Tournament DCL III Format Discussion

Expansion to 10 slots: I am strongly opposed to this. Player burnout is at an all-time high due to the schedule, and we do not have enough active players with the requisite talent to fill 10 slots. It's also a larger burden on captains to support the extra slots. I know others have raised the possibility of 3 managers being able to mitigate this, but in my opinion, the absolute bare minimum for a captain would be to mock every slot, in addition to prep support. I think from a manager's perspective, it would only increase my workload, regardless of an additional manager being added, and the workload for draft team tours is already very high. Would advocate staying at 8 slots.

3 Team Managers: I am honestly indifferent to the possibility of a third non-playing manager being added. If it were to be added, the third manager should be a non-playing manager for balance reasons, obviously; the manager system is already easy to manipulate and cannibalizes the player pool. To me, this is just giving ghost captains recognition since many teams already have a third manager that's just not documented. I don't think it necessarily reduces the workload of other managers; I would still be helping the same amount I already do.

Increasing manager buy-ins: I think this idea is just performative because, in reality, raising the manager's buy-ins to 20k, for example, does nothing to bridge the gap between the best and worst managers in the pool. The only thing it does is it disadvantages weaker managers and disincentivizes them from captaining unless they want to take a non-playing role. Last season, across 8 teams, we had 6 teams with 2 playing managers and 2 teams with 1 non-playing manager. One of the teams with a non-playing manager performed well and managed to make play-offs. If everyone is already on a level playing field, I struggle to see the benefit of raising manager prices.
olivia said:
Definitely agree with raising or reworking captain buy ins. Either a flat raise to closer to 20k a slot or player specific buy in prices reflective of past performance and all time records to estimate a value more reflective of who is actually captaining. I believe this is how it used to work in DPL(?) so maybe those more familiar with that can provide reasons to me why that isn't a good concept? I genuinely don't know. What I do know is 15k is definitely too cheap and allows weird situations where a player can sign up as captain with no intention to really captain just to get on a team for half of their expected value and auction for the "real" captain or just bring in a shadow captain.
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On the above notion, I'd just like to fact-check- DPL has never implemented a dynamic pricing system for managers. This was a COK concept that lasted one season before the tour died. I think there are a lot of issues with implementing a system that is based on something as subjective and arbitrary as player skill; we would also be disincentivizing a lot of the more capable and experienced managers from signing up as they would be disadvantaged at auction from the get go, which is a net negative for the tour.

VGC: I echo many of the other opinions in this thread that VGC should return. STC received more applications than DPL and from experienced VGC players, showing the format is in a good place rn. We also have some top singles players participating in the tour and succeeding, evidence that players can pick up the format if they really want to. At this point, I think it is part of the identity of DCL, and I would like to see it return.

Flex Slot: I think this is the most contested issue atm and it's something I'm not quite sure what the solution is. I spoke pre-DCLII about how I thought that the flex slot was a bad idea, and I think that was vindicated in the majority of the player base echoing that same sentiment after the tour. Playing all 4 gens to the same level is challenging, and the number of players who can do it successfully, I think, you can count on one hand. Even less if you consider who actually wants to be the flex slot. It is extremely luck dependent upon when you draw a certain gen in the schedule against a certain team. I think the only way the flex slot works is the DPL system of getting both teams to choose an additional format.

8th Slot: As for the other options for the 8th slot, I think any suggestion that SV Natdex should be included is laughable at best- that format lacks legitimacy and is way too balanced for a serious team tour. However, I am also dubious about SV LT, ADV, or DPP being included. I do not think that ADV or DPP are good draft formats because the majority of your prep options are so narrow, and the majority of games are decided by outplaying rather than prep. This is only from what I have seen, and I am happy to be fact-checked on this. It does seem like when watching ADV, the height of your techs are simply running explosion or sub berry strats. I do think there is value in breaking up the monotony of draft team tours by adding a new format. I'm just not quite sure ADV/DPP is the answer. Out of the three options, I would probably lean SV LT, but probably favour an additional USUM or SV format over all three.
 
KCric12 said:
Expansion to 10 slots: I am strongly opposed to this. Player burnout is at an all-time high due to the schedule, and we do not have enough active players with the requisite talent to fill 10 slots. It's also a larger burden on captains to support the extra slots. I know others have raised the possibility of 3 managers being able to mitigate this, but in my opinion, the absolute bare minimum for a captain would be to mock every slot, in addition to prep support. I think from a manager's perspective, it would only increase my workload, regardless of an additional manager being added, and the workload for draft team tours is already very high. Would advocate staying at 8 slots.

3 Team Managers: I am honestly indifferent to the possibility of a third non-playing manager being added. If it were to be added, the third manager should be a non-playing manager for balance reasons, obviously; the manager system is already easy to manipulate and cannibalizes the player pool. To me, this is just giving ghost captains recognition since many teams already have a third manager that's just not documented. I don't think it necessarily reduces the workload of other managers; I would still be helping the same amount I already do.

Increasing manager buy-ins: I think this idea is just performative because, in reality, raising the manager's buy-ins to 20k, for example, does nothing to bridge the gap between the best and worst managers in the pool. The only thing it does is it disadvantages weaker managers and disincentivizes them from captaining unless they want to take a non-playing role. Last season, across 8 teams, we had 6 teams with 2 playing managers and 2 teams with 1 non-playing manager. One of the teams with a non-playing manager performed well and managed to make play-offs. If everyone is already on a level playing field, I struggle to see the benefit of raising manager prices.

