Gen 9 Tournament Format Issue

With the release of generation 9 ORAS OU is no longer in any official individual tournament. This gen gets a lot of shit because not many people play it and are not good at it so I read a lot of people saying they’re happy to see it go. No individual representation for a tier in an official team tour is pretty shit as this can really limit the options someone has to prove themselves worth a chance in SPL. I don’t know how to mess with the tours and get a positive outcome like other posts have mentioned so I will keep it simple with two options.

  • Change one of the two smogtours to 6/7/8 (spring > fall would make more sense given it’s right as spl is ending)

I like this option, all three gens are relatively similar and the learning curve between them is marginal. Keeps it simple for newer players trying to find their footing in fairy gens, don’t know how this would be handled for future generation releases though. Keep gens 4 and 5 in classic. Don’t see why this is so unfavorable.

  • Format Classic like how Slam XI was formatted with ORAS as the 6th tier (or remove rby and keep 5 tiers)

I’ve seen this talked about and it feels to me like the only reasoning behind it is “Slam did it, why can’t Classic?”. I’m no expert on any of the old generation OUs, given I’ve only played 1 of them a small amount, but I watch a lot of SPL / cup / classic and I can’t help but feel that ORAS doesn’t fit in with those generations at all. The learning curve between BW and ORAS is already big enough -- but the differences between gen 6 and any of the first 4 generations is even more substantial. I look at the qualifiers for classic in recent years and see it's primarily players who (no shit) play the older generations of OU. However, none of them even dabble in gen 6. If I am being generous I would say at most half of the players that qualified for the more recent editions are capable of winning an oras game vs some of the consistent qualifiers that play in ORAS. Just look at the people who do well in classic, apart from the obvious all-around big names like ABR / SoulWind, and see if you can envision them playing an official game of ORAS let alone taking that generation off of someone who plays the tier. Aside from this I find a 6 slot individual tour undesirable nor am I a fan of axing a tier that’s been in classic since it began in favor of another gen.

The talk of what to do for future generations can wait until they become the current gen since this bridge is being crossed now. Thank you for reading.
 
We hardly get enough people for STour regular season as is, seeing 64 and 96 tournaments almost exclusively in the second half of seasons (even during the two good time slots each week). I do not think having a season cut out CG OU will prove to have a sustainable sample for qualification if we want to maintain a standard of quality.

Personally I think (potentially cutting a season of STour for) a new individual official altogether, which covers 6-7-8 OU, could be ideal. It provides ORAS a home and also will do the same for SM come generation 10 and so on. On top of this, it gives non-live tournament representation to every old generation (1-5 with Classic and 6-8 with this), which helps provide a chance for those with timezones that don’t work for livetours or with schedules not conducive to livetours.
 
Messing with ST: bad
Adding another tour: bad
6 gen classic: bad*

*bad because BFLs don’t change the fact that it’s optimal to sign up for all + everyone will strike RBY in playoffs, and if it’s a limited number of cup signups then RBY cup will easily be the lowest too, a black sheep if you will.

Choose which of RBY or ORAS makes classic, the obvious solution would be to cut RBY but yea. Let go.
 
ABR said:
Messing with ST: bad
Adding another tour: bad
6 gen classic: bad*

*bad because BFLs don’t change the fact that it’s optimal to sign up for all + everyone will strike RBY in playoffs, and if it’s a limited number of cup signups then RBY cup will easily be the lowest too, a black sheep if you will.

Choose which of RBY or ORAS makes classic, the obvious solution would be to cut RBY but yea. Let go.
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And why exactly is adding another tournament bad?

Especially when the alternative proposed is removing a tier from the individual circuit entirely, which means if you aren’t in SPL, you have no chance to play the tier in any official capacity at all ever.
 
Finchinator said:
And why exactly is adding another tournament bad?

