Proposal MVP award for Official Team Tournaments

[ego]

Today on Smogtours Discord there was a conversation about the relative value of carrying your SPL/SCL/WCOP team with a dominant record compared to an individual trophy, which is a conversation that pops up periodically. I threw out the suggestion of an MVP award for each tour, and it was met with a non-zero amount of enthusiasm so I figured I'd throw it here for discussion.

Here are a few benefits of doing this:

1. Right now, the only reward for putting up a dominant record in a team tournament is that you bring your team closer to a trophy. It seems to me like people generally feel like putting up the best record in a team tournament isn't just valuable for what it brings to the team, but is a legitimately impressive feat worth rewarding in itself.
2. I'd argue that there's an archival function to such a reward. Instances of a past tournament's best record are sometimes recounted orally, but more often they're forgotten once the tournament's done, especially if that player's team didn't win and so they don't have a trophy at all. Being able to look at a tangible reward and say "oh yeah, remember that year?" or to be able to flip through a Hall of Fame list would be a cool addition to Smogon tournament history.
3. There's now a slightly greater incentive to play games and put effort in late into the season, even if your team's out. Yes, you're unlikely to get the best record in a tournament, but it's not uncommon for the best record to be 9-x.

I think it would be best to award this based on tournament record. It's possible to do this by a voting system, but I am very skeptical of any system for giving out awards that could become a popularity contest. You just need criteria, and I don't think it needs to be complicated. I'd just award it to the player with the most wins in the tournament, with the next tiebreaker being sorted by (fewest) losses, and then following that maybe something like playoff wins > tiebreak wins > finals wins > finals tiebreak wins > playoff losses > tiebreak losses > finals losses > finals tiebreak losses? That would award this year's as follows:

• SPL: baddummy, Don Eduardo and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d are tied for the wins lead with 9. baddummy and Don Eduardo are tied in losses with 3 and playoff wins with 2. Don Eduardo has the lead with 1 tiebreak win (they're tied in finals wins anyway), so he gets it.
• WCOP: Santu and Empo are tied for the wins lead with 7. Santu has the fewest losses with 0, so he gets it.
• SCL: Fc has the lead with 11 wins. That means he gets it (over zee's 9-0, which I think is totally reasonable).

I suggest that 3 MVPs per year, one and only one per teamtour, makes the most sense. It's theoretically possible to award one per year instead, for combined MVP across all tours, but that means you don't reward the individual tournament performances that are most historic (i.e. Fc wouldn't get one this year, oldspicemike would get one in 2024 over hellom and Piyu) and I don't think that aligns with how most people value these accomplishments. Just for reference, if this change had been in place for the last 3 years, here is what the winner list would be:

• 2025: Don Eduardo, Santu, Fc
• 2024: hellom, Tace, Piyu
• 2023: bruno, McMeghan, Scottie

Question is, what's the right reward? We've thrown around a few in Smogtours, I'll list them here:

1. Ribbon. To me this is the best option mostly because of how they serve as a historical/archival marker. If these are accomplishments that we want to remember, this will be the most visible for the longest amount of time, and so I think this is the best. If this is ruled to be an unacceptable way to use ribbons, then I guess it is what it is, but I do think this can be important enough to justify it.
2. Banner. The ABR proposal. Similar to the "OUPL Winner" banners or things like that, but with a custom colour and design for each of the three teamtours. I would personally prefer something more permanent, but this could also be cool? (and maybe you don't think this award should be as permanent as a ribbon)
3. Custom avatar. FlamPoke's proposal. I don't think that a standard custom avatar would really be that compelling to the kind of player that could win this, but FlamPoke suggested to do it like ladder achievements where there's a set avatar that each winner can get.
4. Other. Any further suggestions?

Thanks for reading :) If I had to tl;dr it would be as follows:

1. Should there be a teamtour MVP award? (I vote yes)
2. Should the award be combined across all three of SPL/WCOP/SCL, or should there be three, one for each tournament? (I vote three different ones)
3. Should this be based on record, or via a voting system? (I vote record)
4. If by record, then what should the tiebreakers be?
5. What should the prize be?

 

[UT]

Speaking for myself, not as any kind of TD consensus.

Should there be a teamtour MVP award? (I vote yes)

I also vote yes, this is low-cost and seems fun.

Should the award be combined across all three of SPL/WCOP/SCL, or should there be three, one for each tournament?