On the above notion, I'd just like to fact-check- DPL has never implemented a dynamic pricing system for managers. This was a COK concept that lasted one season before the tour died. I think there are a lot of issues with implementing a system that is based on something as subjective and arbitrary as player skill; we would also be disincentivizing a lot of the more capable and experienced managers from signing up as they would be disadvantaged at auction from the get go, which is a net negative for the tour.

VGC: I echo many of the other opinions in this thread that VGC should return. STC received more applications than DPL and from experienced VGC players, showing the format is in a good place rn. We also have some top singles players participating in the tour and succeeding, evidence that players can pick up the format if they really want to. At this point, I think it is part of the identity of DCL, and I would like to see it return.

Flex Slot: I think this is the most contested issue atm and it's something I'm not quite sure what the solution is. I spoke pre-DCLII about how I thought that the flex slot was a bad idea, and I think that was vindicated in the majority of the player base echoing that same sentiment after the tour. Playing all 4 gens to the same level is challenging, and the number of players who can do it successfully, I think, you can count on one hand. Even less if you consider who actually wants to be the flex slot. It is extremely luck dependent upon when you draw a certain gen in the schedule against a certain team. I think the only way the flex slot works is the DPL system of getting both teams to choose an additional format.

8th Slot: As for the other options for the 8th slot, I think any suggestion that SV Natdex should be included is laughable at best- that format lacks legitimacy and is way too balanced for a serious team tour. However, I am also dubious about SV LT, ADV, or DPP being included. I do not think that ADV or DPP are good draft formats because the majority of your prep options are so narrow, and the majority of games are decided by outplaying rather than prep. This is only from what I have seen, and I am happy to be fact-checked on this. It does seem like when watching ADV, the height of your techs are simply running explosion or sub berry strats. I do think there is value in breaking up the monotony of draft team tours by adding a new format. I'm just not quite sure ADV/DPP is the answer. Out of the three options, I would probably lean SV LT, but probably favour an additional USUM or SV format over all three.
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I think... I agree. Minus Three Captain
 
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Dynamic pricing:
In terms of the dynamic pricing, I wonder if a middle ground solution would be possible. Something along the lines of, it being fixed at 20K unless your price in DCL 2 + 5K would be lower, this would perhaps be a little less punishing for "weaker" manager cores since the other option for them is essentially limiting how much they can play.

As an example, if say GeniusX (captained DCL 2) and iPro (went for more than 20K in DCL 2) signed up as managers and wanted to buy-in, they would both be 20K as a manager buy-in, but if for example Scribble (11.5K in DCL 2) and Olivia (3K in DCL 2), they would be 16.5K and 8K respectively for their buy-ins (could also implement a minimum of say 10K to make it so captains can't buy-in for too cheap).

I would like to see some compromise other than "don't buy-in" for these weaker cores, since I think a 5K increase would hurt them more than it would alleviate the problem of managers overperforming their price on average.


Flex slot:
An alternative solution for the flex slot I think could be removing an SV slot, despite it being the current gen and adopting the way DPL approaches the flex slot by letting each team pick 1 extra tier.

This would leave the format as:
SV
SV
SWSH
USUM
ORAS
VGC
Flex 1
Flex 2

I think the best part of DPL's approach is that the managers have agency over the tiers and giving the managers more control over their best ways to win without giving too much additional workload is a great thing.
 
Luxanse said:
Dynamic pricing:
In terms of the dynamic pricing, I wonder if a middle ground solution would be possible. Something along the lines of, it being fixed at 20K unless your price in DCL 2 + 5K would be lower, this would perhaps be a little less punishing for "weaker" manager cores since the other option for them is essentially limiting how much they can play.

As an example, if say GeniusX (captained DCL 2) and iPro (went for more than 20K in DCL 2) signed up as managers and wanted to buy-in, they would both be 20K as a manager buy-in, but if for example Scribble (11.5K in DCL 2) and Olivia (3K in DCL 2), they would be 16.5K and 8K respectively for their buy-ins (could also implement a minimum of say 10K to make it so captains can't buy-in for too cheap).

I would like to see some compromise other than "don't buy-in" for these weaker cores, since I think a 5K increase would hurt them more than it would alleviate the problem of managers overperforming their price on average.


Flex slot:
An alternative solution for the flex slot I think could be removing an SV slot, despite it being the current gen and adopting the way DPL approaches the flex slot by letting each team pick 1 extra tier.

This would leave the format as:
SV
SV
SWSH
USUM
ORAS
VGC
Flex 1
Flex 2

I think the best part of DPL's approach is that the managers have agency over the tiers and giving the managers more control over their best ways to win without giving too much additional workload is a great thing.
Click to expand...
I think this proposal is just a strange way to help specific managers because they were undervalued in a previous auction, and implementing this would not accurately reflect prices in an actual auction. e.g. Panda went for 7k last ssn so he would be 10k this ssn as manager under your system whereas other players would be 20k just because they captained last season- even though Panda performed better than them in the last year? Seems ridiculous if you put it that way. Ultimately, I think it is a good thing that more capable managers want to manage and trying to nerf certain managers at the auction stage just because they have been good in the past is not the way to go about it. Any sort of dynamic pricing system is bound to have unfairness attached.
 
