The 2025 Doubles OU Circuit will consist of the following tournaments:
- Doubles Ladder Tournament
- Official Smogon Doubles Tournament V
- Two Doubles Seasonals: Summer and Fall
- Doubles Last Chance Qualifier
Doubles Ladder Tournament:
Official Smogon Doubles Tournament:
Doubles Seasonals:
Doubles Last Chance Qualifier:
FAQ:
1. What is Doubles Ladder Tournament?
In this tournament, people will be signing up to ladder for a full week to rank as high as possible. The highest ranking finishers may earn a spot in the playoffs. This cycle will continue for four weeks and culminate in a single elimination, best-of-three playoff for all qualifiers. There will be four laddering periods, with four participants from each qualifying for a 16-man playoff. As always, these qualifiers will be decided by ELO at the end of the laddering period. There will be no wild card entrants or byes in playoffs.
2. What are Doubles Seasonals?
Seasonals are the most straightforward of our tournaments and serve as the flagship tournaments for the DOU Circuit. They are large, double elimination tournaments that generally take around 14-15 weeks to fully finish. Each round you will be paired up with an opponent and play a Bo3 SV Doubles OU set, during which you will be allowed to switch teams between games. Due to double elimination there are winner and loser brackets in these tours which you will drop from one to the other after your first loss, before being eliminated by a second loss. Players in winner bracket will only be required to play a set every second week, whereas those in loser bracket will be required to play a set every single week. There will be two seasonals in the 2025 circuit, back up from just one in 2024.
3. What is Official Smogon Doubles Tournament?
The Official Smogon Doubles Tournament (OSDT) is one of Smogon's prestigious official tournaments, awarding a trophy to the winner, with participants also being rewarded with points towards the Doubles OU Circuit. OSDT is a large, Swiss-style tournament, with nine qualifying rounds during the Swiss portion where each round players will be matched up with an opponent with a similar record as them. The rounds will be played in best of three matchups of SV DOU. Players are eliminated once they have three losses in the Swiss portion. Participants that do not accumulate three losses during the Swiss rounds will top cut, which will be a single elimination tournament with rounds of best of three SV DOU, seeded based on the results from the Swiss qualifier (including resistance).
4. What is Doubles Last Chance Qualifier?
Doubles Last Chance Qualifier is a single elimination tournament played in rounds of best of three SV DOU held at the end of the year, providing participants with a "last chance" to get needed circuit points to qualify for the 2025 Doubles Invitational. As the tournament is single elimination rather than double elimination, there is only one bracket and one loss puts you out, with there being no bye weeks and the tour overall moving much quicker compared to Seasonals even with a similar number of participants.
5. When are all these tournaments happening?
Check the second post in this thread for the circuit schedule!
*Regarding restricting access to tournament matches
In order for access to be restricted to a tournament set, both players must consent (i.e., the default is public room, modjoin off). Furthermore, viewing access to tournament matches may not be restricted in any way in the following scenarios:
- During or after Top 8 of single elimination tournament brackets, including playoffs of tournaments with a qualifying + playoff component
- During or after Round 10 of Seasonals
- At any point during Doubles Premier League
- At any point during Doubles Invitationals
Any games with restricted access under the specified scenarios will be considered invalid and must be replayed. For example, Player A wins game 1 of a set, then modjoins game 2 and wins game 2. Game 2 will not be counted and must be replayed for the set to be complete.
Anyone found to be abusing the rule (e.g. hiding a room when you know you'll lose so it will be invalid) will be punished severely.
