Tournaments ADVPL VI Format Discussion

[violet river]

I believe that we should expand to better accomodate our playerbase, and that expansion doesn't meaningfully lower the quality of games.
ADVPL V had four OU slots per team(including bo3) with eight teams, for a total of thirty two OU starters. I don't believe that the next best twenty or so OU players are so much more incompetent - last ADVPL featured some excellent players on the bench or undrafted, notably including players like zinc3(3-1 in SPL this year), Spreek and Sato07. Lady Bug was the 31st ranked player on the power rankings(I believe?) and put up one of the best seasons at 6-2.

ADV is far and away the largest community, and deserves a twelve slot tournament to match. I am wholly unconvinced that adding OU slots reduces the game quality - any games beyond 2nd slot is going to feature non spl/invitational players, and there's loads of competent people that don't fit into that bracket. I would argue strongly for a twelve slot PL this advpl.
Last years format was:
Ubers x1
OU Bo3 x1
OU x3
UU x1
RU x1
NU x1
PU x1
LC x1

None of these slots should be cut I think(unless the community has any particularly strong opinion on the exclusion of these tiers, but they seem to be pretty well received).
I would argue for a twelve slot format of:
Ubers x1
OU Bo3 x1
OU x4
UU x1
RU x1
NU x1
PU x1
LC x1
Draft x1(or a sixth OU)

In format discussion threads, signups are often cited to show interest in a tier. 2025 Emerald Open eclipsed 300 signups to play ADV Draft, the Hoenn Draft Invitational circuit is nearing its close, featuring four hundred and eighty players participating in the circuit, and an established top cut of sixteen. Not only is there a huge and willing playerbase, there's an established tournament caliber playerbase, with established boards to draw from for the tournament.
Draft was recently featured in the National Dex Champions League as an example for how draft slots into a non-draft team tournament. At the start of the tournament, teams do multiple drafts(2-3) and then pick between them each week, so as to evade matchup-dominated games. I am convinced that draft would be a good fit for this tournament, and would love to hear discussion.

If not Draft, then 12 slots with six OU slots(I would love to hear what the returning managers think about this! I personally would feel confident finding players for all of these slots. If others share this belief, that's pretty compelling for expansion imo.) or a doubles slot last is fine. I would strongly prefer draft over doubles, because draft has about five times the playerbase and is less esoteric. Non draft players can meaningfully offer advice and help in the building process for a draft game, it's easy to sub someone in, etc, unlike doubles.

 

[LessThanThreeMan]

I would like to propose replacing the least popular tiers with 3 flex slots so we can give the more popular tiers a chance to be slotted, as well as more flexibility in team construction. I’d suggest the flex slots to be reserved for RU, PU, UUBL, DOU, LC, ZU.

This should be a decent middle ground for the community, while maintaining 10 slots, and allowing less draft constraints.

Edit: I also think upping to 12 slots would be more than doable. Anyone saying this would ruin the prestige of the tour simply doesn’t know ball.

I love flex slots, but this feels more like the kind of thing for a separate, fully flex slot based tour.

 

[LHF]

I believe that we should expand to better accomodate our playerbase, and that expansion doesn't meaningfully lower the quality of games.
ADVPL V had four OU slots per team(including bo3) with eight teams, for a total of thirty two OU starters. I don't believe that the next best twenty or so OU players are so much more incompetent - last ADVPL featured some excellent players on the bench or undrafted, notably including players like zinc3(3-1 in SPL this year), Spreek and Sato07. Lady Bug was the 31st ranked player on the power rankings(I believe?) and put up one of the best seasons at 6-2.

ADV is far and away the largest community, and deserves a twelve slot tournament to match. I am wholly unconvinced that adding OU slots reduces the game quality - any games beyond 2nd slot is going to feature non spl/invitational players, and there's loads of competent people that don't fit into that bracket. I would argue strongly for a twelve slot PL this advpl.
Last years format was:
Ubers x1
OU Bo3 x1
OU x3
UU x1
RU x1
NU x1
PU x1
LC x1

None of these slots should be cut I think(unless the community has any particularly strong opinion on the exclusion of these tiers, but they seem to be pretty well received).
I would argue for a twelve slot format of:
Ubers x1
OU Bo3 x1
OU x4
UU x1
RU x1
NU x1
PU x1
LC x1
Draft x1(or a sixth OU)

In format discussion threads, signups are often cited to show interest in a tier. 2025 Emerald Open eclipsed 300 signups to play ADV Draft, the Hoenn Draft Invitational circuit is nearing its close, featuring four hundred and eighty players participating in the circuit, and an established top cut of sixteen. Not only is there a huge and willing playerbase, there's an established tournament caliber playerbase, with established boards to draw from for the tournament.
Draft was recently featured in the National Dex Champions League as an example for how draft slots into a non-draft team tournament. At the start of the tournament, teams do multiple drafts(2-3) and then pick between them each week, so as to evade matchup-dominated games. I am convinced that draft would be a good fit for this tournament, and would love to hear discussion.

