Tournament CAPPL VII Policy Discussion

[Tadasuke]

CAPPL VII Policy Discussion
​

Given the increased interest in CAPPL during the past few weeks, CAP mods have found it pertinent to open discussions on it earlier than scheduled. There are a few key issues that need to get resolved prior to opening player signups, and this thread is exactly where that's going to happen. Specifically, I'd like to open discussion on which formats should be featured in the weekly lineups for CAPPL, as well as logistics regarding assistant managers and how to price the managers on a team. Without further ado, I'd first like to touch on format discussion.

The formats used in previous CAP team tournaments have varied greatly over the years, generally depending on which CAP Old Gens and OMs are popular at the time. In the past we've seen OMs like CAP Doubles, Monotype, and LC get placed on the lineups, while every CAP Old Gen from DPP through SM has also been featured. However, it should be noted that not all of these formats have maintained any sort of active playerbase over the years, nor do they all have up-to-date resources for prospective CAPPL players to reference. I think it's reasonable to expect any format featured in CAPPL to have, at the bare minimum, a currently active playerbase and updated resources. Without both of these, we would only be shooting managers in the foot by asking them to specifically draft players to slot every week in an unsupported format. What I want to do is discuss whether or not each of the following tiers should receive a place on our format list.

• CAP Monotype​
• ORAS CAP​
• DPP CAP​

All these formats have seen some level of activity over the past few months, while also having resource hubs posted in the CAP Metagame subforum (found here for Monotype, ORAS, and DPP). That being said, I think there's no doubt that both SS CAP and SM CAP will be slotted in CAPPL VII. They've both been featured in every CAP team tournament this generation, while also boasting robust playerbases with competent leadership. The only issue I'd like to discuss regarding them is the level to which they're featured in the weekly lineups. With all this in mind, I'd like to pose the following questions:

• How many slots should SS CAP receive? Should we continue having a best-of-three match every week?
• How many slots should SM CAP receive?
• Should we include any of the aforementioned CAP OMs and Old Gens? If so, which, and why?

With the topic of formats out of the way, I'd like to move towards discussing exactly how we structure team management in CAPPL VII. In the past, with auction based drafts, CAP has opted to allow managers to choose assistant managers prior to the draft at a price agreed upon by all managing parties, as well as with the consent of CAP moderators. This was changed for CAP Snake Draft, primarily due to the fact that allowing an assistant manager pick in a non-auction based draft would have essentially given each manager a free pick prior to drafting. The fact that we didn't include assistant managers in the previous CAP team tournament raises the following questions:

• Do we need to have assistant managers in team tours at all?
• If we do have assistant managers for CAPPL VII, how should we go about pricing them?
• Should managers be allowed to buy themselves in order to play? If so how should their prices be decided?
• Should there be a minimum price for managers and assistant managers? Should there be a maximum price?

I'd like to leave this discussion open until Sunday, June 13th at 11:59pm GMT-5. There'll be more questions posted as this discussion progresses, but these are the topics I'd like to prioritize for the time being.

 

[quziel]

Yo, ORAS is a really fun meta, and I'd love for it to be included. I think its had enough development and has enough build diversity that it absolutely should get a place. The only real issue I can think of is sorta the "siloing" effect, as I really don't want to have ORAS players sorta stuck on their own. As such I'd like to propose that we do:

SS / SS / SS / SM / ORAS / Bo3 All Gens

This ensures that the SS core can support eachother, and the SM and ORAS players can both test vs and play vs the Bo3er. There is a bit of a worry that we'd overtax the Bo3 Slot, but I think it'd work.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

 

[Voltage]

Last CAPPL and Snake Draft were great ways to explore how we want to work with the format of Team Tours for CAP as we continue down the line. As someone who has managed the past two team tournaments, I think we've been moving in the right direction by diversifying the weekly game layout from just basic 4SS / 2 SM to include a Bo3 to keep players on their toes, and at this point I have a couple thoughts on how to continue making the layout engaging.