A little yap about manager pricing and the last part of KCric's post

Manager Pricing
I don't really support making the manager prices higher than 15k. This only really functionally serves to limit the manager pool while not really changing anything about it being "unbalanced" to begin with. Something like L5 Aster costing 35k combined instead of 30k when they go for 60 in auction easily doesn't really feel like anything changed at all. As Autumn said earlier this will end up pricing out some managers who previously did intend on managing. She's right that almost all managers from last year are worth more than 15k in auction easily but it entirely depends on who signs up to manage. In DCL 1 a few managers (myself included lol) definently weren't worth that price tag and would have definently been less incentivised if the selfbuy cost was higher. For selfbuys I actually do quite like the DPL system of one selfbuy for free and you can buy the other for 25k because its way less punishing and more of a quantifiable difference in auction. It doesn't really feel perfect to me either but probably preferable? Not entirely sure I just don't support raising selfbuy cost and doing nothing else with it

DPP/ADV
So, for ADV I do on a personal level not particularly enjoy the format because of a complete lack of speed control. The only choice item being band and the primarily speed control being Endure Salac Berry feels like you're asking for trouble. The options are definently limited more than any other generation of Draft so I do think it takes away some of the charm. It is definently unique from every other Draft format and thats not a bad thing but I think its kinda janky and not nearly enough room to play around. With DPP, it honestly does really feel like you're playing a modern gen to me. Choice item's exist, movepools are relatively similar to what they are in ORAS. As somebody who plays both ORAS and DPP, I can't really think of many tech's you can do in ORAS that you can't do in DPP with the mons that exist in both gens.

With ADV there is also a little bit of a disrepency with how its played here and how it is played offsite. The unban's we did were pretty bad and definently wouldn't happen if we ran another ADV tour, but even with ruleset decisions like how we handle Baton Pass. I think StatPass is pretty clearly absurd having witnessed it myself in TDT as a manager watching my minbid completely bogus a 40k player in auction. That shit took 0 skill LOL and has no place in any Draft team tournament. I'm not sure the general ADV playerbase agrees with this sentiment seeing as they use it in Emerald Open though.

The question really remains with including DPP or not if we kill the flex slot is if theres enough people who actively play it or can play it in the tournament. I think my answer to that question is yes. There are plenty of unique signups that we would get for DPP that wouldn't otherwise play the tour, while DPP is also a slot that genuinely anyone can slot. I think the sentiments we sometimes see of "people can't play multiple draft singles tiers to a high level" is completely bogus. Mons is mons and I can compete in any gen and be able to get a win. There are countless examples of this if you look at draft team tournament history of people having success out of their main gen. Some names that come to mind for me in this are Hunter, TDG, myself, Jscurf, Toxic, etc. Most people do completely fine, and aside from a few mechanical differences DPP is literally no different than other singles tiers.

Low Tier / NatDex
Low Tier is just SV lite, and while thats not really a bad thing why not just add a random oldgen slot or another SV? I don't think randomly playing with worse SV pokemon is gonna make people suddenly not burnt out of SV.

I think NatDex is better than most people give it credit for. They are in a much better spot than last year for sure and I think it could be included in a team tournament without going horribly, I don't think including a unstable format in the sections main tour is a great idea. Future years maybe though I think the ruleset being universal on cut moves, etc, gives the format a lot more legitimacy.

Removing an SV slot
I don't think having only 2 current gen slots in any sections main tour makes any actual sense. We aren't that burnt out of SV that we seriously wanna exclude 60% of the signups from the tournament just by the sheer reality of there being no actual room for anyone to slot it. Also, DPL coinflips are mickey and even if most teams won't pick the same tier, there are actual problems of a team having a more optimal pick if the other team chose another tier. I also said this last year but part of the appeal to the currently flex slot to me was that you know what you are playing each week, and can plan in advance for it instead of buying an ORAS sub that won't really get the option to play all tournament because of the other team not picking ORAS. I think both flex slots are kind of flawed and its why I am leaning towards replacing it with one slot that just stays the same throughout the regular season.
 
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KCric12 said:
I think this proposal is just a strange way to help specific managers because they were undervalued in a previous auction, and implementing this would not accurately reflect prices in an actual auction. e.g. Panda went for 7k last ssn so he would be 10k this ssn as manager under your system whereas other players would be 20k just because they captained last season- even though Panda performed better than them in the last year? Seems ridiculous if you put it that way. Ultimately, I think it is a good thing that more capable managers want to manage and trying to nerf certain managers at the auction stage just because they have been good in the past is not the way to go about it. Any sort of dynamic pricing system is bound to have unfairness attached.
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That is more than fair, and I absolutely agree that more capable managers signing-up is always a good thing. However like you said earlier as well, the price increase will only further the gap between the stronger and weaker managers. This would just discourage the weaker managers from buying-in altogether, and I think disincentivizing playing isn’t great either.
In that sense I prefer keeping the prices as is despite some managers over-performing that price as to not widen the gap.
 
Hacker said:
The question really remains with including DPP or not if we kill the flex slot is if theres enough people who actively play it or can play it in the tournament. I think my answer to that question is yes. There are plenty of unique signups that we would get for DPP that wouldn't otherwise play the tour, while DPP is also a slot that genuinely anyone can slot. I think the sentiments we sometimes see of "people can't play multiple draft singles tiers to a high level" is completely bogus. Mons is mons and I can compete in any gen and be able to get a win. There are countless examples of this if you look at draft team tournament history of people having success out of their main gen. Some names that come to mind for me in this are Hunter, TDG, myself, Jscurf, Toxic, etc. Most people do completely fine, and aside from a few mechanical differences DPP is literally no different than other singles tiers.
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I want to fact-check this part.
  • Jscurf had 1 win in sv in dcl and 3 wins in oras this dpl and in neither tour he has wins in multiple gens
  • Hunter is currently negative in DPL trying to flex across gens (2-3) and performed even worse in DCL trying to do the same (1-6)
  • Toxic is an even 3-3 this ssn and has played 1 game out of swsh. DPL S8 he was 4-3 and played 1 game out of swsh again (was a loss).
Actively changing gens every week is different to picking up oras like jscurf for a whole season and learning the meta. No shade to any of the above I'm just trying to make a point. There is also the question of whether people really do want to be the flex. I know that many of the players who do flex would much rather be able to choose where they play rather than having to continuously move based on the schedule.

