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I think rebranding masters was the main takeaway looking at circuit from this year but I really think the Homefield format could be a good one to throw in the ring instead of lcq or live. For those unfamiliar homefield is a bo3 (usually for 6v6 formats but for 1v1 it would be bo3 with at least two series of 5 games being played.) where each player signs up with a “home” tier. This home tier is played after the first series (which is always SV) and is decided by the loser. I think this format can lead to more variety in the circuit, and it gives players of older generations a reason to give current gen a try outside of just World Cup and get them to try new tiers in circuit, which should try to be inclusive of that while also staying competitive.
Also champs should be bo7 single elim instead of Swiss top cut, hax is a marginal issue and currently we have no individual tour with bo7 representation. Champs seems like the perfect fit for this format since Swiss often leads to people being disinterested both as players and spectators for this tier.
I feel like I enjoy the idea of an official ogpl rather than the actual concept. It could’ve been a cool opportunity to include some of the more fringe tiers like GSC that rly don’t see play outside of room tours or murm throwing 20 bucks at a tour, but with it becoming official I feel it limits ability to get funky with the format or change past the current precedent. Blind draft could be funny though I don’t rly have thoughts on the ogpl format.
GOOD MORNING ROOM BELIEVERS, I've come here to suggest two tournament formats that have been suggested for years but were never properly taken into consideration because logistics scary, SO
Best Leaderboarders Tournament
BLT is a Team Tournament with a Room Tournaments qualification phase: players will join the room to participate in roomtours and will need to reach a certain point threshold to be able to qualify for being drafted, with the top X players reserving a ticket to guaranteed get drafted by a team. This ensures we only have players that care about the tier playing and gives a chance to players who are frequently around the room and ladder but just not in contact with the tournaments community at large.
How long does it last?
BLT XI had a qualification phase that lasted from March 16th to April 13th, and the team tournament ran for 7 weeks, semifinals, tiebreaker and finals until June 30th, for a total length of 3 months and 2 weeks. If we wanted to, we could make the tournament 6 teams, and shorten the qualification phase by a week or two, and considering the ideal of no tiebreaker, have it shortened down to 2 months and 1-2 weeks.
When would this fit?
The ideal timing would be to have the qualification phase start on October 13th, after WC Pools, with the tournament ending 2 months and 1 week later on December 20th, give or take a coupler weeks near the end. It's a tight fit, but worst comes to worst World Cup could be moved up to three weeks earlier.
moving world cup up by only two weeks, giving it 4 weeks for qualification and assuming there will be at least a tiebreaker BLT would still end at most before December 22nd, and we have ways to shorten this range as well.
I think it's a great tournament that we could give a trial run at least as an unofficial
TLT
TLT is the Individual tournament version of BLT. It follows a similar qualifications phase but instead of the teamtour weeks into playoffs format it follows a double elimination, top 32 bracket.
How long does it last?
This year TLT lasted from September 15th to December 22nd considering a one month qualification phase. We would most definitely make the tournament Top 16 instead of top 32 and we can always reduce the weeks required for qualification.
When would this fit?
Without even moving anything around we could fit 4 weeks of qualifier + double elim top 32 (9 rounds) around the area of end of ogpl season. There's some wiggle room here with its position, possibly moving it upwards to reduce the overlap with Live and PL, but I like the idea of starting qualification phase during ogpl playoffs. We could also move SS Cup and SM Cup both a little later but honestly it shouldn't be a big deal.
TLT is also a great tournament to get room users more invested in the tournament scene and tour players more interactive with the room, and the timing of it right before 1v1pl would make for some very interesting newblood additions.
We can comfortably fit both tournaments without sacrificing anything and at most moving some things around, especially since I don't think anyone wants any of the current team tours replaced, but we could somewhat easily replace Last Chance Qualifier (which seems to me like a pretty meh tournament format that nobody really requested) or 1v1 Live (which hasn't been super successful ever since it started running) if we want to make space for TLT.
Format of both is to be decided, generally I'm sure we can reach a consensus on that front during later discussions.
tagging AraiSificonlost herosLumii the competitive nerds committee and Felucia the everything nerd so they can discuss it between themselves
Speaking for myself here for the entire post and not others who helped with the circuit. I really like the idea of making this 500. Making LCQ 300 and Swiss was originally my idea and I’ll admit that it was a pretty hasty one. However, I’m not a fan of making it selim, as that further makes it harder to qualify for champs for players who lose early in tournaments. Lil but of insight into my thought process here, the idea of LCQ is it to alleviate that sorta issue with having two top cut tournaments in our circuit for this year while also having a format that’s relatively unpunishing for early losses. Making it 500 points furthers that, and I would 100% be for it.
I think rebranding masters was the main takeaway looking at circuit from this year but I really think the Homefield format could be a good one to throw in the ring instead of lcq or live. For those unfamiliar homefield is a bo3 (usually for 6v6 formats but for 1v1 it would be bo3 with at least two series of 5 games being played.) where each player signs up with a “home” tier. This home tier is played after the first series (which is always SV) and is decided by the loser. I think this format can lead to more variety in the circuit, and it gives players of older generations a reason to give current gen a try outside of just World Cup and get them to try new tiers in circuit, which should try to be inclusive of that while also staying competitive.
We historically have avoided putting SV and oldgens in one tournament circuit. While it might be a cool idea, the fact that we’re also making classic a tournament that’s going throughout the year sort of messes with this.
