Tournament ADPL 9 - Discussion Thread

[ComputerWhiz]

Hello everyone, and welcome to ADPL 9. We will be having manager signups going up around Feb 22nd, but wanted to hash out some issues related to format.

Currently, we will be keeping the same regular tiers as last year:

Stour Bo3
SV OU
SV OU
SS OU
SM OU
ORAS OU
BW OU
DPP OU
ADV OU
GSC OU
RBY OU

With that being said, the third SV slot last year was converted to an undrafted Bo3. While the intentions for this format were good, I don't think things played out as well as we wanted on the back-end, and ended up making teams with good undrafted slots benefit more than the previous year. So the first issue for this discussion thread will be:

How should the Undrafted format work for this year?

We can return to last year's format, which has the advantage of assigning more undrafted players to each roster, therefore increasing the amount of players who get to compete. The other option would be our format from two years ago, assigning 2 undrafted players to each team, and they will need to play at least one week for the roster. If the undrafted Bo3 is removed, another SV slot will be added to the regular tiers. If there are other ideas, feel free to share them.

The other main issue will be:

How many teams will compete in ADPL 9?

We have had 10 teams for the previous two years of competition. This has, however, been grueling for both hosts and managers alike. I've wanted to keep as many teams as possible to get as many players as possible able to play in the tour, but this should not come at the cost of burnout for any players, managers, or staff of the tour. The obvious option would be to reduce the team size to 8, and therefore have a 7 week season. There have been some suggestions of running a 7 week season regardless of the amount of teams, but this creates inequity in schedule for certain teams, so I'm less inclined to follow a format such as this. If you'd like to make other suggestions, feel free to share, but 10 teams 9 weeks and 8 teams 7 weeks will be the primary options.

There are also a few minor issues to share:

Should ADPL 9 have 3 managers per team? Many tours on the site seem to be moving in this direction, and with the amount of tours covered, this seems like the best solution.
Should undrafted slots be restricted in some manner? Requiring some amount of posts or activity to be eligible for the undrafted slot. This will mean the drawing will not be live since I'll be sorting through things on the back-end.
Is the proposed timeline acceptable? Depending on number of weeks decision, with a 7 week season finals will likely take place around May 3rd, whereas this would be the end of regular season for a 9 week season.
Any changes to the self-buy or retains system from last year?

Previous year retains rule

Retainer rules:

A team may retain up to 4 players total, including managers, but is not required to retain any. For example you may self-buy both managers, then you would only be able to retain up to 2 additional players from the previous roster. Without any managers retained, the limit is 3 retained players. Undrafted players from the previous year will be ineligible for retaining. For example, Ironclad Infernapes could not elect to retain polt.

The cost to retain a player on their first year as a retention will be the HIGHER of the following two scenarios (unchanged from last year):

1. The amount that the player went for in the last auction + 3k (ex. if Oglemi was bought for 13k, it would cost 16k to retain him)
2. 10k, if the previous price + 3k would end up being lower than 10k (ex. if Oglemi was bought for 6k, his retaining cost would be 10k, not 9k)

Remember that a player bought for under 10k during last year's auction will not necessarily cost just 10k to retain. If Oglemi was bought for 9k in last year's auction, he would cost 12k to retain this year, not 10k.

Any other questions or concerns you would like to propose to make ADPL a better tour?

Thank you for your feedback and time. Let's make this tour the best it can be!

 

[Kustavan]

As a manager who won last year, I must say reduce it from 10 teams to 8. The burnout is real and this drags the tour for too long and this doesn't include tie breakers. Also the undrafted player concept is good to push new players getting a chance to shine but this can be very unfair for some teams. I would propose we remove undrafted bo3 for Smogon masters bo3 like cnpl or Smogon classic bo5 since they are pretty popular right now.

 

[Wesleyy]

How should the Undrafted format work for this year?
The tour kind of revolves around this since its the academy premier league after all, inviting new players to the team cord who will only get to play 1 game (probably against a player miles ahead of them doesnt make sense to me). I'd say even tho my team had flaws in the underdrafted slot with a player ban and other stuff happening that the undrafted BO3 just simply is the most inviting and most fun for the undrafted players on a team.

How many teams will compete in ADPL 9?
I think the 9 weeks option makes ADPL the tour it is, we currently have CNPL going on which is the EXACT 1:1 same format but in 8 team fashion. (however i am not against reducing the amount of teams, my team also noticed the burnout)

Should ADPL 9 have 3 managers per team?
I dont see to many downsides to having 3 managers but also don't see the need. Many pairs of 2 will just pick out their most broken friend to selfbuy along them and do nothing managing related.

Should undrafted slots be restricted in some manor?
I don't think you could put a number of posts / reaction score to restrict it to. But just a host team decision on every player if it's responsible to assign said player to a team and carry 'responsibility'

Is the proposed timeline acceptable?
A good argument that came up was ADPL overlapping with WCOP, however this probably wont even affect 1/3rd of the total players this tournament. And iirc would only overlap with a very minor part of the tournament.