I vote three as well; it would be exceedingly difficult to ever win in WC otherwise due to the fewer games without qualifiers, and I don't want to have to deal with the "10-1 SPL vs 10-1 SCL" debate. This could be slightly annoying on the back end but we have smart people like goldmason to figure that out.

Should this be based on record, or via a voting system?

I would strongly prefer something objective, so record.

If by record, then what should the tiebreakers be?

This is the one I think would need the most discussion; just this SCL for example, how do you value Fc's 11-1 vs zee's 9-0? what if it had been 10-1 vs 9-0? Do playoff wins / losses count more than regular season? Etc. I have no strong opinions.

What should the prize be?

Ribbion is probably not happening, but banner would be fun and I think fitting. Should it be a permanent banner ("SCL V MVP") or just by year ("Reigning SCL MVP")?

The only real nitpick I have with this is MVP isn't necessarily the same thing as best record, since team support is a real thing, but trying to quantify that is a headache and this is good enough. Unless anyone has a good alterantive suggestion?

 

[FlamPoke]

MVP is basically synonymous with winningest player in tours, so distinguishing 11-1 vs 9-0 should always favor the person with more wins.

Picking between wins should also always favor tiebreak > regular playoffs > regular season given the stakes, maybe like 1.5x for tiebreak and 1.25x for playoffs (example: a 10-1 player who went 2-0 in playoffs would qualify over a 10-1 who went 1-1 in playoffs).

The prize can be a banner or CA, or both even, I know a lot of people don't care that much about either but there is definitely some appeal to having a custom that at most 3 people per year will get and a banner that is customized to the tour you MVP'd would be sick, too.

 

[lax]

I actually really love this idea paying homage to the most valuable player

it'd be amazing to have the next page of the HOF be the MVPs from every single tournament in smogon history if people are up to the task

this might get some hate, but if I had one suggestion, it would be that the MVP shouldn't be the person with the most wins in general, but the most valuable player from the winning team. most competitive sports/esports pick a player from the winning team because that's the final result at the end of the season, with some exceptions of course in very special cases. In the NBA, Jerry West is the only player in NBA history to be named Finals MVP despite being on the losing team. my suggestion is to have members of the winning team vote on who they think their most valuable player was with overall record as a tiebreaker

the reason it should be a team vote + maybe a community/host vote (if feasible) is because there are SO many intricacies that goes into being a team's MVP. playoffs is the culmination of all your effort into two-four final weeks, and your MVP might be someone who went 4-5 in the regular, but 3-0 winning semis, finals, and a tiebreak. this record is "only" 7-5 while somebody may have gone 9-2, but they might very well be THE instrumental player to a team. other team contributions matter too, such as inspiring the team, leading by example, and insane support provided. having the most wins is an amazing feat, but contributing to the direct trophy should have more weight than the sheet, no offense to sheet enjoyers

before the pitchforks come out, I think the best season record should still be recognized and celebrated. I think the MVP banner should go to the voted/most perceived MVP from the winning team, but the best record (assuming different person) would also get something saying "Most Wins in SCL V" for Fc, for ex.

I also think the HOF with an archive of every tour's mvps should include both the winning team's MVP + the person with the overall best record

as for the prize, banner absolutely makes the most sense but CA works too if people are interested in it. the prize of being in the hall of fame as an MVP or best record of a tournament is honestly enough of a prize in itself, so anything added is a nice bonus

edit: for past tournament winners, it makes sense to use winning team + best record which I'll always think makes more sense than best record in general. not ideal, but the person with the most wins is the best way to go about it for smogon's long history

 

[Sabella]

I have an issue with a few things here. The losing teams shouldnt get an mvp unless you do mvp of just the regular season only so everyone is evaluated based on the same amount of games. (Like what is done is major sports) which to me is like bleh why bother. Your team didnt win just seems like you want a pat on the back for doing well. Idk maybe im coping but i just really dont really see why a losing team should have an mvp. Im down with having an mvp for the three seperate tours but personally this is what i think should be done if implemented. I think the mvp should go only to a singular player on the team that won the tournament. I think subjecting it to just the record at the point doesnt really need to be the only criteria. We all know someone who has won only 6 or 7 games that just ends up being the life blood of a team. The winning managers and team should be able to vote who they believe is the mvp. No retroactive mvps as well, this should start with this upcoming Spl if its something people are interested in. Don't really have any preference on what to give out but a banner is kinda cool for bragging rights. Overall i think the idea is pretty fun and a cool way to acknowledge your teams mvp outside of just some post in the finals thread.