I feel like I enjoy the idea of an official ogpl rather than the actual concept. It could’ve been a cool opportunity to include some of the more fringe tiers like GSC that rly don’t see play outside of room tours
I like the idea of finding some sort of differentiation between PL and OGPL for sure outside of just having a couple different gens and less teams. I think format discussion for OGPL should likely start very soon and I really do want to see GSC in the tournament, but that’s not as much as a problem that the circuit should be solving, especially since there’s avenues where there are significantly more chances for community input.
I like BLT / TLT and would like to see them this year, but as an unofficial rather than a circuit tournament. TLT especially seems pretty fun but the larger issue just comes with timing and stuff. The timing suggested is pretty nice, but the fact that we’re basically going to have teamtours going consistently from the beginning of the year to until World Cup makes me worry about how much we will see contribution to resources and stuff. I do really like the tournament format and do want to see it incorporated somewhere as an unofficial.
I’m at work right now, so I’ll likely give more thoughts if more messages come in tonight or something
We historically have avoided putting SV and oldgens in one tournament circuit. While it might be a cool idea, the fact that we’re also making classic a tournament that’s going throughout the year sort of messes with this.
I don't understand how it's messing with it when the outcomes of both tours would be different. Cups are low committal in nature and lead to qualifying for Classic playoffs and homefield would lead to qualification for the circuit playoffs. They attract different audiences, and I believe adding a tour which includes old gen play while working towards the overall circuit instead of just classic will get old gen players (a lot of which just play team tours) a tour that will give them a good chance in involving themselves in the circuit outside of team tours. while classic isn't counting towards overall circuit i think this should be a format we support, and it should look to help with the gap we see between old gen players and being entirely disinterested with circuit and having their only outlet to get games in be single elim tours or behind a barrier of getting drafted. Beyond precedent I don't see the reason we have to be so separate with the two, I understand circuits are predominantly for current gen but this is just a small fraction of the amount of games played and I believe it integrates itself well with the circuit and has a strong identity to begin with, something it feels that half the individuals have not really seemed to have in the past.
Real shit. Wc being put in the winter is kinda cringe, I image most people probably had finals while in the tour and 4 weeks of pools, 6 for team in the final round. HOWEVER, I was not considering ogpl to be an official circuit dawg but that tournament is still less prestigious than pl and wc. I’d consider moving pl back to the January to April timeslot with wc taking place in june-july and ogpl taking long place in either late October or early November just so people can have time taking their finals seriously while also prioritizing pokemon imo.
So the main issue with this isn't GSC itself, as it is in a very good spot right now and deserves team tour representation, especially in a tournament about old gens. The issue is what slots we include. So I think one of SM, ORAS, BW, DPP, ADV, and GSC would all obviously be in if we do decide on GSC. The question is what would be the last two slots.
2 SS:
I know some people might attack me for this, SS isn't really retro enough for this imo. I think two SS slots, while currently the most obvious solution, just isn't a great solution.
1 SS 1 SM:
While not having the most recent gen have the most slots might be weird, I think 2 SM slots can be supported and can be fun. This is also a decent compromise for the SS players.
Multigen:
We can also have an SS or SM slot and then Multigen. There have been issues with Multigen not being competitive in the past, and I have two potential solutions.
1: Bo7
Pretty basic, just make it Bo7. Not much else to say, its a more competitive format than Bo5
2: Bo3o3
I'm not too sure about this one but it was brought up in the 1v1 discord so I figured I would mention it. 3 gens, 3 Bo3s, might be a little much but I wanted to bring it up.
Lastly, can we make the monopoke slot RBY? It just makes sense. Bo7 would be preferred, as it is quite the volatile gen and its very simple to prep for, but Bo5 is fine too. Ty.
it's more the separation between a cg circuit and an oldgens circuit. while it would be cool to see both integrated in some way, the reality is that champs will be an SV tour, and having other gens to play towards qualification towards an SV tournament feels counterproductive to what at least I would like to see from the circuit.
I don't really see where this is an issue. OGPL is Jan 6th through March 17th with weeks starting on January 27th. PL has its matches start on May 26th iirc, and WC has been pushed back to avoid this issue. I think there's not really an issue with finals except for potentially the first week of PL, which I can 100% see pushing forward one week to avoid that.
I do want to see GSC in RPL but I think we haven't formally started the tiers discussion yet, so yea... it would be nice to do that though, especially with ADV getting its classic cup back again. It feels weird to just have one gen just out of tournament representation as a whole to me...
2025 circuit has missed the mark in catering to the community previous needs/concerns alongside adding tournament(s) that doesn't favor competitive integrity. Let me explain.
1) There was plethora concerns in making LT Swiss and the changes were reverted last year due to these concerns. On paper, swiss does seem like a competitive format but in reality it doesn't really push the players to keep on seriously playing more than DE. It also doesn't limit luck chokehold more than DE. OLT follows a swiss system, however they do have 32 players so players are out after 3 losses and not 2. In a 16 person qualifiers, Swiss is just a glorified DE system and I believe having the LT seeds matter is def. more important instead of hiding behind our finger. Also giving points to 5th and 6th?? lol. is that some participation award?? change the point system for the circuit if you think your point distribution is bad.
2) I also believe that Swiss should be removed from Champs for the aforementioned reasons, really anything with Qualifier>Poffs should be DE.
3) The interesting change that should be done is making the aforementioned tournaments Bo7 instead of Bo5. If not LT then champs only. Bo7 is a mainstay in team tournaments and I find it weird that it's not present in any individual. It's not sustainable to have it for a long indiv tour but poffs is the perfect chance to trial bo7 in an individual setting.