I completely agree with all of hackers other points tho.
 
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KCric12 said:
  • Since when does jscurf flex to swsh and usum? He had 1 win in sv in dcl and 3 wins in oras this dpl and in neither tour he has wins in multiple gens
  • Hunter is currently negative in DPL trying to flex across gens (2-3) and performed even worse in DCL trying to do the same (1-6)
  • Toxic is an even 3-3 this ssn and has played 1 game out of swsh. DPL S8 he was 4-3 and played 1 game out of swsh again (was a loss).
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Wanna clarify that this isn't necesarily just referencing this current DPL. Jscurf is primarily an SV player, and did fine in ORAS. Hunter is primarily a USUM player, hes shown to be a competitive SWSH player as well (last DPL). Toxic has had success in all of SV (positive DCL 1), SWSH (lol), and ORAS (won ORAS cup) throughout various tournaments and done well in all of them.

Most people don't really flex into multiple tiers throughout the course of the season, but I dunno if Jscurf's record would have necesarily changed if he played SV too. This doesn't really matter since I am against the flex slot really anyways but its more in principle of there are definently enough players that can be flexible and play whatever to a high level.
 
I don't mean to make a post suggesting that ADV is deserving of representation - regardless of finding the whole concept silly, most of the high-tier tournament play happens offsite. However, the format is every bit as competitive as other forms of draft, and would field an extremely competitive player pool -> I'd like to at least make a case for that.
Also noting - earlier in the thread, VGC related arguments mentioned Sitrus League/DPL? Presumably this means I'm allowed to mention Emerald Open/Hoenn Draft Invitational, but unsure of the Smogon ruling.
As far as ADV Draft goes, Emerald Open has been run for five concurrent years now. The current one cleared 320 players, with Draft mains and top ADV tournament players alike(if you're seeing this, please do voice your experience in the tournament).
There are ADV Draft tournaments set to run throughout the whole year, contributing to a circuit, with notable prize money involved in all of them.
There's a bevy of talented players willing and able to play it in tournament, there's a series of well-revised and generally beloved boards to take from.
With regards to comments in the thread above about the format lacking options - I'd be more than happy to share highlight games, there's been some truly incredible things pulled off especially in the past year.
In my understanding, the main factors that determine if a tier should be represented in a tournament is being competitive/balanced, having a strong and talented playerbase, and being compatible with the rest of the tournament in a team context.
ADV Draft would be a fantastic addition to the tournament under those criteria, based on tournament top performers and the draft players in them.
 
If adding a new format is seen as a worthwhile idea, then it would be constructive to narrow down the options and go from there. Out of the formats listed, ADV is arguably the only one worth entertaining.
The key distinction between it and the other formats is that it is the only one with an established scene and a reasonably well developed metagame. The potential for competitive integrity is dubious for the formats that have not gotten the reps in at a high level. Granted, I would not suggest that elite play is constantly showcased within these off-site tours, but it is hard to argue that it is not worthy of some level of respect given the games played with a $1000+ prize pool on the line. Similarly, the continued success showcased by skilled players, for example some of the decorated ADV OU veterans, should prove that there is legitimacy to the format. The talent is certainly there. I may be doing DPP a disservice when lumping it in with my criticisms of the other formats, but it is unfortunately still hard to justify when ADV has had much more room for refinement as an oldgen.
Last thing I'll add is that the notion of it being too different from the rest of the tiers comes off as a bit nonsensical when VGC is worlds apart from everything else. There's obviously a learning curve when it comes to the different mechanics, but the large turnout from new gen players should indicate that people find it reasonable to pick up, and it's certainly easier to adjust to than VGC. That being said, it's doubtful that you'd run into the issue of it feeling completely separate from the other formats which is a valid concern that has been expressed.
 
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through my painful time existing on smogon I've got a lot of experience in how these manager price shits work out

I disagree completely that 15k and 20k isn't a big difference. it truly is, especially when considering buying both managers for 40k total in comparison to 30k total is a whopping 10k aka 3 sub/player slots difference. yeah, the managers that would self-buy prob would go for 25+ in draft, so if xing and addi managed for ex, the difference between 30k & 40k compared to the 60k they'd go for combined appears "negligible", but still completely serves the purpose of making sure really strong manager pairings don't get away with even more highway robbery.

let's also be completely honest, if players know they'd go for 25-30k in the actual auction, would they actually forego the self-buy in protest of having to pay 5,000 extra? hell no. they'd suck it up because they want to be both the managers in charge of the auction + drafts AND the players clutching for their team

in these tournaments, self-buying managers is a Luxury and there's a reason official team tournaments would never allow this. it's already a cheat code to get the most highly-rated players at an extreme discount, so if there's a way to even the playing field even a little bit, it makes sense. remember, the downside of planning with a team and going to the pool is that you're gonna increase your own price and thus make your team slightly weaker after they have to spend 26k on you instead of the 20k manager buy. I'd be shocked if players interested in playing DCL would willingly sit out solely because they have to spend 5k more. I understand burnout / lack of motivation / lack of time, etc., but sitting bc of a potential 5k increase would be kinda embarrassing. draft team tours are alr so generous towards the managers and catered specifically for em

this applies to managers that aren't so highly sought-out for as well that would be less than 20k in the auction. is that 5k really gonna be the reason you don't trust in yourself to perform at a high-echelon price? if it is, maybe you prefer to be a supporting manager (which is a good thing to recognize), and look, now you have an extra 20k to spend on the best players to enter the non-managing player pool. that's just how it goes

I like the idea of only one manager being able to play in a given week for 20k as a flat rate, but I recognize it's draft culture to have two really strong caps that always self-purchase, so the best solution is to just raise it by 5k to balance out the teams
 
StreetCredCookie said:
I thought the format last season worked out pretty well. I don't think I agree with any of the changes up for discussion compared to what we already have.