 

[Star]

Suppose I'll take the party pooper angle here. People in this thread and in discussions I've had / seen have very different ideas of what the MVP should be. Some people (including me) have the perspective that a "tournament MVP" is an individual award and shouldn't be strictly tied to the team winning the tournament (similar to how it works in any sport rly) while others think it should be tied to winning the tour. I know sports usually have finals MVPs too but that has far less weight than the overall MVP generally and I think having a separate playoffs MVP in our case would be Really overdoing it for what's often a 2 game sample size. I'd personally rather see the dude who went 11-1 and 3-0d playoffs but lost get some recognition over the dude going 8-3 on the winning team (or whoever the winning team votes or whatever) given they already get a trophy.

Even if it did go to best record (which clearly some people disagree with anyway) there's no real objective way to decide what that is. Is 9-4 better than 8-1? Could easily argue that both ways. Would we want to weight playoff / tiebreak games more heavily? I'd think so but assigning weights is not a straightforward problem either. What's the multiplier? Should finals be more than semis and finals tiebreak more than semis tiebreak? What about play-in tiebreaks?

All that being said, I think the overall idea is Nice but every approach to this is very flawed and I'd rather not have it at all. People with great records in general are already rewarded on the tour / overall sheet (which is what people spend 50% of time in stours talking about these days) and people who actually won do be getting a trophy on their profile. And in both cases people are gonna remember the performances anyway, regardless of whether or not they get a temporary banner (ribbons are def not happening lol).

 

[ego]

I actually really love this idea paying homage to the most valuable player

it'd be amazing to have the next page of the HOF be the MVPs from every single tournament in smogon history if people are up to the task

this might get some hate, but if I had one suggestion, it would be that the MVP shouldn't be the person with the most wins in general, but the most valuable player from the winning team. most competitive sports/esports pick a player from the winning team because that's the final result at the end of the season, with some exceptions of course in very special cases. In the NBA, Jerry West is the only player in NBA history to be named Finals MVP despite being on the losing team. my suggestion is to have members of the winning team vote on who they think their most valuable player was with overall record as a tiebreaker

the reason it should be a team vote + maybe a community/host vote (if feasible) is because there are SO many intricacies that goes into being a team's MVP. playoffs is the culmination of all your effort into two-four final weeks, and your MVP might be someone who went 4-5 in the regular, but 3-0 winning semis, finals, and a tiebreak. this record is "only" 7-5 while somebody may have gone 9-2, but they might very well be THE instrumental player to a team. other team contributions matter too, such as inspiring the team, leading by example, and insane support provided. having the most wins is an amazing feat, but contributing to the direct trophy should have more weight than the sheet, no offense to sheet enjoyers

before the pitchforks come out, I think the best season record should still be recognized and celebrated. I think the MVP banner should go to the voted/most perceived MVP from the winning team, but the best record (assuming different person) would also get something saying "Most Wins in SCL V" for Fc, for ex.

I also think the HOF with an archive of every tour's mvps should include both the winning team's MVP + the person with the overall best record

as for the prize, banner absolutely makes the most sense but CA works too if people are interested in it. the prize of being in the hall of fame as an MVP or best record of a tournament is honestly enough of a prize in itself, so anything added is a nice bonus

edit: for past tournament winners, it makes sense to use winning team + best record which I'll always think makes more sense than best record in general. not ideal, but the person with the most wins is the best way to go about it for smogon's long history

I think you highlight well the case where a voting system can vote well, which is the scenario where this is an award that is specifically devoted to the best player on the best team and where the insight that players on that team can offer is most valuable. In that context, this is really more akin to the Finals MVP award that most sports have. The thing is, though, that outside of that specific context, how can your typical player on the Foxes know who was doing the most support work for the Shoguns, or who was inspiring the team the most, and so on? That sounds like a lot of guesswork, a lot of voters relying on previously-held biases, and a lot of "yeah they had the best record but they haxed me so I'm not voting for them."

