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Tournament DWCOP VII- Format Discussion

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eragon

eragon

the bob dylan of dou
is a Community Leaderis a Top Community Contributoris a Top Metagame Resource Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributorwon the 6th Official Smogon Doubles Tournamentis a defending SCL Champion
Doubles Leader
Discussion Thread​
Welcome to the seventh installment of the Doubles World Cup! This thread will serve as the place to discuss all things relating to the upcoming Doubles World Cup, including regions, tournament size, eligibility, etc. Most of the following details in this thread will be tentative upon hearing community feedback, and will be finalized before the tournament starts.

This tour will be hosted by goldmason with assistance from the DOU Forum Moderation team.

Doubles World Cup of Pokémon Seven (DWCOP VII) will likely follow a similar structure to last year’s tournament. In the first phase players will be placed in pools of 4 with players from other teams, where they must play each of the three other players in their pool in a best of 1 SV DOU match (or a best of one match of one of the other included tiers). This pools phase will last two weeks, and will be the qualifying phase for the playoffs. Any substitutions made in the pool phase will continue for the entirety of the pool phase.

The 8 regions with the best record will emerge from the pools and will compete in the playoffs.The #1 seeded team will play the #8, #2 will play the #7, #3 will play the #6 and the #4 will play #5 where each player will play a best of 1 SV DOU match against a player on the opposing team. The team with the best record in this matchup will be the winner. Any ties will result in a tier breaker where 3 players from each team will play a best of 1 SV DOU match (if all slots are SV) or (more likely) one tiebreak tier will be SV DOU and each team will pick one of the other available formats.

Last year we had 13 teams with 8 starters and 4 subs on each.

For DWCOP VI, considerings last years numbers, we are looking to have a minimum of 12 teams. Last year we had 14 teams and we’d always like to keep the door open to possible new teams in this edition as well. Teams will be finalized once we have a better idea of signups, but here were the teams last year:

US Northeast
Italy
India
Spain
US South
US Midwest
Latin America
US West
APAC
France
Canada
Europe
Brazil
China


With the US regions divided by the below map:
1792389820891.png




Tentative Schedule:
  • Manager & Player Signups to go up on October 18th.
  • Managers will be selected on October 25th.
  • Player signups to close November 1st.
  • Pools to be posted on November 2nd.
  • Playoffs to be posted November 15th.
Regarding player eligibility: We are thinking that we will continue the same rules as last year, where players are eligible to play for whatever region they are currently living in (with a verified IP address). However, players that played for a different region last year than what they are currently living in this year are eligible to be “grandfathered” in to their team from last year. This “grandfather” clause will not apply to regions that have been split. For instance, if Europe were to be split between team United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, then all players living in the United Kingdom would only be eligible to play on the U.K. team, not on the team for the rest of Europe, even if they were on team Europe last year.

Use this thread to discuss your thoughts on the tournament, and here are a few questions to get the discussion going:
1. Should there be any changes to team sizes from 8 players and 4 substitutes?
2. Last year we ran a new format with 5x SV DOU, 1x SS DOU, 1x SM DOU, and 1x XY DOU. Do we want to continue to use that format or do you want to adjust it? Some ideas could be including the new format of Champions DOU over one or two of the SV slots, or having less oldgens this year.
3. Should any additional teams be considered from the 14 that we had last year?
4. How do you feel about the eligibility requirements?
5. Should there be any other changes to the tournament structure, whether that’s pool sizes, playoffs size, tiebreakers, or length of the tournament?

Or any other thoughts or feedback you may have!
 
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Schister said:
4x SV
1x Champions DOU
1x SS
1x SM
1x XY

Could cannibalize more sv slots for champs or split the tour between champs and SV but champs DOU should be here as the most modern format.
Click to expand...
Agree with this split being good. Champs is too new/potentially unstable to warrant it being the primary format here and SV should retain at least 3 slots, either 1 or 2 Champs slots is ideal. 1 plays it safe for it's first team tour inclusion, so even if the meta ends up needing some work then it shouldn't be too detrimental to the tour. 2 allows for further development of a new modern format that sadly lacks a ladder and can satiate more player's desire to play a non-SV tier without having to pick up something old. I personally don't think BW, NatDex, or anything else should be considered.

eragon said:
Any substitutions made in the pool phase will continue for the entirety of the pool phase.​
Click to expand...
The official WCOP allows partial substitutions as of this year and personally I'd recommend allowing them here too. Otherwise I think our ruleset is fine as is.
 
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I propose reducing the slots for SV Doubles and adding BW Doubles, Champion Doubles, or ND Doubles instead.

