discussion.

For starters I think mono has more similarities to pu, nu, ru, uu, ou, and ubers than differences. Sure you can only use one type on your team, however the way you play the tier is the same as the rest of gen 8 singles (bar lc). This means that it wouldn't be hard for someone who plays another gen 8 lower tier and/or ou to hop into monotype if needed, as long as they have a team. I believe this is highlighted in many forum PLs that happen throughout the year, most notably mono PL and the Smogon Exhibition, as a lot of non monotype players play mono in these tours and do perfectly fine.

I know this was short, but in conclusion mono is no different from the rest of the ubers-pu tiers in how it's played, so I don't think that it should in any way be considered a siloed tier when discussing it's inclusion.

I would agree with this whole heartedly and there's surely proof on the forums spreadsheets. I manage Monotype Premier League nearly every year and every year i try to draft multiple tournament players that have never played monotype before because of the cheap prices i can get them at with a huge potential upside. Examples that come to my mind have been Gondra, Eternal Spirit Pearl Soulgazer and Starmaster. Yes of course these guys are top tier tournament players but they have not had an issue really switching over to the format or performing well (starmaster having one of the best cumulative tournament records in monotype ever). The only issues that usually come across are understanding the building aspect of the metagame which usually just takes time to adjust to but the way it is played is not much different than other singles tiers like vulpix mentioned. Id say it has more similarities with the lower tiers like NU or PU as ive noticed both those tiers are really dependent on the building aspect. This was just a short blurb but i wanted to comment to share my thoughts.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

I cant imagine a reason as to why mono shouldnt be included tbh, at this point they just deserve it. Im very happy seeing ubers being 100% in too.

 

[Denial]

Talked a bit in the scl discord chat but might as well post here to get more posts. First of all, i think we shouldn't have more than 8 tiers, with OU3 being 100% in. As someone who plans to signup as a manager for this, having to address possibly 8 tiers with DOU and LC already working completely differently from all the other tiers in the tour is... not feasible. Trying too hard to be different from SPL would only hurt the tour in my opinion, and the creation of this new tour would be totally pointless.

I've seen some people here arguing that monotype should be included because "good players have been able to play it completely fine", but... that doesn't really make sense? Yes, good pokemon players will be good players wherever you put them, there's no doubt to that. The real question is, is a good Monotype player able to give any sort of support to other tiers?

Now, this obviously isnt a monotype only problem. As mentioned before, DOU and LC have this same problem where their tier is completely different and requires 2-3 players to cover only one slot. And this is totally fine, cause most good Lower Tiers players can help for every single one of them, while with multiple OU slots you would end up drafting at least 5 players anyway. With this, you're able to cover for at least 9 of the slots available in the tour, while still having moneys to spend to focus support on one more specific tier.

 

[Prinz]

give VGC a chance, it has x100 the playerbase of any of those tiers, and it's a good opportunity to make VGC ppl more active in smogon too (zeefable is already doing an amazing job in that)

VGC should be back in either scl/spl imo, there's not reason not to include it in any smogon official tour

 

[z0mOG]

give VGC a chance, it has x100 the playerbase of any of those tiers, and it's a good opportunity to make VGC ppl more active in smogon too (zeefable is already doing an amazing job in that)

VGC should be back in either scl/spl imo, there's not reason not to include it in any smogon official tour

Piggybacking on to this, it would help with keeping DOU players from feeling isolated to their own box due to the natural overlap between formats and player pools. Smogon is clearly showing signs of wanting to incorporate VGC/doubles format more seriously now than ever what with all the work zeefable and the rest of the VGC forum staff have been doing to bring attention and tournaments to the format (and ODST isnt far off-mark either).

My only issue would be denying monotype the equally much deserved tournament representation they have lacked forever, which would not really be fair as VGC wasn't really even in the running along with mono/ou.

My proposal would be to shift the tier count back up to 12, and help make SCL not only completely different from SPL but as great and open of a tournament as possible.

 

[Niko]

I don't know Monotype very well, I played it occasionally but not enough to be considered a Monotype player.

My concerns in adding this tier are about the frequency of cases where the matchup determines the final result of the match. There's always someone having a favoured matchup in other tiers too; however, in most cases both players can play their chances to win the game.

In Monotype, how common is it to see a game ending in preview? Of course long term the winrates look balanced, but in SCL games are bo1 and I don't think we can let the typing or the consequent playstyle (as Ticken suggested to think at it) coinflip decide how the game ends, if this is what happens in Monotype.

I also think that having only 2 OU Slots is not representative of the way bigger playerbase OU has overall, but this doesn't struggle with Monotype at all as it can be solved by keeping Monotype and adding more slots to the tournament.