Especially when the alternative proposed is removing a tier from the individual circuit entirely, which means if you aren’t in SPL, you have no chance to play the tier in any official capacity at all ever.
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Because we already have too many and there’s no room for it in the schedule. It’s also weirdly sharing 66% of ST’s format so it’ll just act as an outdated ST with minimal interest. It’s an awkwardly designed tour with the sole purpose of giving ORAS a placement. Adding ORAS as a 6th classic tier is a lesser evil than another tour (but still a terrible idea).
 
ABR said:
Because we already have too many and there’s no room for it in the schedule. It’s also weirdly sharing 66% of ST’s format so it’ll just act as an outdated ST with minimal interest. It’s an awkwardly designed tour with the sole purpose of giving ORAS a placement. Adding ORAS as a 6th classic tier is a lesser evil than another tour (but still a terrible idea).
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How can one define there being “too many” tournaments? I disagree with this notion.

We just added a generation and naturally we are going to be adding novel participants to our pool of individual tournament players, so why is it an issue to grow alongside this? It seems natural to me.

I do not find this anymore weird than when Classic overlapped with STour during SM, which had BW in both tournaments. Nobody objected to this overlap back then.

On top of all of this, if we use this tournament to replace one of the two ST seasons (which we don’t have to do, but can opt to), then it is roughly even regardless and it’s just another color trophy at the end of the day while every generation gets a fair shake and more players get an opportunity outside of the limited scope of Smogon Tour qualification.

Finally, this is not awkward or solely to include ORAS — live tournaments being the only representation for non-CG fairy generation metagames is a problem I have identified in the official circuit. ST cannot work for a lot of people due to the live tournament component and we are likely reverting/revising times to make it even harder for a portion of our playerbase to participate. Giving everyone a chance to play in an official where they can schedule their own games is a step in the right direction.
 
There are no great solutions to this due to the way our tournament schedule is structured. Slam's format was incredibly undesirable this year imo due to the extremely long duration of the tournament and the straining demand on the players, but I can't really speak much more to this since I wasn't much of a participant. As for smogon tournament, this is probably the best tour and the current format + 2 of them per year is perfect and shouldn't be messed with.

I can speak more from personal experience to classic, and I think adding ORAS to this tournament as a sixth tier would make it worse for reasons jon, ABR, and others have already stated in this thread.

The most malleable tournament that we can modify without significantly disrupting the format is WCoP. This year we should include gens 6-8 and have 5 SV slots. I think this is a good compromise because the majority of the tournament is still CG representation and we also have a sustainable method to represent gens that will struggle to find tournament representation over the next few years (ORAS, SM, and SS). I think this would improve WCoP's format while staying true to the concept of favoring CG OU, give ORAS (and SM+SS when the time comes) proper representation in the tournament circuit, and it would be balanced nicely with the other old gens which have classic.
 
I agree with not adding ORAS to Classic to prevent it from being overly cluttered. I like a 5 generation Classic. WCoP is not an interchangeable solution at all though.

WCoP isn’t an individual tournament and really only solves a fraction of the issue. We still have no ORAS in individuals with that, which means only a small pool of players (likely to overlap between SPL-WCoP) will even get a chance to play. This also doesn’t address the live tournament restriction issue I brought up in my last post, but that’s neither here, nor there.

I am fine with changing the WCoP format and even encourage it if there is support — these things should be discussed, but it absolutely is not “proper representation in the tournament” as you or ABR indicate. It’s just letting 10-15 people play it in a team capacity and nothing more.

Adding a new tournament solves this, solves the same issue we will run into with SM in a few years, and can come in exchange with a season of STour, allowing for us to not flood the circuit and cater to a wider demographic for these generations.
 