4) Swiss non-top cut LCQ is a joke. It doesn't take two to think about how damaging to competitive integrity it is to just offer people to rack points to the supposedly best of the best tournament lmao. Also did you just remove a *check notes* swiss top cut tournament cause it wasn't popular to add another *check notes* swiss non top cut tournament???? Remove this and add something more interesting like idk maybe bring back the tournament that had the best of the best players winning it called 1v1 Masters. Heck, add a bo7 SE tournament as ur LCQ. Add both too if you're worried about the point system. This points inflation tournament isn't it and missed the mark by a wide margin.
5) The removal of masters is just weird? IDK how this decision was taken when nobody had any complaints about the vanilla DE tour that people just play. Low signups yada yada its place post PL might be the issue here and not the format itself. The past winners were actually good and established players and I'd say one of the bests, this tournament had 0 issue surrounding it, weird decision weird.
6) 1V1 LIVE IN THE CIRCUIT WOOO!! Would have been the reaction if 1v1 Live weren't just so bad. After many trials and errors, it's obvious that live just doesn't work in 1v1. Tournaments starting after 30+ minutes of begging people to join and just to barely get 16 LOL. Let's not forget the timezones issues and actually finding good hosts around all the hours. Then you might get americans/lowkey eu tours with 16 users and the asian hours with only 8 and the whole point distribution goes to americans lmao. + This has participation award too nice. Most live tournaments had stakes (sv suspect tours) and they were still miserable. Go to 1v1 archive, last pages and go back from there and check every live tour numbers + signups time. Usually when a format is trialed and fails in an unofficial setting the idea stays unofficial and doesn't get promoted to official.
circuit1: GC, LT, Masters, LCQ SE Bo7, LCQ SE Bo7
circuit2: GC, LT, Masters, some other format over swiss
Some flaws, contact me on discord if you need guidance, ill be happy to help
The 2025 circuit appears to have missed the mark in addressing the community's previous concerns and in introducing tournaments that may not align with competitive integrity. Let me explain:
There were many concerns about the LT Swiss format, which led to the decision to revert changes last year. While Swiss might seem like a solid competitive format on paper, in practice, it doesn't necessarily encourage players to continue playing seriously beyond the double-elimination (DE) format. It also doesn't reduce the influence of luck any more than DE does. The OLT follows a Swiss system, but it uses a 32-player format where players are eliminated after 3 losses, not 2. In a 16-player qualifier, Swiss essentially becomes a more complicated DE system, and I believe it's far more important to ensure that LT seeds matter instead of overcomplicating things. Additionally, awarding points to 5th and 6th place seems questionable; perhaps revising the points distribution system would be a better approach.
Given these points, I believe Swiss should be removed from the Championship for the reasons mentioned above. In my view, anything with a Qualifier > Playoffs structure should be DE.
One interesting change I'd suggest is expanding tournament lengths to a Best-of-7 (Bo7) format, particularly for LT or, at the very least, for the Championship. Bo7 is a staple in team tournaments, and it feels odd that it's not part of individual competitions. While it might not be feasible for a long individual tournament, the playoffs provide the perfect opportunity to test a Bo7 format in this setting.
The Swiss non-top cut LCQ seems like a misstep. It doesn’t take much to see how it undermines competitive integrity, as it allows players to accumulate points without the stakes of a proper elimination format. Additionally, removing a check notes Swiss top cut tournament, only to replace it with another check notes Swiss non-top cut event feels counterproductive. Perhaps we should replace it with something more engaging, like bringing back the 1v1 Masters, which featured the best players. Alternatively, consider adding a Bo7 single-elimination (SE) LCQ tournament. These changes would address concerns over points inflation and reinvigorate the circuit.
The decision to remove Masters is puzzling. There were no significant complaints about the original DE format, which was well-received. While low signups may have been an issue, this could be attributed to its timing post-PL, not the format itself. The past winners of Masters were top-tier players, and the tournament didn’t face major issues. This decision seems quite odd.
1v1 Live in the circuit could have been exciting—if only it weren’t so problematic. After numerous trials, it’s clear that Live doesn't work well for 1v1 tournaments. Delays of 30+ minutes to get enough participants, timezone issues, and poor sign-up numbers make it hard to justify its inclusion. For example, American or European tournaments might struggle to get 16 players, while Asian hours often see even fewer participants, distorting the point distribution. Moreover, many of these tournaments had a "participation award" feel to them, which detracts from the competitive experience. Reviewing the last pages of 1v1 Live tournaments will show a consistent pattern of low signups and delayed start times. When a format fails in unofficial settings, it typically doesn’t get promoted to the official circuit.
Proposed Circuit:
Circuit 1: GC, LT, Masters, LCQ SE Bo7
Circuit 2: GC, LT, Masters, Swiss or another format (but not Swiss as currently used)
If you'd like to discuss these points further or need any guidance, feel free to reach out to me on Discord. I'd be happy to help.
2025 circuit has missed the mark in catering to the community previous needs/concerns alongside adding tournament(s) that doesn't favor competitive integrity. Let me explain.
1) There was plethora concerns in making LT Swiss and the changes were reverted last year due to these concerns. On paper, swiss does seem like a competitive format but in reality it doesn't really push the players to keep on seriously playing more than DE. It also doesn't limit luck chokehold more than DE. OLT follows a swiss system, however they do have 32 players so players are out after 3 losses and not 2. In a 16 person qualifiers, Swiss is just a glorified DE system and I believe having the LT seeds matter is def. more important instead of hiding behind our finger. Also giving points to 5th and 6th?? lol. is that some participation award?? change the point system for the circuit if you think your point distribution is bad.