 

[Lily]

I'm mostly indifferent on whether or not OU3 or Monotype is in the tour but I would like to encourage people to think of better reasoning. Here are some of the reasons I've been given so far for both sides:

OU is Smogon's flagship tier
Yes, OU is Smogon's flagship tier. Yes, OU should have more representation than every other tier on the site without question. However, here's a look at the trophy tournaments current gen OU players can get their hands on:

-SPL
-WCoP
-SCL
-OST
-OLT
-STour

and then there's also Classic, but if we exclude that because it's an oldgen, that is six trophy tournaments for OU. By contrast, most lower tiers have only 1 in SCL (they have their ribbons, OU does too) and Monotype in its current state has 0. So yes, while OU deserves the most representation in tournaments without a doubt, there is absolutely enough of it already and this shouldn't be factored in right now.

Monotype has an unproven playerbase
If this was a valid argument then we'd be better off just freezing all of our tournaments in time right now. All players and playerbases were, at a point, unproven - this argument is completely detrimental to the health of the tournament scene by actively preventing new players from getting involved and making a splash. Monotype's playerbase is proven - just looking at the overall sheet you have players like Shiba, 1 True Lycan, Pak, Sabella, Star, Chaitanya, Eternal Spirit and Leru, and of course these are not all Monotype mains but they are players that have been proven to be capable in official tournament settings. There is only one way to fix an unproven playerbase, and it's giving them an opportunity to prove themselves.

Monotype is a matchup meta
Yeah I thought this at first but reading literally anything any mono player has put here so far should change your mind if you have an open one to begin with. Some types are better than others and some will have pretty bad matchups that are difficult to deal with (Water getting owned by Grass in particular is one I remember) but that happens in literally every lower tier too thanks to power levels just being ridiculous, and even OU is arguably a matchup meta at the moment. It might seem more black and white with Mono but I encourage you to read Ticken's post above which pretty much disputes this claim entirely with evidence to back it up as opposed to those regurgitating the type chart.

Monotype is an official tier so it should be included
Not necessarily no, being an official tier and being represented in tournaments are not directly tied to each other. Being official might be a part of the criteria to be part of an official tournament but it alone is not enough to be included.

SCL having a third OU slot allows for new OU blood that may not get a chance in SPL
This essentially reinforces the stigma that we're attempting to get rid of that Snake (now SCL) is inherently worse than SPL, but anyway. This point completely disregards one of the site's biggest communities according to the stats provided by Hogg in order to forward even more OU slots. I don't personally care if I'm watching 20 or 30 OU games per week but the fact of the matter is that it is not a more competitive tier by nature no matter how much you try to convince yourself it is, the only thing that's more competitive about it is the playerbase and even that's debatable these days with tiers like UU and RU having phenomenal players at the top of their scoreboards. Yes, cultivating new players is good, but you're doing that either way and OU players have more than enough opportunities to give themselves a shot as is.

The real question is, is a good Monotype player able to give any sort of support to other tiers?

So ignoring the fact that this assumes that competent players of various lower tiers are able to build other lower tiers (they're not, I'd be completely unable to help with NU prep just as I'd be unable to help with Mono prep), what point does this try to prove? If you draft a Monotype player that is known to only specialise in Monotype then... yeah, don't expect them to do much else. However, here are some players that enjoy Monotype that have performed pretty well in other tournaments completely unrelated to their tier:

- Decem (OU Majors R5, RU Winter Seasonal R10, UU Masters R11 + various oldgen results)
- 1 True Lycan (results speak for themselves, very consistent OU player)
- Sabella (consistently performer in official tournaments in multiple tiers, UU in Snake OU in SPL etc)
- Leru (defending SPL champ, has done endless shit in the most whack tiers possible)
- Shiba (ex WCoP champ, consistent performer in UU tiers, very well known UU community member)
- Chaitanya (has performed very well in countless lower tier PLs, played in SPL)
- Gama who voiced his support above (I don't need to tell you what he's done)

I don't wanna list more but look at the docs Ticken linked above. There are lots of competent, versatile Monotype players that can help with multiple slots and be great team presences and it'd be silly to act like that's not the case.

Is Monotype more difficult to build than other tiers? Maybe, I don't think so though. It is a different meta, sure, but Pokemon is Pokemon at the end of the day and picking up Mono isn't the hardest thing in the world. If you're going to apply this argument to Mono then you have to apply it to all other tiers because there is literally no inherent overlap. Whether or not I'm good at building RU has no bearing on my ability to handle PU.


