Tournament CAP Teamtours

[Spammernoob]

It's been some time since WCAP has ended, and CAPPL is coming up. Before CAPPL arrives, I wanted to put up a thread to query the community about the future of CAP teamtours (mainly CAPCL).

Firstly, from what I've seen, reception towards WCAP has been positive. I am assuming we will run it as our CA teamtour again this winter. Are there any objections to this? Were there any issues with WCAP that we should address?

Secondly, regarding CAPCL, is there interest in running it as a third CAP teamtour?
If we do run CAPCL, it won't have a CA (as our third is reserved for circuit). Will this be an issue for signups? Also, what should CAPCL's identity be? In the past, this was unclear; some viewed it as another chance to play CAP oldgens (CAPPL-lite), and others as a tournament to develop underdeveloped CAP tiers (CAP OMs like Monotype, Natdex, UU, etc.). Which seems more appealing?

Finally is the question of timing. Currently, there is a 3 month gap between end of WCAP and start of CAPPL, and 4 month gap between end of CAPPL and start of WCAP. There is enough space to fit another teamtour if we shift the timings a bit, but will the downtime be enough? Is there such thing as too much CAP?

Anyways, feel free to discuss.

This thread was made with the blessing of spoo.

 

[shnowshner]

PL and WCAP kinda cover oldgens between the two so I feel there's little reason to not make CL fully focused on the more niche formats instead of PL-lite, i.e. we don't need to focus on CG as hard, and we can comfortably drop the formats included in both of the CA tours (in this case SS SM and ORAS).

I would like to push for CL returning. Having three teamtours throughout the course of a year isn't unheard of, and if people are worried about burnout I suggest that CL should be less "serious" of a tournament. Not having a CA prize already lowers the stakes but it'd also help to keep the tournament short until CAP sees enough growth to properly expand it. Main focus should be centered on giving metas people enjoy playing or talking about a chance to see more competitive development.

Let's say we downsize CL to 6 slots instead of the previous 8. If we set out with like SV / BW / DPP / Mono / ND / UU you're reaching out to multiple Smogon subsections, and even though there's only one SV slot, three of the other five metas are still rooted in SV so people who prefer this generation still have areas they can help with. We could easily keep the 8 slots though which gives a ton of room to expand CL further, potentially throwing in Doubles, LC, 1v1, maybe even Draft or proper CAP OMs should they become popular enough. I kinda prefer a more "unofficial metagames" approach to CL given how small things like STABmons are at the moment.

Regarding timing, people started clamoring for CAPPL like a month after WCAP ended. We could probably get the tournament moving far earlier with Week 1 starting late April/early May and give ourselves like 6 additional weeks, and could then have WCAP start a little later as the current schedule made the deadline right in the middle of the holidays which kinda sucks imo, it'd be preferrable to have the holidays take up the early weeks of Pools/Qualifiers when people are less likely to be playing anyhow. If PL ends around early July and WCAP begins mid-December that's a roughly 5-month period which CL can fit inside of, and CL currently takes a little under 3 months to wrap up. This isn't meant to be the final timings obv, we'd want to consider what other tours are happening at the time both within and outside CAP.

 

[Spammernoob]

I'll give some thoughts compiled from Discord, as well as my own thoughts.

Given that WCAP has all of CAP's pastgens, CAPCL's biggest niche would be exploring experimental metagames. Tiers like Monotype, NatDex, and even DPP CAP have received development in past CAPCLs (to varying success). One consideration is that the Tournament request queue is alive again, which also provides opportunities for these metagames to develop. Teamtours definitely result in better metagame development than individual tours though (the most obvious example for me is how fast Stored/Draining Chugg was found in CAPPL when it went under the radar for the entirety of playtest).

Regarding the issue with pastgens competing with OMs, a format that has been floated on Discord is 2 default slots + (4 ? 6) flex slots, where each team picks from a pool of half the available flex slots. Default slots could be 2 SV or SV + Draft (experimental), and remaining slots could flex between OMs (Monotype, LC, UU, Doubles, Natdex) and all CAP pastgens. This is definitely a cool idea that allows for wider representation of formats, though there may be drawbacks (maybe some people are forced iinto tiers they don't play).

One concern with adding a 3rd team tour is player burnout. We currently have 2 tournaments running at a time (1 circuit and 1 unofficial) for CAP, as well as the current 2 teamtours + CAP processes (which mostly avoid eachother). This is a lot to keep up with, and adding a third teamtour means we will have 3 tours running at a time for 8 months in the year, sometimes overlapping with CAP processes. This is a lot, and I definitely could not keep up with actually properly prepping for this much. There are also other Smogon tours outside of CAP to consider, though I am a CAP main so I can't speak on those.

Regarding scheduling teamtours and overlapping with CAP processes, we will probably end up with a CAP dropping in the middle of at least one of the teamtours, which is pretty undesirable.

CAPCL definitely feels like it could be fun though, so I'm up to give it a test run if there's wider interest.

 

[earthflax]

At this point I think it's readily obvious that WCAP and CAPPL are here to stay and that the only role that CAPCL can fill if it wants to survive is that of an experimental tour where things are tried without a ton of pressure.

Flex slots just incentivize buying proven players in developed metagames and can, at times, completely bypass the whole aspect of metagame development by simply leaving experimental tiers unselected. If CAPCL is meant to be an experimental tour then I'd much rather see 8 slots w/ 2 SV and 6 underdeveloped CAP tiers - let's say ND, Mono, LC, UU, Draft, and a suspect slot than I would 8 slots w/ 2 SV and 6 flex slots with the pool of tiers comprising everything previously mentioned and all pastgens.