2) I also believe that Swiss should be removed from Champs for the aforementioned reasons, really anything with Qualifier>Poffs should be DE.
3) The interesting change that should be done is making the aforementioned tournaments Bo7 instead of Bo5. If not LT then champs only. Bo7 is a mainstay in team tournaments and I find it weird that it's not present in any individual. It's not sustainable to have it for a long indiv tour but poffs is the perfect chance to trial bo7 in an individual setting.
4) Swiss non-top cut LCQ is a joke. It doesn't take two to think about how damaging to competitive integrity it is to just offer people to rack points to the supposedly best of the best tournament lmao. Also did you just remove a *check notes* swiss top cut tournament cause it wasn't popular to add another *check notes* swiss non top cut tournament???? Remove this and add something more interesting like idk maybe bring back the tournament that had the best of the best players winning it called 1v1 Masters. Heck, add a bo7 SE tournament as ur LCQ. Add both too if you're worried about the point system. This points inflation tournament isn't it and missed the mark by a wide margin.
5) The removal of masters is just weird? IDK how this decision was taken when nobody had any complaints about the vanilla DE tour that people just play. Low signups yada yada its place post PL might be the issue here and not the format itself. The past winners were actually good and established players and I'd say one of the bests, this tournament had 0 issue surrounding it, weird decision weird.
6) 1V1 LIVE IN THE CIRCUIT WOOO!! Would have been the reaction if 1v1 Live weren't just so bad. After many trials and errors, it's obvious that live just doesn't work in 1v1. Tournaments starting after 30+ minutes of begging people to join and just to barely get 16 LOL. Let's not forget the timezones issues and actually finding good hosts around all the hours. Then you might get americans/lowkey eu tours with 16 users and the asian hours with only 8 and the whole point distribution goes to americans lmao. + This has participation award too nice. Most live tournaments had stakes (sv suspect tours) and they were still miserable. Go to 1v1 archive, last pages and go back from there and check every live tour numbers + signups time. Usually when a format is trialed and fails in an unofficial setting the idea stays unofficial and doesn't get promoted to official.
circuit1: GC, LT, Masters, LCQ SE Bo7, LCQ SE Bo7
circuit2: GC, LT, Masters, some other format over swiss
Some flaws, contact me on discord if you need guidance, ill be happy to help
The 2025 circuit appears to have missed the mark in addressing the community's previous concerns and in introducing tournaments that may not align with competitive integrity. Let me explain:
There were many concerns about the LT Swiss format, which led to the decision to revert changes last year. While Swiss might seem like a solid competitive format on paper, in practice, it doesn't necessarily encourage players to continue playing seriously beyond the double-elimination (DE) format. It also doesn't reduce the influence of luck any more than DE does. The OLT follows a Swiss system, but it uses a 32-player format where players are eliminated after 3 losses, not 2. In a 16-player qualifier, Swiss essentially becomes a more complicated DE system, and I believe it's far more important to ensure that LT seeds matter instead of overcomplicating things. Additionally, awarding points to 5th and 6th place seems questionable; perhaps revising the points distribution system would be a better approach.
Given these points, I believe Swiss should be removed from the Championship for the reasons mentioned above. In my view, anything with a Qualifier > Playoffs structure should be DE.
One interesting change I'd suggest is expanding tournament lengths to a Best-of-7 (Bo7) format, particularly for LT or, at the very least, for the Championship. Bo7 is a staple in team tournaments, and it feels odd that it's not part of individual competitions. While it might not be feasible for a long individual tournament, the playoffs provide the perfect opportunity to test a Bo7 format in this setting.
The Swiss non-top cut LCQ seems like a misstep. It doesn’t take much to see how it undermines competitive integrity, as it allows players to accumulate points without the stakes of a proper elimination format. Additionally, removing a check notes Swiss top cut tournament, only to replace it with another check notes Swiss non-top cut event feels counterproductive. Perhaps we should replace it with something more engaging, like bringing back the 1v1 Masters, which featured the best players. Alternatively, consider adding a Bo7 single-elimination (SE) LCQ tournament. These changes would address concerns over points inflation and reinvigorate the circuit.
The decision to remove Masters is puzzling. There were no significant complaints about the original DE format, which was well-received. While low signups may have been an issue, this could be attributed to its timing post-PL, not the format itself. The past winners of Masters were top-tier players, and the tournament didn’t face major issues. This decision seems quite odd.
1v1 Live in the circuit could have been exciting—if only it weren’t so problematic. After numerous trials, it’s clear that Live doesn't work well for 1v1 tournaments. Delays of 30+ minutes to get enough participants, timezone issues, and poor sign-up numbers make it hard to justify its inclusion. For example, American or European tournaments might struggle to get 16 players, while Asian hours often see even fewer participants, distorting the point distribution. Moreover, many of these tournaments had a "participation award" feel to them, which detracts from the competitive experience. Reviewing the last pages of 1v1 Live tournaments will show a consistent pattern of low signups and delayed start times. When a format fails in unofficial settings, it typically doesn’t get promoted to the official circuit.