Hi everyone, the TDs posted the 2023 Tournament Schedule so I'm back to post in this thread again. First of all, shoutout to the TDs who have been doing a bunch of work that I'm very appreciative of, including getting this schedule together. Y'all are great. :heart:

Taking a look at the schedule, you'll notice that there's a tournament in there that is "pending the resolution of this thread:" Smogon Tour Season 36. So I'd like to give an opinion on what should happen there, now that it's been decided that that is the only slot really "up for grabs." None of the other tournament formats seem to be changing (so no ORAS in Classic, for example) and nothing new is being added to the schedule (I mention this because on the previous page I had initially suggested basically the current schedule + one more tour but that's no longer on the table). So yeah I'm going to go through what the options seem to be and let my opinion be known from there.

Option #1: Keep Smogon Tour Season 36 as is with SM, SS, and SV representation
I don't like this option. As I've said 100 times on the forums, on Discord, wherever, I'm going to go to bat for the old gens. Not having ORAS representation in any official individual tournament would just plain suck, and it would feel very out of place to exclude ORAS for seemingly arbitrary reasons. Like yeah ORAS is in SPL but that is a very limited amount of players that actually get in and play it. I'd like to see an ORAS individual in some capacity (but preferably in a non-Live Tour setting, more on that later) and I hope others would too. Any schedule that doesn't include an ORAS individual just doesn't make sense to me, and I'll leave it at that.

Option #2a: Add ORAS to Smogon Tour 35 and 36
This was brought up before earlier in the thread. It gives representation to ORAS via an individual which is great, but it changes the format of Smogon Tour, which I think would probably be unpopular with the masses. In addition, I don't know if this option is even on the table because of what I said before where no tournament formats seem to be changing. Like if the TDs aren't changing the format of Classic to add ORAS, I would assume changing the format of Smogon Tour is also off the table.

Option #2b: Add BW and ORAS to Smogon Tour 35 and 36
Basically see the above paragraph. I think this is a little better because it becomes best-of-five rather than a tournament with four tiers, but again I don't thiiiink changing the format of Smogon Tour is on the table so... yeah.

Option #3: Smogon Tour Season 36 becomes a "mid-gens" tournament, with ORAS, SM, and SS representation
I think this is the option that a lot of people are going to gravitate towards given what seems to actually be on the table. It seems nice, because ORAS gets a shot at an individual, and some people argued that SV OU is going to have enough representation anyway. I will say though that not including the current generation makes it not seem like a "Smogon Tour" anymore (to me anyway), so if this is what ends up happening I'd suggest maybe renaming it? I don't have a good idea for what to rename it, but that's not what I really want to talk about.

This isn't my favorite option either, because I still feel like ORAS gets the shaft a little bit (SM and SS too, but mostly ORAS). Reason being here is that yeah, ORAS is getting individual representation, but... it's in a live tour setting. Imagine being an ORAS main and the only chance you get to play in an official individual is on a few select weekends in September/October. To use my own life as an example, I used to have a job where I would work 12-hour shifts on the weekends. If I had wanted to join a live tour on a weekend, I was kind of shit out of luck. Or like what if your family goes on vacation? What if you get sick? What if you just have other stuff going on for a few days? Live tours suck for those kind of reasons; I feel like it really limits opportunities for people to play. Even though there's been some messing around with the schedule over the years to give better representation to all timezones it's still not ideal.

In addition, Finch mentioned earlier on this page that there were already some issues getting good participation, with the later Smogon Tours seeing 96 or 64 people ("hardly enough" according to him). I suspect that this problem would be exacerbated by this "mid-gens" Smogon Tour not containing current gen OU. Maybe this would be balanced out by the fact that these would be the only Live Tours for ORAS* available, but I don't think so. ORAS would only get three weekends a year, and SM and SS would get six weekends a year, but really I think that having something like Classic for Gens 1-5 and then saddling Gen 6-8 with only Live Tours when it comes to officials just kind of sucks as well.

*If you're wondering why these would be the only Live Tours for ORAS available, Ruins of Alph leadership decided to get rid of RoA Tour (basically an old gens version of Smogon Tour) in 2023 due to lack of interest from players and hosts. Seriously, it was like pulling teeth to even get 16 players for these tours despite the fact that they were advertised well in advance. Live Tours suck lol.

