Tournaments GSCPL IV - Format Discussion

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BeeOrSomething

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Post heavily inspired by the RBYPL IV Format Discussion thread

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Art by Kolohe

Host Team: roxie, Hiro'
Tournament Rules and General Guidelines
GSCPL IV Commencement Thread (Coming Soon)
Spreadsheet (Coming Soon)

Schedule Sheet (Coming Soon)


How does GSCPL work?

There will be 6 or 8 teams, each with their own manager and assistant manager. Management duos will do a Snake Draft on Pokemon Showdown!, where they will take turns nominating and bidding in an auction for players who signed up to assemble their teams with limited credits available. The teams will then play one another for 5 or 7 weeks, with a new opponent each week. This will culminate with a Playoffs week consisting of the Top 3 or 4 teams overall from the regular season season.

How does one signup as a player?

Player signups are projected to begin Sunday, September 24th and will be open until 24 hours before the auction (see below). You should include your name, timezone, metagames you are willing to play, and any expected inactivity. Do not sign up if you cannot commit to the entire tournament. GSCPL IV is expected to run from the beginning of October to the beginning of December.

How does one apply to be a manager / assistant manager?

Manager signups are projected to begin Sunday, September 10th and will be open until Saturday, September 24th at 11:59 PM GMT-4. The GSCPL hosting team will pick managers.

If I am selected as a captain, can I still play for my team?

Yes, managers and assistant managers will be given the option to draft themselves for a set price of 15k credits. You do not have to buy yourself if you don't want to. Double manager self-buy TBD.

When is the GSCPL Auction?

The auction date will occur during October 7th / October 8th, when at least one representative of each team will be available.

When does GSCPL Week 1 start?

Monday, October 9th.

The General Manager of a team is essentially the boss of a team. The GM is the final word in all decisions (barring the hosts) regarding their team. The GM decides which players play on the team, who plays in what slot, and even handles the team finances. Managers also make sure that the team keeps running on a day to day basis. If a team fails to complete their matches by the end of the allotted time, the onus is on the manager to inform the hosts as to what happened in order to make sure that proper activity calls are made.

Because of these responsibilities, The General Manager is probably the most important part of the team. As such, the position of GM is not one to be taken lightly.

• General Managers are chosen largely on a subjective opinion of the hosts as well as GSC Moderation Team as to who they believe would be fit for the position. Being fit for the position includes the knowledge of players in the community (for fielding a competent team), having above average activity on the forums, Pokémon Showdown and/or Discord (in order to ensure that you don’t abandon your team), as well as possessing a necessary amount of “gravitas” (If you can’t make a player do what you tell them to, such as play an undesirable metagame, you’re not going to make a good manager).

General Managers are required to acquire one Assistant Manager. The General Manager gets full sovereignty in choosing their assistant manager. The assistant manager is essentially the second in command for the team. They have all of the functions and roles as the General Manager does, the GM just trumps them in head-to-head decisions.

Lastly, the General Manager has the following duties:

• They shall choose one Assistant Manager.
• They shall make the hosts aware of any player retentions by the time player signups close.
• They shall be present at the live auction, or appoint someone (the Assistant Manager) to participate in the live auction in their stead.
• They shall send the hosts weekly rosters.
• They shall ensure to the best of their abilities that their battlers complete their matches on time.
• In the event that a match fails to be completed, they shall inform the hosts as to why the match failed to be completed, and what their battler did in order to finish the match.
• They shall communicate any grievances with the hosts.

Total money for teams is the minimum number of players x 10,000 credits.

In the weeks preceding the Live Auction, a time will be chosen where at least 1 Manager or Assistant Manager from each team can meet and perform a live auction in order to choose players. The Manager and/or Assistant Manager present will be expected to remain at the auction for the entire duration, which should take approximately 1-2 hours.

Once a time is set, all attending Managers + Hosts will enter the place where the auction will be held - most likely a group chat for the auction. Spectators are allowed to join in to watch the auction, but will not be able to speak. Discussion on the bidding should be relegated to the GSC Discord.

The hosts will first ask a team to nominate a player. The order by which teams will nominate players will go in a randomized snaking pattern from the first chosen team to the last chosen team, then the last chosen team to the first chosen team. Details of said player will be displayed and bidding will commence, starting at 3000 credits, with the nominating team automatically placing the first bid. The auction will then be in real time. Managers will simply put in their bids in the chat, raising a minimum of 500 credits. If after 15 seconds there are no new bids, the player is sold to the highest bid in the channel. Updated credit totals will be displayed and then the next manager in the rotation will be prompted to nominate a player.