Proposed Circuit:
Circuit 1: GC, LT, Masters, LCQ SE Bo7
Circuit 2: GC, LT, Masters, Swiss or another format (but not Swiss as currently used)
If you'd like to discuss these points further or need any guidance, feel free to reach out to me on Discord. I'd be happy to help.
I'm someone who really like Swiss top cuts (round of 16 into SE 8) over straight Double elim, so I'd like to try and justify keeping that same set up.
The obvious part is that, DE just takes so long. 8 weeks for 16 people is just ridiculous. 6 weeks is better and gives more freedom. But the bigger advantage is just the consistency in how many games you need to win. Someone can theoretically win a DE tour by going 5-0, but someone who loses round 1 now has to go 8-1 to win? Meanwhile with Swiss to SE the winner will always have 5 wins, and either 0 or 1 loss, which feels a lot more equitable.
Awarding points (literally very small amounts) to 5th and 6th LT subs (I assume this is what you mean) acknowledges that early rounds of this tour exist, which is fine.
Like Deg, I too am critical of Live Tours being integrated into the official circuit. Don't get me wrong, I loved playing them - but that also comes with the memory of begging people to sign up so we could have 16 people. Sometimes it wasn't even that! Sometimes we only got 8! I seriously don't see these kinds of numbers dramatically increasing if the Live tours were official, so I think integrating Live into the circuit will bring no benefit to our system.
Unlike Deg, I like the Swiss format. I may only have played one circuit, but I found Swiss to be fun and an interesting format - I don't think you can change Swiss for DE with no loss. I am also in favour of having a top cut. Double elim also has the disadvantage of taking f---ing forever, while Swiss can easily be scaled to the number of players without too much unnecessary time baggage.
I'm someone who really like Swiss top cuts (round of 16 into SE 8) over straight Double elim, so I'd like to try and justify keeping that same set up.
The obvious part is that, DE just takes so long. 8 weeks for 16 people is just ridiculous. 6 weeks is better and gives more freedom. But the bigger advantage is just the consistency in how many games you need to win. Someone can theoretically win a DE tour by going 5-0, but someone who loses round 1 now has to go 8-1 to win? Meanwhile with Swiss to SE the winner will always have 5 wins, and either 0 or 1 loss, which feels a lot more equitable.
Unlike Deg, I like the Swiss format. I may only have played one circuit, but I found Swiss to be fun and an interesting format - I don't think you can change Swiss for DE with no loss. I am also in favour of having a top cut. Double elim also has the disadvantage of taking f---ing forever, while Swiss can easily be scaled to the number of players without too much unnecessary time baggage.
I'm not too adamant about the idea that Swiss is exclusively bad I just would rather not do it since I believe seeding in LT/Champs is more important and the extra 2 weeks DE add aren't important. If the community doesn't have concerns over swiss anymore it's fine.
I do have a problem with 1v1 Live & LCQ in the format they are, I think they're damaging to the competitive integrity of the circuit + if you add better tournaments and rehaul the point system you don't have to give participation award points. These points are only added cause "the circuit give lower points than intended" as stated. This is def a point system error that should be fixed and not lazily patched.
Full disclosure, I think LCQ should be patched up too in format wise. I think we really should be rethinking what we're looking at from LCQ.
I think masters is a mess of a tournament. Yes, seeded delim looks really nice in theory, but the fact of the matter is that it took iirc 17 or 18 weeks to finish 2023 masters. This year was better because we didn't advertise the tournament, but if we're going back to doing PS News and stuff, we really need to cut the tournament out to have a good individual circuit.
My thoughts on adding Live are that we keep judging its performance as an unofficial tournament. People don't like playing unofficials. They don't really have any reward, and so people have 0 motivation to really even try to join up except for having fun. They're also admittedly commitment based, as you have to available at a certain time of the day and stuff. I really think that comparing it to an unofficial and saying it won't work just because it didn't work as an unofficial isn't really it, especially with Live formats, which are that commitment based in their format. I will also admit that I did a pretty sloppy job of hosting it this year because a lot was going very painfully wrong irl for me at that time, so I think a better planned hosting could make the tournament a lot better.
Going back to LCQ, with regards to single elim bo7 LCQ, I really like the idea. It serves the purpose of a shorter tournament while also providing a more unique playing experience for people. It's pretty punishing though even though being Bo7 sorta fixes that to some degree, but I think it's definitely better than having a potentially 17-18 week tournament towards the end of our circuit. The idea of the circuit is to lead into champs, not into masters, and that genuinely feels (to me) what the last couple of circuits have been.
Regarding Swiss, read lost heros's post. I had similar issues with the swiss stuff as what deg posted, but lost heros's reasoning felt very fair to me with regards to what I want tours to be like, so that's why I changed my viewpoint about Swiss.
neomon brought up something really worth thinking about as a suggestion for the RPL format. This is inspired by NUCL.
Edit: Just to be clear I adapted neomon's suggestion into a format I think fits better, he suggested teams get a flex slot every week
The proposed slots:
SS bo7*
SM bo7*
ORAS bo5
BW bo5
DPP bo5
RSE bo5
At the start of the tour, every team selects a bo5 flex slot**
*I'm keeping these bo7 in favour of bo5 because I know there's high demand for mainers playing these gens bo7. Teams can select SM or SS as their flex slot to still have bo5 for those gens.
**Flex slot can be any gen (Edit: that means any of the above gens + GSC and maybe RBY. Not SV, not Gen 5 CAP LC 1v1), and honestly at that point I don't think it's weird to include GSC or even RBY in the options.