After four years of SV Doubles, I believe most players have grown tired of it. On the contrary, interest in Old Gens Doubles has only kept rising. Last year’s changes were a great starting point. Much like how WCOP introduced additional tiers, adding Old Gens Doubles will undoubtedly boost player engagement and enjoyment (it’s hard to imagine anyone still wanting to play eight rounds of SV Doubles). Another point I’d like to bring up is that BWPL added BW Doubles for the first time this year. You can see many new Doubles players emerging in BWPL, such as Eragon, Actuarily, Val16, and more. Compared with ADV Doubles and DPP Doubles, BW Doubles received PL recognition earlier. If DWCOP adds BW Doubles this year, it would lay solid groundwork for future BWPL seasons.

A classical bo3 also sounds good cuz it is a really a match which test a player skills. Based on this thought, I think sv bo3 is also a not bad idea.

Champion Doubles is certainly a newer tier with strong enthusiasm from players, but it has a notable downside: its metagame is extremely volatile and requires further development and balancing. As for ND Doubles, adding it would blur the distinction between DWCOP and DPL. With all that considered, my personal recommendation is:

SV Doubles ×4,
SS Doubles ×1,
SM Doubles ×1,
XY Doubles ×1,
BW Doubles ×1/ Chamipon Doubles/ Classical bo3/ SV bo3

On the tournament format: Pool + Weeks is undoubtedly a solid structure. Please do not include a preparation week — it kills motivation！！！

edit：u can even try
ADV DOU 1
DPP DOU 1
BW DOU 1
XY DOU 1
SM DOU 1
SS DOU 1
SV DOU 2
 
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I'm really not a fan of preparation weeks myself either. 99% they're just boring and it just kinda feels like there's nothing going on
Players can't play or prep for specific opponents, spectators can't watch or even look forward to draft.

As for formats, i think it'd 100% be nice to see a champions format here and maybe swap out some current oldgens for other, older oldgens.
 
I'm skeptical about whether Champions DOU should be added to DWCoP. I understand people are tired of old tiers, but from what I can see, Champions DOU is currently neither balanced nor stable; it's still a Meta that needs to be developed. So its games will inevitably revolve around developing new things. While that's a good thing for any tier, I don't want to see a large number of matchups in DWCoP centered on information gaps. I believe Champions DOU will definitely be a good choice in the future, but unfortunately, for now its best home is probably Derby.

I think keeping the same format as last year is a good idea. Tbh, I've always felt DWCoP is a bit awkward. As one of the three major team tours in the DOU community, Derby takes on the entertainment role, where tiers like DUU, ADV, and DPP can all be played. DPL broke new ground this year by adding VGC, and because NatDex has a stable metagame and good popularity, it also got promoted to DPL.

But the current DWCoP, as soon as you add a new tier, easily turns into a smaller DPL. For example, adding BW would make it identical to last year's DPL. That doesn't look like a good thing, so I think keeping it as is, or going back to 8 SV from two years ago, might be a good idea.

if we really are going to add a new tier, I think NatDex is a good idea. Right now everyone is still full of enthusiasm for this tier, and banning Marshadow recently injected new life into it. Stable community management, multiple individual tours a year, and the circuit playoffs just around the corner all speak to the vitality of this tier.

Well, the above remarks make me look like a conservative, but I sincerely hope DWCoP won't become a mini DPL or a mini Derby.

Thanks for reading, have a goof day:D

4x SV
1x National Dex DOU/Champions VGC MC
1x SS
1x SM
1x XY
5x SV
1x SS
1x SM
1x XY
8x SV

tenor.com_pokemon.gif
 
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I really think Champs DOU should be included in this tour and heavily pushed. Not for any reason like SV being boring or whatever, but because it is a new format that will surely become the standard to come. The tier is certainly unexplored and volatile but a tournament like this is exactly what it needs to see any real development. In the nature of DWCoP I also feel it makes sense. A lot of the argument against certain old gens is the lack of established players in every region. With champions being completely new it evens the playing ground quite a bit. As for other options that could be added, I personally wouldn't include either of Natdex DOU or DUU. When it comes to "volatile tiers" i think natdex often comes to mind. While I respect what the tier set out to do it does not result in good games. DUU is a tier that hardly sees any real tiering action and has been bad for the past few tournaments it's been included in. I personally would advocate for something like this, with champs being the focus:

3x Champs dou
2x SV dou
1x SS dou
1x SM dou
1x XY dou
 
Even if ladder does not exist, Champions dou would grow if included in this dwcup (with less slots than the main Sv dou format).
The metagame can be explored and be developed more.