Option #4: Get rid of Smogon Tour Season 36 and replace with an individual tournament similar to Classic representing ORAS, SM, SS
This is my favorite option and is most similar to what I suggested on the previous page. Finch even mentioned this option on this page before the TDs came up with the current schedule and I think if we can't add something to the schedule than this is the best option by far. I think it pretty much solves every issue that I mentioned? Representation is there in the schedule for ORAS, with it even getting ORAS Cup in an official similar to the ones that are in Classic. SM Cup and SS Cup are also part of an official now. These Cups would be happening anyway for Old Gens Circuits, but it'd be nice to have them as part of an official individual tournament similar to Classic, and makes sure that Live Tours aren't the only official representation for Gens 6-8. Not only that, you're not messing with the format for Classic and you're not messing with the format for Smogon Tour either.

Now I know it'll probably ruffle some feathers to eliminate one of the Smogon Tours from the calendar and replace it with something else. But I just think that this is the best option. Does there really need to be two Smogon Tours a year? I don't believe so. This option still keeps this long-running tournament around, just cuts it down to once a year instead of twice. And as I already mentioned above, Live Tours kind of suck when it comes to representation. SV OU is already massively represented, and adding this mid-gens tournament will represent Gens 6-8 as well in a format that is consistent with our Gens 1-5 representation in Classic. I would consider the Smogon Tour Live Tour format to be just like, a bonus for the most recent three generations.

Really one of the only headaches I can think of off the top of my head is that if this tournament would start on September 22nd and contain a Classic-style tournament with ORAS, SM, and SS, it would probably end in late December/early January if I've done my math correctly. This means it would delay the year-end ribbon championships for those three gens. But ultimately... that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make I guess? If it means getting every generation the same representation in individual officials, I say go for it. In future years, maybe the schedule could be adjusted to account for that but that's a can that can be kicked down the road a bit since this year's schedule is already set and I don't think the delay of year-end ribbon championships for old gens matters too terribly much.

Also you could call this tour Smogon's Official Mid-Gens Tournament (OMG for short) which I think is funny. If not, you could do the "Smogon Classic" naming convention with "Smogon Throwback" or whatever you want.

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With all of that said, I'll be the first to admit that I am not the smartest guy in the room lol. I'm happy to read about something that I didn't consider. I just think that Option #4 is the best we can do with what current information we have/ideas that I was able to come up with. Thanks for reading another long-winded post!
 
I firmly believe that altering the format of Smogon Tour to lessen the time commitment and open up scheduling for players who can’t attend the live tours would significantly benefit the newer-gens community. phoopes describes the issues with Smogon Tour perfectly:

“To use my own life as an example, I used to have a job where I would work 12-hour shifts on the weekends…. Or like what if your family goes on vacation? What if you get sick? What if you just have other stuff going on for a few days? Live tours suck for those kind of reasons; I feel like it really limits opportunities for people to play. Even though there's been some messing around with the schedule over the years to give better representation to all timezones it's still not ideal.”

The issues with Smogon Tour’s live tour qualification format can be summarized as follows:

  • Time commitment: The sixteenth seed in Smogon Tour 34’s playoffs participated in a total of seventeen live tours across nearly two months. Each live tournament requires roughly 3-4 hours of free time during prime weekend hours to be allotted to Pokemon. This minimum standard for qualification demands a tremendous amount of time that many users are simply unable to invest in the game. Note that this commitment includes signup at the scheduled time of each live tour (currently 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. GMT-4 on Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays) and staying for the duration of the tournament, plus team building and laddering preparation involved in making tournament-ready teams.
  • Rigid playing times: Besides not wanting to devote hours of free time each weekend to live tournaments, many users have schedules that do not allow them to participate in Smogon Tour’s live tournaments. This issue has been addressed and improved upon to schedule the live tours at times that are convenient for the most people in the past, but the restriction of having to play at a certain time each week is unrealistic and unappealing for many players.
  • Hosting: Hosting a Smogon Tour can be a grueling experience due to the possibility of games lasting an extremely long time, consuming the time of both the host and players who are kept waiting for their next opponent.
Currently, there are two seasons of Smogon Tour per year. I propose that one of these tournaments be replaced with something more accessible and appealing to the broader playerbase. phoope’s suggestion of creating a Classic-format tournament with ORAS, SM, and SS OU cups is an excellent solution to many of the current Smogon Tour format’s known issues while preserving ORAS’s representation in official tournaments. Incorporating these cups into an official trophy tour would give players who are unable to meet Smogon Tour’s time-related demands a high-profile way to enjoy these generations.
 