There's probably more to cover but this has taken too long to write as is. I'm slightly biased towards Monotype's inclusion even as someone who intends to manage for this tournament but I don't really care at the end of the day. What I do care about is how weightless most of the arguments presented thus far have been and I'd like to see people challenging themselves to think a bit more than they currently are.

 

[lax]

There are so many OU tiers in tournaments so it really isn’t a priority hopefully

If it’s possible at all, I think VGC is an extremely skillful and fresh feeling that can be introduced into this tour. The dou players and vgc players can help each other in a similar way that most lower tier players can chip in for the other respective lower tiers

Shit is genuinely super fun and there’s a reason why it’s the main tier for pokemon

 

[Chaitanya]

The real question is, is a good Monotype player able to give any sort of support to other tiers?

Lol off the top of my head west alone has 3-4 'monotype players' in wcop, and then there's plenty of others across other teams. I'm sure most of you know the names but dahli lycan sabella floss are a few others so I'm sure we can support other tiers just fine. Several also play the lower tiers so I promise this isn't an issue in the slightest.

First of all, i think we shouldn't have more than 8 tiers,

I have no idea how you arrived at the conclusion that we shouldn't have more than 8 tiers. With an auction format, there's no max to the number of players to draft (or if there is a max its gonna be pretty big). If this was snake and you got exactly 14 players to build a team it would be a different argument that filling out so many tiers would be incredibly difficult but it's obviously not. With an auction you can build a bigger team as you need and I would argue that it forces you to draft more wisely and manage your resources better during auction. It's absolutely feasible and the only reason it wouldn't be is if you thought the playerbase was bad enough where we couldn't fill out 10 slots which I definitely don't think anyone is arguing.


I was gonna say more but I took too long to come back to this and Lilburr made a great post.

e: Niko a lot of the matchup stuff was pretty thoroughly addressed in the previous thread, dont think we need to get into that again

 

[Vulpix03]

Yes, good pokemon players will be good players wherever you put them, there's no doubt to that. The real question is, is a good Monotype player able to give any sort of support to other tiers?

I don't understand why this is a question. I have participated in a few SPL / Snakes and I can say that most players that "main" a tier will not be involved in the prep of other tiers in any way bar maybe test games. Gunna use Ajna as an example, as he's the first guy that comes to mind atm. Ajna is a really great RU player (and player in general), does Ajna help in other tiers? Hell no. Does this make him any less of a player? No, because you don't buy Ajna to support other tiers, you buy him to kick ass in RU. I don't see why buying a monotype specialist is in any way different from buying a specialist that plays any other tier. If you want someone that can play monotype as well as support other tiers, than I think it is your job as a manager to find a guy who can do that.

edit

My slow ass was typing this for a bit so sorry if I just restated what others said before me

 

[Niko]

e: Niko a lot of the matchup stuff was pretty thoroughly addressed in the previous thread, dont think we need to get into that again

Arguments for not having Monotype in SCL are mainly about the poor supports Monotype players would give to other tiers or about the matchup stuff.

It is a fact that a lot of good Monotype players also do play other tiers with good results, while the matchup issues are intuitively debatable.

So yeah, I think an in-depth about that would be helpful.

 

[Charmflash]

In terms of playerbase and engagement, monotype absolutely deserves to be in this tour. Unfortunately, the matchup dynamic is indeed impossible at times, much more so than anything people who don't play monotype are used to. To take away from this frustration I would strongly suggest a system where people bring 3 teams, disclose their typing, and each ban 1 of their opponents teams. Then they battle it out until they've won with both their remaining teams. This is called the conquest format and has been used in competitive card games to great success. I know this is a bit out there in terms of how tiers have been implemented in the past, but monotype resembles card game matchups a LOT, and it's been the best system for those so please give it some thought.

 

[zee]

Since VGC was brought up I'll share my thoughts, though it pretty much echoes what z0mog said as we talked about it on discord this morning. If it's possible in any way to expand the number of slots in this tournament to 12, I think including VGC would be a fantastic idea. I'd never want to see an actual Smogon metagame get snubbed for it, but great points have already been made about why I think it'd be awesome to have if at all possible, though I'll expand on them quickly.

Overlap with DOU playerbase

There's no denying this exists, players such as myself, emforbes, Spurrific, and Nails are quite knowledgeable at both metagames and can be useful for cutting out the common Doubles support slot that teams opted for in snake. Even for VGCers who aren't as familiar with DOU, it takes them almost no time to get acquainted with the format and begin building: many of my friends are picking up the tier currently and are having a pretty easy time making the adjustment.

Smogon users actually care about the metagame

If the three people above advocating for VGC weren't enough, scroll through the VGC Major signups and see how many names you recognize. And they aren't all doubles mains either. People are playing VGC on smogtours, coming to the Smogon VGC discord or my DMs to talk about the metagame or ask for team advice, and all in all have been very supportive of the work I've been doing for the section even before I was promoted to VGC leader.

