Tournament AGPL VII - Format Discussion

Murphy Lawden

Murphy Lawden

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Hi everyone! AGPL VII is coming in the near future and we would like to hear input on the structure of the tour and tiers selected.

We would like to do something similar to last year - 6 teams, and 10 players minimum per team (8 starters + 2 subs) with 8 slots. There will be a 5-week round robin with the top team advancing straight to finals, while the 2nd and 3rd place teams play each other for the other spot.

Like last year, AGPL VII will award a custom avatar this year as well!

Tentative Schedule

Manager and Player Signups - 16th June
Auction - 27th / 28th / 29th June
Week 1 - 30th June

This year we are planning to lock for this year's AGPL:
- SV AG
- SV AG
- SV AG (Bo3)
- SS AG
- USUM AG
- ORAS AG
- Multigen Bo3 (SV / SS / SM)

Some ideas for the remaining slot:
- 4 SV slots work fine but oversaturate the tour with SV which may not be desirable to some.
- Other formats that are being considered are SSNDAG and DPP AG but it's difficult to justify them over the former choices.
- 2 SS/SM slots is the main alternative to this but we were worried about the quality of games in this slot + that we're giving priority to SS/SM over the other old gens for no real reason.

Here is a list of the formats used in the past three AG team tours for reference:
SV AG
SV AG
SV AG Bo3
SS AG
SS AG
USUM AG
USUM AG
Multigen Bo3
SV AG
SV AG
SV AG
SV AG Bo3
SS AG
USUM AG
ORAS AG
Multigens Bo3
SV AG
SV AG
SV AG
SV AG Bo3
SS AG
SS AG
USUM AG
USUM AG
ORAS AG
Multigen Bo3

------

Discuss your hearts out! Thread should have a conclusion by 15th June at the latest!
 
:rayquaza-mega: AGPL time :summerchu:


Ok, I’ve got a few things to say about this.

I think that with the player base that we have and with AGPL being the flagship tournament, we can comfortably run 8 or 9 slots. That, of course, leaves the question what to fill the remaining 1 or 2 slots with. I agree that simply adding another SV slot would feel like too much SV in the tour. However, if we fill AGPL with 9 slots, SV and something else, I don’t think that’s a bad idea. There are a lot of up-and-coming SV players, and as a result I think it would be great to provide them with more opportunities to be a part of these team tournaments.

About the other tiers, I agree that we could change it up rather than doubling up on SS/SM slots. That being said, I don’t really think that DPP is the right play, because the “active” player base for it consists of like 4 people. It would certainly bring more attention to the tier, but I think that adding it is more catering to a niche group of people than it would benefit AGPL over something else. Moreover, I think it would cause stress for managers trying to pick up someone that can play the tier, and then also someone that can cover it as a sub. And the people also actually would have to choose to play it over a different tier.

SSNDAG (DLC 1 or later versions) on the other hand, I think would be a great addition. I know it was brought up for AGWL in 2024, and honestly I’m not sure why it was dropped. I think that SSNDAG is an iconic tier that was once a core part of AG, and it’s sad to me that we don’t see the tier out anymore. Of course, this could just be some bureaucratic thing I’m not aware of, but if it’s on the table then I think we should totally have it as a slot. We definitely have the player base to support it, even more so with the attention it has already from SSNDPL. It’s a fun change of pace, and I think it’s long overdue for a spot back in AG team tours.

Another possible idea I’d like to bring up is something akin to flex slots. We recently saw it out of UMBD, and I quite enjoyed the extra planning and strategy that came from it. I think some of the issues with it was that it would be hard to cover multiple niche slots and so some flex slots were just automatic wins/losses. I think this would be much less of an issue in AG, as it would be easy to slot in a player for SV, SS, or USUM. Of course, flex slots would require two slots and thereby take out other potential tiers. Maybe include SSNDAG as a flex slot option? That could be a solid idea. I’m not particularly vying for or against the idea of flex slots as an AGPL addition, I simply thinking that it was interesting and wanted to bring it up.

There’s one more thing I want to cover: the number of teams. We have done 6 teams for the past AGWL and AGPL, and that has worked wonderfully. That being said, I think that our player base has increased somewhat, and as a result, I know that people (myself included) have brought up having 8 teams. Compared to the number of last AGWL and the fact that AGPL would have more signups, I think we could certainly field enough players to do it. I think we could safely do 8 slots with that, making the remaining slot either SV or SSNDAG. That being said, having 8 teams would really spread out the players. I don’t know if people are particularly for or against that, but I personally think that with the numbers we have, it could result in teams being noticeable weaker than others after the auction. Of course, that’s maybe more of a manager issue, but that being said with 8 teams we also need to have 8 sets of strong managers. Oh and AG team tours have a certain trend of [redacted]… so maybe it’s not the best idea for now to spread to 8 teams when one of them could just disappear overnight.

That’s all from me for right now. I’m looking forward to seeing what other people think, and am psyched for an awesome AGPL!
 