So any sort of voting system can only work if this award is specifically dedicated to the best player on the best team. And if that's what most people on this site think is worth honouring, then that's reasonable! I'll offer two arguments against that, though (and tbf this isn't just a reply to lax I'm also replying to Sabella):

1. The best player on the best team already gets a reward. They get the teamtour trophy. Sure, awarding it to the league-wide MVP based on record will sometimes/often reward a player who also won the tour, but in a lot of cases it wouldn't! When I listed the players with the best overall record from 2023-2025, only 1/9 actually won that trophy (Tace in WCOP 2024). I think there's less reason for any sort of award like this to exist in that case; everyone who could get it already received an award for that tournament.
2. Maybe I'm revealing my biases that I am more of a hockey and baseball fan than a basketball fan, but I find the idea of weighing a Finals MVP award even comparably to an overall MVP award to be a little strange (and if this award is locked to the league winner then that's a closer point of comparison here). The last five years of MLB MVPs include Shohei Ohtani (x4), Aaron Judge (x3), Ronald Acuña Jr., Paul Goldschmidt, and Bryce Harper. The World Series MVPs over the same span are Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Freddie Freeman, Corey Seager, Jeremy Peña, and Jorge Soler. The former group includes the two greatest players of this decade and the rest are all potential Hall of Famers. The latter group consists of two potential Hall of Famers, a top player in their second year, a league average player who went on a hot streak, and a role player who went on a hot streak. The point here isn't to argue that locking this to a "best player on the best team" award will necessarily lead to fluky and fraudulent winners. My point is that a) there is a benefit to rewarding the best player in the league even if their team didn't win the trophy, because individual performance and team performance are not the same thing, and b) there is a benefit in giving out an award based on the most substantial sample size you can with clear and accessible metrics.

I think an MVP award is necessarily an individual award. Trophies already exist for team awards. The tournament sheets already exist to reward the player with the best record, it's true, but my post is built off of the assumption that that isn't an adequate acknowledgement of that feat on the basis that you're not going to find that on the forum unless you go digging through those sheets. If the argument is "people play to win the championship and so you should only get an award if your team wins," then my reply is just "I don't really think most people agree, because MVP trophies exist in all sports and in the modern era they're basically never locked to the best player on the best team, they go to the best player leaguewide." If you think that having that season on your sheet record is an adequate reward, then I think that's totally valid, in which case you can oppose the proposal and say that! But I don't think that giving the individual award a more prominent team component to make them more of a team award because you philosophically do not agree with giving individual awards to players whose team didn't win makes much sense either way.

(as a side note, I'm not particularly hung up on calling it an MVP award vs a Best Record award. I don't really have a problem with calling the player with the best record the MVP because there isn't really another way to do it if we are to maintain any pretense of objectivity. If we had the ability to actually estimate how much a player's support added to the rest of their team or how much they won versus expected based on quality of competition, I'd be open to that, but those don't exist, unfortunately)

 

[IPF]

This is a really cool idea and one that should absolutely be explored further, not only does it give players something else to aim for but it also gives spectators another fun thing to talk about. MVP discourse is a huge part of sports culture and would be a great addition to the tours culture imo, even with all the potential toxicity included.

That being said I tend to agree with lax and Sabella, the MVP of a tournament being on the losing team is inherently flawed to me, barring exceptional individual performance. In your own example the idea of Kenix being MVP over S1nn0h does not sit right with me, can you truly value 9-3 over 9-4 when said 9-4 includes a trophy and 2 tiebreak wins in playoffs? At the same time even though Fc's 11-1 this SCL came in a losing effort I think it would be foolish to suggest anyone other than him deserved MVP for this season. End of the day I think an award like this cannot avoid subjectivity, and it shouldn't! This award just being "Best Record" is boring and eliminates all of the fun discourse that could be had, and frankly would not be very interesting as a concept.

The comparison to baseball is apt in that every matchup is a 1v1 and your "influence" on the team cannot be quantified the same way it could be in for example basketball. Ohtani and Trout winning MVPs on the Angels when they were god awful is your comparison to zee's 9-0 this year, or even Void and SoulWind's 9-0s from years prior on teams missing the playoffs entirely, but sports MVPs are regular season awards and I think it would be a missed opportunity to split this one up into regular season and playoffs. When we talk about past SPLs/WCoPs/SCLs we talk about legendary individual performances that inevitably include clutch wins in playoffs and tiebreaks. It's a part of the romanticism and I think we should embrace that rather than a robotic best record award and not giving weightage to playoff performances, difficulty of schedule, or even player price at auction.

As such I think the best way to go about this would be voting. For obvious reasons it can't be a public vote so your next option is to poll managers and players, which I think works. You could maybe have managers nominate 1 or 2 players for MVP voting (go case by case please, not everything has to be rigid), and then have ranked choice voting like how we do it for PRs.

Banner + an addition to the Hall of Fame thread makes sense to me, it adds to site lore and is a cool thing to flex, assuming nothing permanent can be added to a user profile. Preserving site history is important! It's why those Flying Press articles were so well received, and why Shake's posts about Wild West Smogon were so entertaining. Even though the sheet exists having a permanent record on the site acknowledging and celebrating incredible individual performances is a good thing overall.