One key factor comes to the three "OMs" that Tadasuke led out: ORAS CAP, Monotype CAP, and DPP CAP. Of these three I am most on board with having ORAS CAP in the weekly lineup. We have had almost 6 months of development on that metagame, a number of tours, viability rankings, sample teams made, and plenty of realistic examples of high level play of ORAS CAP. Hell, it was even featured as an RoA ladder which allowed for even further reach. Monotype CAP is something I'm not super duper comfortable about its inclusion due to the lower playerbase. With regards to DPP CAP, I think if we wanted to include it in a team tour, I would want AT LEAST two general tournaments with it to really establish a playerbase. I admire Binacle's drive to make it a thing, but I don't think it's quite there yet since the extent of the meta are random room tours.

Coming in, I was of a different opinion with how matches on a weekly basis would be laid out, being essentially the same as snake draft, but just removing one SS game to ORAS, (i.e. 1 Bo3, 2 SS, 2 SM, 1 ORAS), but I actually really like quziel's proposed layout a lot, especially so that the old gens players will always have a consistent test. There will absolutely be strain put on players playing the Best of 3, but it's SIGNIFICANTLY easier to flex players in and out of the role as opposed to just having your best player play Bo3 every week. And if somehow we have a plethora of signups, we can consider adding 1 SS game and or 1 SM game as well.

Also, I'm a big fan of having assistant managers. One of the biggest pulls is that it allows newer managers to step up to the plate without having to feel around in the dark in the drafting process. Additionally, it really helps with having a second voice to answer for the team in the event that a manager is afk, or busy. With regards to pricing assistant mangers though is where things get tough. Obviously it's tough and I'm open to ideas, but right now I'm of the opinion that pricing should be done amongst managers (for both managers and assmans) and the Tour Director similarly to how we've done in the past. But I do think that mangers and assistant managers should be required to pay to play.

 

[Wulfanator]

How many slots should SS CAP receive? Should we continue having a best-of-three match every week?
3 slots should go towards SWSH, and I think the Bo3 slot should be retired. While fun to watch when there is a stellar matchup, Bo3 is a lot of prep and there is usually only one user on each team that is constantly filling that Bo3 slot, sometimes begrudgingly. Not to mention, a last minute substitution can be difficult to bounce back from if teams were preparing for a specific opponent.
How many slots should SM CAP receive?
2 slots, but I'm biased and like SM.
Should we include any of the aforementioned CAP OMs and Old Gens? If so, which, and why?
Of the 3 listed, ORAS should be slotted for CAPPL. Compared to the other formats, there is a larger group of users fueling quality resources that make the tier more easily accessible. I'm inclined to say that a single slot should be devoted to any of these formats. However, it could be beneficial to have 2 slots so every team will minimally have 2 users working in this tier from week to week.


SS / SS / SS / SM / SM / ORAS


Do we need to have assistant managers in team tours at all?
I think there is a need for assistant managers. It is nice to have more than one user capable of running a team, especially if a team has a manager with IRL responsibilities that impede their ability to manage.
If we do have assistant managers for CAPPL VII, how should we go about pricing them?
I think assistant managers should be picked after teams are drafted. Managers would need to pick an assistant manager from the users they successfully drafted. This would avoid arbitrarily setting prices and prevent better players from being guaranteed picks.
Should managers be allowed to buy themselves in order to play?
Yes.

 

[roxie]

Good afternoon,

I am not a SS CAP main but I would like to voice my thoughts regarding team tournaments in general. With the various CAP OMs circling around whether it is Monotype, Doubles, LC, or etc, I really feel like separating the 2 team tours (CAPPL & CAPSD) so one is strictly dedicated to past generations and the latter just representing OMs. I'd also prefer for ORAS CAP to be labeled as a "past generation" as opposed to an OM. If ORAS is labeled as an OM every time the format gets discussed amongst the community or the forum moderators, I find it very unlikely for us to even get a change in team tournaments.

We have had almost 6 months of development on that metagame, a number of tours, viability rankings, sample teams made, and plenty of realistic examples of high level play of ORAS CAP. Hell, it was even featured as an RoA ladder which allowed for even further reach. Monotype CAP is something I'm not super duper comfortable about its inclusion due to the lower playerbase.

I am unsure what you are trying to say when comparing it to Monotype CAP because we've also done the same for developing resources, (tournaments in the forms of: room tournaments (in the Monotype AND CAP rooms), a forum tournament - yearly, and a Monotype OM premier league which features BOTH communities), samples, and discussing council bans. I am also pretty confident that we get a larger audience from room tournaments for CAPMono vs ORAS CAP along with players that actually build the tier. Both ORAS CAP and CAPMono have developed very well and we should not be arguing/discussing who contributes the most or who contributes better because of that. I support the format quziel has proposed.