phoopes said:
Hi everyone, the TDs posted the 2023 Tournament Schedule so I'm back to post in this thread again. First of all, shoutout to the TDs who have been doing a bunch of work that I'm very appreciative of, including getting this schedule together. Y'all are great. :heart:

Taking a look at the schedule, you'll notice that there's a tournament in there that is "pending the resolution of this thread:" Smogon Tour Season 36. So I'd like to give an opinion on what should happen there, now that it's been decided that that is the only slot really "up for grabs." None of the other tournament formats seem to be changing (so no ORAS in Classic, for example) and nothing new is being added to the schedule (I mention this because on the previous page I had initially suggested basically the current schedule + one more tour but that's no longer on the table). So yeah I'm going to go through what the options seem to be and let my opinion be known from there.

Option #1: Keep Smogon Tour Season 36 as is with SM, SS, and SV representation
I don't like this option. As I've said 100 times on the forums, on Discord, wherever, I'm going to go to bat for the old gens. Not having ORAS representation in any official individual tournament would just plain suck, and it would feel very out of place to exclude ORAS for seemingly arbitrary reasons. Like yeah ORAS is in SPL but that is a very limited amount of players that actually get in and play it. I'd like to see an ORAS individual in some capacity (but preferably in a non-Live Tour setting, more on that later) and I hope others would too. Any schedule that doesn't include an ORAS individual just doesn't make sense to me, and I'll leave it at that.

Option #2a: Add ORAS to Smogon Tour 35 and 36
This was brought up before earlier in the thread. It gives representation to ORAS via an individual which is great, but it changes the format of Smogon Tour, which I think would probably be unpopular with the masses. In addition, I don't know if this option is even on the table because of what I said before where no tournament formats seem to be changing. Like if the TDs aren't changing the format of Classic to add ORAS, I would assume changing the format of Smogon Tour is also off the table.

Option #2b: Add BW and ORAS to Smogon Tour 35 and 36
Basically see the above paragraph. I think this is a little better because it becomes best-of-five rather than a tournament with four tiers, but again I don't thiiiink changing the format of Smogon Tour is on the table so... yeah.

Option #3: Smogon Tour Season 36 becomes a "mid-gens" tournament, with ORAS, SM, and SS representation
I think this is the option that a lot of people are going to gravitate towards given what seems to actually be on the table. It seems nice, because ORAS gets a shot at an individual, and some people argued that SV OU is going to have enough representation anyway. I will say though that not including the current generation makes it not seem like a "Smogon Tour" anymore (to me anyway), so if this is what ends up happening I'd suggest maybe renaming it? I don't have a good idea for what to rename it, but that's not what I really want to talk about.

This isn't my favorite option either, because I still feel like ORAS gets the shaft a little bit (SM and SS too, but mostly ORAS). Reason being here is that yeah, ORAS is getting individual representation, but... it's in a live tour setting. Imagine being an ORAS main and the only chance you get to play in an official individual is on a few select weekends in September/October. To use my own life as an example, I used to have a job where I would work 12-hour shifts on the weekends. If I had wanted to join a live tour on a weekend, I was kind of shit out of luck. Or like what if your family goes on vacation? What if you get sick? What if you just have other stuff going on for a few days? Live tours suck for those kind of reasons; I feel like it really limits opportunities for people to play. Even though there's been some messing around with the schedule over the years to give better representation to all timezones it's still not ideal.