 

[Kate]

While a fun idea, I find myself leaning towards the opinion Star expressed. The obvious flaw in "objective" records based voting is that not everyone will agree on that supposed objectivity, and it treats every win that is not tiebreak or playoffs as the same (while it is a nice sentiment, should we really act like a potential last minute sub is equal to facing roro or abr or the like?).

While something like voting, especially amongst a winning team itself, might appear dandy, I find that a method such as that greatly devalues the rest of a team. Records and performances already are talked about at length to this day, regardless of how long ago it happened. Why must we decide to immortalize one player so fellow teammates can be lost in the wake? The whole vibe seems too ripe for petty squabbles over an ultimately meaningless award. I don't really see the value here beyond novelty.

 

[Sabella]

I think you highlight well the case where a voting system can vote well, which is the scenario where this is an award that is specifically devoted to the best player on the best team and where the insight that players on that team can offer is most valuable. In that context, this is really more akin to the Finals MVP award that most sports have. The thing is, though, that outside of that specific context, how can your typical player on the Foxes know who was doing the most support work for the Shoguns, or who was inspiring the team the most, and so on? That sounds like a lot of guesswork, a lot of voters relying on previously-held biases, and a lot of "yeah they had the best record but they haxed me so I'm not voting for them."

So any sort of voting system can only work if this award is specifically dedicated to the best player on the best team. And if that's what most people on this site think is worth honouring, then that's reasonable! I'll offer two arguments against that, though (and tbf this isn't just a reply to lax I'm also replying to Sabella):

1. The best player on the best team already gets a reward. They get the teamtour trophy. Sure, awarding it to the league-wide MVP based on record will sometimes/often reward a player who also won the tour, but in a lot of cases it wouldn't! When I listed the players with the best overall record from 2023-2025, only 1/9 actually won that trophy (Tace in WCOP 2024). I think there's less reason for any sort of award like this to exist in that case; everyone who could get it already received an award for that tournament.
2. Maybe I'm revealing my biases that I am more of a hockey and baseball fan than a basketball fan, but I find the idea of weighing a Finals MVP award even comparably to an overall MVP award to be a little strange (and if this award is locked to the league winner then that's a closer point of comparison here). The last five years of MLB MVPs include Shohei Ohtani (x4), Aaron Judge (x3), Ronald Acuña Jr., Paul Goldschmidt, and Bryce Harper. The World Series MVPs over the same span are Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Freddie Freeman, Corey Seager, Jeremy Peña, and Jorge Soler. The former group includes the two greatest players of this decade and the rest are all potential Hall of Famers. The latter group consists of two potential Hall of Famers, a top player in their second year, a league average player who went on a hot streak, and a role player who went on a hot streak. The point here isn't to argue that locking this to a "best player on the best team" award will necessarily lead to fluky and fraudulent winners. My point is that a) there is a benefit to rewarding the best player in the league even if their team didn't win the trophy, because individual performance and team performance are not the same thing, and b) there is a benefit in giving out an award based on the most substantial sample size you can with clear and accessible metrics.

I think an MVP award is necessarily an individual award. Trophies already exist for team awards. The tournament sheets already exist to reward the player with the best record, it's true, but my post is built off of the assumption that that isn't an adequate acknowledgement of that feat on the basis that you're not going to find that on the forum unless you go digging through those sheets. If the argument is "people play to win the championship and so you should only get an award if your team wins," then my reply is just "I don't really think most people agree, because MVP trophies exist in all sports and in the modern era they're basically never locked to the best player on the best team, they go to the best player leaguewide." If you think that having that season on your sheet record is an adequate reward, then I think that's totally valid, in which case you can oppose the proposal and say that! But I don't think that giving the individual award a more prominent team component to make them more of a team award because you philosophically do not agree with giving individual awards to players whose team didn't win makes much sense either way.

(as a side note, I'm not particularly hung up on calling it an MVP award vs a Best Record award. I don't really have a problem with calling the player with the best record the MVP because there isn't really another way to do it if we are to maintain any pretense of objectivity. If we had the ability to actually estimate how much a player's support added to the rest of their team or how much they won versus expected based on quality of competition, I'd be open to that, but those don't exist, unfortunately)

I dont think just because its the winning team makes it more akin to a finals mvp. I see what your grasping at here but that would be the case if you were just basing it on finals or playoffs. In the scenario lax and i talked about it would still be based on the whole season. I think because of what your are trying to do here is compromise it makes this a little hairy overall. Like someone said last night this might just be a difference in philosophy. In my opinion to the winner goes the spoils. Thats is the essence of competition, we don't need to hand out awards just for people that did really good but didn't win. Because of the structure of our tournaments its hard to equate this to sports. Maybe you could do a regular season mvp based on 9 games/ reg season so everyone is evaluated on the same metric and that could simply be best record. And then you could do a tournament mvp which would go exclusively to the winning team and that teams manager and their players could vote on who that would be. Maybe thats too many awards atp lol but idk let me know what you think.