 

[Voltage]

I am unsure what you are trying to say when comparing it to Monotype CAP because we've also done the same for developing resources, (tournaments in the forms of: room tournaments (in the Monotype AND CAP rooms), forum tournaments, and a Monotype OM side tournaments which features BOTH communities), samples, and discussing council bans. I am also pretty confident that we get a larger audience from room tournaments for CAPMono vs ORAS CAP along with players that actually build the tier. Both ORAS CAP and CAPMono have developed very well and we should not be arguing/discussing who contributes the most or who contributes better because of that. I support the format quziel has proposed.

My apologies, I wasn't aware that there were these tours regularly occurring in Monotype circles, and as such I should not have made as general of a statement as I did. I do agree though that having a true "CAP Other Metas", but I don't think that this tournament is the right fit for CAP Monotype. That said, I'm still open to being convinced.

 

[dex]

Should we include any of the aforementioned CAP OMs and Old Gens? If so, which, and why?

I'm not necessarily suggesting it, since I do think that ORAS and SM CAP are probably better options, but should we include Monotype CAP as a tier in the tour, there needs to be a serious conversation about the banlist for it. The current Monotype CAP banlist for mono-OMs is essentially the mono banlist plus Cawmodore. Cawm should absolutely be banned as it can invalidate half the types on its own; however, I would suggest adding Revanankh to the banlist. The presence of Rev in the metagame is so domineering that Ghost is just simply the best, most consistent type. Rev tilts the Dark matchup heavily in favor of Ghost, and there isn't a whole lot most monotype teams can do to stop it when most types that are capable of dealing with Rev don't have the necessary tools to deal with the rest of the Ghost mons like Kitsunoh, Mimikyu, and Dragapult. From what I've seen, there are really only three types capable of standing up to Ghost in a meaningful way, those being Electric (Tapu Koko), Fairy (Tapu Lele), and Fire (Volcarona) (and maybe Flying but I honestly doubt it), which makes the metagame quite stale since you either are bringing a Rev or you are hard c-teaming it. Banning Rev would open the door for a lot of types to actually be viable.

Again, I personally agree with quziel's proposed slate of slots, but should we want to expand the slots into Monotype to potentially attract other players, banning Rev is a conversation that needs to be had.

 

[roxie]

I agree that expanding the slots would be great to include both ORAS CAP and CAPMono in because 6 is extremely tight. The CAPMono community racked up around 23 signups on the side tour that is being run and I don't think there will be any concerns regarding not enough signups. If 8 slots is in consideration assuming CAPMono, the format would look something like this: 3 SS / 1 SM / 1 ORAS / 1 Bo3 / 1 CAPMono + 1 SS/SM. I still support the OM exclusive tour idea I proposed earlier.

In terms of Revenankth, we are looking at it as you breathe lol. We are also doing our VR + Samples Update this weekend since the side premier league ends the upcoming Sunday as well. (Usage stats and stuff will be posted and that is a nice guide when updating resources). We also encourage discussion in the thread, I post in like 5 billion other areas of the forum lmao and my ideal update is usually after every 1-2 CAP additions or a team tour. (Past generations use a similar length with every major team tournaments also), thanks for your concern dex18, expect some results and discussion this week!

 

[SHSP]

re: mono- my worry with mono is the fact that i'd imagine the majority of managerial signups (and the cap community at large) know near nothing about it, to be blunt. We're worried about siloing tiers as is with the old gens- which, I agree, lets stick to calling them old gens- and I'm flatly not sure opening a slot to mono in this tour would mean anything more than "draft 2 mono players and leave them be" to an extent, which is not exactly ideal. Reminds me a bit of having CAP Doubles back in the way earlier team tours on a much lesser scale, where teams (at least the teams I was on) didn't seem to pay the dubs players any real attention and left them to their own devices.

Expanding slots to 8 is interesting though I'm not sure we can count on the consistent signups for it, that's the concern I have with that idea. If we were to go 8, additionally, the neater solution of slots to me would be a 4SS/2SM/2ORAS lineup, considering that handles the fears of siloing tiers/gens and keeps the focus on SS.