In addition, Finch mentioned earlier on this page that there were already some issues getting good participation, with the later Smogon Tours seeing 96 or 64 people ("hardly enough" according to him). I suspect that this problem would be exacerbated by this "mid-gens" Smogon Tour not containing current gen OU. Maybe this would be balanced out by the fact that these would be the only Live Tours for ORAS* available, but I don't think so. ORAS would only get three weekends a year, and SM and SS would get six weekends a year, but really I think that having something like Classic for Gens 1-5 and then saddling Gen 6-8 with only Live Tours when it comes to officials just kind of sucks as well.

*If you're wondering why these would be the only Live Tours for ORAS available, Ruins of Alph leadership decided to get rid of RoA Tour (basically an old gens version of Smogon Tour) in 2023 due to lack of interest from players and hosts. Seriously, it was like pulling teeth to even get 16 players for these tours despite the fact that they were advertised well in advance. Live Tours suck lol.

Option #4: Get rid of Smogon Tour Season 36 and replace with an individual tournament similar to Classic representing ORAS, SM, SS
This is my favorite option and is most similar to what I suggested on the previous page. Finch even mentioned this option on this page before the TDs came up with the current schedule and I think if we can't add something to the schedule than this is the best option by far. I think it pretty much solves every issue that I mentioned? Representation is there in the schedule for ORAS, with it even getting ORAS Cup in an official similar to the ones that are in Classic. SM Cup and SS Cup are also part of an official now. These Cups would be happening anyway for Old Gens Circuits, but it'd be nice to have them as part of an official individual tournament similar to Classic, and makes sure that Live Tours aren't the only official representation for Gens 6-8. Not only that, you're not messing with the format for Classic and you're not messing with the format for Smogon Tour either.

Now I know it'll probably ruffle some feathers to eliminate one of the Smogon Tours from the calendar and replace it with something else. But I just think that this is the best option. Does there really need to be two Smogon Tours a year? I don't believe so. This option still keeps this long-running tournament around, just cuts it down to once a year instead of twice. And as I already mentioned above, Live Tours kind of suck when it comes to representation. SV OU is already massively represented, and adding this mid-gens tournament will represent Gens 6-8 as well in a format that is consistent with our Gens 1-5 representation in Classic. I would consider the Smogon Tour Live Tour format to be just like, a bonus for the most recent three generations.

Really one of the only headaches I can think of off the top of my head is that if this tournament would start on September 22nd and contain a Classic-style tournament with ORAS, SM, and SS, it would probably end in late December/early January if I've done my math correctly. This means it would delay the year-end ribbon championships for those three gens. But ultimately... that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make I guess? If it means getting every generation the same representation in individual officials, I say go for it. In future years, maybe the schedule could be adjusted to account for that but that's a can that can be kicked down the road a bit since this year's schedule is already set and I don't think the delay of year-end ribbon championships for old gens matters too terribly much.

Also you could call this tour Smogon's Official Mid-Gens Tournament (OMG for short) which I think is funny. If not, you could do the "Smogon Classic" naming convention with "Smogon Throwback" or whatever you want.

---

With all of that said, I'll be the first to admit that I am not the smartest guy in the room lol. I'm happy to read about something that I didn't consider. I just think that Option #4 is the best we can do with what current information we have/ideas that I was able to come up with. Thanks for reading another long-winded post!
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I guess I just want to comment my thoughts on this just because I am passionate about how large tournaments are being held. In my opinion option #3 and option #4 are the only options I personally think are viable. I don't believe that ORAS should ever be considered classic until maybe 10 years from now but the introduction of fairies, and just the way the metagame is played reminds me of modern day generations (it wouldn't make sense). Now to get back into the subject of options #3 and #4, as a person who has hosted Smogon tournaments in the past (specifically ORAS), it just doesn't get enough traction in regards to it being a live tournament. We sometimes had to get dragged through the mud in order to get 48 / 64 participants depending on the part of the day it was being hosted (There would be more people viewing the thread than actually commenting "in" lol). When contrasting SS OU (It would get 128-192 sometimes) so it's a big difference in terms of attention.