 

[ABR]

I like the overall idea, and definitely prefer anyone being eligible rather than solely being from the winning team. The main reason to introduce something "new" like an MVP would be to potentially offer a reward in an area maybe not rewarded otherwise - by definition the winning team already has a reward.

It would also feel odd to prioritize someone who went like 8-3 on the winning team but went 0-2 in playoffs, over someone else who went 9-0. That said, if people want to avoid pure sheetery then I mostly trust voters to act in good faith and select between like 5 realistic options at most without undue bias.

Logistically speaking, if we keep it objective I'd keep the priority order at: total wins, least losses, most tb wins, most poff wins, sos / h2h. But really subjective is fine. My idea for the reward was a year-lasting banner with colors pertaining to the relevant tour (red blue or green, maybe add in the mascot of the team they belonged to?), and a separate hof section below the trophy listing.

 

[phoopes]

Not the most plugged-in tournaments guy obviously but I love shit like this (big sports historian guy) so you’re getting my opinion.

1. Should there be a teamtour MVP award? (I vote yes)
2. Should the award be combined across all three of SPL/WCOP/SCL, or should there be three, one for each tournament? (I vote three different ones)
3. Should this be based on record, or via a voting system? (I vote record)
4. If by record, then what should the tiebreakers be?
5. What should the prize be?

1. Yes, I think a tournament MVP award would be a great idea
2. Yes, there should be a separate one for each of SPL/WCOP/SCL
3. I’ll explain this one in more detail, but voting system
4. See above
5. If we’re not doing ribbons, I think a color-corresponding banner like ABR suggested is good. Also a Hall of Fame for tournament MVPs (including retroactive) would be heat.

Alright my explanation of number 3. I think the best way to give out this award would be an unbiased(TM) committee of voters. Maybe you just use the TD team, maybe TDs select an awards committee, maybe a committee is determined by a wider community vote. Regardless, I think this is better than giving MVP to “best record” (because as we’ve determined records alone don’t necessarily tell the whole story). And I think this is better than winning team voting one of their own, because that would always double up on awards for one player which isn’t always the best way to determine MVP IMO. And we def don’t need a regular season AND playoff MVP award, so my idea means that we get one overarching award.

My idea means that The Committee (whoever they may be) would take into account regular season AND playoff success, and vote on a player from there. The results would obviously be skewed toward players on winning teams, but would still allow for the most dominant player of a season that didnt win the trophy to still have a chance. As mentioned above I would like this to apply retroactively too, which would be cool for The Committee to do. I’d love to highlight tournament history of the past as well as the present.

Obviously the biggest problem with the above is determining who gets to vote on the award (and retroactive awards). I’m sure there’ll be whining about that should this proposal go through. But yeah I think it’s better than strictly a “best record” award or “winning teams votes for one of their own.” Personally I would lean towards an awards committee where invested people express interest and then TDs choose a team of like 5 or 7 people? But let me know if that’s whack.

Alternatively, you could just let phoopes take the title of Smogon historian and I’ll do the work and make 100% correct picks myself

 

[blank]

I don’t think any kind of voting system would be fair and I don’t think a non-weighted sheet record is ideal. I also agree with the general sentiment that being on a losing team shouldn’t rule you out of this, but being on the winning team should be worth more.

My suggestion:
Each regular season win = 1 point
Each playoff win or tiebreak win = 2 points
Being on winning team = 1 point

If there’s a tie, player on winning team gets it. If neither player is on the winning team, player with fewer losses gets it. If they have the exact same record and both are on losing teams, just give two people MVP because what are the chances.

I think this helps to add appropriate weight to playoff games and the significance of winning the tournament. It definitely makes it harder to win MVP if you weren’t on the winning team, but I think MVP for a non-winner should really just be reserved for the most unreasonably dominant performances, like Fc this SCL. The only flaw is there is risk of players having more games by simply having more tiebreakers, but this is why I chose to weigh TB wins the same as playoff instead of higher.