Keep VGC please!
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I agree with the fact it looks like last season's format worked pretty well. If there are changes to be made it would probably be around the complicated spot of the flex slot. Currently flex is nice for the fact its a bit of a middleground for people.
If there were to be a change i think it would have to be 2 vgc slots, as people have said vgc cant be truly flexed into and you'd have a slot with a single person to fill. I think a team tour shouldn't have that kind of isolation, even if u took someone to help vgc out its not the same (Also helps in the case people who'd want to play singles wanna learn vgc which would help out everyone).
Which is also why i think a new format shouldn't be in that spot like adv, while players could flex into it more, its also a learning curve. U might vouch for like lowtier or natdex cause they are so close in nature, but u also dont want to put all your eggs in one basket. Especially when, as people talked about, vgc will have a big playerbase to support the tour which u are almost totally invalidating.
If u want 10 slots or 3 managing slot, i think they would have to come together. I would agree with what logice said about that conversion:
LogIce said:
Overall I think last seasons format worked out well. I would like to see the return of flex slot and keeping VGC in the tour. VGC draft has continued to rise in popularity, with Sitrus getting a whopping 197 signups this season.

I would like to echo scions proposal for a 3 manager option. I think this is a great idea, especially if the tour is on track to possibly expand to 10 slots. Mocking & supporting 7-8 slots while usually getting yourself ready is already a lot of prep time, so adding a third manager option can help reduce burnout. I do not think there is a downside to addition of this.

On expansion to 10 slots. I am in favor of expansion. But only if the 3rd nonplaying manager is added. I think the slots get tricky though because I do not think Natdex, DPP, ADV, or LT neatly fit into the existing tour format. I think that the 10 slot format would end up looking something like this, where there is a 4th SV slot and a 2nd VGC slot:

:great_tusk: SV Draft
:great_tusk: SV Draft
:great_tusk: SV Draft
:great_tusk: SV Draft
:garchomp: SS Draft
:tapu_koko: USUM Draft
:gardevoir-mega: ORAS Draft
:flutter_mane: SV VGC Draft
:flutter_mane: SV VGC Draft
:ditto: Singles Only Flex Slot*
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Since my last post, I've heard a lot more about why people don't like flex, and honestly I think my stance has changed on that specifically. It seems like the most likely change to the system will be replacing flex with some other format.

Flex definitely did some heavy lifting in terms of getting more representation to each format while keeping the preferred number of slots. However, you can't deny that it puts too much weight on the season schedule and the timing at which you play different teams. For that reason, I think adding a static 8th slot makes sense over the flex slot.

As for the other 7 slots, I see no reason not to keep last season's 7 (SV SV SV SWSH USUM ORAS VGC).

I think I agree with skipprthepenguin that 2nd vgc would be cool. That would be my preference to encourage more collaboration and activity for the tier, and hopefully encourage more people to get involved and help out. We have also seen huge growth in vgc draft within the past year, including several notable singles players getting involved (e.g GeniusX and Kcric, who are both undefeated in the vgc team tour Sitrus right now), so I have no doubt that we'll generally see more activity in vgc slots this season.
Doubling any of the other existing tiers is probably fine, but I'd personally find it more awkward than VGC, either having too much SV or favoring a past gen for whatever arbitrary reason. The tour would function fine, I just personally think it makes less sense.
I just don't know about the inclusion of ADV or DPP. I don't feel I am well versed in either of DPP or ADV enough to know whether these metagames are competitive enough, but just from their mechanics they seem to lack the depth of other formats in DCL in terms of available mons and strategies at play. From what I understand ADV has a much larger draft community and has seen more tournaments in draft than DPP, giving ADV a slight edge over DPP in my book, but I don't hold either one in high regard in terms of its inclusion in DCL.

In short, the change I think should be made the most is replacing flex with a static tier. VGC>>>(any of SV, SWSH, USUM, ORAS)>>>ADV>DPP

A quick note on other changes just to get a single opinion out there:
10 slots is too many
I disagree with dynamic captain pricing. Whatever fixed price is ok.
3 managers w/ max 2 buy ins: idk it's probably fine
 
My opinions on the main discussion points(might make another post to give my opinion on points / issues raised from other people's discussions)

  • Expansion to 10 slots: I think this should strictly be discussed and voted upon by the captains, to take their preferences and burnout into account. As a player though, I don't really mind an expansion since it gives a chance to more players to be involved.
  • 3 Managers: I am completely fine with this as long as only 2 can play under the current ruleset (you buy in the manager, not the slot). A lot of teams have helpers who put in significant work behind the scenes and this gives an opportunity to recognize their effort. Obviously, it has CA implications too so that's neat. If we stick to 2 managers, I think changing the ruleset to buy in the slot, rather than being locked to a specific manager has merit. Also the DPL method of the first buy-in being free, and the second costing more is worth looking.
  • New Formats: As I do not plan on managing, I am not opposed to the addition of extra formats if there is merit for their inclusion - strong interested player base, balanced tiering board and draft rules that work in a 8 mon, 8 team environment. As long as these criteria are met, I don't see why a new format could be added. If I had to pick one, I would probably pick SV Low Tier (I had also suggested this in the past) but I have no strong opposition to any other tier as I do not know enough about them. I do want to state that any suggestions of not allowing these formats to be picked for tiebreak is ridiculous and should not be entertained. Other than SV (which gets preferential treatment due to being current gen), all formats should be treated as equal.
  • VGC and Flex slot: Immediately after DCL 2, I was of the opinion that VGC needed to go. However, I have come around and think VGC should stay, especially after Sitrus heavily outperformed DPL. I think managers and singles players should give VGC a chance and try to learn it (just like you would any other format) to be able to support the VGC players and narrow the divide between the singles and doubles draft community. I also think there is merit in 2 vgc slots so that managers have to draft more players for support.