It would be a monumental move in bridging the gap

I appreciate the credit that I've been given in this thread for the work I've put into the forum, but it's worth noting that it wouldn't be anything if real people from the VGC sphere weren't willing to log onto Smogon and sign up for a tournament or make a post in a viability ranking thread. This stupid us vs them mentality that I heard quite often when I picked up the game in 2015 is completely gone. Instead I have people, both VGCers and Smogon users alike, asking me when the next event is, if they can help me run a tournament, etc. and it's wonderful to see. I think it would be a huge showing of respect if VGC players were allowed to compete for a Smogon trophy, and I have no doubts that top players will be equally as excited for a chance to play alongside the site's best.

Let's not kid ourselves either, it's not like VGC isn't a competitive format. The presence of Dynamax, the bring 6 pick 4, and the timer mechanics surely make it a bit of a foreign experience, but at the end of the day it is still an avenue of competitive Pokemon. There will be debates about whether it takes more skill to be a top VGCer or top Smogon player until the end of time, but what I've observed in my time here and my time in the VGC community is that there are absolutely skills that you have to master to be good at either; some are transferable and some are not, but at the end of the day it's an extremely interesting and competitive experience and I'm sure we'll have some top talent and thrilling games to watch if VGC would be included in SCL.

I apologize for not bringing this up in the original thread like the Monotype community did. I was actually unbadged at the time of the thread's launch, and even by the time I was able to post didn't feel like it was worth bringing up, but with people like the above showing an interest in the metagame I can't help but feel I should at least state my case.

e: removed a player's name from this post due to them not being a model user

 

[Finchinator]

The match-up issue has been done to death and should not be a talking point anymore. I am not saying Monotype should be included, but people using this as the focal argument are going to have to elaborate further or give it up.

Don't like the match-up issue in Monoptype? Well, guess what? We have had people complaining about the match-up dynamic in OU, UU, RU, NU, PU, etc. all generation long through various PR threads, metagame threads, discord chats, etc. that have led to large scale movements on numerous occasions. The same goes for various old generations in SPL, too. No metagame is perfect -- RBY has to be Bo3, but we had a huge movement to keep it around, for example -- and the scale will be tilted in the favor of one side in some games, but that is part of competitive Pokemon. There are numerous accounts of experienced Monotype players explaining how it impacts their metagame and how they still believe it fits (check them out: here, here, here, here, and here). We have accepted that match-up exists in the game up to this point and continue to accept it every time we sign up for these tournaments. It would be arbitrary to draw the line here, in my opinion.

Naturally OU3 feels like the logical fit to me despite this. We have rebranded this tournament to mirror SPL in a lot of ways and this would be yet another, which makes a lot of sense to me. In addition to this, the 3 CG OU + 7 complimentary tiers (old generations for SPL, CG tiers for SCL) format worked in SPL, in my opinion, so just more reason to keep up with 3 slots (and 10 slots in total, which was the best part of the change this SPL for me personally).

I think you can argue that the pulse of the community may supersede this "logic" or any true need for parallel structure though. At the end of the day, these communities are made for and participated in by the community, so obviously any strong majority should have some pull. Given this, I think there should be an onus on Monotype advocates to prove they have a sufficient playerbase to where they not only can field enough starters (and a few potential substitutes), but also that they will fit in well enough as a whole. One can argue PU's addition was delayed a bit due to questions about the playerbase despite it already being recognized as official and while Monotype is not a usage based tier, it should be subject to the same degree of vetting. Ticken, lilburr, Chaitanya, and others have already commented on this, but I think it would be interesting to hear more from others who are passionate about the format or those who are opposed to it.

To sum it up, I do not think match-up should decide the tenth slot given how arbitrary it is to define and apply to arguments. I think the degree of support for Monotype and quality of the playerbase for Monotype should ultimately decide this. OU makes sense to keep the format parallel with SPL, but an outpouring of support should be enough to make that less of a priority.

No comment on the inclusion of VGC as I am not familiar with the format, but I do not think we should exclude DOU under any circumstances and I do not think we should go above 10 slots unless there is unprecedented growth in our tournament playerbase.

 

[Kev]

Monotype should be included in SCL

To defend that point, I will be going over the 3 main arguments against it that are provided in the OP. I started writing this earlier in the day but a bunch of people posted since then so I might be reiterating a bunch of stuff in some sections.