Kickoff Champions dou (not official but well-attended tour) shows how even if a general first approach was just "let's copy these six from vgc and play", week by week some different interesting builds or creative ideas are rising.

In my opinion, reasonable scenarios can be:

3 SV dou
2 Champions dou
SS
SM
XY

or

3 SV dou
1 Champions dou
National Dex
SS
SM
XY

Personally, 4 SV dou slots would be too much.
I think National Dex can be acceptable, in my opinion is the best "side" format in terms of playerbase and quality of games. I liked Duu but I think fell off and the format is saturated. Dubers or other minor formats are situational, are okay for Doubles Derby but not here.

Peace.
 
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i know ppl like champs dou but its just literally worse then vgc in every way in my eyes, no new mons, all the brokens just seem more annoying and most the cheese gets better like ape and baton pass and some of the most interesting aspects get taken out like double mega becoming effectively unusable and shit, theres no ladder which is like bruh, its not an official format which has had one tour and effectively no activity like everyone is reusing in the tour anyways its an underdeveloped format that shouldnt even be developed imo cause we are getting legendaries soon anyways which would completely uproot the format i dont think that champs is very conducive to dou at all really, and at the very least would require very proactive tiering action which, from what ive seen, is not something doubles is exactly good at. i dont see why this tour should be the testing ground for it at all and esecially not have more then one slot or more then the fucking main gen which is the circuit format. i would accept one slot maybe but i would greatly prefer no slots and it be taken by literally anything else. champs vgc i prefer by like 10x to dou and i dont even want vgc. at the very least give champs a bit more time to develop on smogon overall and work better to assimilate champs dou into regular circuit or w/e before we put it in this tour cause in its current state its underdeveloped volatile and whatever changes we make will be upended the second m-d rolls around in a couple months so it will do overall not much to change the tier but instead just worsen the tour quality significantly. by the time derb rolls around and we've had more experience with champs in smogon then i could see more of an argument but right now i just dont see the argument for it. if more people come out with arguments better then "its new and we're bored of sv" i might be swayed . this post is prolly repetitive and shittily worded im tired asf
 
I do not think champions doubles is mature, stable, or frankly fun enough as a metagame to warrant the inclusion of more than 1 slot. While there has been a kickoff tour, I just don't think that there has been enough interest in the tier yet: the metagame discussion thread has 26 replies as of this writing; the thread for champions OU has had like 2000 lmao. We don't even have a ladder to mess around on; it would be much easier for the tier to be played if you didn't have to find and paste in a challenge code each time.

Even if there was some surge of meta development somehow(occurring entirely in schisters builder or smth), it would all get uprooted by reg. M-D, and then M-E after that etc. which is just to question if theres even a point exploring this metagame lol. It's fine that some people just want a tour to 'bite the bullet,' and make the tier a mainstay of tours, its stupid to do that with a ca tour like this one when the meta is very much still in its infancy. I guess sv is boring however, so 1 slot would probably be fine if you just want to see a bunch of vgc teams with another fake out clicker in place of the second mega. Also, it would probably force the council to be trigger happy with tiering action, which is always fun.

There are a few other suggestions that I wanted to give my thoughts on, being natdex and a bo3 SV slot:
  • I think bo3 SV would be a great change of pace just to watch the best players face each other in a format otherwise absent from the highest level of teamtours. Might be a pain to prep that many teams for pools tho so maybe just for the bracket?
  • Pretty funny to me that so many natdexers are against the inclusion of the tier. Its a fun tier that imo is in a good place after marsh ban with plenty of room for building innovation and has a high level playerbase, and by dwcop would be coming off of 4 weeks of ndpl gaming post ban.

Otherwise, 3 oldgens is fine, adds variety. Imo best lineups would be:

SV BO3
SV x3
champs/natdex
ss
sm
xy

or

SV BO3
SVx2
champs
natdex
ss
sm
xy

Just my two cents
 
I don’t main this format but this lineup would be interesting.
Sv x3
Natdex/champs
Bw
Xy
Sm
Ss

I love xy most but I definitely would love to see bw included, though I’d be interested to hear what more active players have to say about that.

I’d personally lean natdex over champs. I get the appeal of a new developing meta, but from my perspective, natdex seems to offer something more distinct from vgc.
 