    As for the Flex slot, I personally think it is fine since we have 7 fixed slots. As I am not in favour of removing VGC or lowering the number of fixed SV slots to 2, the DPL method of letting each team pick a tier just does not work. Due to these restrictions, I believe the current system is fine. I understand the frustration if the rng of the schedule doesn't work out nicely, but I think it is acceptable rng. I also don't have a better alternative to it but if someone does, they should propose it so we can brainstorm that. The Flex slot also has the benefit of giving higher seeds an incentive for playoffs, since they get to pick the format for the 8th slot. If the Flex spot was removed for a fixed spot, there is technically no incentive for teams to try after making playoffs (I don't think this is an issue since making playoffs is already an incentive but I did want to point it out). I am heavily against cutting the VGC slot to be able to adopt the DPL method as well.
  • Extra slots for existing formats: In my opinion, the only tiers that should be considered for this are SV and VGC. SV is still unsolved, has a lot of exciting potential with different Tera captains, has a draft board with the most number of viable mons and the biggest player base. As for VGC, adding the 2nd slot will hopefully incentivize managers and singles players to learn and support vgc and narrow the divide that exists between the two draft communities. This also builds on Sitrus' success.

    As for the old gens, I think it looks weird to have an extra slot randomly for one of the tiers. I have heard complains about SS and ORAS so USUM seems the most logical choice to get an extra slot. But again, I think SV and VGC are better candidates to consider.
  • Retains: Not a huge fan since I like the freshness each new auction brings but I will admit I haven't given the opposite side much thought.
 
Just going to put this idea out there for the drafting phase:

4 SV Drafts/3 SWSH Drafts/3 USUM Drafts/3 ORAS Drafts
This was already done last season, however, I think the randomness of these drafts should be slightly rigged. There's always going to be luck in the draft phase, however, I think it would be healthy for the game to guarantee every team a top 2 SV pick, and every team a top 3 SWSH/USUM/ORAS pick. Given that there is an extra draft in SV it is possible to give every team 1 top 2 pick, where they can choose between Iron Valiant or Meowscarada for elite non-tera speed options or they could work with Great Tusk and get whatever speed that falls back. SV drafts that are forced to round 1 their tera option are at a significant enough disadvantage to justify giving every team the option to have 1 really consistent strong draft. I still think given how top heavy a lot of tiers are it would be beneficial to expand the idea to the other tiers as well, but given that there is 1 less draft it is only practical to guarantee at least 1 top 3 draft.

Last idea I would like to put in this thread: banning immediate non-powder sleep based moves. This is kind of a compromise in regards to all the discussions with sleep. It effectively bans the inaccurate sleep based moves that are extremely hard to have great counterplay for, while keeping what is considered "healthier" still in the game like spore, sleep powder, and yawn, which has more counterplay built into it, like switching/grass types/safety goggles. This is most important for the SV metagame but I don't really think past gen players would complain about this change either.

EDIT: I didn't include any additional formats but whatever gets implemented for the last format could likely use the same drafting rules. I don't play any of the other formats so I did not feel comfortable talking about them.
 
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After reading more discourse, I want to come back and write a more comprehensive post on a few topics I feel passionate about.

Flex Slot: Before I kick this off I just want to appreciate the W glaze from #1 draft player Hacker. I have never once heard someone say I loved the DCL II flex slot. I have heard positive feedback about administrative things, such as the added drafts, but never this. To an extent Hacker is correct, dcl level players can learn new tiers it is not rocket science. I can count the amount of ORAS draft seasons on one hand that I have played in and have been relatively successful there in DPL. I think Kcric is completely correct however the issue lies in bouncing around tiers and teams every single week which has historically never worked besides for a handful of the absolute most elite players. If you are flexing it is hard to play a new gen and a new team every single week and if you dont have a decade of experience good luck. For me I know I can pick up a gen but maintaining multiple at once is unrealistic to do at an elite level for anybody. I picked up ORAS and have had my full season to focus on it narrowly and that is why it has turned out fine. This slot was gimicky last season, we more often saw it screw teams when their double tier was into another strong team there, their players went on vacation, or many other adverse factors. This only works with the DPL flex format and we would need to make a horrible compromise elsewhere to accommodate something that just is not worth the effort.

Re ADV & DPP: I agree with Addison that we should be focusing on innovation and we should be less afraid to try new things. Unfortunately, these tiers are not the way to accomplish that. DPP is the single most undeveloped tier proposed in this entire thread. People complain about VGC because they don't think it has enough player base or support (laughable claim), what the hell playerbase does DPP have. It does not have well tested tiers, it has a third of the signups as other formats like ND and LT (which also are not great to include) in similar boats, and has lots of less competitive mechanics such as no team preview and the way crits warp a game. ADV I would genuinely almost be on board to include. Unfortunately, the ADV player base has this mentality where they openly do not want to be in DCL for whatever reason. The fundamental difference between how most people approach ADV draft and then how Smogon has shown they want to in terms of tiering and ruleset just makes it far too inconsistent to actually house in the tour. It makes the format less developed when there is no consensus on hwo to run it and points out inherent flaws that it has in terms of competitiveness. DPP is where I would start to consider things "modern." ADV is too mechanically different where options are limited among other grander issues to include. Keep in mind I have thoroughly enjoyed ADV and been very successful in the tier in major tournaments, I like it but not for DCL. I think this could be a considerations in a year or two at our current pace.

