Tournament NDPL VI - Format Discussion

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With August rolling around, it is time to discuss all things National Dex Premier League Sixth Edition!

This tournament will be hosted by Murphy Lawden, RauSakura, and earthflax.

Below is a timeline of some important dates for the tournament:
Manager signups: August 9th -> August 16th
Player signups: August 16th -> August 29th
Draft: (likely) August 30th or 31st
Week 1: September 1st

What's new?
Retains
We intend to add retains this year for the first time in NDPL history; for those unfamiliar, retains allow a franchise to retain up to 4 players (note that teams can only self-buy & retain 4 players total combined) from the previous season for 10k if their price was below, or by an additional 3k if their price was above 10k if both parties agree to it.

Example: SteveBob92 was 8k last year before a standout performance, and the National Dexxers retain him for 10k
Example 2: BobSteve29 is a veteran who went 21k last year and had a great performance, so the National Dexxers retain him for 24k.

3rd Managers
3rd managers have quickly swept across the site to become a norm, and with the variety of tiers featured in NDPL, we think that this change is for the best.

We also intend to use the same self-buy formula as last year, and there is now a sheet you can use to check your price by inputting the corresponding values on your own copy of it, with the formula also at the top. You can read more here.

Points of Discussion
Tiers

Last year, NDPL featured the following tiers:
SV NatDex OU x3
SS NatDex OU x2
NatDex Monotype
NatDex UU
NatDex RU
NatDex Doubles
NatDex Ubers

Is there anything that people would wish to see added or removed? Keep in mind that last year NDPL followed a 10 + 4 structure for mandatory starters and subs for a total of 140k credits, and this will remain for any 10 slot formats, but may need to be adjusted in the event that there is a strong favoring towards 12 or more slots.

This thread will stay open until Saturday, August 9th, where a conclusion will be published by a collaboration between forum mods & hosts. Manager signups will follow shortly after that.

Happy discussion & NDPL season!​
 
First NDPL season wow yippie yay!!!! Depending on how this signup cycle goes I think a 12 slot PL could definitely be in the future, but for now I think that stretches things a bit too thin. Big fan of 3rd managers, v excited to see what the teams form up to. I've seen some sentiment of removing ubers which is just obvious kekburger, but for a 10 slot this seems like the best. anyway free manager signups @ loo
 
I support changing nothing about the format at all, it worked really well last year and I don't see any reason to rock the boat on that front. I do like the idea of a third manager, as it makes it a lot more likely someone will be ready to do an emergency sub/take care of something in short order should a situation arise. We also have more than enough people that qualify to manage this tournament to support that change imo.
 
1. 3 managers is mandatory for big PLs like this imo. Please make this change, I don't think there's much of a downside, and it can even make scheduling the draft easier since in theory you should pretty reliably have 2 managers available rather than only requiring one.

2. Retains are great. No problem with this.

3. Floated this in the discord to a relatively positive reception - Current format is good & shouldn't change, but in the event the tour is expanded I think it'd be really amazing to have 2 Doubles slots. The reason of this is sort of unique to us vs any singles tier - there's an incredibly common sentiment that the doubles player is "on an island". One tour on the site, ADV LTL, remedied this issue very successfully with including both of the competing doubles formats in their tournament. While in our case the formats wouldn't be different, I believe it would beneficial as the doubles players would have two engaged players for the length of the tour rather than one just sitting on the bench as support only.
 
Has been said by many people in here already, but I think that last year's tiers should be kept the same for this year's NDPL. Didn't seem to cause many problems.
 
I don't see 12 slots happening this year given the lack of support, but it is something I'd like to see happen in 2026 or 2027 (an expansion is needed w gen 10 imo). An additionational doubles and mono slot are probably the best fits, but tiers such as NDSS UU/RU would be cool as well if there is the playerbase for those alongside SVND UU/RU. Draft and maybe LC would be cool to add as well at some point. 3 managers + retains is good
 
No NDOT should receive special treatment for lack of a better term because of xyz reasons especially by giving them more than one slot. Old Gens are another strange thing and I really think SS NDOU should remain the sole exception as old gen NDOTs will end up stealing from their SV pool to meet the slot demand, which worsens the quality of both slots. SS NDOU doesn't have this issue because at this point the two playerbases are very distinct enough to avoid this issue. Even then I kinda dislike old gens for this tournament anyways and the current format, as good as it is, doesn't seem built to survive future generations of NatDex so I think phasing out of SS NDOU could be a motion for next tour or at least whenever Gen 10 drops or whatever Champions is doing. Don't think advocating for an additional SS NDOU slot in that regard is a great idea.

12 Slots in general I only support the following additions:
- SV OU
- Bo3 (variation of OU,UU,RU)
- Bo3 (all OU)

SV OU +1/+2: Flagship tier being given significantly more weight in tours without damaging other slots seems chill. Timeframe to work with to optimize the tier before current gen is dwindling and I think just squeezing as much "high quality" games of this tier as humanly possible is to everyone's benefit.

Bo3: Great reception in Blind Draft, former NDPL tier and will be significantly higher quality with a significantly stronger lower tier playerbase. All OU is a very strong choice as well (generally I kinda just like bo3 slots in general for skill expression purposes). Neither will be hell to prep for really.

There's no real reason to go 12 slot to be perfectly clear but if there were to be 12 slots these are the only viable choices imo. And again the format is still good as it is.

E: also please add retains and 3rd manager.
 
I agree with 3 managers and I do want retains but I think we should do 3 retains instead of four given how that’s the standard and how many slots we have/there will be

As for the number of slots I think that the same format as last year is completely fine but if majority want 12 slots my argument is to add another ou and a bo3 slot
 
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3rd manager + retains pool + last years format is perfect, completely unopposed to 12 slots with the expanded 2 slots being an extra doubles and a bo3 of some variety either all OU or OU, UU, RU
 
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