I think having a "Champs" category is a nice idea, even if it isn't strictly necessary; however, to please everyone, we should include it. The categories I propose are:

3x SV
1x SV (Bo3) / 1x Ndex
1x Champs(Bo3)
1x SS
1x SM
1x XY

Another idea I think would be cool is to include all generations and remove the CHAMPS and NDEX slots; it would look like this:
2x SV
1x SS
1x SM
1x XY
1x BW
1x DPP
1x ADV
 
champs DOU should be included in this tour no matter what, with a minimum of two slots. yes, it is a volatile tier that will require some level of proactivity to manage correctly— however, we cannot just keep kicking the champs DOU can down the road: the tier needs some love and since we’re gonna be stuck with it for a good long while it should start ASAP.

we should have more than one slot for it as well. because it’s a fresh and exciting format there’s a high likelihood that multiple people on a team may want to play it (especially over matchup roulette simulator SV DOU!!!!), so restricting it to one slot will make it much harder to develop the tier & might bar people who would like to play champs from doing so.

natdex has been featured in 2/3 dou teamtours already this year and should not be considered for a 3rd. i wont speak for every natdex player but i think between NDCL -> ndwc + derby -> DPL -> NDPL there has been NDDOU in a teamtour for basically the entirety of this year. I’m burnt the fuck out on this tier, and i’d imagine some of my fellow natdex-ers are as well. world cup does not need nor should it have a natdex slot, DPL getting it in the first place was an anomaly— and i can count on one hand the amount of good games I saw in DPL. i do not think we will get good games in this tier, it should not be seriously considered at all.

i would absolutely love an Sv bo3 slot from a spectator perspective, but it really just depends on if the Sv players are willing to play that after this SCL of doom and despair

TL;DR
do NOT free natdex in this tour i beg of you
2x champs slots
Sv bo3 is cool but up to the Sv1s of the world

format:
Champs DOU x2
XY
SM
SS
Sv bo1 x2
Sv bo3 (or another bo1)
 
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I played in my first Doubles WC last year (we ignore my record), and have been invested in the format, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

1. Should there be any changes to team sizes from 8 players and 4 substitutes?
I think 8 players and 4 substitutes should be fine. Increasing players would be too much, and I think the format is popular enough to not reduce the size either.

2. Last year we ran a new format with 5x SV DOU, 1x SS DOU, 1x SM DOU, and 1x XY DOU. Do we want to continue to use that format or do you want to adjust it? Some ideas could be including the new format of Champions DOU over one or two of the SV slots, or having less oldgens this year.
I would propose the following format:
  • VGC Champions M-C - A new format which is becoming popular, but is currently still fresh to potentially not warrant additional slots
  • National Dex - This would be an interesting addition, but I'm not sure if enough interest would be there. Otherwise, replace this with another SV slot or even an SV BO3 slot
  • SV
  • SV
  • SS
  • SM
  • ORAS
  • BW - This would be a great addition to have, but maybe I'm being biased here as one of my favourite gens
3. Should any additional teams be considered from the 14 that we had last year?
This honestly depends on who is interested this year. I initially signed up for the UK last year, but not many people were interested and/or plays doubles, so we merged with Europe. If this changes, then we could perhaps split Europe into different sections (e.g. Southern and Northern) and adding Asia may also work.

4. How do you feel about the eligibility requirements?
I feel passionate about this because there have been multiple times where UK has formed a team but I'm not eligible to play for Europe despite them wanting me (NDWC being an exception). I feel that if you are from that country, you should also be eligible to play for that continent, regardless of your residency/IP address. Doubles WC will likely have less sign ups compared to OU gen WCs, so I hope there will be some flexibility here.

5. Should there be any other changes to the tournament structure, whether that’s pool sizes, playoffs size, tiebreakers, or length of the tournament?
I am wondering what people's thoughts are on changing the structure from pools to group stages. For example, having the same length (3 week regular season), but playing a country in your group per week, top 2 advancing and then going to quarterfinals > semifinals > finals, making the total length of the tournament 6 weeks (excluding tiebreakers).
 
no natdex, any non-flagship tier going 3/3 on teamtour inclusion is ridiculous

put champs in the tour, much better than vgc, format is underdeveloped yes but it's free of bullshit mechanics and relatively intuitive, i cannot see this going poorly with the bans implemented thus far. give it two slots so teams can test internally.

no vintage gens, classic gens OK

sv/sv/sv/champs/champs/ss/sm/xy = optimal. keep it 8 slots, people already complain about unfairness in world cup and you'll only take more teams out of the race if you force them to add 2 starters to their roster
 
Wouldn't it be cool to have slots like DUU or DUBers? I haven't seen anyone discussing this; I only see talk about adding Champions or NDEX. Why not use a format like this:

3x SV
1x SS
1x SM
1x DUU
1x DUBers
1x Champions (Bo3)

In addition to adding secondary Doubles categories, this could open up new spots for players who specialize in these formats.