Managers: it is necessary for you to field a roster of 6 to 8 starters and a minimum of (likely) 2 substitutes. Playing Managers and Assistant Managers are included in the roster number.

There is no midseason this year. Therefore, it is highly recommended that all teams spend all of their credits in the auction, as there is no use for them afterwards.

It is at this time that the tournament will commence. The league stages consist of a Round Robin tournament. Every team will face every other team once through the regular season. Each manager will submit to the hosts a roster no later than the deadline of the previous week. This roster will list the starting players and what metagames they will play.

When the week starts, teams' players will face off in their respective metagames / tiers. The GSC OU 1 from Team A will face the GSC OU 1 from team B, GSC OU 2 will face GSC OU 2, and so on. Whichever team wins the most battles will be declared the victor for the week. Rather than score based on how many individual battles a team wins, the primary thing that matters is who beat the most teams. As such, points are awarded based only on wins and losses versus teams as a whole, not individual players. Beating a team in a week’s matchups is worth two points, tying with a team is worth one point, and losing is worth none, simple as that. At the end of the round robin, the top three or four teams in the points proceed to the playoffs.

There are a few regulatory things during the league stages that need to be outlined.

1. Substitutes – At any point in time during the week, a team may make a substitution for a currently slotted player. In order to do this a manager must post in the thread, tagging the hosts, the opposing managers and the opposing player stating which player is substituting out, and which player is substituting in. A player that has substituted out for a week cannot be substituted back in. In addition, in order to catch any attempts at garnering favorable matchups in GSC OU (where the lineup you choose affects pairings), all substitutions are subject to veto by the hosts if the substitution is suspected to be attempting to “game” the system.

2. There will be no trades allowed at any point during GSCPL.

3. Activity decisions – There are inevitably times where two players simply fail to complete a match; however, the nature of the tournament system sometimes makes it advantageous to purposely fail to play (such as when a team is up 3-2 in a week). Because of this, it is necessary to make activity decisions on matches. Hosts are required to make thorough investigations regarding each and every potential failed match during a week. If both parties are deemed to be equally apathetic or enthusiastic about getting the match done, but just have not had the opportunity to make it happen, the match will result in a no contest. However, if it is deemed that one party made significantly more effort than the other in attempting to get the match done, then a win will be awarded to that player. Things that will make it very likely that you will lose via activity include: failing to VM your opponent immediately upon the week’s start, scheduling a match and being documented as missing the match time, failing to provide any concrete times for which you can be reached, failing to respond to an opponent’s VM at all. Note that this is a tournament that requires a very high level of activity and diligence, if you don’t think you can get your matches done, quite simply don’t sign up.

4. Rule Breaking – There is no excuse for breaking any of the predetermined rules. If you are caught breaking a rule, you will lose your match. There is no lenience with regards to this. Break a rule, you lose. Period.

5. Reversing Rulings - No ruling will be retroactively overturned once the week following the week that the ruling has been made has ended. This includes: activity rulings / rulings based on rule breaking / anything else under the sun. I'm not going back in time to reevaluate every single decision I've made throughout the tournament on Week 9 because you think you were robbed of 1-2 wins along the way and now they're the difference between you and a playoff spot. Any appeals to a ruling must be made during the week that the ruling is made; beyond that, all rulings are final once the week ends.

Friday September 1st - Format Discussion Thread
Sunday September 17th - Manager Signups
Sunday September 24th - Player Signups
Saturday October 7th / Sunday October 8th - Live Auction
Monday October 9th - Week 1


In this thread, feel free to discuss anything regarding GSCPL before it begins. This is meant to be a place for players to voice their opinions and help us decide some key things regarding GSCPL. The major point of discussion is the Format. Retains and Manager pricing will likely be unchanged from last year, but feel free to discuss that as well.

1. Format
  • Last year's format was 6 teams with 6 slots. We are looking to see if there is interest in expanding the tournament to either 8 teams or 8 slots.
  • There are four different options for the format:
    1. Do nothing and keep it as 6 teams and 6 slots.
    2. Expand to 8 teams and 6 slots.
    3. Expand to 6/8 teams and 8 slots. The 7th slot would be a 4th OU slot. If you choose this option, express what you would like to see for the 8th slot.
    4. Amaranth's Proposal C for 6-team PLs. This would run with 6 teams and 6/8 slots.
 