Which makes me believe that Option #4 is a great idea that I'm in full support of and would love to see it in action. The idea of having cups seems to fix the issue with a dedicated tournament cup for ORAS OU where people will have time if they're truly interested and not need to budget time for live tournaments. I don't think you're ruffling any feathers in regards of just getting rid of 1 Smogon Tour per year, it's not like it's completely getting removed (there would just be one per year). Sidebar, I'm a fan of the "Smogon Throwback" name.
 
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Sorry for the short post, I was just wondering why no one expressed the following idea :

Make second ST DPP, BW, ORAS.

This way we could follow the current way we're handling Smogon Tour, as in advancing one gen everytime a new game is out, while still retaining ORAS for quite a time until we figure out what do you. It's basically delaying it, but it doesnt make the second ST a "discount" one with 66% same tiers, as ABR said it's a problem, and I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to play this old ST format.
 
I've seen people talk about adding an entire new tournament to include ORAS instead of just putting it in Classic in smogtours recently so I decided to bump this thread. I want to have focused discussion so we can solve this as early as possible. My personal theory is that:

A) Adding it ORAS to Classic is the easiest method (think everyone or almost everyone agrees with this)
B) This has no real downside/downsides are minor and worthwhile compared to the alternatives (not everyone agrees with this, but it seems to me the majority of people itt agree)

The only TD posting in the thread is Finch and the only reason he provided as to why it shouldn't be added to Classic is that it would "clutter" the tournament, so I want to ask some questions to the TD's

1) Do you agree with points A and B up there? Both with whether or not they are true, and whether or not my impression on the way the community feels are correct.
2) What does the word "clutter" mean in objective terms, and why is it a bad thing?
3) We've had one season of 6 tier Slam conclude, so I'd like to ask what the takeaway was from that tour format from a TD perspective and if it worked there why can't it work with Classic?
 
Luigi said:
I've seen people talk about adding an entire new tournament to include ORAS instead of just putting it in Classic in smogtours recently so I decided to bump this thread. I want to have focused discussion so we can solve this as early as possible. My personal theory is that:

A) Adding it ORAS to Classic is the easiest method (think everyone or almost everyone agrees with this)
B) This has no real downside/downsides are minor and worthwhile compared to the alternatives (not everyone agrees with this, but it seems to me the majority of people itt agree)
Click to expand...

This is me speaking personally ect ect

I think adding ORAS to Classic is a possibility, but I don't think it's the best option long term. It wouldn't be particularly difficult, and last Slam illustrated that a 6 tier tour with a best finish limit can be competitive, but throwing ORAS into classic is very much a stopgap that just pushes the issue a couple years down the line.

I would like to have non-live, individual tournament representation for not only ORAS but also SM and SS OU. Right now the options for these gens if you want to play for a trophy are to be good enough to be drafted for SPL or to have consistent free time on weekends during STour season. There's circuit tournaments of course, but it's been made somewhat apparent that a lot of oldgen players don't hold their circuit in any particular regard.

What I'd prefer to do is to replace the fall STour, which already has lower signup numbers than the spring STour seasons, with an individual which includes ORAS, SM, and SS. The easiest way to do it is probably to directly take the classic format, which would also be pretty scalable going into the future, but I'm more than open to other ideas on how to do this.

Basically, while adding ORAS to classic would be the easiest solution, I think that it does a disservice to SM and SS and just leaves the issue to come up yet again (this time without an easy solution) when the next generation inevitably comes along.
 
