Tournament Doubles Derby IV - Discussion Thread

[zoe]

Points of Discussion

• Tiers
  • Last year's format was 2x SV DOU, 2x Natdex DOU, 1x DUU, 1x DLC, 1x DPP DOU, 1x ADV DOU
  • Possibly less interest in 2x National Dex DOU slots or DLC inclusion this year
  • Interest in Draft and Doubles Ubers/National Dex Doubles Ubers has been mentioned
• Format
  • Last Derby, we went back to a shorter tournament with 6 teams instead of 8, which seemed to be liked by the majority of the community. Should this be kept as is?
  • Last year we introduced retains into team tournaments at a max of two retains or one manager self-buy + one retain. Do we want to keep retains around? Should they be expanded?
  • Any changes to the manager self-buy formula?

 

[qsns]

derb

 

[laptops]

derb

 

[LogIce]

derb

Starting discussion off with making the case for draft's inclusion this year. Since last year, we have hosted 2 successful tournaments, one being trios, and the other being an individual. Both tours gathered around 40-50 signups, which is a respectable amount comparing it to other metas considered for the tour (DUU Seasonal, 36, DLC Seasonal, 21, NDDOU Seasonal, 51). Resources are well updated, and tiering is consistently updated prior to each tour.

Last year, there were some concerns about draft being included in a standard team tour. Since this time last year, there have been some PLs and CLs that have included draft as a format See: PTSL, NDCL, LGPL, and arguments for inclusion for ORASCL (even though they decided against inclusion). These tours allowed one week for drafting teams to take place, and optionally midseason trades introduced during the midpoint of the tour (During a week 3 playing week, active starting week 4) that would be used the following week, used to aide in fixing drafts that may have not performed well. Teams would draft 2 teams, and submit which they are using with their lineup submission each week, which is in line with other draft team tours on and off the site.

Last year's derby was the most competitive derby we have had in my opinion, so expansion should be on the table. I want to propose a 6 team, 10 slot format, which would expand slots by 12 players.
2x SV DOU
2x ND DOU
1x DUU
1x DLC
1x DPP DOU
1x ADV DOU
1x SV DOU Draft
1x Some form of DUbers

If we keep the format of 6 teams, 8 slots, I would like to propose a flex slot format, with 2x SV DOU being locked every week, and each team selecting 3 tiers from the list of: ND DOU, DUU, DLC, DPP, ADV, Draft, and an DUbers format. Each team would not be able to pick 2 of the same tier, but if both teams pick the same tier it would be doubled. Would look like this in practice:
Turboblaze picks: ND, DUU, DPP
Gods picks: ND, Draft, ADV
Tiers for the week would be: 2x SV DOU, 2x ND, DUU, DPP, Draft, ADV

I think this helps to get tiers like DUbers and Draft integrated into the tour, but doesn't take away from the already established core derby metagames if expanding the tour is a concern.

No real opinions on retains, I think we can keep or ditch em. Manager buy-in formula is fine as is

 

[mimi]

keep retains, they were introduced as a way to build teams identities over years, they shouldn't be removed after one year of them being in. All for the addition of a draft format in derby, other than that not much to say as far as tiers goes

derb

 

[zee]

just my opinion not the mod teams etc etc

I would like to see draft featured in this tour. As logice pointed out we've seen a pretty legitimate develop of doubles draft in recent years and I think it could be another fun way to shake up the tour for this edition. At the present moment I'm a little unsure something like DLC actually has more claim to a slot than draft, just doesn't seem like there's a lot of activity or interest but if people want to prove me wrong this is your chance to speak up I guess. 10 slots is an okay compromise but I think you will run into quality issues akin to Derby 2 even if the 6 team thing fixes the timeline concerns from that tour.

everything else is good imo. ned mentioned bo3 dpp on discord i can take it or leave it. old crits suck and i think it would lead to more "deserving" results but i think dpp is harder to build for than adv and i would be concerned a bit about burnout.

derb

 

[eragon]

(similar to zee just posting my personal thoughts here)

I think this tour ran very well last year and was extremely competitive so I think the most basic stuff about the tour should be maintained (6 teams, 8 slots). If we really wanted to add a hypothetical 9th or even 10th slot it's maybe doable, but given this is now the 4th year of the generation I think it could really crunch signups and when we tried 8x8 it didn't really go too well. I think really the main thing that should be discussed is draft and whether we want to include it (and how).