Regardless of what is decided, I like this idea. No system we pick will be perfect, but I think using a weighted sheet record like I suggested is less imperfect than the alternatives proposed. Just please no vote/committee/whatever.

edit: I also agree with 1 year banner > ribbon and having a separate section in HoF for winners. We can also theoretically go backwards in time to award this, but I don’t feel strongly about that either way.

 

[reyscarface]

MVP = best record of the tournament, if you wanna add points to weight different scenarios and stuff thats fine and can be discussed but in my eyes MVP is just best record.

If you want a voting component I think itd be cool if after the season is over you hold a vote for each team to pick their MVP. You already hold the general season questionaire so should be easy to add an “who was the mvp of your team” option. This will hold no reward except just a different background on that team’s tournament spreadsheet to indicate he was voted mvp. I think this is a cool reward for people that went above and beyond, and helps highlight players that deserve the extra recognition that might not be obvious otherwise. Obviously there is troll potential so maybe lock it to only be able to be one of the top 5 records of the team or only positive people idk, but its something I think would be nice for posterity and also for future tournament scouting.

 

[ego]

I guess since I made the thread I'll reply again here...

Seems like most people are interested in SOMETHING like this existing, and the dissenting voice is mostly "there's no neat way to determine it so it's more controversy than it's worth." There's also I think general agreement that if it were to exist, there should be one for each teamtour, and the prize should be banner and an entry in a new page in the Hall of Fame.

So the question, then, is how it should be awarded, and I tend to side more with what IPF said on Smogtours than what Star said here, which is that the fact that there's no universally agreed-upon method doesn't undermine the project or make it less fun, it just requires a bit more work. Let's parse through some of the posts.

It seems like the most popular view (based on likes on the posts advocating for it) is to have some sort of objective system based on record, with a minority favouring a voting system. There are a few different proposals for each: my original proposal had tiebreakers to value playoff wins/tiebreaks differently, while blank proposed a system to apply weights to playoff/tiebreak wins and to the winning team. Meanwhile, lax's proposal for a voting system locked the award to the winning team (with voting entirely internal), while a few other people suggested some variation of a more open voting system, like phoopes' proposed committee.

Something else I'll add is that, because the consensus seems to be that banner and HOF entry is the best reward, that there aren't really any complications with awarding it retroactively. Banners would only be active for a year anyway (I presume) so we don't have to worry about adding 15 years worth of banners now, and I think the new Hall of Fame wing should be retroactive anyway. However, any sort of retroactive application of this award poses a significant problem for a voting-based system. We can all read the sheets from SPL VII, but how many people still have the information to vote for that tour with any greater degree of insight?

I'll also say that I ran through the last 9 teamtours, applied blank's proposed weights, and testing them against my rudimentary tiebreaker system. I think the results were pretty alright? Both systems agreed that SCL V Fc, SCL IV Piyu, and WCOP 2024 Tace should get MVP. The disagreements were that blank's system moved WCOP 2025 Empo = Santu, SPL XVI Sinnoh > the Tigers duo, SPL XV Troller and Trosko over hellom, SCL III Sinnoh > Scottie, WCOP 2023 Garay oak/Malekith=McMeghan, and SPL XIV McMeghan over bruno. I don't agree with all of them, but they're all really close? And also, you would get almost the same results by just looking at unadjusted record and adding a +1 to anyone that won the tournament, that'd only keep WCOP 2025 Santu and SPL XV hellom. Point is, I think that there are several different ways to make a record-based qualification for this award, and I think any disagreement over the specific formula is a pretty small issue.

That said, I would add that if you were to try to give two awards, one for a record-based MVP and one for the internally-voted best player on the best team, applying adjustments to record makes this really messy because you're going to end up with a lot more cases where the best team gets the best record winner and now also has a vote to give for a second award. For instance, with an adjustment to record given to the winning team, the SPL XV Tyrants would now have an internal vote to give knowing that Troller already won the best record award, likewise the SCL III Gible, and so on. I think any case where teams are incentivized to vote for their second best player because their best player already got the objective award probably shouldn't exist. I do think the obvious solution is that there should be one award and it should be based on an objective formula, but if there is significant appetite for a voting system to reward the best player on the best team, just bear that in mind.

tl;dr some of the initial questions seem to have something approaching a consensus, so I'll just list the questions that still stand.