If not Draft, then 12 slots with six OU slots(I would love to hear what the returning managers think about this! I personally would feel confident finding players for all of these slots. If others share this belief, that's pretty compelling for expansion imo.) or a doubles slot last is fine. I would strongly prefer draft over doubles, because draft has about five times the playerbase and is less esoteric. Non draft players can meaningfully offer advice and help in the building process for a draft game, it's easy to sub someone in, etc, unlike doubles.

If the community is there for draft I would be all for it over UUBL personally(with an additional OU slot being added as well) for a total of 12. I like the ten slot format but have no problems with 12 if the demand's there! There is zero chance that draft could appear for LTL whereas UUBL surely will be returning there. I could easily see there being a lot of intrigue about this, it would promote excellent overlap with the draft community(maybe it gets them into ADV OU/LTs, or ADV OU/LT players into draft), and they can put their heads together to cook up new spreads and sets to cteam the opponent. The more I write the more I'd personally love to see this. It's similar to how I feel about RBYPL having rands - great cross promotion overall for both communities.

Orre and DOU deserve to be in a tournament together, likely LTL, and would be able to support one another better due to doubles overlap(yes I am aware they play differently but the point remains that they can help the other better than singles players can- just look at how isolated the Orre slots were in ALTPL).

I love flex slots, but this feels more like the kind of thing for a separate, fully flex slot based tour.

someone will eventually do something like ADVCL where this could happen, I'm sure, given this gen's popularity. but I'm with you in saying that flex slots for a genPL doesn't feel right.

 

[Indulge in dreams]

Ubers x1
OU Bo3 x2
OU x2
UU x1
RU x1
NU x1
PU x1
LC x1

and draft me as 3k sub plz

 

[Joaf]

I love flex slots, but this feels more like the kind of thing for a separate, fully flex slot based tour.

Yeah I think that’s fair. I would probably argue for Violet River’s 12 slot post but include ZU/UUBL over a their draft and one of the bo1 OU slot to look something like this;

Ubers x1
OU Bo3 x1
OU x3
UUBL x 1
UU x1
RU x1
NU x1
PU x1
ZU x1
LC x1

 

[Politoad With An A]

Is DOU seriously getting cut again..? Why is this not a contender at all.

I thought the reason DOU was cut the year prior was due to the complete lack of interest and a new banlist, there has been interest and a solidified format + updated resouces (and even new ones! ty Amaranth). DOU genuinely has a lot to offer from both a skill expressive and entertainment view, and DOU being a very real mainstay shown by its inclusion in other [Gen]PLs such as ORAS, SM etc.

I think there are like 2 big “issues” that justify its disinclusion, those being

The Island excuse
Probs the most common reason DOU and Orre are brushed off is “Us singles players can’t help them/Us managers don’t know who’s good”. Personally I think this is bullshit lol. DOU (especially ADV) has an extremely low floor for learning the tier at least a little bit, majority of the skill comes from predicting correctly, this tier is easy as hell to learn if provided with good teams and some elaboration of matchups.
As for managers, why do people playing Doubles have anything to do with yalls research? You should be literally doing the same thing as if you were researching for NU and the like. So unless your drafting is vibes based/being lazy and recycling players from ADVPL years prior, this shouldn’t effect you much. The ADV community as of late is trying its best to bridge the communities as a whole (thank yall so much Joaf, goldmason and zoe + other people I’m prolly forgetting (sorry TwT))

The next excuse is Orre vs. DOU
These are completely different tiers lol. Why can’t both be included?
Comparing these tiers is like comparing ADV LC to ADV OU, the speed, playstyle, banlist and dynamics are completely different. The unbanning of Latis and Boom alone are enough to create a unique and vastly different metagame with a lot of its own merit, but the added layers of Team Preview, OTS and B6P4 makes the fundementals needed to play the tier very different, as now you know what mons, sets & general team composition your opponent has and you need to accurately guess what they’ll bring into your team. DOU on the other hand is a lot more reliant on pinning down exactly what the opponent has without actually seeing it, making the tier a lot more ‘bait n switch’ compared to Orre. A prime example of this would be DOU’s lead metagame:
Lets say your opponent leads Tauros. This instantly tells you a lot about their team; Because they are leading Tauros, they have additional answers to both Celebi and Suicune, most likely Celebi, Gyarados, Raikou etc. It also tells you they likely have another Intimidate user for cycling threats like Snorlax, Tauros etc. Gyarados and Arcanine are now in consideration for 1 of their last 6 mons. etc etc I could go on, you get the point. Another reason to have both would so each tier player would have extremely high quality practice partners for testing more nuanced parts of building such as correctly EVing, team dynamics and scouting. This worked extremely well in past tours (my goat Nnico Iosi) and it would be disappointing if not again done here.

Another random point I want to add on (which has nothing to do with my above arguement but w/e) is that DOU should absolutely be Bo3 if included, it just needs that due to the funky RNG aspects lol and idt anyone playing would object.

ty for reading! hope to get drafted to yalls team as the token DOU player <3

 

[SPFunkM]

Less adv ou slots.

 

[Caloom]

Free doubles