Lord Rekkuza said:
SSNDAG (DLC 1 or later versions) on the other hand, I think would be a great addition. I know it was brought up for AGWL in 2024, and honestly I’m not sure why it was dropped. I think that SSNDAG is an iconic tier that was once a core part of AG, and it’s sad to me that we don’t see the tier out anymore. Of course, this could just be some bureaucratic thing I’m not aware of, but if it’s on the table then I think we should totally have it as a slot. We definitely have the player base to support it, even more so with the attention it has already from SSNDPL. It’s a fun change of pace, and I think it’s long overdue for a spot back in AG team tours.
Click to expand...
i second the idea of DLC 1 SSNDAG, i signed up for SSNDPL and got to have my first look at the tier after avoiding dynamax like the plague and i have to admit it's probably one of the most competitive AG tiers and would be a genuinely great addition to this year's AGPL. with the amount of newer players this year (me included! :D), SSNDAG DLC 1 would definitely be a great choice over adding a 4th SV slot and would diversify the amount of formats in this year's AGPL. i feel like having the last slot as DPP would bring more attention to it, but with the main playerbase being very small it would be hard for every team to actually have someone who can play DPP, let alone sub
 
don't add ss ndag it's not a real tier with no info and 0 play for like 4 years straight. it would just be like 5 people who liked the tier at the time reusing builds from 2020. I think either 4 sv or contingent on signups we could include dpp in the OP and see how many people want to play it. I think since dpp is the only ag tier with proper differences not fully integrated into the circuit aside from its minitour it could be given a chance. If we do 4 sv I also think the bo3 slot could be changed to a bo1, since prepping that much sv is a lot and if we add more slots we could reduce the number of games a bit but still sv will be by far the biggest majority.
 
I would like to bring up Pre-DLC SV as a suggestion. I don’t know if this is a fully realistic option that one could see in team tournaments, but I think it makes for a pretty good option compared to others. SV before any of the DLCs (though still after home integration) is arguably the best moment for SV, as teambuilding was not as restrictive or single-minded, and playing it was a lot of fun. I think that including this solves problems in that it is not the stale meta of SV that we see now, but also is still basically our current generation of AG. In doing so we also are not forced to provide an extra tier to one of the old gens, don’t have to deal with the policy debacles of SSNDAG, and don’t have to rely on DPP which doesn’t have a real playerbase. I don’t know how plausible it is, but Murphy said they would be able to code it, and so I guess it falls now to whether or not people would approve of it. I think that the complaints of SV oversaturation come from it being now a stale meta that isn’t fun to build for, and with this slightly different meta people might enjoy it more.

e: I would like to say though I definitely prefer SSNDAG more. Icemaster’s post below gives me hope that it can surpass the issues around it regarding policy. I do think that it is the best addition we could add in terms of tier enjoyment and overall balance in AGPL.
 
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Fc said:
don't add ss ndag it's not a real tier with no info and 0 play for like 4 years straight. it would just be like 5 people who liked the tier at the time reusing builds from 2020. I think either 4 sv or contingent on signups we could include dpp in the OP and see how many people want to play it. I think since dpp is the only ag tier with proper differences not fully integrated into the circuit aside from its minitour it could be given a chance. If we do 4 sv I also think the bo3 slot could be changed to a bo1, since prepping that much sv is a lot and if we add more slots we could reduce the number of games a bit but still sv will be by far the biggest majority.
Click to expand...
I wasn't gonna post on this thread but there's a lot of misconceptions here that I will clear up for Fc:
  • SS NDAG DLC 1 doesn't have any play for 4 years straight... because it hasn't existed in AGPL and other tournaments or on the sim ladders for the past 4 years. Still, there was a strong pool of players dedicated enough to signup for it in the recent SSNDPL
  • Everyone reuses builds in AG. Saying this is all people will do for this format is pure speculation and doesn't even matter! Give the format time to redevelop. And besides the SSNDPL pool has a lot of newer AG players who are trying it out for the first time and enjoying it read this thread!
  • DPP AG has a much weaker footing to be in this tour than SS NDAG DLC 1. Both are oldgens, but one was THE main AG format for a year, and has an actual playerbase. There's no reason it should get preferential format over SS NDAG DLC 1
  • Lastly I feel like Fc is operating from a philosophical standpoint or the standpoint that "it would look weird for the main AG tournament to have an 'oldgen petmod natdex spin-off' that requires a custom ruleset". I get this point and understand why you'd stand against its inclusion but you have to realise:
    1. This is AGPL - the whole point is to add formats the community will enjoy - there is no philosophical argument about whether the tier should or should not exist that is relevant
    2. SS NDAG DLC 1 is an oldgen, and should be treated as such. This is understood by the AG playerbase and everyone who was around at that time.
Here's some extra points from last time we discussed this. Read it
Icemaster

Tournament Post in thread 'AGPL IV - Format Discussion'

Thanks for putting this thread up. Firstly I think USUM slot 2 is not the first best choice for this tournament. I heavily disagree with the fact that it's the most well loved ag format or most popular, it is pretty stale and very formulaic in terms of building (yes even more so than galar imo) - but that is more a matter of opinion. Instead, you can look at the past AGPL and AG snake and you'll see poor quality games in even USUM slot 1 quite often. With a low playerbase it's relatively difficult to draft for a second slot. That being said it's better than the other choices presented -...
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