I dunno exactly what my preferred lineup of 6 slots is. 3 SS seems like the best fit, and I'm not thrilled about the nature of the Bo3 slot personally but I think the suggestion of 3SS/1SM/1ORAS/Bo3 All Gens would work. ORAS I think absolutely should be included. My worries about mono are as above, and I think DPP CAP is extremely far from CAPPL worthy as it stands now.

I'm mostly indifferent on assistant managers. Manager prices I'd argue should be decided by host(s) and other managers.

 

[The Number Man]

Everyone here has brought up good points. I'd like to show my endorsement for some of them:

Yo, ORAS is a really fun meta, and I'd love for it to be included. I think its had enough development and has enough build diversity that it absolutely should get a place. The only real issue I can think of is sorta the "siloing" effect, as I really don't want to have ORAS players sorta stuck on their own. As such I'd like to propose that we do:
SS / SS / SS / SM / ORAS / Bo3 All Gens

Quz's proposal seems like the optimal way of including ORAS into this tour. While I really enjoyed SS Bo3 in snake draft, it seems that I was actually in the minority and most people disliked it, so I can understand removing the slot in favor of Bo3 all gens.

Good afternoon,

I am not a SS CAP main but I would like to voice my thoughts regarding team tournaments in general. With the various CAP OMs circling around whether it is Monotype, Doubles, LC, or etc, I really feel like separating the 2 team tours (CAPPL & CAPSD) so one is strictly dedicated to past generations and the latter just representing OMs.

I also agree with roxiee's proposal to split cap alternative tiers into OMs and oldgens and give each of these categories a place in their own tour. That is, if the goal is to broaden the set of playable CAP metas. Personally, I'm mostly a SS player, so this decision would not affect me very much regardless of what you guys end up going with.

On expanding to 8 slots:
Unless this is specifically against smogon tournament policy, a possible solution would be announcing CAPPL as a 6 slot tournament, with the caveat that it might get expanded to 8 slots if a certain number of signups is reached (100 for example). There's some other issues with this like players having to edit their signup if the expansion from 6 to 8 slots adds another tier (CAP Mono in this case), but I think it can be worked around.

On playing managers and assmans:
I think both managers should 100% be allowed to play since that encourages good, experienced players to manage which roughly translates to having quality manager signups. Having to pick up your assman during the draft kinda defeats the purpose of manager duos since players generally want to manage with their friends.

 

[Zephyri]

re: 8 slots i think that, with oras and mono being in consideration for the tour and the fact that they have the potential to create siloed teams, 8 slots is necessary if we want to avoid player isolation. Having more than one slot for a tier is the best way to make sure the issue of tier siloes isnt exacerbated since youre forced to invest more in it anyway and you have to buy less players that are solely support. i think oras is a little bit more tolerable in terms of the silo issue so it might work w 6 slots but i really dont see 1 mono slot working well at all really. Then again ive never really played capmono so id love opinions from people who have played it like roxiee or dex18 here; is what im saying accurate?

re: AssMans i think assistant managers are super important in a tour like this especially when you have a few newer managers stepping up. I think having someone to bounce draft ideas off of or aid in managerial decisions is really helpful. Agree w volt that i think prices could be decided among the managers/assmans themselves? Dont see any significant disadvantages to the idea and any that do exist are largely outweighed by the benefits.

this is somewhat brief but hopefully ive gotten my points across, cheers all :]

 

[Birkal]

re: mono- my worry with mono is the fact that i'd imagine the majority of managerial signups (and the cap community at large) know near nothing about it, to be blunt. We're worried about siloing tiers as is with the old gens- which, I agree, lets stick to calling them old gens- and I'm flatly not sure opening a slot to mono in this tour would mean anything more than "draft 2 mono players and leave them be" to an extent, which is not exactly ideal. Reminds me a bit of having CAP Doubles back in the way earlier team tours on a much lesser scale, where teams (at least the teams I was on) didn't seem to pay the dubs players any real attention and left them to their own devices.

I don't disagree with these negatives, but I absolutely believe we should move forward with incorporating CAP Monotype into CAPPL. Monotype is the third-most popular competitive metagame on the Internet, and it's a relatively easy metagame for us to accommodate in our official team tournament line-up. If we're looking for ways to increase CAP's popularity and relevance, I don't think there's a better way to do it. Monotype ladder (not CAP) had over 200,000 battles this past month; Gen 6 CAP OU ladder had 196. Increasing this tournament to have two slots in such a relatively underplayed and unpopular metagame is mind-boggling to me.

