Tournaments BWPL IV Format Discussion

[Akir]

BW PU is also unofficial so it is not like ZU is the only unofficial tier in BWPL.

Would like to possibly suggest ZU > PU in terms of what should be at the chopping block. I believe that DOU absolutely deserves its own place in the tour. PU rn is not looking too hot, a glance at the PUPL playerpool will tell you that - its mostly filled with new players looking to pilot existing teams, with self sufficient ppl like lpz/tack easily switching over to ZU if thats there. As monai mentioned, ZU would entice other tour players to sign up because of it, so keeping aesthetics aside I think ZU makes comparitively more sense.

It is a fairly common misconception that BW PU and ZU were both made outside of BW and are therefore comparable in terms of how 'unofficial' they are. However, PU was made during BW and enjoyed the same status that modern ZU has currently, with a heavy amount of solid proof of PU existing during the BW era itself. Replacing PU with ZU would mean replacing a tier that existed with a tier that did not. Ultimately I do not have a horse in this race but the OP says that PU always turns out so make of it what you will, but all of this does dredge back up the question of what exactly the goal is for the roster.

 

[roxie]

The format from last year + 8 managers sounds great this year. As for OU a suspect slot just to keep what the community is doing to fix or make changes to BW OU following the Reuniclus Suspect seems really consistent for the community. But it’s not glue it’s just really up to the community.

BW PU is fine , as a BW PU Qc member and player I see how much personalized work and updates that goes into the tier and that’s primarily due to Akir. Sometimes new faces go into slots to find someone more consistent in the tier or due to people forgoing Pokemon in general but that doesn’t deny that the tier is good or warrant a tier should be dropped. Ever since the Simipour ban this tier has been in a better direction overall along with recent analyses being uploaded to help the community understand the tier.

 

[peng]

Suspect:
I think a suspect slot is a bit of a meme without an obvious suspect on the table. There's no point doing Reun considering how far it was from actually getting banned in the recent suspect, and I don't think there is anything else close to agreed upon. It has been suggested that you could swap out the banned suspect every round / every couple of rounds but honestly I think getting 4-12 games max of a mini-format is pretty meaningless, high variance gobbledygook, especially when its unlikely to be 8 SPL-calibre builders playing the slot. If we could agree on one obvious suspect and we had a group of very very strong BWers coming forward to say they'd properly build in the format for the entire tournament run then sure, maybe its valuable, but anything other than this would make the slot a joke imo.

BW1:
BW1 is interesting but very underdeveloped at this stage, unfortunately I think this tournament comes 6 months too soon for it. There's only a small handful of players who appear to properly understand the tier to teambuild in it and, like with the suspect slot, no guarantee they even play BW1 in a team tour when they are BW OU and UU mainers. Maybe this tournament could be a springboard for the format but the quality of the playerbase, teambuilding, and gameplay I've seen of it so far is really really mixed and unless big names sign up to play it I would worry that representation does more harm than good re: meta development.

Proposal - second UU slot:
My boomer hot-take is that in terms of meta development, history, and activity the BW tiers tends to feel like OU > UU > Ubers > the rest, and I think UU sharing equal weight as some tiers that were made 5 years ago kinda does a disservice to how established the UU meta is + how many people show in an interest in it. In the BW discords I frequent, the majority of activity in the lower tier channels is about UU and Ubers, I think they just have a far more natural draw as "the first lower tier" and "the banlist tier", in a way that "the 4th lower tier" is just never going to match, inherently. I don't mean that as an insult to people playing RU and below but the tiers do just tend to get more niche as you go down, with ZU being an apparent exception considering its weird tournament history.

Again, I don't really want to come across as gatekeep-y but 50%+ of the roster being RU and below with tiny playerbases does feel odd when Ubers and UU in particular appear to attract interest all year round. I think if we have slots that are up for grabs we should really be considering strengthing the bigger lower tiers (Ubers/UU) rather than pushing for inclusion of increasingly niche metagames.

Personal preference:
1. BW Ubers
2. BW OU
3. BW OU
4. BW OU (maybe BW1)
5. BW UU
6. BW UU
7. BW RU
8. BW NU
9. BW PU or ZU
10. BW LC

 

[GoldCat]

Suspect:
I think a suspect slot is a bit of a meme without an obvious suspect on the table. There's no point doing Reun considering how far it was from actually getting banned in the recent suspect, and I don't think there is anything else close to agreed upon. It has been suggested that you could swap out the banned suspect every round / every couple of rounds but honestly I think getting 4-12 games max of a mini-format is pretty meaningless, high variance gobbledygook, especially when its unlikely to be 8 SPL-calibre builders playing the slot. If we could agree on one obvious suspect and we had a group of very very strong BWers coming forward to say they'd properly build in the format for the entire tournament run then sure, maybe its valuable, but anything other than this would make the slot a joke imo.