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Personally I think that if RBY PL decides to move forward with the Amaranth proposal for 6 teams that we should shelve it for GSC PL and stick to the current format of 5 weeks (which is a fine format). We can let RBY PL experiment with the proposal first before automatically implementing it in all of these oldgen Subforum tours.

6 teams with 8 slots seems ideal, there’s plenty of GSC formats that could see more play that many people enjoy, be it PU, ZU, UUBL, or UU suspect for extra slots. Any of these are good options for an 8th slot (though I do understand it’d be strange to add ZU but not PU). I think this is better than 8 teams since it allows for more tiers to be included, and 8 teams with 8 slots is probably overkill.
 
8 teams seems somewhat undesirable to me, partially because lower tier pools already get spread out a bit because their playerbases are fairly overlapping, but also in general I personally think the 5 week structure is actually ideal for these short tours, 7 week + poff tours actually get fairly exhausting near the end and a shorter tour is a fresher change of pace and more bitesized which is nice among a year of other stuff.

8 slots has the lower tier spreading issue a fair bit too, ZU is fairly divorced from this issue since it's got a decent bit of ZU community side players and would be absolutely fine to include in the tour but to include ZU would mean including PU, a tier which already struggles with interest but also draws from the playerbases of other tiers to get anyone playing it.

lean towards 6 teams 6 slots cause of this, idt any options like UUBL or UU suspect slot work out from Mantis's proposal probably because of extreme playerbase thinning in the lower tiers but would vibe with just getting some interest check done on PU signups in general and seeing how feasible it would be in the tour. If there is actually enough interest to make PU work without making other lower tier pools too rough then I think 6 teams 8 slots could work since ZU is pretty solid.
 
My preference is for 8 teams, 6 slots. Eight teams resolves the playoff woes of the six team format while using a familiar premier league schedule. The main reason format changes were proposed is to eliminate the bye week that comes with 3 top playoffs. If we are to change the format this goal should be kept in mind.

As for player base concerns, I believe the GSC community has enough depth to provide 6 OU and 2 Ubers/UU/NU starters needed for each team. A seven week regular season is undesirable to some, but I think the extra weeks allow managers to experiment with their lineup more easily. This can give bench players more opportunities to play and help the player base develop.

The issue I see with an eight slot format is that 8th tier is not obvious. I believe ZU has good number of players, but I am reluctant to include it without PU, which is frankly not in a position to be featured in a PL right now. (Hopefully we can change this by next year). Other options for the 7/8th slot dilute the GSC lower tier player base to a level that is undesirable.

The only unknown factor for an 8 team PL is if enough competent manger pairs will sign up. To this point I suggest allowing double manager self buys if an 8 team format is chosen. If an 8 team format is chosen and we still do not get enough managers signups we should default back to a 6 teams. In this case the managers can vote between the traditional 5 week regular season or Amaranth's proposed Belgian Pro league schedule.

At the very least I think the number of slots should be set in stone before manager signups go up. Number of teams and weeks can be finalized after managers are selected, but we should establish a flow chart of options to follow if we need to make adjustments based off of manager signups.
 
I personally would like to see 8 teams and 6 slots. I agree with what Siatam said in his post.

As much as I would love to see a lower tier like PU or UUBL in GSCPL, it's pretty undeniable they don't have the playerbase, so I don't think 8 slots is the best choice for now, and I don't think a rotating additional lower tier would be a fair choice consistently either.
 
I don't think two manager self buys with 8 teams is a great idea - at least not with how the current manager retain system is set up as it's going to create some incredibly unequal self-purchase duos from the get-go. If you can re-work to make manager self-buys more in line with their cost in previous years + wins or something then it might be ok, but if you keep at a flat 15k per self buy then I think some teams are going to be stacked to start while others will just have to do their best to catch up during the draft which doesn't seem optimal to me.
 
Regarding the format my preference is 8 teams with Amaranth’s proposal C as second option. For me eliminating the bye week is the main priority and giving teams more time to grow and get to know each other. As a manager of this tournament the past two years I always felt 5 weeks regular season was just a bit too short. A added bonus is that most players get to play more games and this should be the goal after all because that’s why we are here and signing up to.

I also support Siatam’s suggestion to aim for 8 teams and see if there are enough signups in quantity and quality. If that’s not the case falling back to 6 teams is perfectly fine. In that case there should be a vote between managers to decide current format vs Amaranth’s peoposal format.