Please note that this isn't me dumping on ORAS CAP -- I think it should be included in this tour for sure. The people that have been working to prepare this metagame through room tours and forum resources are awesome. I just think we need to get a little perspective and also include CAP Monotype to continue to grow our brand. Monotype Premier League is ending its season right now, and they included CAP Monotype in its OM tour; I don't see why it'd be such a stretch for us to include it in ours. Unlike CAP LC, which we included a few seasons ago, Monotype is a much larger community, and they're using our competitively designed Pokemon (since we don't really make LCs with competitive nature in mind). Also, Monotype players are competing in a format most CAP players are familiar with: 6v6 FE singles. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to add in some monotype players to each team, as they can help teambuild and test for other metagames, and vice versa. Again, I don't disagree with the negatives presented, but I feel the positives far outweigh them.

My proposed slots would look like this:

SS / SS / SS / SM / ORAS / Monotype

Many of CAP's old-school players are gonna be busy playing in SM and ORAS and building for those metagames. I think our community would be really stretched to provide highly competitive matches for three slots every week. Conversely, there's a lot of fertile ground in the CAP Monotype metagame, and there's a community that's looking to explode onto the scene. The above proposal, imo, provides the best balance of innovating and growing, while also keeping us firmly in CAPPL's roots of supporting CAP's bread-and-butter metagames.

 

[Jordy]

in my opinion there's a better argument for dpp cap than mono cap. everybody that plays it loves dpp cap.

SS / SS / SS / SM / ORAS / BO3 / DPP (DONT ASK ABOUT BW) seems pretty good to me.

 

[Jho]

Monotype ladder had over 200,000 battles this past month

I just wanted to clarify that this is SS monotype not Mono cap which is why the argument and numbers look so strange. Can we free 2 SM slots instead of random metas as we all know SM is the best cap meta

SS / SS / SS / SM / SM / ORAS/ bo3 seems attractive

 

[dex]

To be clear about my earlier post, I think if we want to implement mono cap, it should be done in Snake not in PL.

I support the following formats:
If 6 slots, SS / SS / SS / SM / ORAS / SS Bo3

If 7 slots, SS / SS / SS / SM / SM / ORAS / SS Bo3

While dpp has gotten more players lately, it definitely is not enough to have a steady enough player base for pl.

 

[Jordy]

in my opinion there's a better argument for dpp cap than mono cap. everybody that plays it loves dpp cap.

I forgot to mention that just 1 person plays DPP CAP. I see no lie.

Either way, I believe we should definitely go for 7 slots. Tiebreakers in tournaments like these that people see as relatively low investment tournaments can absolutely kill the motivation of teams and will definitely strengthen the possibility of burnout.

Double SM CAP

 

[Voltage]

I forgot to mention that just 1 person plays DPP CAP. I see no lie.

Either way, I believe we should definitely go for 7 slots. Tiebreakers in tournaments like these that people see as relatively low investment tournaments can absolutely kill the motivation of teams and will definitely strengthen the possibility of burnout.

Double SM CAP

I'd like to echo the momentum killing tiebreakers. I can guarantee that many times have faced burnout near the end of the tour simply because there's not a clear standings and it's hard to know who all is in the running for slots, and then having to play tiebreaks.

On a very similar playoff note, for the love of God can we lock in the playoff format before the tournament starts, as opposed to figuring it out Week 3/4?

 

[SHSP]

On a very similar playoff note, for the love of God can we lock in the playoff format before the tournament starts, as opposed to figuring it out Week 3/4?

Seconding this, proposing the following- First in reg season auto seeds into finals, 2nd vs 3rd in semis for the second slot in finals.

Either way, I believe we should definitely go for 7 slots. Tiebreakers in tournaments like these that people see as relatively low investment tournaments can absolutely kill the motivation of teams and will definitely strengthen the possibility of burnout.

I really don't hate the idea of killing tiebreakers as much as I thought I would, actually. 7 slots makes the tour formatting clean, at the least- 3SS/2SM/2ORAS- and we have had a great deal of burnout come from late season tiebreaks and the like. At least worth considering, I'd say, even if I'm not 100% sold.