Manager Price: Not sure if this is like taboo to say here but I am openly very strongly considering applying and captaining this DCL. I think ultimately adjusting the manager price does have an effect and starts to help narrowing the gap. I do think, however, for certain potential managers like myself, it severely disadvantages their team. It is far less likely I can reasonably buy in but does not proportionally help my team at in the auction if I don't. It overall just makes me feel bad to even apply because it seems any decision I make is just handicapping a team even with me doing well as a cap recently otherwise and performing better in team tours. It kind of just disproportionately removes the validity for certain managers to apply without creating a drastic enough change to the other managers who will still buy in anyways and still have a big advantage. Dynamic pricing is weird and can just be ineffective in multiple directions, making people underpriced and overpriced simultaneously. Pricing should never ever be done subjectively in a tour of this pedigree. I think 15 is fine and also believe we should buy slots not individual captains if possible as a way to further improve accessibility to cores that could succeed.

Why SV4 saves the tour: While this may be placing too much emphasis on just one tier, this is to me the only super valid option. I understand it is the CG but SV is by far and beyond the most popular tier by a landslide. In other gens like SS this was not the case and people literally favoured ND SS. SV is a heavily desired tier to play and has the largest viable playerbase by a disproportionate amount despite being the CG it still has way more players than it should. We have consistently seen players who have built their legacys on old gens like KingL5, LOQP, 100P, Glop, KCric do amazingly in SV and show a clear interest to play it above the tiers they are known for. It is fresh, it is fun, and it is very competitve. Almost every single new player trying to break into a dcl roster is an SV player. The best and most support is for SV in these tours. SV has become far more balanced and settled than even last DCL and is in a good place. What better way to close out the gen by allowing the most people to play the most sought after tier. The pre ORAS gens don't have the infrastructure, 6-8 do not have any standout that deserves an extra slot, flex is hated, vgc is too polarizing, nobody has provided a reason SV4 would be bad. To me this clearly is the lowest downside situation where I do not see any world where it fails to work out. I played in the ultracompetitive ryan & ditto 8 slot team tour which had 4 sv slots and 5 drafts (albeit ND SV) and it was perfectly fine. I think this situation removes all the potential drawback of other decisions and keeps the most people happy it just hasn't been discussed enough.
 
Burnout is real and best avoided- 10 is just too many slots for draft; even if you have fairly self sufficient players. In general the previous format was well-enjoyed, so i don't think we want to be making any drastic changes. I honestly think this is the biggest possible mistake we could make.

On captains:
Having 3 caps is an issue bc it potentially cuts down the number of people who could/would be available for DFL- I think DFL is an important environment for blooding newer players into team tours and so anything which cuts down on the potential number of Captains who will go there and actually support new players appropriately isn't great.
it also opens up the whole 'get two broken players for low value' a bit more. Having 2 slots is less abusable. Dynamic pricing is overcomplicating what is already a complex auction process for newer people to understand.
I like 20k cap buy in for the second slot. It strikes a balance between just grabbing the best two players you can as a core and hoping, while letting more supportive players captain/be available and contribute. 15k last season was probably a 5k low imo. We don't want to force buy in for both as again it probably discourages some people from wanting to captain.

On format selection:
I think i was one of very few flex slot enjoyers but replacing it with ADV is probably the best format overall (or worst case VCG). Ik it's not everybody's cup of tea but the meta is understood well enough to be well balanced (with rachi/cune bans). Second preference would be to double up on VGC because as mentioned, it is popular. There are enough players who would be interested- the last ADV tour did not have that many players who consistently play team tours- iirc it was like me, shadow and jscurf and this is before the emerald open player pool comes into question. DPP is maybe slightly more intersting than ADV but it's fdar closer to new gens due to the phys/special split being implemented.

3x SV, 1x SS/ORAS/USUM/VGC/ADV is probably bets imo. I think going back to X+1 drafts is also fine now- with no flex slot we really don't need 3x oras teams etc imo, and the drafting process is a real slog for captains anyway.
a 4th sv (even if it's low tier) slot is a nope from - LT is a fun foprmat but SV burnout is real and getting a good board for LT 8 mon is hard (see how broken tera shaymin was in the last edition of cok...)

TLDR- don't fix what isn't broken, just tweak.
 
1. Please do not expand to 10 slots

2. I think VGC should either get 2 slots or 0 slots, I prefer 2 due to the serious popularity of the sitrus tour and vast amount of room for growth by increasing the number of slots here. I’d like 2 VGC slots over a flex slot.

3. Please do not do retains, those are incredibly unappealing.

4. Three managers is strange and probably not a good idea, why not just provide teams an option to list a number of helpers to provide them recognition, if the captain can’t play anyways this only cannibalizes the pool and lowers opportunities for others to obtain certain players.

5. Increasing captain price I do not have a strong opinion, but I also will mention, as mentioned earlier that I’d rather the prices remain fixed.

Edit:
As far as making self-buy have a dynamic rate goes, I’m not entirely opposed conceptually, however we absolutely can not do this based on previous DCL prices (prices don’t reflect value well enough) or strictly DCL records (sample size problems), so my concern would be what we would use for data.
 
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Okay after much discourse yesterday, ADV is not seeming to be a real consideration for this tour anytime soon. I am not advocating for it in the slightest and do believe VGC deserves a slot over ADV or DPP.