-Definitely keep retains. I was apprehensive about it and am still not the biggest fan but it worked out pretty well for both tours last year and there just isn't a good reason to remove it

-A flex slot format like the one Logice proposed is interesting but I don't think it would work super great for these tiers- some of the playerbases are kind of on thin margins in this tour, so if both teams pick ADV or DPP it could get dire really quick (and just generally this would be a pretty huge change, too big imo for a tour that is basically completely fine as is).

-DPP could definitely go to bo3 but I think the reasons for it are felt slightly less than when actuarily (I think it was him?) originally proposed it a while back- no explosion and no twave make for a bit of a more stable tier. Still, it's a no-team preview double crit generation so I think it would definitely be reasonable. The games and prep take a bit longer for DPP than for ADV but I don't think in a prohibitively high margin. I lean towards trying out bo3 for DPP this year, it's a small change but I think it could improve the experience for those slotting. If the prep time is a serious concern, maybe we can allow ppl to gentleman bo3 if both players agree anyways?

-Draft is kind of the elephant in the room at the moment and it has seen solid resource development and enough tours that I'm sure it could function solidly in a tour like this. I think it's not the best fit for Derby, in particular don't like the delaying of the tour for a draft week and I'm also a bit concerned about the playerbase draining a bit from SV but this is probably a minor concern. That said, I think there's been a clear demonstration of interest in draft in this tour so I think we should be thinking about how to include it. I think DLC is currently a bit dire on forums and I think replacing it with draft is reasonable? Feels bad to cut a tier so I'd like to hear from some of the people who slotted dlc in years past about how motivated they'd be to play DLC in this tour- as it stands right now it looks like Draft has a lot more hype behind it.

-I've seen some people calling for getting rid of the 2nd ND slot for draft, which isn't entirely unreasonable but ND still has the largest playerbase compared to any of the other tiers and it's not particularly close. However, I think a cool compromise could be 1x ND 1x NDDubers. There's been calls here and there for a Dubers format to be added the last few years and NDDubers has probably been played the most of the three on forums. I think it could pull from the ND playerbase while also bringing a Dubers into the mix. Seems like the best of both worlds for ND people and Dubers people for me.

That was kind of a lot so here's some proposed formats:

replacing DLC with Draft, 2nd ND with NDDubers:
2x SV/1x ND/1x ND Dubers/ DUU/Draft/DPP (bo1 or bo3)/ADV (bo3)

If we're reading DLC completely wrong and people really still want it in this tour, I think we could explore going to 9 slots and including everything, which also gets rid of tiebreakers:
2x SV/1 ND/1 ND DUbers/DUU/DLC/Draft/DPP/ADV

For both of the above I think it could still be 2x ND, but I think we really should consider the Dubers change since it might be a bit difficult to fill out 2x ND, and it's hard to justify including a Dubers format in any other way. Again, I also feel last years format was completely fine but it does seem that we're looking to shake things up at least a little bit for this edition. I think it's worth noting that if DLC ends up getting cut this year it shouldn't effect whether it gets considered for next gen derby tours- just seems a bit stale with it being the 4th year of the gen and all.

 

[Jazz721]

i kinda wanted to throw out a suggestion i've seen mentioned briefly here and there which is to replace one of the current slots with a bw slot. with the next generation of pokemon games on the horizon, it's gonna come to a point where certain tiers are omitted from dpl. I think bw has more of a legacy than something like dlc, dubers or even natdex. as far as i'm aware dlc and dubers dont see a lot of play and one could be swapped out. Personally i'd say remove one of the natdex slots. i know it sees a lot of play due to ladder and stuff but i'm not sure if you're gonna find 2 people per team to really play it.