1) Balance with SPL

This argument seems like a disingenuous way of shutting down the inclusion of Monotype. I say this because the idea is not sustainable. The mirroring of SPL and SCL would be "valid" during this generation, but what happens with the release of future ones? This was a discussion that took place during the thread that discussed the removal of lower tiers from SPL. For this argument, I will be highlighting the proposed schedule by rozes. With the potential release of a Gen 9, SPL would be either be: dropping a CG OU slot, dropping RBY or increasing the tournament to 12 slots. Regardless of the decided option, there is no going around the fact that the format will change and SCL will be forced to changed to preserve the cg ou - lower tier / old gen balance. Would Monotype then replace the 3rd OU slot? Would Ubers get axed alongside RBY? Do Monotype and an extra OU slot get added to mirror a 4+8 format? And then what about the release of Gen 10, then we would need to hope a 9th lower tier has the competitiveness and community to support being included. While definitely possible, this is going off the assumption that something will occur.

Overall, my point here is that SCL and SPL being balanced in terms of CG OU and Old Gen / Lower Tier is not very realistic in the long term. It requires making significant modifications to the SCL lineup every few iterations. Every time SPL needs to add a new generation, SCL would need to replace its Old Gen and add a whole new tier. This is something that I find very unlikely to be implemented and keep consistent throughout the years. For this reason, I find the argument of maintaining parity in terms of format between SPL and SCL to be inefficient. The two tours formats should be dependent solely on their personal identity and viability, not on that of the other.

2) Fewer siloed tiers

The posts above me already covered this issue, but I'll give my perspective. Monotype has the closest gameplay in terms of mechanics, building conventions and general play to OU and the usage based tiers compared to Ubers, Doubles and LC. The last two, especially DOU, are significantly different from most of the tiers in the tournament which leads to said isolation of slots. Monotype's style allows it to be highly adaptable, a good Pokemon player is highly likely to be a good Monotype player if they put the effort to understand the tier. As per Ticken's spreadsheet example, and Sabella's firsthand experience managing tournament players, plenty of top players have competed in Monotype team tournaments and consistently perform for the most part. Plenty of top tournaments players have competed in the tier and just looking at last year's SSD, every team bar maybe 1 had at least 1 person that has played Monotype in some capacity before. This is not to say any of these people will be building teams or anything, but they do have the ability to provide insight or play test games. As Sabella said, building for Monotype is unique and not something easily understood by unfamiliar players, which is a fair enough point. However, it is not incredibly difficult to pickup. Having played and managed in multiple Monotype team tours, I've seen plenty of non-mainers get somewhat involved in deciding teams, sets, etc... Moreover, there are some good tournaments players who had no prior experience with the tier which established themselves as top builders in the tier such as Leru when he first joined the community. On the other side, most of the top Monotype players which would be drafted are decently competent in CG OU / Lower Tiers and thus can provide support to their teammates in said slots which is different from many of the players for some of the other tiers like DOU.

In essence, the Monotype slot would not be completely isolated. Teams naturally fit in players that have some experience with the tier to provide support to the mainer that is building. The player dedicated to that slot will also most likely have good flexibility in supporting their teammates in other slots. The nature of the tier allows it to be picked up comfortably with decent effort so there isn't great pressure for drafting multiple Monotype players in case of requiring a sub, etc.. This adaptability has been shown countless times in Monotype team tournaments and even individuals in the past with good players from outside the community having strong performance. Monotype is not a case of a very siloed tier.

3) Avoiding potential matchup issues

I think people like Lilburr and Finchinator have already covered the matchup argument sufficiently so I won't go into detail here.

---

In conclusion, I think Monotype should be included in SCL because it is a competitive metagame like the other tiers being discussed. It's been pointed out in so many posts now that matchup just isn't the determining factor people make it out to be and there hasn't been much to prove otherwise. The tier is very dynamic and with a pool of top players would provide entertaining, competitive matches. The argument to exclude it solely for the balancing of SPL and SCL doesn't really hold in terms of longevity, and if it is used as the argument now and taken back later would be disrespectful and dishonest. Furthermore, the tier is hardly "isolated" from other ones because a wide range of top players in terms of overall, OU and Lower Tiers alike have experience with the metagame such that they can provide a modicum of support to the Monotype starter. In the same light, the pool of top Monotype players that should be picked practically all have decent experience in the other tiers in the tournament with showings in the circuit tournaments section, in the respective PLs of the tiers or even decent showings in Grand Slam or Smogon Tour. All those players should be able to provide a decent amount of help to their teammates which is already more than some other lower tier players like others in this thread pointed out.