With that said statements such as these are a pretty huge slap in the face to anyone who does play these older gen formats.
StreetCredCookie said:
I just don't know about the inclusion of ADV or DPP. I don't feel I am well versed in either of DPP or ADV enough to know whether these metagames are competitive enough, but just from their mechanics they seem to lack the depth of other formats in DCL in terms of available mons and strategies at play.
Click to expand...
Discounting formats that are able to pull a player base that includes some of the greatest Pokemon players of all time, to have one of the largest off Smogon tours of all time, and to raise more money for a prize pool in a draft tour than any before, just because you don't feel like you know enough about it is actually insane. Please don't comment on the "lack of depth" that you're perceiving without even attempting to participate.
Thank you! :blobthumbsup:
 
I believe if we want to be inclusive and do a form of dynamic captain pricing a truly effective predictive model that would take a massive sample might be necessary to interpret past trends. I think the implementation of such a system has been very poor in the past and didn’t consider consequences of a primative formula.


1.

Let’s choose a very simple method such as a primative formula:

Average the DCL price the players have averaged at historically.

Results: This causes a new player who went 7-0 at 7k and a player who went 3-4 at 25k to retain their prices which is unfair.

2.

Another primitive way to model it could be taking the maximum of a variety of factors, such as taking the highest between something such as:

1. 3 times number of wins last season
2. Price last season
3. 15k

Results: This seems silly as the price last season may be a number such as 30k for a player that went 0-5, and now they can not captain without an insane price tag.

3.

So if we changed this and made the price last season adjusted by number of wins and losses maybe that could get a little bit better so let’s say it was:

price last season + 2 * wins - 2 * losses

Results: Now if we flip the script and the 30k player went 7-0 they are adjusted to a 44k player. If this was capped out a certain price value maybe it could seem slightly reasonable but even then this isn’t a seriously competitive option to me and is extremely difficult to get everyone right on.

Edit:
Other Concept is modifications to base price and could also conceivably do a system like:
10k base
+4-5k if went for 15k or more last season played
+4-5k if went positive last season played (or some other success measuring milestone)
+4-5k if both positive and went for 15k or more last season played

(Probably my favorite concept, but still far from perfect)
 
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I don't have much more to add to this in regards to what has been said already but if the tour is staying 8v8 please do not include 4 SV slots. It feels so limiting for oldgen players who now have to accept that if they aren't a top 8 ORAS/USUM/SS player they will not be playing. I would sooner keep the flex slot than advocate for making half of the tour SV. My mind goes to someone like Tidal from DPL this season who is primarily an USUM player and would likely be forced into playing SV in DCL if that's the format we opt for. I understand this isn't a problem uniquely solved by adding a different format in place of a 4th SV but 4 SV just seems unfair to people that aren't specifically SV mains.
 
You know what solves every problem? Double swsh :3

New format? New Swsh! (I can make the tier list even bolder if need be.)

More players getting access to older gens? Double swsh. Thats four (count 'em) FOUR old gen slots.

Popular? Most popular old gen in signups and unique players in the last 4 major team tours. cry about it

Accessibility? Everyone can support swsh players!

Even draft daddies King L5 and GeniusX actively wanna play the tier.

Swsh is B e T t E r T h A n E v E r cmon y'all lets unite <3 <3 <3 <3
 
Fuck it lets just add pokemon unite

The arguments against SV4 do not seem compelling to me really.
olivia said:
I don't have much more to add to this in regards to what has been said already but if the tour is staying 8v8 please do not include 4 SV slots. It feels so limiting for oldgen players who now have to accept that if they aren't a top 8 ORAS/USUM/SS player they will not be playing.
Click to expand...
How is this different if you add a 4th SV? Previously, flex meant they get 2 games max anyways if they weren't a top 8 oldgen player. Also, this is the Champions League. It is supposed to be showcasing the best of the best talent. I like 2 USUM slots (2 SWSH feedback in DCL1 was pretty poor. Yhe general sentiment at the time was super against SWSH and its gotten better since then but idk i think its better to do something new compared to something people didn't like) even if it is random at the end of the day, but this doesn't feel like a good angle to argue from.
olivia said:
My mind goes to someone like Tidal from DPL this season who is primarily an USUM player and would likely be forced into playing SV in DCL if that's the format we opt for. I understand this isn't a problem uniquely solved by adding a different format in place of a 4th SV but 4 SV just seems unfair to people that aren't specifically SV mains.
Click to expand...
They can choose to not sign up for SV. Managers also can't force you to slot a tier that you didn't sign up for. Give these managers negative reviews if this does happen or message hosts or staff about it. You also said that a different slot wouldn't really solve that anyways

If SV is added it would be half of the tournament and I am not particularly the biggest fan of it, but hell SV draft is popular as hell and has genuine good benefits here like not needing to add a fuck ton of new drafts.
 
I'll give my short 2 cents. I havent been paying too much attention to be quite honest but it does seem like a 4th SV slot would solve the most issues. I dont think there is ever a world that you put multiple VGC slots especially when there were talks last DCL about cutting vgc completely. I dont see the benefit of adding something like ADV or DPP which while yes they do have their respective communities and have been growing in the past few months, they are still a bit too niche for this type of team tour environment and need more devolpment imo. I think the best approach if you are going to add a slot would be to simply make it SV which appeals to a majority of the player base. I also thought the flex slot from last season was a solid approach and but you could possibly randomize the order in which they show up for the season. It would be the same amount of 2 oras usum ss and 1 vgc, but just change the order so it doesnt get predictable and lead to counter teaming
 
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