No matter the format we shouldn’t allow more than one manager buy per team since that can get unbalanced quite fast.

The number of slots should be 6 regardless of the format. I’m against adding 2 slots this year because there is no clear case for which to add and several would have a case for it. There is also the problem with overlapping player base if we add more lower tiers. Yes, the same could be said about adding 2 teams but the Ubers/UU/NU community and player base is much more established and can provide enough players even with some overlap. I also think it’s perfectly fine to draft newer or more “unknown” players to fill that gap. We should focus this year on the existing tiers in this tournament and strengthen others tiers over the next year and potentially adding them then.
 
I will write what I'm in favor for from most to least.

I ABSOLUTELY AM NOT in favor of making 0 changes.

I am in favor of 8 teams and 6 slots


Alternatively I am in favor of Amaranth's C Proposal.

Also alternatively but it's the one I prefer the least, keep 5 weeks (6 teams) but have 8 slots.

Many teams in GSC PL III had so many players in their roster (mine had more than 16 competent players), so it's not like there isn't sufficient talent to host a tournament with 8 teams.

If we MUST keep 6 teams then at the very least we absolutely must add 2 slots minimum. The current 6*6 format is terrible and honestly I already hate 5 weeks as it is. Really fast and I don't feel invested as much.


There has been talk and growing interest towards a number of different tiers over the past year. While I don't have a particular preference for this tier, it would at least be fun to mention that GSC even has it's very own 1v1 community with updated VRs and structured tiers.

To involve such a high-octane and high-variance tier would likely have to require a Bestof 3 just as how RBY has Bo3 in all premier leagues now.
 
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I'd like to advocate for 8 slots up from 6, specifically for the inclusion of a GSC 1v1 best of 5 slot alongside an additional GSC OU slot. GSC 1v1 has been in development for a few years now and has a decent size playerbase. Resources for GSC 1v1 can be found here, and we have a Discord server dedicated to the format as well.

Thank you for considering adding GSC 1v1 to GSC PL!
 
Can we consider post-poning GSC PL to like November?
There is extremely likely going to be a lot of overlap with other important events that typically involve lots of the same players such as GSC Majors, GSC UU Cup, UUSD and RBY PL.

I know that the argument in the past has always been to avoid overlap with SPL but like, realistically SPL starts in February and by then a 7 week team tour is long gone. Plus I think the choice of catering to the interest of few SPL players that hardly ever sign up to GSC PL because they don't want to get scouted doesn't make that much sense.

This tournament should have to run smoothly but this already looks like it could end up with mixed results. Just my two cents because the playerbase and overall pleasant experience is what I'm interested in and I think we all are.
 
Can we consider post-poning GSC PL to like November?
There is extremely likely going to be a lot of overlap with other important events that typically involve lots of the same players such as GSC Majors, GSC UU Cup, UUSD and RBY PL.

I know that the argument in the past has always been to avoid overlap with SPL but like, realistically SPL starts in February and by then a 7 week team tour is long gone. Plus I think the choice of catering to the interest of few SPL players that hardly ever sign up to GSC PL because they don't want to get scouted doesn't make that much sense.

This tournament should have to run smoothly but this already looks like it could end up with mixed results. Just my two cents because the playerbase and overall pleasant experience is what I'm interested in and I think we all are.

The main reason this tournament started earlier with every edition is that playing through christmas and new years is extremely undesirable. Yes, the first GSCPL was mostly catered to avoid conflicting with SPL but since then both other editons started earlier to avoid running through that time period as little as possible. December is a extremely busy time for a lot of people in real life. Last year finals were extended for one week because of this. Team activity also always took quite a big hit during this time in my experience.

Week 1 of this tournament is also about 4 weeks away. Overlap with Majors and GSC UU Cup is minimal since both are in the final rounds or almost over by then. Also there is no way to avoid overlap with every other tournament where GSC is involved. I’m sure by starting this tournament earlier and finishing up before christmas we will have a better and more pleasant experience.
 
GSC NUer mainer guyer here. I am someone who likes the idea of expanding the tour to 6 teams / 8 slots or 8 teams / 8 slots. The concept of 6T/6S is fine and all, but I think I can garner some support in saying that we as teams and managers hate the idea that once we're down 0-2, we'd need to win out the rest of that week to win the week. Adding 2 more slots as well as 2 more teams gives every teams breathing room which we could always use. We want these things to be fun right? I personally can't wait to start playing in this thing again with some NU games while having fun with it. But yeah, I'm a strong advocate of 8 slots / 8 teams OR 8 slots / 6 teams.