This basically allows all the "main" old gens to get equal representation with 1 slot each, fits in an extra slot for lesser played gens like GSC, and still adds up to 8 slots total. I am aware this is sort of a crazy concept to follow but it's honestly the most exciting RPL format I've seen thus far.
Also about the circuit, I think Live is a very different tournament style that rewards a different skillset than your typical "one week of prep time" format. It rewards people who have a deep pool of solid teams and are adaptable to a variety of situations. This is different, yes, but I don't think it's uncompetitive and I don't see a reason not to include it in the circuit. The only thing that needs working out is certain timezones being disadvantaged in participation, but I seem to remember that was already accounted for.
LCQ swiss is a weird choice I agree, and I won't pretend I am completely against swiss because I think swiss is pog in theory. That being said, DEG's proposed SE bo7 tour format would fit in really well here, and I'd 100% support that being added.
I'm someone who really like Swiss top cuts (round of 16 into SE 8) over straight Double elim, so I'd like to try and justify keeping that same set up.
The obvious part is that, DE just takes so long. 8 weeks for 16 people is just ridiculous. 6 weeks is better and gives more freedom. But the bigger advantage is just the consistency in how many games you need to win. Someone can theoretically win a DE tour by going 5-0, but someone who loses round 1 now has to go 8-1 to win? Meanwhile with Swiss to SE the winner will always have 5 wins, and either 0 or 1 loss, which feels a lot more equitable.
on paper DE lower bracket wins are simply not as competitive as top cut wins, because you're guaranteed to be playing a person who has lost before; plus in Masters paired with seeding it makes the number of wins a lot less of a "challenge" rather than getting the late round wins against people who have performed well in the tour, and gives you a one time ticket against variance.
Swiss 16 -> SE8 is a bit of a midground between true DE and SE; but it's just as equally unfair as the other two formats in that it removes the "advantage" people who have proved themself by going x-0 have privy to in the other formats. The "unfairness" of having to win more in DE is equivalent to the "unfairness" of a person with only 1 loss placing 5th-8th while another person with 1 loss winning the tour. It is likelier that the better players will win a tournament with a higher number of permitted eliminations, and that's a tradeoff with time always. If it was simply about time, then SE takes 4 weeks, which is clearly better than 6 of Swiss or 8 of DE, and to that end, I would probably consult with the players/community (perhaps past champs players as well) after the tours to have a more informed decision made on what players who want to give good feedback do want, since it's their preference for the most part.
personally have nothing against Swiss, but my opinion is that non top cut Swiss when tested was not a format that was conducive to a healthy tour in the state that the community was in, and the format performs less convincingly as a qualifying tour to a bigger competition without serious individualized prizes attached to it.
@neomon brought up something really worth thinking about as a suggestion for the RPL format. This is inspired by NUCL.
The proposed slots:
SS bo7*
SM bo7*
ORAS bo5
BW bo5
DPP bo5
RSE bo5
At the start of the tour, every team selects a bo5 flex slot**
*I'm keeping these bo7 in favour of bo5 because I know there's high demand for mainers playing these gens bo7. Teams can select SM or SS as their flex slot to still have bo5 for those gens.
**Flex slot can be any gen, and honestly at that point I don't think it's weird to include GSC or even RBY in the options.
This basically allows all the "main" old gens to get equal representation with 1 slot each, fits in an extra slot for lesser played gens like GSC, and still adds up to 8 slots total. I am aware this is sort of a crazy concept to follow but it's honestly the most exciting RPL format I've seen thus far.
From a managerial perspective, having flex slots is a bit murky when going out of predefined tiers, because you want to draft starters for each possible tier you would play usually. ATM with the proposed format you would hopefully draft 7 "mainers" (6 best players for each slot + 1 for your picked flex slot), and have one flex player who can fit into the opponent's flex slot every week effectively regardless of the tier. Say, if only 1 team (say, X) picked RBY as their flex slot for the tour. Their team is going to have a dedicated RBY mainer every week playing in the tier while other teams would not have information on whether they needed to get a competent RBY player prior to the weeks starting, and the burden of either having to invest in a good RBY player (builder) without information that RBY would ever be a played tier in the tour, or risk being more underprepared would make it a meretricious change to the tour's value.
(example is agnostic to how skill intensive RBY is and how much being a mainer changes the outcome of games)
I would just suggest deciding and listing out all possible flex slot values (also stops people from playing like bo5 sm cap 1v1 or something probably) so people can be more informed and draft meaningfully to have some set plan in mind going into the auction and deciding what players to add to their roster for these kind of matchups.
e: clarified
On the idea: I think this is a pretty good idea on its own and adds a notch to the tournament's uniqueness (think the rename is worse side note, OGPL >> RPL) + this format goes towards rewarding people who are good at multiple old gens; it encourages good roster building and will give more possible niches to players who are good at older gen formats. It might get a bit funny when you see like 3 SS games a week e.g but in those cases the teams do want this outcome for better or worse, and it's not forced upon them by the tour in any way.
I think masters is a mess of a tournament. Yes, seeded delim looks really nice in theory, but the fact of the matter is that it took iirc 17 or 18 weeks to finish 2023 masters. This year was better because we didn't advertise the tournament, but if we're going back to doing PS News and stuff, we really need to cut the tournament out to have a good individual circuit.
As I said Masters positioning is the main disadvantage, it's a better and more competitive tournament than Live and Current LCQ. Vanilla DE is just a good format, it rewards deep run with important points for championship, it's easy to understand, and it has provided the best winners. There's practically no reason to remove the format that has _always_ worked in 1v1. It can be positioned pre-pl / after gc with lt taking place later in the year. note; you'd use (Current Year - 1) for seeding.