 

[Expulso]

Discussed this in Smogtours Discord, figured i'd make the point here as well. With Monotype making such a strong, passionate case for their inclusion (and the discussion around 3rd OU's benefits, as well as those of VGC [unlikely but would be sick tbh]), I find it unfair to immediately guarantee Ubers a slot. I think that the case must still be made for all 3 of Ubers / OU3 / Monotype, from which we can decide upon the 2 to include here.

I have to say that the state of Ubers is better than I have seen in years and years. The community is vibrant and active, the metagame is better than it has been in at least two gens (at least from this outsider’s perspective) and the games are genuinely fun to watch. Ubers has a long and storied history within Smogon and has been a part of its major tournament scene for over a decade, and they’ve clearly made great strides to overcome the many obstacles that have been tossed in their way over the past few years. I think it’s time for them to return.

- "The community is vibrant and active": Perhaps this is true, I can't speak to that. As you acknowledge, though, Monotype's community absolutely meets those criteria, seemingly exceeding Ubers' activity and having a fine reputation.

Monotype is a huge and well-established community, with the third-highest forum activity of any official metagame [behind UU and OU]

- "Ubers has a long and storied history within Smogon and has been a part of its major tournament scene for over a decade":

Perhaps my opinion on this topic is different than others', especially given my brief period of relevant experience on this site. However, I don't think this is a particularly strong justification for its inclusion. SCL is supposed to be our new tour, why do we need to add a meta that was considered cool in 2010-2013? This was 2 or even 3 gens ago. DPP and BW (maybe oras? idk?) Ubers have storied histories, but how does that necessarily imply that SS Ubers will lead to the same high level of gameplay? Additionally, with other communities vying passionately for this slot, I think inclusion should be based on the current state of the community and tier. An argument grounded in historical prestige holds little weight in my eyes, and I'm curious to hear what others think about this.

• PROS OF OU x3:
  • Balance with SPL.
  • Fewer siloed tiers.
  • Avoiding potential ”matchup” issues.

- "Fewer siloed tiers":
This supposed issue, which was used to make the case for 3 OU instead of Monotype, is much more severe for the Ubers community than for Monotype. There seem to be many people that regularly participate in and build for Monotype who have also found success in OU and lower tiers, as Lilburr outlines in her post. Ubers is known for Garay Oak, Pohjis, and TonyFlygon; they can obviously speak far more accurately than me on this matter, but I'm not under the impression that the former 2 build this year-round? Even if they all do, though, this stacked trio doesnt seem necessarily superior to the larger number of crossover Mono players. (Also, I'm not convinced it's that relevant of an argument anyways? As Vulpix03 says, it's fine to kick ass in only your one tier like Ajna in RU, Serene and LilyAC in LC, and a number of other examples).

- matchup issues: a mono player will hire a hitman if i try to speak on this topic. just read their posts lol
- balance with spl: this goes for both tiers

====

To sum it up, I don't think that there is a sufficiently strong justification for Ubers to be automatically included over Monotype and OU3. Ubers certainly has some pros, but many of the arguments being used against Mono also apply to Ubers, and many of Mono's strengths outweigh Ubers' standing in the same categories. I think we should still be considering all 3 of their arguments rather than guaranteeing Ubers a spot.

 

[Excal]

I think 3x OU should definitely stay in this tournament. In addition to other reasons presented above (like Lunala's point of managerial constraint), I think there is a lot of teamwork and collaboration involved with a bigger flagship OU core working together to build teams & solve the metagame that would be lost by increasing the tournament's diversity at its expense. Given that this is the first SCL, this type of increased team collaboration should be sought after to distinguish this tournament more so as one where people are actively working together. During last snake, there was significantly more independence within the lower tiers (often people would add outsiders into the chat to compensate) whereas the OU players were way more involved with one another. That said, I don't really have opinions on what should be axed if there are only 10 slots nor do I think there's a great solution.

Given this, I think there should be an onus on Monotype advocates to prove they have a sufficient playerbase to where they not only can field enough starters (and a few potential substitutes), but also that they will fit in well enough as a whole. One can argue PU's addition was delayed a bit due to questions about the playerbase despite it already being recognized as official and while Monotype is not a usage based tier, it should be subject to the same degree of vetting. Ticken, lilburr, Chaitanya, and others have already commented on this, but I think it would be interesting to hear more from others who are passionate about the format or those who are opposed to it.

I feel like this onus would be a bit flawed when looking at last snake's PU results. Some of the best performers in this tier were non-mainers with pretty much no experience in the tier, and quite a few of the "mainers" had middling performances into being benched. I think rather than this it feels like a tier's inclusion should primarily be community-driven rather than some sort of petty measuring contest about which tier is 'better', least mu variance, etc (cause SS OU sucks loool). I think either 3x OU with 7/8 of the tiers or an expanded 12 slots with 4 x OU and 8/8 tiers should be the routes in consideration, depending on whether the community values full inclusiveness or a "more competitive tournament". As to how the community should decide if it's 10 slots & 3 OU, maybe a vote? Or some sort of yearly alternation between mono/ubers/pu? I don't really know but maybe someone else can think of a good idea if they see merit in that.