I also think we should stick with 8 players per team and 4 substitutes; I believe every country struggles to put together a full lineup of specialists ("mains") for every tier—I constantly see rosters where players from other tiers have to adapt to the Doubles format.
As for the number of teams, we could have 16 teams split into 4 groups, with a three-week window to play all matches—or rotate matchups weekly—and the top two teams from each group would advance to the playoffs (quarterfinals, semifinals, and final).
 
krwozen said:
Wouldn't it be cool to have slots like DUU or DUBers?
Click to expand...
here are some of the reasons people advocated for dropping DUU from DPL, which did lead to it being excluded from this year's iteration of the tour:
Xrn:
As for what it replaces, I think it's time for DUU to leave DPL. From what I've seen throughout the gen it consistently has a messy playerbase, messy metagame, and mixed at best reception post tour. I know it has active players but it's often treated as a vacation home for established players or the tier where you just throw in a new player and hope for the best. It's also eternally underdeveloped due to a small playerbase, dead ladder, and tier shifts. It'll always have a place in Derby but I would much rather have Champions in DPL if possible.

Schister:
A lot of players are stating the obvious of removing duu / downsizing sv and I largely agree, being so late in the gen and Duu having so many issues in playerbase and council activity while already appearing in Derby.

pengu & Sealife both played DUU in derby and stated that DUU was in a bad state after shifts & should not be included

Actuarily (DUU Tier leader): I think it’s fine if DUU isn’t included in DPL, as I’ve mentioned before it’s fine being a tier just in Derby if there’s adequate replacements.

goldmason's final post on the format: Community feedback told us that most preferred DUU to just be in one team tournament (Derby). In place of DUU we have input Natdex Doubles since it has a well established metagame with plenty of enthusiasts.
Click to expand...
DUU has just been left in a very messy position by its pre-DPL tier shifts, and as such likely shouldn't be considered for this iteration of DWCoP.

as for DUbers, Sv Doubles Ubers is a bad enough tier that it was passed on in the most recent iteration of Doubles Derby (already the 'for fun' DOU teamtour) in favor of National Dex Doubles Ubers. DUbers just has too high of a power level and too volatile of gameplay to really be worth considering for a tour like this. Fielding a good enough DUbers player would also likely be a struggle for a large majority of rosters because it does not get a lot of play in general due to its volatility.
 
ND doesn't need to be in this tour due to it having a ton of teamtours in the schedule already this past year. ND is still arguably the second most accessible format in the doubles space, and would be totally fine for WC in terms of having a player pool outside of people who are burned out (literally just play another slot), but it's good for this tour to have a different identity. I don't agree with the other reasonings provided above, but the result I want is the same so I'll leave it there.

On champs, how many slots it warrants is gonna depend on whether it's gonna be the format for the ribbon circuit next year. If it's not going to be, then I don't think more than 1 slot is desirable given how low the organic engagement has been thus far, it's the same issue like previous Derby iterations have had with forcing SV Dubers into it and have nothing come out of it. Would unironically rather see draft as that's a lot more developed, but since I don't think it's been brought up thus far, I can assume there isn't as much of an appetite for it here.

3rd manager slot as an option would be nice, having an extra slot allows for more flexibility to divvy up labor and ensure the slots get the support they need, especially when world cup often features players who often come back only for this tournament & helping them catch up on the meta is not always a small feat. Especially if the third manager is someone who might otherwise participate due to being unable to play for whatever reason but can still help out, it just feels like a net positive.

e: to be clear, if it is going to be the ribbon circuit next year, then I think you do at least 2 if not 3
 
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gephicka said:
here are some of the reasons people advocated for dropping DUU from DPL, which did lead to it being excluded from this year's iteration of the tour:

DUU has just been left in a very messy position by its pre-DPL tier shifts, and as such likely shouldn't be considered for this iteration of DWCoP.

as for DUbers, Sv Doubles Ubers is a bad enough tier that it was passed on in the most recent iteration of Doubles Derby (already the 'for fun' DOU teamtour) in favor of National Dex Doubles Ubers. DUbers just has too high of a power level and too volatile of gameplay to really be worth considering for a tour like this. Fielding a good enough DUbers player would also likely be a struggle for a large majority of rosters because it does not get a lot of play in general due to its volatility.
Click to expand...
That point of view regarding the difficulty of finding players makes sense, but honestly, even in standard tiers like SV DOU, it’s becoming hard to assemble a team made up solely of players who "main" that tier. As for the situation with DUbers and DUU, I think you're right; I only brought up the idea because I hadn't seen it before and we needed to be sure it was something people wouldn't approve of.
 
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