So this is an idea that hopefully progresses overtime but it's something I have thought about for a while. While the ladder is a solid way to gather information and a general idea of competitive play, there is a distinction between ladder play and tournament play and as of now, we generally ignore it. I think that for a ladder, you build for long-term success and you expect worse competition, while for tournaments you have much tougher competition while building for the short-term. To me, I think I would get a better idea of what the metagame looks like from statistics gathered from these competitive players.
So where does this leave us? Well, as it happens, our first BW Smogon Tour will be tomorrow (no Easter postponement this season). My goal is to collect teams from our players in the top 16 onward [thanks to locopoke for telling me to cut my original goal of round 1 to top 16, there are a ton of reasons this change in plan is good, which i'll discuss later]. I'll post the statistics here and try my best to get stats from each player. If you're confused, this means:
Top 16 of Tour is up. I PM every player, asking which 6 Pokemon are on their team, and I will also try to get moveset statistics as well. After top 16, I repeat the process for top 8, noting teams that were also used last round. This continues every round until the winner's decided. I'm going to do this for all 3 Tour Days if possible (Easter might fuck with me, which is where I may need more volunteers). I'll post the findings here for discussion or just so you can get an idea of what happens to the metagame.
The problem with doing it straight from round 1?
- Bad players can enter and lose Round 1 with a crappy team, skewing statistics
- Easier for me to not get a hold of a player
- Easier for a player to lie to me [This can still happen, let's hope no one is immature enough to do this]
- Most players in top 16 will be on IRC, most players from Round 1 could be anywhere
I'm making this thread now for general predictions about what this information might show, as well as opening it up to you guys for suggestions on how to collect these kinds of stats. If there is a more efficient way, I definitely want to hear it.
My Predictions:
- The relevant statistics we have (Suspect Statistics of February) showed that 40% of teams are weatherless, with less than 20% being Rain. I am going to predict now that only 10% of the teams throughout this week will be weatherless. I'll go one step further and predict a breakdown, from Friday -> Sunday, of:
~ 55% Sand
~ 30% Rain
~ 10% Weatherless
~ 5% Sun
~ 0% Hail [Prove me Wrong?]
-
will be the most used Pokemon,
will be number 2. Tyranitar is going to be acting as its general badass self, while checking Rain and Sun, and adding pressure to teams by Pursuiting the common Latias and Latios (I think these are tournament staples for a lot of players). Keldeo is just really good, I think it's not appreciated enough right now, but you need to remember that it is the best special attacking water-type and fighting-type in the tier. Maybe Rotom-w and Celebi are used more though? Their utility in countering top threats and the fact that they really just fit on any team help their case.
I should note that if I try to do this for the entire tournament, I think Rain would be > 50% and dominate most of it, as its the easiest weather to use efficiently. I think players will be overwhelmingly prepared for it that only 30% of them are used from then on, but I could be wrong.
Use this thread to post predictions or give advice on how to improve this method. Tomorrow night, I'll post the Friday statistics. I'd like to give my appreciation to Ojama, who has offered to ask for these statistics with me. If you're interested in volunteering, PM me on IRC and I'll tell you what I want you to do.
BTW, if anyone reading this decides to play Tour and makes top 16, I'd love for you to post your team, a short rundown on how or why you built it the way you did, as well as any surprises you had while playing. If you do, I'll have an index of "notable users" [hall of fame so to speak], detailing their highlights. I obviously can't promise anything but that would be the kind of thing I look for in a Community Contributor as well - insightful and a good battler.
Let's hope this thread and task isn't a colossal failure :P. Thanks for reading and let's get some stats :]
So where does this leave us? Well, as it happens, our first BW Smogon Tour will be tomorrow (no Easter postponement this season). My goal is to collect teams from our players in the top 16 onward [thanks to locopoke for telling me to cut my original goal of round 1 to top 16, there are a ton of reasons this change in plan is good, which i'll discuss later]. I'll post the statistics here and try my best to get stats from each player. If you're confused, this means:
Top 16 of Tour is up. I PM every player, asking which 6 Pokemon are on their team, and I will also try to get moveset statistics as well. After top 16, I repeat the process for top 8, noting teams that were also used last round. This continues every round until the winner's decided. I'm going to do this for all 3 Tour Days if possible (Easter might fuck with me, which is where I may need more volunteers). I'll post the findings here for discussion or just so you can get an idea of what happens to the metagame.
The problem with doing it straight from round 1?
- Bad players can enter and lose Round 1 with a crappy team, skewing statistics
- Easier for me to not get a hold of a player
- Easier for a player to lie to me [This can still happen, let's hope no one is immature enough to do this]
- Most players in top 16 will be on IRC, most players from Round 1 could be anywhere
I'm making this thread now for general predictions about what this information might show, as well as opening it up to you guys for suggestions on how to collect these kinds of stats. If there is a more efficient way, I definitely want to hear it.
My Predictions:
- The relevant statistics we have (Suspect Statistics of February) showed that 40% of teams are weatherless, with less than 20% being Rain. I am going to predict now that only 10% of the teams throughout this week will be weatherless. I'll go one step further and predict a breakdown, from Friday -> Sunday, of:
~ 55% Sand
~ 30% Rain
~ 10% Weatherless
~ 5% Sun
~ 0% Hail [Prove me Wrong?]
-
I should note that if I try to do this for the entire tournament, I think Rain would be > 50% and dominate most of it, as its the easiest weather to use efficiently. I think players will be overwhelmingly prepared for it that only 30% of them are used from then on, but I could be wrong.
Use this thread to post predictions or give advice on how to improve this method. Tomorrow night, I'll post the Friday statistics. I'd like to give my appreciation to Ojama, who has offered to ask for these statistics with me. If you're interested in volunteering, PM me on IRC and I'll tell you what I want you to do.
BTW, if anyone reading this decides to play Tour and makes top 16, I'd love for you to post your team, a short rundown on how or why you built it the way you did, as well as any surprises you had while playing. If you do, I'll have an index of "notable users" [hall of fame so to speak], detailing their highlights. I obviously can't promise anything but that would be the kind of thing I look for in a Community Contributor as well - insightful and a good battler.
Let's hope this thread and task isn't a colossal failure :P. Thanks for reading and let's get some stats :]