Let's do this BeeOrSomething
 
The GSC Forum Moderation team has decided that there will be 6 slots for the tournament.

Regarding manager self buys, there are two options:
- Limit to only one manager can self buy, still 15k.
- Allow the option to have both managers self buy, but if both do the price will be increased to 20k per manager. Price is still at 15k if only one manager chooses to self buy.

Regarding team count:
8 teams appears to be the majority opinion among replies in this thread and the GSC community discord, however there is still interest in 6 teams with Amaranth’s proposal.

Manager signups will go out on Sunday, September 17th. The amount of managers that sign up will also be key in deciding 6 teams vs 8 teams.

If you have any further input, please leave it in this thread.
 
UUSD might test both Aerodactyl + Muk at the same time for GSC UU. I think if this ends up happening, then GSC PL should test either Aerodactyl or Muk by itself (preferably Aerodactyl since it was already looked at in GSC Slam) for GSC UU. The other one not tested will then likely be tested in the upcoming ALT PL, and then a rank choice vote between Unban Both, Unban None, Unban Aero, Unban Muk could occur afterwards.

Here is the post I made in the UUSD discussion thread: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/uu-snake-draft-iv-format-discussion.3727590/post-9773160

Just thought I'd drop this here, thanks.
 
Regarding dual manager self buying, my suggestion is as follows:

The first manager self buy = 15k
The second manager self buy = 30k
For a total of 45k (out of 80k) if both managers are to be self bought. Pairing (potentially) 2 really strong players from the get go should have a steep penalty. Although I didn't entertain the idea at first, on second glance it opens up potential interest in better manager sign ups and pushes for continued interest on the tournament (important if the tournament is expanded to 7 regular weeks).

You got 2/6 slots and 35k to fill the roster =/= or 1/6 slot and 65k =/= or 0/6 slots and 80k.

My preference regarding the format for this year is 8 teams, 6 slots (locked) and possibility for 2 manager self buys.
 
The main reason this tournament started earlier with every edition is that playing through christmas and new years is extremely undesirable. Yes, the first GSCPL was mostly catered to avoid conflicting with SPL but since then both other editons started earlier to avoid running through that time period as little as possible. December is a extremely busy time for a lot of people in real life. Last year finals were extended for one week because of this. Team activity also always took quite a big hit during this time in my experience.

Week 1 of this tournament is also about 4 weeks away. Overlap with Majors and GSC UU Cup is minimal since both are in the final rounds or almost over by then. Also there is no way to avoid overlap with every other tournament where GSC is involved. I’m sure by starting this tournament earlier and finishing up before christmas we will have a better and more pleasant experience.
You make a good point, therefore I retract my previous statement.


As for the proposal to increase the price of manager self buys, I am in agreement with what Fear says. I hope I'm not being too biased because I was usually on teams where only one manager was worth self buying or was interested and facing teams with two self buys also meant that they still had plenty of resources to buy out solid lower tier slots.

I am not in favor of stopping dual-manager self buys outright but it does in fact give somewhat of an unfair advantage. Consider how these teams may have the ability to retain and while there remains the possibility that another team (however unlikely it may be) may have few good retains and no good self buys. Is it unfair? I'm not so sure, but it does take away a lot of the risk from the auction portion of the tournament.

As for the introduction of Muk in UU for GSC PL, I can't help but feel like it's a bit rushed. I don't know if I'll oppose it in the end.
 
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The GSC Moderation team has settled on an outcome.

Two manager self buys will be allowed for each team, with the first self buy having a price of 15k and the second self buy having a price of 30k.

We are aiming for a team count of 8. If there aren’t enough manager signups, there will be a team count of 6. The manager signup thread will go out tomorrow, on Sunday, September 17.
 
Post script:

Following widespread community support for a GSC UU suspect slot that was not apparent in this thread the GSC mod team has decided to hold a manager vote to determine if UU or UU + Aerodactyl will be featured in GSCPL.

Once manager signups close each selected manager duo will be allotted one vote. A simple majority vote will be required to select UU + Aero. A tie vote would default to the status quo, standard GSC UU.

Typically this vote would be held across the wider community but as manager signups are already up we have decided to limit the vote to the most involved parties.

Community interaction is crucial to the smooth operation of our team tournaments. Please never hesitate to make your opinions known in these types of threads even if you consider them obvious or unpopular. You voice matters and it is how the mod team makes decisions.
 
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