My thoughts on adding Live are that we keep judging its performance as an unofficial tournament. People don't like playing unofficials. They don't really have any reward, and so people have 0 motivation to really even try to join up except for having fun. They're also admittedly commitment based, as you have to available at a certain time of the day and stuff. I really think that comparing it to an unofficial and saying it won't work just because it didn't work as an unofficial isn't really it, especially with Live formats, which are that commitment based in their format. I will also admit that I did a pretty sloppy job of hosting it this year because a lot was going very painfully wrong irl for me at that time, so I think a better planned hosting could make the tournament a lot better.
Also about the circuit, I think Live is a very different tournament style that rewards a different skillset than your typical "one week of prep time" format. It rewards people who have a deep pool of solid teams and are adaptable to a variety of situations. This is different, yes, but I don't think it's uncompetitive and I don't see a reason not to include it in the circuit. The only thing that needs working out is certain timezones being disadvantaged in participation, but I seem to remember that was already accounted for.
I don't think there's a difference between motivation regarding Live in an official setting and without an official setting. There has been 2 simple Live tournaments one being CG other being OG, and plethora suspect tests for OG and CG (actually useful to qualify) and there has been little to no motivation. Live doesn't work in 1v1 no matter how much we're going to try. Masters>LCQ, 2x Single Elim bo7/1x Single Elim Bo7>Live is just a simply better option. I don't know how people that have hosted and participated/watched live are adamant that it's going to work. 1) It's painful to find hosts, 2) It's painful to get people to consistently join (30-40 mins wait time is just TOO demotivating / waste of time), 3) It's actually hardly balancable, USA / EU timezones and specially USA timezones will have to advantage by a) participation numbers which boost the amount of points that a single tournament give; b) More tournaments available to them so they can pick and choose which one to sack unlike other timezones (Asia, OCE) which are cornered into the same tournaments timing.
Live doesn't reward any different skill whatsoever, au contraire, it creates an even more gap between "new" users and "veterans", because the new users will most likely have a limited pool of teams while the veterans have teams from past tours and specially team tours under their nose. Not being able to "prep" is actually a detriment for some others, even though I doubt anyone preps before like top 8 in indivs lol. I don't believe having a supply of teams at demand a "skillset".
personally have nothing against Swiss, but my opinion is that non top cut Swiss when tested was not a format that was conducive to a healthy tour in the state that the community was in, and the format performs less convincingly as a qualifying tour to a bigger competition without serious individualized prizes attached to it
I don’t get having a flex slot for tiers that are not a standard bo5 tier in RPL such as gsc and rby
like during the draft you’re obv by nature looking to slot people that play each of the six tiers, so why would teams be punished a week someone slots a tier like gsc or rby, unless you’re encouraging drafts to be like “these people need to play gsc just in case our opponent flexes it” which seems insensible when you’re thinking of 6 other slots that need support, and need to be flexed
at worst you encourage people for play around drafts that are like “we need to find a gscer in case our opponent flexes it!” and if that never pans out that person is probably just not the ideal support you wanted for your team otherwise, because otherwise you could’ve gotten say 2 ssers/smers that would already encourage good building dynamics within a team
With the tour becoming official, it remaining the same size as when it was unofficial would be like an indicator that we don't have trust in the tour. With wc having seen a successful run with 10 teams and the older old gen potentially attracting more people, I suggest increasing RPL to 10 slots:
SS Bo7
SM Bo7
ORAS
BW
DPP
ADV
GSC
RBY*
Flex Slot
Flex Slot
Here you can give input on tournament formats, RPL/OGPL tiers, and yes also the widely unpopular RPL name. Although not on the form, we've also heard your feedback about needing to slightly move certain tournaments, and will be taking them into account for the final circuit.
I left my opinions in the poll aswell (sorry for the typo, i was too lazy to change nromon to neomon..)
Radus proposal is exactly what i thought of when suggesting this format in the first place. I would make it entirely dependant on signups though. such things can be planned to adjust to any turnover of signups.
The easiest way would be to set a format for 8 slots and in case signups reach a certain number have a format for 10 slots pre set.
I don't want GSC to be added personally, but I have also never given that Metagame a fair chance, so i might be judgy. My ideal slots for 8 players is
SS7/SM7/ORAS/BW/DPP/ADV/(weekly chosen)Flex slot/(weekly chosen) Flex slot
for 10 slots w GSC in its
SS7/SS5/SM7/ORAS/BW/DPP/ADV/GSC/(weekly chosen)Flex slot/(weekly chosen) Flex slot
I think any proposals that leave out any of the tiers between 3-8 (mostly seen suggestions without dpp) should not be entertained or even thought about. I would also rather have last years format than any LGPE or RBY slot.
Any 8 slot Flex Slot format with GSC in is not feasable.
If GSC gets a slot the 8th slot should be SS5.
If a common ground cant be found please keep last years format
because this is technically the first time ogpl is offical, I do not think we should include any gimmick flex spots personally and this may seem hypocritical considering I added gsc but just hear me out, most tiers in ogpl are just throw in that newblood and hopd they do well. (Mainly gens 3-5) I think gsc here isn’t an exception to this concept, especially considering you don’t even have to make use of evs in GSC so building the tier won’t even be that hard, making the tier a possible picker diff but I could be wrong. With gsc being added here we can actually have evidence of how the tier performs with the players playing it and we can judge it from there.