BW1:
BW1 is interesting but very underdeveloped at this stage, unfortunately I think this tournament comes 6 months too soon for it. There's only a small handful of players who appear to properly understand the tier to teambuild in it and, like with the suspect slot, no guarantee they even play BW1 in a team tour when they are BW OU and UU mainers. Maybe this tournament could be a springboard for the format but the quality of the playerbase, teambuilding, and gameplay I've seen of it so far is really really mixed and unless big names sign up to play it I would worry that representation does more harm than good re: meta development.

Proposal - second UU slot:
My boomer hot-take is that in terms of meta development, history, and activity the BW tiers tends to feel like OU > UU > Ubers > the rest, and I think UU sharing equal weight as some tiers that were made 5 years ago kinda does a disservice to how established the UU meta is + how many people show in an interest in it. In the BW discords I frequent, the majority of activity in the lower tier channels is about UU and Ubers, I think they just have a far more natural draw as "the first lower tier" and "the banlist tier", in a way that "the 4th lower tier" is just never going to match, inherently. I don't mean that as an insult to people playing RU and below but the tiers do just tend to get more niche as you go down, with ZU being an apparent exception considering its weird tournament history.

Again, I don't really want to come across as gatekeep-y but 50%+ of the roster being RU and below with tiny playerbases does feel odd when Ubers and UU in particular appear to attract interest all year round. I think if we have slots that are up for grabs we should really be considering strengthing the bigger lower tiers (Ubers/UU) rather than pushing for inclusion of increasingly niche metagames.

Personal preference:
1. BW Ubers
2. BW OU
3. BW OU
4. BW OU (maybe BW1)
5. BW UU
6. BW UU
7. BW RU
8. BW NU
9. BW PU or ZU
10. BW LC

I want to point out that BW RU Cup has had more signups than BW UU Cup for two years now. Even BW RU Open outperformed UU and it has gotten voted for RoA ladder of the month as many/more times than UU. The gap isnt big if there at all.

 

[Edgar]

I am fond of the 8 teams idea, I don't think filling 8 teams will be a problem. I also support the idea of including BWDOU in the lineup, I would trade it for 1 OU slot but, if the OU suspect slot is too important then putting it to a vote to decide which of PU, ZU or DOU we would leave out might work. Could be a manager vote or overall playerbase vote.

Excluding PU or ZU without anything to back it up is arbitrary to say the least since it could also be said that both have merit, PU was born during cg BW and I've seen many people sign up to this tour just to play BWZU. Numerical evidence might help us decide what to trade in for Doubles if that is seriously being considered.

 

[Raiza]

Last years format as is (x3 ou + ubers uu ru nu pu zu lc) or with 1 less ou slot but doubles added seem like the viable options. That said, only 2 OU slots feels weird to me so I'm leaning more towards last years format. Don't really like trading in one of PU / ZU for Doubles as you're just kicking out one community to add another, pu / zu have been in the tournament in the past and they've done fine so for continuity I'd just keep them in at that point. Would avoid putting in a suspect slot as we've just had a bunch of real suspects and I don't foresee more tiering action following BWPL regardless, I also doubt we would get many signups for it. BW1 would honestly be cool to add but it seems like the format is strapped for slots already so no space, unless you cut both of PU and ZU with the argument the they are the ''unofficial'' tiers, then you can put both BW1 and Doubles in while also retaining 3 OU slots.

 

[Knight of Cydonia]

The correct answer is to add the greatest metagame ever - BW Tiershift. For those who don't know this was an other metagame based on OU, where UU mons got plus 5 to every stat, RU mons got plus 10 to every stat, etc. and was very fun. This means you can use almost any ou unviable / childhood favourite / shitmons you want and therefore removes the need to include any tier below OU, improving competitiveness. Your slots then get to look like

1 x Uber
6 x OU
1 x Tiershift

 

[Monai]

Following the success of the other old gen premier leagues, the BW moderation team has decided to increase the number of teams from 6 to 8. While we wish we could accommodate DOU considering the very vocal support for it, we've decided that PU and ZU's consistently solid turnout justified not removing them and that dropping OU to 2 slots did not make sense when those were the most popular slots to play and watch.

OU
OU
OU
Ubers
UU
RU
NU
PU
ZU
LC

We have noted the outpour of support for DOU though, and are looking to include it in potential tours next year. Good luck in BWPL everyone!