 

[ausma]

I'm not heavily involved in tour scenes, but I personally would like to address a few points regarding OU3 and why I'm not really on board for it. Disclaimer: take my opinions with a gigantic grain of salt, as I don't really participate in tournaments, but I feel this discussion is important to weigh in on from the perspective of someone who's ambitious toward actualizing the idea of unifying the community at large. I'll break down my point of view on the pros of OU3, like others have, and explain my issues with them.

Balance with SPL. If SCL is intended to be the showcase of current gen talent, while SPL showcases OU talent across all gens, then it makes sense to have some balance between the two formats. This would mean SCL was OU x3 plus seven non-OU tiers, while SPL was current gen OU x3 plus seven non-current gen OUs.

I feel like this point at its core is arbitrary; in what way is balance with SPL really necessary? These are two separate tournaments with different ambitions: one to represent the current generation in its entirety, and one to represent the progression of old generations' metagames. Especially considering that OU already has two slots, I don't see what exactly adding a third does other than further divvy the representation of CG growth, especially when the goal that a third slot calls for is already at its core realized within SPL's now OU-centric format.

To me personally, a major philosophy I operate by is representation. In a community that's built and facilitated day-to-day by people who play and do different things, it's natural that there would be separate components of it that struggle to stand out, and I know many people personally whose metagames go forgotten in favor of more popular ones. While understandable, to what degree do we limit ourselves in representing and valuing them? To me, it is the point where our resources and efficiency dwindles in favor of representation. That being said, a single slot to represent a fairly well-known community that has not seen much representation in tournaments is not going to hurt SCL; the argument should be more what negative effects added representation has, as opposed to the sole benefits of dedicating more slots to OU. If there's no real consequence or opportunity cost in representing different kinds of players on the site, then to me the decision becomes divisive and arbitrary in a vacuum, which is incredibly dangerous for the growth of communities and sets a really bad precedent.

Fewer siloed tiers. One of the oft-referenced issues with Doubles and to a lesser degree Little Cup in SPL was siloization: there just wasn’t a ton of cross-over between Doubles and other tiers/metagames, meaning many teams ended up with DOU as an isolated slot (or else they had to dedicate resources toward multiple players to support a single playing slot). Most other slots didn’t have this problem - in SPL there was almost always enough cross-over with players who played multiple gens, and you see the same thing with most lower tiers. Too many siloed tiers and drafting proper team support becomes a nightmare. SCL will already be including DOU and Little Cup, and Ubers will be seeing a return to an official team tournament for the first time since SSD1. Will adding Monotype mean too many siloed tiers?

The thing is, there is always inherently a siloization with different tiers that spawn hugely from metagame knowledge and drastically different metagames outright. However, this being said, resources at their core still should overlap in player skill and understanding of both player and team synergy, and from my experience working with people who specialize in different tiers, people are able to work together in spite of different degrees of metagame understanding. Players drafted in major leagues like this are drafted for a reason, and to me, it's not just specialization, but player skill and adaptability. A good VGC or Monotype player for example should be able to greatly understand what is necessary to win games: detecting win conditions, how to abuse them, threats, and as well as knowing how to operate and make progress around said threats. Even if metagame knowledge can impair this to a degree, we have not seen this incapacitate player and team support across from one tier to the other before, and Monotype and VGC are really no different, even if playstyles can differ (which is inherent from tier to tier). If a player is drafted for sheer specialization, limiting overlapping resources and teamwork, then that's a fault that's less on the system's part, and more on the team who drafts them.

Avoiding potential ”matchup” issues. I’m a bit wary of including this one, but it was referenced several times, so I wanted to at least include it on the list. Is Monotype too dependent on matchups from team preview to be a valuable addition to the tournament? Several of the Mono players I spoke to actively sought to debunk this argument, pointing out consistency of winrates among top players and tournament games where players overcame terrible matchups to pull off a win, and almost every tier has matchup issues to some degree (see the current discussion on BW OU, for example), but it remains one of the most common concerns people voice whenever Monotype is discussed.

This point is mainly one that needs to be assessed by Monotype players, but the tremendous support, evidence, and explanations from those far more experienced than me I feel demonstrate the objectivities in their metagames far better than I could.