I think having an SS bo5 slot with the inclusion of bo7 isn’t bad here either since correct me if I’m wrong but an ss bo5 and ss bo7 was included in pl 8 so if it could work there, it can work here.
I’m surprised by this but no one is mentioning how many teams there are gonna be there 6 or or 8, 6 was there cause the tour was unofficial prior to this but since its official now, it’s up to interpretation now
Few loose thoughts on ogpl changes (pov is won't manage, unsure if playing):
-ADV desperately needs some type of tiering action. I would advocate a Raikou or Scope Lens ban.
-I've only dabbled in it so I won't really push against it but, as a manager, having to prep no ev GSC 1v1 across multiple weeks might actually be ulcer inducing. It seems inevitable that "catching someone" just becomes a matter who loads the most 2-1s with how little possible variance there is.
-Any manager pricing system that produced 10k DripLegend should not be entertained under any circumstance.
With the tour becoming official, it remaining the same size as when it was unofficial would be like an indicator that we don't have trust in the tour. With wc having seen a successful run with 10 teams and the older old gen potentially attracting more people, I suggest increasing RPL to 10 slots:
This silicon valley startup type "not constantly growing at insane speeds = failure" line of thinking is pretty insane to apply to a pokemon tour. I didn't play this world cup so I won't comment on the level of play that tour had but, especially in an auction tour, it is critical that good buys aren't scarce enough to make filling a roster a challenge.
We already saw some signs of strain last pl - 34k delemon, kaif draft being cornered into a Close overpay. I absolutely do not have faith that filling out a 10 slot no-incentive ogpl is reasonably doable. (I started DPP Slip last year btw like hello (Slip if u find this post ilu ^_^)).
-ADV desperately needs some type of tiering action. I would advocate a Raikou or Scope Lens ban.
-I've only dabbled in it so I won't really push against it but, as a manager, having to prep no ev GSC 1v1 across multiple weeks might actually be ulcer inducing. It seems inevitable that "catching someone" just becomes a matter who loads the most 2-1s with how little possible variance there is.
Tbh the lack of variation I get. But you gotta remember gsc is just gonna end up a “picker tier” like adv or dpp and I guess bw too. And the lack of variance applies to tiers like adv and dpp since most of the time, they’re tiers that people build for their wildcard slot with a bunch of a brokens and hope they do well. And since everything is sus of broken mons, that leads to lack of variation as well.
In ADV, everyone was just spamming scope lens raikou, leech sceptile and toxic tauros
DPP everyone was just spamming Clefable and most teams were clefable, Clefable counter, filler.
BW is a bit more unique since they’re more mainers naturally since its inclusion in pl and wc but most teams are just electric + fighting filler, lax, Manaphy, genesect and thundurus before bro got banned.
What I’m trying to get at here is that the lack of variation of teams in these tiers is going to be inevitable because builders are going to into these tiers spamming brokens ass mons because the players who are playing these tiers are most likely some 3k random (shoutout Eli) who most likely don’t know anything about the tier they’re playing and definitely can’t play it at a decent to high level.
I get you want an experienced player in these older gen slots but these experienced older gen players are most likely going to play something else and a select few playing their main tier.
One of the principles of a team tour is to just draft a 3k gamer and hope they do well, the actual hard part is getting someone who knows how to build these older gen tiers, granted there are like 5 people who’ve played more than 15 games of gsc as I said before, you don’t have variation due to lack of evs but on the contrary, no building ON PAPER makes it easier to build but we at least have to see it in practice to determine if it’s actually ulcer inducing
Ok now tlt is as bad as live. Roomtours barely get numbers, specially Asian/oce +a lot of Europe days. Youre still giving advantage to americans that can join bigger tournaments resulting to more pts. That's in a major circuit tournament. You can't have that advantage, big no. Just look at past experience in official room tournaments, the sample test exist there's no need to ignore it just to to "make something new"
All tours are short you have to add another single elim tour if anything. Unless masters>tlt then its fine. Idk why we're so adamant about a live tournament that just creates disadvantage and isn't even popular.
Ok now tlt is as bad as live. Roomtours barely get numbers, specially Asian/oce +a lot of Europe days. Youre still giving advantage to americans that can join bigger tournaments resulting to more pts. That's in a major circuit tournament. You can't have that advantage, big no. Just look at past experience in official room tournaments, the sample test exist there's no need to ignore it just to to "make something new"
All tours are short you have to add another single elim tour if anything. Unless masters>tlt then its fine. Idk why we're so adamant about a live tournament that just creates disadvantage and isn't even popular.
personal opinion here not speaking for anyone else yada yada etc ya know the drill...
masters sucks as a tour. the positioning of masters every year is honestly (imo) what makes it more competitive, as it is the last tour before champs, and is driven by a lot of people who actually want to play champs. you keep dismissing tournaments because nobody plays them, but the reality is barely anyone plays ladder, and I don't see any complaints about that tour. when a tournament is in circuit, people tend to actually play the tournament. TLT is a nice way to integrate room activity into people actually playing our circuit. there's definitely ways we can run a TLT to make it more equitable to asia + oce people, we just need to find how to structure a points format to do that.
anyways, can we look at how we do manager pricing in ogpl / pl? I was a part in creating how it was done for the past few tournaments, and it basically fixed none of the issues we had with just randomly voting for people, just added more guardrails. flat pricing is honestly a pretty nice idea, but idk.