The ORAS community has been one of the more active old gen communities especially after ORAS invitational etc. ORAS server is pretty active, would be a shame to see such tier go nowhere with many new players looking to improve there and play it at high level. I think that this is an urgent topic and a decision has to be made soon, but I strongly suggest NOT putting ORAS in Classic, but creating a new tour instead of the 2nd Smogon Tour. Many players (as numbers have shown) and myself included have gotten bored with STour happening twice a year and I believe that a new tour including sth like (bw), sm, ss as well would be interesting.
I also strongly suggest the idea of Hipmonlee which is creating a Classic Spring and Fall Edition Tournament. I've always believed that preview and non-preview gens should be handled separately and never felt like BW really belonged in Classic with the other tiers. Therefore, dividing them into RBY, GSC, ADV, DPP and BW, ORAS, SM, SS (and SV can be added later on as well) only makes sense to me.
 
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xray said:
The ORAS community has been one of the more active old gen communities especially after ORAS invitational etc. ORAS server is pretty active, would be a shame to see such tier go nowhere with many new players looking to improve there and play it at high level. I think that this is an urgent topic and a decision has to be made soon, but I strongly suggest NOT putting ORAS in Classic, but creating a new tour instead of the 2nd Smogon Tour. Many players (as numbers have shown) and myself included have gotten bored with STour happening twice a year and I believe that a new tour including sth like (bw), sm, ss as well would be interesting.
I also strongly suggest the idea of Hipmonlee which is creating a Classic Spring and Fall Edition Tournament. I've always believed that preview and non-preview gens should be handled separately and never felt like BW really belonged in Classic with the other tiers. Therefore, dividing them into RBY, GSC, ADV, DPP and BW, ORAS, SM, SS (and SV can be added later on as well) only makes sense to me.
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I support this proposal of splitting up classic into 2 tournaments strongly. Just wanted to add the spitball idea for how to settle playoff best-of-5s with a 4 format tournament:
Higher seed gets their choice of a repeat tier (announced during scheduling), with lower seed getting to pick the first tier played -- just so it isn't too lopsided. Would work effectively for both tournaments as there are 4 formats a piece, and in 3 years when SV joins the old gens, it simply becomes a regular bo5 again.
 
EVIL z0mOG said:
I support this proposal of splitting up classic into 2 tournaments strongly. Just wanted to add the spitball idea for how to settle playoff best-of-5s with a 4 format tournament:
Higher seed gets their choice of a repeat tier (announced during scheduling), with lower seed getting to pick the first tier played -- just so it isn't too lopsided. Would work effectively for both tournaments as there are 4 formats a piece, and in 3 years when SV joins the old gens, it simply becomes a regular bo5 again.
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quick nitpick, if the goal is to make the tier pick as little lopsided as possible (which I think it should be), the tier selection process should probably result in the 2nd best tier for the higher seed (out of 4). two simplest ways to achieve this would be either bottom seed strikes 1 and top seed picks from the other 3, or top seed strikes 2 and bottom seed picks from the other 2.
I think the last edition of grand slam has showed that slightly more complex tier selection systems can be implemented just fine, so unless we decide that high seed should have a more significant benefit (which is honestly a pretty fair thing to argue) something like this seems ideal to me
 
higher seed strikes a tier (4 total -> bo3, or 6 total -> bo5), if the advantage is too strong then get a higher seed cuz you should know all the metagames anyway

if that advantage is too strong, then keep it at 5 tiers! (should be done anyway)
 
If you want to make it 4 tiers in each classic, you could keep a bo5, and have the higher seed pick a tier to repeat in the event of a 2-2 tie. Still rewards the higher seed, but means that you cant just cut RBY if you're facing Troller, for example.
 
ABR said:
higher seed strikes a tier (4 total -> bo3, or 6 total -> bo5), if the advantage is too strong then get a higher seed cuz you should know all the metagames anyway
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Unless youre already the higher seed, in which case you only need to know all the tiers but one.

Being the top seed in the playoffs and knowing you dont have to prepare a single team of a given tier at all seems dumb.
 
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