If moving bw to derby feels wrong i also am in favor of having draft replace one of the aforementioned slots. it's been seeing a lot of support, theres been a number of tours ran for it, and the general consensus makes it seem like its more popular than something like dlc or dubers

 

[Politoad With An A]

random ramblings that no one cares about

Ok, first of all;
Why is there not a single Bo3 Slot. like at all.
Best-of-3 should absolutely be the norm for some of these tiers, such as ADV DOU and DLC, there is just too much influence from hax that come up and there would be more wiggle-room for skill expression from both a building and play perspective. For tiers like DPP DOU, it desperately needs more games to be played to further develop its new metagame. I think the biggest 'issue' with people generally preferring Bo1 is time. To be fair, it does take time to and build & test, but if you genuinely care enough about a tier to sign up and get drafted for it you should be happy to do such things for a tier you adore.
The other time argument is how long the sets take, which personally I think is a very flimsy argument. If you can schedule for 1 game, you can very easily schedule for 3; ESPECIALLY considering just how quick DOU games take from start to finish compared to singles.
Also we definitely have the slots for it.
If yall really wanted to you could make each of the extra SV/NDD slots a Bo3 slot at the very minimum, now people have a choice if they wish to play or not.
To add onto this, some tiers have very few teamtours per year especially since teamtours are using an "island" argument to cut DOU from their lineups such as ADVPL and BWPL.

Speaking of the island argument, why is draft not being included?
Draft is a very competitive and expressive format from an outsiders perspective that I feel we should be welcoming with open arms. I'm not familiar enough with draft to give a detailed argument on why it is X or Y. People may say " we don't have enough slots" but like, there are some cuttable slots (even if it's inconvenient) but there are options.

My dream slots!:

1x SV Bo1
1x ND Bo1
1x DUbers Bo1
These are not cuttable, you just can't

1x ADV Bo3
1x DPP Bo3
There are not enough tours for both of these tiers, these need to be Bo3 just so the metagame can develop at a healthy pace.

1x SV Bo3
SV Bo3 is just to see how much yall like it. Personally I think it would be healthy because SV is a very skill dependant tier to play and entertaining to watch, more hype matches = more fun (caveman logic but idc)

What can be changed?
1x DLC Bo3
1x NDD Bo3
1x BW Bo3
1x Draft Bo1/3
Last 2 slots can be literally any of the above. DLC seems to be waning in popularity as of late and same with the NDD Slot. NDD should probably stay but I'm indifferent :3
Again, draft is cool (even if I know fuck all about it) and would be neat to see, and this year may be the last year of BW in DPL so why not celebrate its legacy a bit earlier.

Maybe half the shit I spouted was complete nonsense - either way, thanks for reading ^.^

derbderb

 

[Yoda2798]

Also just posting some personal thoughts:

I'm very against a flex slot, not a fan of variability in formats from week to week. I'm also not a fan of odd numbers of slots, and agree with others than going up to 10 feels like a stretch, so 6 teams of 8 again is likely the move. Best-of-three in team tours isn't worth doing unless the playerbase is actively pushing for it IMO (like ADV players did), and it sounds like people are at best neutral for it in DPP.

Definitely open to giving Draft a shot, especially since other non-draft team tours have successfully tried adding it. Not sure what in place of but probably either NatDex or DLC as others have said. Realistically I think any kind of DUbers slot seems unlikely at the moment, especially with Draft being the most likely to replace a current slot.

As someone who hated the idea of retains before we did them I think they're completely fine; the one possible caveat is if people are worried about potentially unfair prices with the addition of a new slot (e.g. Draft) then we could have a rule saying retains can't play the new format(s) during regular season, though I'm not sure if even that's necessary.

 

[Frixel]

echoing eragon's words:
2x ND DOU is too much given the recent decrease in player enjoyment and tier satisfaction. Pushing for 1x ND DOU and 1x ND DUbers feels like the move. Out of all 3 possibilities for an Ubers tier, ND Dubers is the one with the biggest activity in recent time, being included in NDAMPL and having a recent kick off tour.

Draft > DLC, not much to add to what has been said.

For DPP, I think we should just poll the w1 starters with bo1 or bo3 or poll the DPP playerbase restricted to players who achieved a certain top x in a certain tour or played the tour (you know where I want to get with this). Personally, I would hate building 3 teams every week, but I'm not a DPP player nor I intend to touch the tier to even have a saying in this matter.

replacing DLC with Draft, 2nd ND with NDDubers:
2x SV/1x ND/1x ND Dubers/ DUU/Draft/DPP (bo1 or bo3)/ADV (bo3)

To me, this is the most appealing Derby format.

Regarding bo3 on anything else not named ADV: please don't.