____

While I'm here, I'd also like to vocalize support for VGC. Zeefable's post did an amazing job dissecting its case and I hugely implore you to read it as it echoes many of my own sentiments, but I'd like to bring a special emphasis on this point specifically:

It would be a monumental move in bridging the gap

I appreciate the credit that I've been given in this thread for the work I've put into the forum, but it's worth noting that it wouldn't be anything if real people from the VGC sphere weren't willing to log onto Smogon and sign up for a tournament or make a post in a viability ranking thread. This stupid us vs them mentality that I heard quite often when I picked up the game in 2015 is completely gone. Instead I have people, both VGCers and Smogon users alike, asking me when the next event is, if they can help me run a tournament, etc. and it's wonderful to see. I think it would be a huge showing of respect if VGC players were allowed to compete for a Smogon trophy, and I have no doubts that top players will be equally as excited for a chance to play alongside the site's best.

Let's not kid ourselves either, it's not like VGC isn't a competitive format. The presence of Dynamax, the bring 6 pick 4, and the timer mechanics surely make it a bit of a foreign experience, but at the end of the day it is still an avenue of competitive Pokemon. There will be debates about whether it takes more skill to be a top VGCer or top Smogon player until the end of time, but what I've observed in my time here and my time in the VGC community is that there are absolutely skills that you have to master to be good at either; some are transferable and some are not, but at the end of the day it's an extremely interesting and competitive experience and I'm sure we'll have some top talent and thrilling games to watch if VGC would be included in SCL.

Smogon at its core is a community of players who specialize in different kinds of tiers, metagames, and different skills. As a major OU contributor and moderator who works with a fairly divisive community at large, I believe that if something can be done to bridge the gap between different cliques and create a greater sense of unity and wholeness, it absolutely should be done. It can create a greater understanding of one another, grow our overall community, further involve the playerbase at large, and provide unique perspectives for players and contributors outright. Despite being a rather ambitious goal, it's one we can always take steps toward achieving, and progress to unify players can lead to incredibly positive, incredible changes in player ability, synergy, and connections. It has nothing but positive effects and I think it can especially benefit the tournament community, too.

 

[EviGaro]

I already posted about monotype in an earlier thread, and my opinion hasn't changed. It should absolutely be in, and I think most of the general complaints about it have been debated sufficiently at this point.

VGC is also interesting though. It's not THAT different from DOU obviously but it has a lot of little things that definitely set it apart. This can go both ways though, if a manager expect their DOU picks to transition successfully... well, it might not really be the case and upset some people. Everyone interested in SPL can probably recall that the opposite transition didn't always go very well either. However, there's definitely more collaboration there, and while I always insisted on picking two DOU players, they never started together, and I do think that option of collaboration can be fun in this setting. Also, if we want this tour to be THE team tour showcasing other stuff Smogon has to offer, then VGC absolutely should be part of that discussion over another OU. I've been in tours with VGC as a tier and it's definitely an interesting and workable metagame in our team tours, and also can generate interest off the recent big tour hosted here that sounds super interesting.

I am not sure how you can pick both Monotype and VGC however. Well, yeah I can, but I'm not sure if people are gonna be for a single OU slot though lol. At the same time, I feel like everything should be on the table for this tour, and if that includes making OU way less of a presence than we expected going in, is it really a problem?

 

[Finchinator]

I am not sure how you can pick both Monotype and VGC however. Well, yeah I can, but I'm not sure if people are gonna be for a single OU slot though lol. At the same time, I feel like everything should be on the table for this tour, and if that includes making OU way less of a presence than we expected going in, is it really a problem?

We should never entertain just a single OU slot in any official team tournament.

The tournament would not be representative of our playerbase or community at all if we did this. Say what you want about the state of the tier, but everyone who frequents tournaments is familiar with the tier and it has far more players and sign-ups than any other format.

If we cut down to 2, I am ok with that, but cutting down to 1 would be going too far.

 

[EviGaro]

We should never entertain just a single OU slot in any official team tournament.

The tournament would not be representative of our playerbase or community at all if we did this. Say what you want about the state of the tier, but everyone who frequents tournaments is familiar with the tier and it has far more players and sign-ups than any other format.

If we cut down to 2, I am ok with that, but cutting down to 1 would be going too far.

I'm not super convinced of it either way, but I do strongly question the representation argument. There's a team tour going on right now with eight starting slots in that tier and another with three. This one having one or two won't change the balance much, especially when it means cutting one tier that has literally no representation. I don't really care to argue this much, but just saying that if someone wants to add both vgc and monotype to this tour it's the most likely option. Well you could add more OU slots to bring it to 12, that's probably an option that can work!

 

[Ununhexium]

Also from my understanding SCL was created to cater to non-OU tiers so I’d hardly find it an issue if it doesn’t have multiple