1. Should this MVP award be restricted to a player from the winning team? Alternatively, should there be two, one that is and one that isn't? (I vote no to both questions)
2. Should this MVP award be determined by a record-based metric or by voting? Alternatively, should there be two, one that is and one that isn't? (I vote no to both questions)
3. If done by a metric, what adjustments/tiebreakers should be applied to record? If done by voting, who should vote? (I think it should be a metric, and honestly I think whatever adjustments/tiebreakers you apply to record will still give you a narrow band of outcomes and I don't think there's a wrong answer here)

 

[UT]

Hello friends, here is a draft of what we are thinking of implementing:

There will be one MVP for each of SPL / SCL / WCoP. The prize will be a banner that reads "(SPL / SCL / WCoP) MVP" that lasts until the end of the next edition (and possibly added to the Hall of Fame, possibly awarded retroactively as well). The criteria for MVP will be objective and will be:

a) most wins
b) if tied, best differential
c) if tied, most tiebreaker wins
d) if tied, most playoff wins
e) if tied, member of the championship team
f) if tied, co-MVPs

If you have any feedback / suggestions on this proposal, let us know, otherwise we will likely run with this.

 

[Stories]

honestly I feel like going off wins alone just perpetuates the “sheet watcher” culture and wouldn’t always end with the right person rewarded. Of course “MVP” is subjective but it would feel pretty bad to see someone absolutely carry multiple slots with their support + put up a decent record just to get mogged by someone who got lucky every week, as an example. because of this, I think a vote system would be more appropriate than just looking at records. a team tournament performance is much more than the sheet may suggest imo

 

[shiloh]

I do think there should be some discussion on gating playoff wins from the MVP award similar to how major sports leagues in the US work. All MVPs for the big three (basketball / football / baseball) determine MVPs solely based on regular season performance and I think that might be worth doing here.

The idea being that once teams reach playoffs the most "valuable" players will be the ones that lead their teams to win in the end. If we are going to make this solely based on record I think it should be only based on regular season. This adds another benefit to players on teams that are out of playoff contention early to continue trying hard for the best / undefeated records (even though players who are x-0 at any point generally don't need any other incentive to keep shooting for that record).

This also would remove situations where a player who goes 11-0 on a team that loses in finals wins mvp over a player who goes 10-1 and whose team wins in finals (including a 2-0 in playoffs). While its not insane to give it to the 11-0 player, the 10-1 arguably was the more valuable player since they ended up winning it all in the end. Instead with a regular season MVP it will make sense since it stops at the regular season. A player who did go 9-0 in regular season but might not have won it all was still the most valuable player in the regular season since thats the most value that was added to that point.

Winning in playoffs already has an award which is winning the overall tournament and getting the trophy, we do not have any reason to incentivize or put those wins on a pedestal more than they already are. By putting more emphasis on the regular season it also incentivizes players with good records subbing out of weeks once they are won more, a trend we've seen recently with a few top players.

By gating it to the 9 weeks of regular season as well it places all players on a level playing field as well. Why should a player whose team goes to tiebreak in semis and that player wins the tiebreak be given a higher priority over a player whose team dominates in semis and has no need to go to a tiebreak. By keeping it the 9 weeks of regular season (regular season tiebreak is playoff wins) everyone is on a level field to win the MVP.

 

[ABR]

Hello friends, here is a draft of what we are thinking of implementing:

There will be one MVP for each of SPL / SCL / WCoP. The prize will be a banner that reads "(SPL / SCL / WCoP) MVP" that lasts until the end of the next edition (and possibly added to the Hall of Fame, possibly awarded retroactively as well). The criteria for MVP will be objective and will be:

a) most wins
b) if tied, best differential
c) if tied, most tiebreaker wins
d) if tied, most playoff wins
e) if tied, member of the championship team
f) if tied, co-MVPs

If you have any feedback / suggestions on this proposal, let us know, otherwise we will likely run with this.

I'm quite fond of this, would consider

1) moving B below C/D to give slightly more weight to playoff stuff while not being too weighty
2) separate post in hof / used as a tiebreaker for current hof sounds good (as in, ppl with equal indivs and teams both)
3) considering 2, should absolutely be retroactive otherwise just incomplete

 

[a fairy]

RE: HoF

I'm not super motivated to expand the HoF in this manner, but I also view it as something harmless that can't hurt. It seems weird to me to change the HoF to include things completely separate to the idea of marking winners, personally. It certainly wouldn't have the structure of the HoF, it'd probably just be a list of years-tours-names and the data of how they are an 'MVP', I'd think?

In the end, it's not really to the point of this thread, whether it makes sense in the HoF or not, IMO.