Any changes to the self-buy or retains system from last year?
Retains are fine, remove self-buy for reasons above

 

[Incognition]

How should the Undrafted format work for this year?
It's meant to be called 'Academy Premier League', but most of the time it's mainly just SCL/SPL level players competing, which contradicts the purpose of the competition.

I think you either enable more undrafted players to a roster (making sure they are actually active and unbanned), or you create an undrafted version of the competition going forward, where people can prove themselves and get a chance to feature in the next ADPL (e.g. OUPL/OUFL, NDPL/NDFL, etc)

If there are barely going to be 'academy' players joining, then just rename the whole competition.

How many teams will compete in ADPL 9?
If the number of weeks has been fine, then there's no reason not to change it. Most people are likely prepared for this sort of length, if you factor in tournaments like Masters, Seasonals, Team Tours (although most regular seasons are 7 weeks).

Should ADPL 9 have 3 managers per team?
Most team tours have had 3 managers recently, so this shouldn't really be an issue if it were adapted for this tournament.

 

[MAVERICK SHOOTERS]

This tour is purposely positioned to be right after SPL and before WCOP specifically so that it doesn't just become a copy of SPL, if to copy SPL was the goal then it would be infinitely better to just have it right before SPL. The goal with this timeline is most SPL playing people do not signup for it as they are usually tired from the 9 weeks+possible playoff grind they just had to do and sit out till WCOP hence letting the other players get a chance to compete at a decent level while fighting vs some of the SPL caliber players who do still signup making it a good mix

How should the Undrafted format work for this year?
Having been a part of ADPL for so long and seeing multiple new players grab the opportunity and use it to do well in the year forward is always a great part to see year on year (my first tour was ADPL as well), I would love to continue something like the last year's format where players got to play for the entire season, but the tier choosing was very much a problem and multiple teams got lopsidedly good undrafted players or getting players who play rby gsc which no one else in the pool had any idea how to play while some other teams got the short end of the stick which ended up impacting which teams made playoffs and which didn't, I think while something like all 3 slots SV OU could maybe work, for new players who play other gens its really hard to teach how sv and tera works along with all the meta things without putting countless hours into it which is not really feasible unfortunately.

Tl; dr go back to the format of 2 undrafteds per team and they have to play at least 1 week minimum, with the added rule/edit that the 1 week requirement of them playing must be them starting in the lineup at start of the week over being last minute subbed in so they can properly prep, while they will not get the full season playing experience like last year, they still get the team tournament experience and can utilize it very well if they wish to impressing players on the team who might recommend them in other tours as well.

How many teams will compete in ADPL 9?
In an ideal world we do 10 teams so more chance for newer tour players trying to make a name get in, but the 9 week regular season is way too taxing especially with playoffs and tiebreakers included, hence would be for 8 teams 7 weeks

Should ADPL 9 have 3 managers per team?
2 Managers is enough imo, don't feel the need for third, you can draft high end people where your core lacks in support and be completely fine

Should undrafted slots be restricted in some manner?
As long as a good restriction can be found which is very simple for basically any player who even has a slight interest can be eligible and just filters out the entirely new account or 1 post wonders who die immediately after then I am all for it

Is the proposed timeline acceptable? / Any changes to the self-buy or retains system from last year?
Both are fine keep as is

 

[Incognition]

How should the Undrafted format work for this year?
Tl; dr go back to the format of 2 undrafteds per team and they have to play at least 1 week minimum, with the added rule/edit that the 1 week requirement of them playing must be them starting in the lineup at start of the week over being last minute subbed in so they can properly prep, while they will not get the full season playing experience like last year, they still get the team tournament experience and can utilize it very well if they wish to impressing players on the team who might recommend them in other tours as well.

I'm not saying there should be an excessive amount, but if there's only 2 undrafted players per team, how is that exactly promoting new talent? In general, what is usually the criteria for managers to determine what is 'new talent'? I won't argue that there are players who started off in ADPL to do well, but the same can be said about ROAPL.

I remember when I first joined Smogon, I grinded tournaments, and in 2025, this was one of the first team tournaments I had my eye on, but when I saw the players being selected, I thought what's the point as a newer player? I think part of the reason is because there's a CA prize which gets higher quality sign ups compared to other tours, so the same players end up getting picked.

For tournaments like OUFL, etc, it's easier to decide since a lot of players have been undrafted in the main competition and there's a tour specifically for them to develop, but here it isn't the case.

I'm just keen on newer players getting a better chance, otherwise, I would emphasise renaming this from 'Academy' to something else.

 

[violet river]

i think you should make it a 12-14 team tour and just have it be a seven week main season. not every team has to play each other(slight hit to competitiveness, but would you argue its worse than having your undrafted players be lottery, where some teams get viable starters and others dont?), and instead of an arbitrary undrafted player pickup method, the undrafted picks come in the form that way more people need to be drafted due to have more teams.
my format reduces burnout and arbitrary nonsense and also gets around 40-70 extra players drafted.