 

[Wulfanator]

I really don't hate the idea of killing tiebreakers as much as I thought I would, actually. 7 slots makes the tour formatting clean, at the least- 3SS/2SM/2ORAS- and we have had a great deal of burnout come from late season tiebreaks and the like. At least worth considering, I'd say, even if I'm not 100% sold.

Not much to add. I prefer the idea of phasing out tiebreakers and using the slots mentioned by SHSP. I like that teams would need to win at least 1 old gen to win a week compared to winning by sweeping all current gen slots.

The issue with burnout is also another reason why I think we should retire Bo3.

 

[Dj Breloominati♬]

in terms of slots , i am in favour of SS / SS / SS / SM / SM / SS BO3 / oras

• in my eyes , although oras has developed a lot in the past year in terms of resources, there is no objective positive that it adds to this tour. Id reckon we dont have many players who only play oras , barring 1-2 people( Aurodian is the only name that really comes to mind) , so effectively people who'd otherwise give stiff competition in SM/SS need to drop their tier just to play oras ( to farm wins vs a easier pool in comparison to SM ig).
• i am also showing my support for a second SM slot over anything else , and it really boils down to whether we prefer inclusion from other tier's playerbases v/s something thats reliable in terms of upholding competitive integrity. there is worry about it being a tier that needs exclusive support, there is no worry about the "competitive-ness" of the tier because many good players still want to play it and the meta can still evolve ( id say as an outsider last year prepping vs jordy's ReuniTar for example helped give rise to new structures that werent as popular during the main gen ). on the other hand you have oras , which is more mu fishy , and is generally in a eh state rn (i mean oras ou) because of the newly popularized playstyles ( webs , serp screens etc). Rather than taking a gamble , id strongly prefer a reliable second SM slot.
• that being said if we're doing 2 SM , im in favour of doing SS bo3 > bo3 3 gens because its easier to prep for. One could argue about it being hard to prep for 6 SS games every week which is fair , and im open to changing my stance on this. Prefer SS becauseas of right now , i feel it promises us better games than bo3 , since the bo3 slot usually ends up being the highlight of the week.
• Didnt really get the idea about 7 slots until it was mentioned , but i completely agree with the sentiments expressed up until now. Better to get tiebreakers cleared on a weekly basis rather than towards the end of the tour.
• For the last slot , i prefer oras > any oms / mono. I dont think mono really should have any place in the flagship cap tour of the year , owing to how "new" the tier is and how siloed it is in terms of having to prep for it. Not really different from the dou slot in spl with not being able to pitch in and help unless you spend a lot of time first picking up mono and then monocap, since there isnt a solidified meta as of right now. That being said , the counter argument would be that the meta would become more established if we gave it place in a major tour such as pl , but i still dont like the fact that we'd need around 1-2 support slots be it directly on the team / friends as support in the teamchat in order to prep for mono every week.

in terms of Assistant managers , i am strongly in favour of picking up your assman during the draft / nominating one post draft. the benefits to this is there will not be any inherently broken manager duos ( cough cough jho + jordy ) allowed without heavy amount of money being spent. Sure, we can raise pre-auction comanager prices when the need arises , but the upside / deficit it creates warps the formation of way too many teams imo. For example in the most recent pl on the forum , ompl , we had Jrdn + Andyboy sign up who each went for 20k , but their team still ended up being overpowered partly due to the strong foundation that the team already had predraft. A valid point brought up about having a co manager predraft is the idea of having someone to share drafting ideas with , which is a valid point. The only real solution to not having underpays ( because thats what they are really) for comanagers is to make them go for +2k higher than what we'd expect them to go for in draft. It might look ruthless on paper to spend 25k preauction on anyone not named stresh but it seems to be the only solution that keeps it fair for all the teams.

Also support the poff structure that shsp proposed in the post above, gives chances to more teams and thus more inclusion in the tour during the later weeks.