Player burnout is real, but it's not something that I think should be a major consideration here. Plenty of other sections host 3 team tours a year, and while I get that our playerbase is smaller and we have other things that people also participate in (like the process), if CAPCL's main goal is to spur development in a team tour setting then the quality of the games really only matter insofar as they reflect the players that are playing them. Moreover, I've always believed that we've never done enough to grow the CAP metagame actively rather than passively (free CAP B101 anyone?), and a lower-stakes, low-prestige tour that some CAP tour regulars will skip out on is the perfect staging ground to allow new faces with interest in CAP to participate a) in a team tour format and b) in a CAP team tour (hi slopcat :D).

A CAP dropping mid-CL would be much better than mid-PL for reasons listed previously regarding prestige and competitiveness; I'd much rather drop a new CAP around CL time (eg Shox) than I would drop a CAP around PL or WC time (eg Chugg, Ram).

 

[SHSP]

At this point I think it's readily obvious that WCAP and CAPPL are here to stay and that the only role that CAPCL can fill if it wants to survive is that of an experimental tour where things are tried without a ton of pressure.

Flex slots just incentivize buying proven players in developed metagames and can, at times, completely bypass the whole aspect of metagame development by simply leaving experimental tiers unselected. If CAPCL is meant to be an experimental tour then I'd much rather see 8 slots w/ 2 SV and 6 underdeveloped CAP tiers - let's say ND, Mono, LC, UU, Draft, and a suspect slot than I would 8 slots w/ 2 SV and 6 flex slots with the pool of tiers comprising everything previously mentioned and all pastgens.

Player burnout is real, but it's not something that I think should be a major consideration here. Plenty of other sections host 3 team tours a year, and while I get that our playerbase is smaller and we have other things that people also participate in (like the process), if CAPCL's main goal is to spur development in a team tour setting then the quality of the games really only matter insofar as they reflect the players that are playing them. Moreover, I've always believed that we've never done enough to grow the CAP metagame actively rather than passively (free CAP B101 anyone?), and a lower-stakes, low-prestige tour that some CAP tour regulars will skip out on is the perfect staging ground to allow new faces with interest in CAP to participate a) in a team tour format and b) in a CAP team tour (hi slopcat :D).

A CAP dropping mid-CL would be much better than mid-PL for reasons listed previously regarding prestige and competitiveness; I'd much rather drop a new CAP around CL time (eg Shox) than I would drop a CAP around PL or WC time (eg Chugg, Ram).

Take my .02$ with a grain of salt because i'm all-but retired at this point, but fully agree with Flax here. The advantages that CL has over PL or WCAP is that its by far the best positioned to get games and reps in for these lesser-played, experimental formats. If you're gonna run CL, you gotta lean into that. This does mean, I think, that CL's got a much, much lower ceiling for actually getting people in the door for it, but that's more of a question of if it should run at all compared to what it should look like. Potentially leaning into what Flax says here about new faces is a really valid shout, too, especially if we're considering incorporating stuff like ND and Mono and w/e else that can be fun introductions to CAP for a variety of other places on-Smog.

 

[spoo]

I think that our first WCAP was a resounding success in many ways, and in other ways demonstrated the flaws that are sort of unavoidable with a world cup format (especially when run by a smaller community.) The tour featured a ton of new players and boasted the highest signups we’ve ever had for a teamtour by quite a large margin. This was awesome to see, but it’s unfortunate when half of these players only get to play for three weeks, and three quarters of the players are out by the fourth. Signing up for a normal teamtour is a full seven week commitment at the very least; this is a lot, yes, but it’s also part of the appeal. The entire tournament without tiebreaks is shorter than just the regular season of CAPPL. People want a real opportunity to play these tiers. In a WCOP format, if pools don’t go your way, you are simply out and the tournament is over. I found this to be a really disappointing aspect of the tour.

There is also the birthplace lottery aspect, which some people will care about more than others, but is inarguably something we have to content with to some degree. I don’t find this to be conducive to a competitive tournament because it takes away agency from its participants. It might make the tournament more fun for some people, and it’s fine if those people value the extra fun over extra competitiveness, but I personally place more emphasis on the fair and competitive environment brought about by a draft format. (And it’s not like a three week tournament is very fun for those 50% of players anyways.)

Six slots also felt pretty bad, and I am not sure we can afford to expand to 8 despite the high number of signups we got. I know small regions like Oceania and even larger regions like West+Midwest were a bit pressed just to fill out a full roster. Can’t speak to other regions but it’s probably worth some kind of manager survey to see if we can bump it up to 8. This was another unfortunate compromise we had to make as a smaller community running a WCOP format, and the effect was definitely felt (at least for me.)

Anyways, I don’t mean to be too sour here, I think it was a good tour. I would still like to hear from managers and players — on smaller regions especially — about their experiences, but for now it looks like we will continue to run WCAP in the future. I think draft formats are better but that is just me. As for CAPCL, this is a weird one. We are looking at a 6 team (and maybe even 6 slot) tournament that has no prize, drops our flagship formats for experimental and undeveloped ones, will probably have many CAP tournament regulars sit out, and will probably have a CAP drop in the middle of it. Frankly this sounds like a bad tour to me. Like, I thought CAPCL was already a poor tournament, and I worry that this would just exacerbate the existing issues with it and introduce even more new ones. Still, I agree it would fill an important role in getting playtime for metagames that would otherwise fall completely by the wayside. I think we should just run it and see how it goes. I would like to be pleasantly surprised.