It's been my honor to serve as Community Leader for the Draft League sub-forum. I was one of the first few forum moderators brought on by Maia and other super mods to help stand up the section in tandem with Tjb145 back in late 2022, and we were tasked with incorporating all of the wonderful aspects about Draft League into the larger Smogon machine. Long at odds, the two communities operated largely independent of each other, but with Draft's inclusion on the site's tournament scene, we saw unprecedented activity and turn out for what was one of the newest formats on Smogon. Consistent hundreds of sign ups for our team tournaments, multiple singles tournaments with 500+ signups, and the first tournament we ran right-out-of-the-gate featured an astonishing 1,332 sign ups.
Not just that, the Draft sub-forum moderator teams have also stood up specialized RMT, C&C, tiering sub-activities, and created the most comprehensive back-end tournament hosting procedures and automation on the site. The public-at-large may not understand the immense amount of technical proficiency, and diligence required to run the scale upwards of 14 annual full length tournaments; but I do and I couldn't be more proud of it. The Draft community is a fantastic place I've worked towards maturing and making accessible for the larger Pokémon community on Pokémon Showdown! and Smogon alike.
As my personal life and career take up more and more of my time, I understand the importance of having fully dedicated staff who are able to give an appropriate amount of effort to the sub-forum and all its endeavors. That's why with Hacker and Princess Autumn staying on as Community Leaders, I know the community is in the best possible hands for the foreseeable future. I'd like to thank all of the senior staff that worked with me and taught me about Smogon, allowing me to be one of the founding community leaders for the sub-forum when I knew next to nothing about the site.
chaos Head honcho, thanks again for working with me over these months, your professionalism was appreciated and I wish you all the best continuing to plug away on behalf of the site and it's wonderful community you've built up over the years.
Maia You're one of the best people I was able to get acquainted with via Smogon and I'm super grateful for that; you've got immense patience working with me while I got flustered with all the various mechanisms on Smogon and helping to navigate the sub-politics that governed the site's operations. Your insight was invaluable and you're an all encompassing fantastic person, thank you for being my friend.
Princess Autumn You may have more recently assumed mantle of Community Leader, but without you and your tireless work, the sub-forum wouldn't exist in its present state without you. You came onto the project before TJ and I, and the entire time gave sage advice and offered immense technical opportunities to streamline the end-user experience, the fruits of your labors will be felt by thousands for a long time to come even if you don't get a lot of the credit for it sometimes, which is a shame. You're one of my best friends on discord and I hope we'll stay in touch in VIG or otherwise.
Hacker ultraplayer vmnunes a fairy You all are a huge reason the sub-forum is succeeding in such a way two years in. We're a ribbon circuit, and we keep breaking milestones and pushing the envelope; with a huge reason being your dedication to the community. Thank you for your time and effort in working with me, it's been my distinct pleasure.
To the community at large, thank YOU for making the Draft League community what it is: a vibrant, mixed bag of goodness for veterans of the format and newcomers alike. Whether you agreed/disagreed with how I ran things, or were indifferent, I appreciate all of your feedback over the years shared in an effort to make the Draft League experience better for the community at large. I hope you continue to work with the staff staying on to crack at the 2025 Circuit and have patience; all the staff here are people too and want to put on a great product, but they're regular people just like you working away at a hobby in their spare time.
I'll still be around in the server and running WPF (for now), but I'll be taking an extended break from all things-administrative in the community. Have a great 2025, thanks for reading!
Not just that, the Draft sub-forum moderator teams have also stood up specialized RMT, C&C, tiering sub-activities, and created the most comprehensive back-end tournament hosting procedures and automation on the site. The public-at-large may not understand the immense amount of technical proficiency, and diligence required to run the scale upwards of 14 annual full length tournaments; but I do and I couldn't be more proud of it. The Draft community is a fantastic place I've worked towards maturing and making accessible for the larger Pokémon community on Pokémon Showdown! and Smogon alike.
As my personal life and career take up more and more of my time, I understand the importance of having fully dedicated staff who are able to give an appropriate amount of effort to the sub-forum and all its endeavors. That's why with Hacker and Princess Autumn staying on as Community Leaders, I know the community is in the best possible hands for the foreseeable future. I'd like to thank all of the senior staff that worked with me and taught me about Smogon, allowing me to be one of the founding community leaders for the sub-forum when I knew next to nothing about the site.
chaos Head honcho, thanks again for working with me over these months, your professionalism was appreciated and I wish you all the best continuing to plug away on behalf of the site and it's wonderful community you've built up over the years.
Maia You're one of the best people I was able to get acquainted with via Smogon and I'm super grateful for that; you've got immense patience working with me while I got flustered with all the various mechanisms on Smogon and helping to navigate the sub-politics that governed the site's operations. Your insight was invaluable and you're an all encompassing fantastic person, thank you for being my friend.
Princess Autumn You may have more recently assumed mantle of Community Leader, but without you and your tireless work, the sub-forum wouldn't exist in its present state without you. You came onto the project before TJ and I, and the entire time gave sage advice and offered immense technical opportunities to streamline the end-user experience, the fruits of your labors will be felt by thousands for a long time to come even if you don't get a lot of the credit for it sometimes, which is a shame. You're one of my best friends on discord and I hope we'll stay in touch in VIG or otherwise.
Hacker ultraplayer vmnunes a fairy You all are a huge reason the sub-forum is succeeding in such a way two years in. We're a ribbon circuit, and we keep breaking milestones and pushing the envelope; with a huge reason being your dedication to the community. Thank you for your time and effort in working with me, it's been my distinct pleasure.
To the community at large, thank YOU for making the Draft League community what it is: a vibrant, mixed bag of goodness for veterans of the format and newcomers alike. Whether you agreed/disagreed with how I ran things, or were indifferent, I appreciate all of your feedback over the years shared in an effort to make the Draft League experience better for the community at large. I hope you continue to work with the staff staying on to crack at the 2025 Circuit and have patience; all the staff here are people too and want to put on a great product, but they're regular people just like you working away at a hobby in their spare time.
I'll still be around in the server and running WPF (for now), but I'll be taking an extended break from all things-administrative in the community. Have a great 2025, thanks for reading!