 

[spoo]

if 6 slots, then SS/SS/SS/SM/ORAS/Bo3 all gens is absolutely the way to go. it's true that a lot of cap players dabble in multiple metas so maybe one team's ss players would be able to help out in oras and vice versa but siloing slots should still be a concern. there shouldn't be any tier with only one slot it's represented in, there is just simply a better way to go about things. having an all gens bo3 is the cleanest way to do 6 slots, although i can see the argument that a lineup like this places too much weight on the "star player" for a given team, but ultimately i think we'll have enough players in the pool who can perform a bo3 all gens successfully and at the end of the day it will still work out great

that said, 7 slots is still probably better. 3ss/2sm/2oras sounds so so good. i wish that current gen got a little more representation in a lineup like this, but past gens are, like, so fucking important to these tours, so it's very much worth it. these big tours are basically the only way that they get any development whatsoever, and speaking as one of the people who helped get oras of the ground, i cant really overstate how great it would be to get that blossoming meta some proper tour representation (ie having two slots fully dedicated to it). we are also about to have a resource update for the past two tours so there will be no question about whether the tier is accesible or not. 7 slots helps eliminate tiebreakers too, which is frankly for the best. tiebreakers definitely help keep stakes high and they can be pretty fun sometimes but yeah they absolutely lead to burnout and confusion. so lets just do 7 slots and all be happy

wrt assmans im all for them. i think they should be decided before the draft with prices decided among managers and the td team. my thoughts are basically the same as voltage, he puts it really well in his post - for managers who'll be busy during the tour it can seriously help to have someone else to lean on, and for newer managers, being able to bounce draft ideas off of someone who's maybe more experienced is so valuable. also, like, yeah ultimately people wanna manage with their friends lol, which we should honestly look at as a good thing. it makes the team environment a lot more engaging when everyone's buddies, or at the very least the two people driving the team are buddies and can foster that kind of enjoyable team chat. maybe we will end up getting a broken managerial combo but a lot of it still comes down to the draft where anything can happen. the argument against assmans does honestly feel like "we dont want jho and jordy to win again" which is sorta a weird conclusion to jump to and a weird reason to deny the rest of the managers something that's clearly in their own benefit as well. anyways 3ss/2sm/2oras and pick assmen before draft

 

[Rabia]

3ss/2sm/1oras/1mono thanks, bo3 was fine for me last year because I had Lasen to supply teams, but not everyone gets that luxury. I don't think oras is any more developed than mono to where it warrants as many slots as sm + this sort of stage would do wonders for further mono development. yeah I do think it's fair to question how knowledgeable managers will be about the mono slots, but surely at least 6 reasonable players will sign up for it? at worst you can always check the resources + mono tour to see who's been involved so :shrug:

 

[dex]

3ss/2sm/1oras/1mono thanks, bo3 was fine for me last year because I had Lasen to supply teams, but not everyone gets that luxury. I don't think oras is any more developed than mono to where it warrants as many slots as sm + this sort of stage would do wonders for further mono development. yeah I do think it's fair to question how knowledgeable managers will be about the mono slots, but surely at least 6 reasonable players will sign up for it? at worst you can always check the resources + mono tour to see who's been involved so :shrug:

I do think that there will be a healthy number of players who can play mono-cap. Just looking at the recent Monotype-OM PL that is still going on, there were 10 players that either played CAP consistently for the tour or were CAP players themselves. I would suspect at least 8 of those 10 would sign up for CAPPL.

Edit:
After thinking about it, I agree with Rabia on the oras vs. mono comparison, and so support his proposed slate of slots.

 

[Zephyri]

3ss/2sm/1oras/1mono thanks, bo3 was fine for me last year because I had Lasen to supply teams, but not everyone gets that luxury. I don't think oras is any more developed than mono to where it warrants as many slots as sm + this sort of stage would do wonders for further mono development. yeah I do think it's fair to question how knowledgeable managers will be about the mono slots, but surely at least 6 reasonable players will sign up for it? at worst you can always check the resources + mono tour to see who's been involved so :shrug:

not much to say other than i mostly agree; i do have issues w like, how siloed the mono and oras slots would be but in all honestly siloing isnt a huge issue w a small playerbase like cap where everyone has atleast a little bit of knowledge about everything and as rabia said this tour would be generally great for cap mono

 

[Jordy]

if u do only 1 oras slot, an ss slot should be replaced with bo3 generations for sure. almost every pl does a bo3 slot because it is a very competitive format; people want to prove they're the best overall and can play more than just one generation. yeah its a bigger workload but managers can draft accordingly. no reason managers wouldn't be able to this year when it was fine last year and in snake. no idea if its ok to have the same number of bo1 ss and sm slots. the sm pool is admittedly weaker, but enough slots can be filled with competitive players for every team (assuming 6) to where i personally think it's fine.