To the surprise of no one, I’m advocating for the inclusion of Ubers in NDWC. What I will not be doing is advocating for Ubers to receive representation at the cost of another tier. Various metagames shitting on each other to secure a slot is counterproductive and a terrible way to go about things. At best this mentality breeds animosity and creates lingering tensions that may or may not dissipate over the course of the year when the same song and dance is repeated. At worst it devolves into a shitshow that creates significant and lasting rifts between the various ND communities involved, ND as a whole, and further sullies the already poor reputation ND seems to have on Smogon should it get enough publicity.
Geographical Concerns
I wholeheartedly believe Ubers is worthy of a slot. It is my understanding that Ubers was dropped last year out of concerns about our player base being largely centred in Europe and North America. Given that primary focus of NDWC is people having fun representing their country or region rather than the competitive aspect, this is reasonable. This is a very valid concern, but also one which I’m confident has been resolved.
I’ve reached out to most of the managers from NDWC24 to inquire whether or not they would support Ubers’ inclusion in NDWC25 and the response has largely been yes. Notably, Asia + Oceania expressed support for the tier, but raised concerns about fielding a player. This is a valid concern, but one of Emoxu9 or MirrorSaMa would be sign up and I’d be shocked if any team wouldn’t be happy what will be one of the best players in the pool. The rest of the teams I contacted offered their support with the exception of Brazil, who did not reply at all.
I did not message the previous managers of European or North American teams as I was under the assumption that there were no issues with these teams fielding players. I have since learned that US South has some concerns. I also did not message the managers of team Canada as one is banned and the other has not logged in since November. While people would naturally assume FC would play, I’ve discussed this with him and he isn’t interested. It may be presumptuous, but I am eligible for Canada and would play if Ubers should receive a slot. Players being forced to play a tier they have no interest in is not great.
Ubers should not be included if a significant portion of the pool are begrudging participants as opposed to enthusiastic. I don’t believe this is the case, but if it is Ubers should not be included. However, there is a marked difference between a single team and this being indicative of a wider issue. I would hope that people would be able to recognize the difference and if apprehension to Ubers receiving a slot stems from this logic that the same level of scrutiny is applied to every slot. I do think the ‘geographic issue’ is no longer a concern, but that is also operating under limited knowledge and it is important to recognize that my biases can certainly impact my perception. If the geographical issues have not been addressed, Ubers obviously should not be included.
Other Concerns
There have been criticisms levied in this thread and on various discord servers about Ubers regarding the quality of the quality of the tier itself. We are currently conducting a survey so if you’re genuinely interested in the tier…please fill it out! If you’re dissatisfied with the state of Ubers, your feedback will have an impact on potential tiering action moving forward! It takes 90 seconds. Ubers is by no means a perfect tier and criticism is welcome! We want to make it the best possible tier, but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention at least the nature some of the criticisms are frustrating.
I have some opinions about other tiers, but to attempt to describe them as informed is laughable. Outside of Ubers my experience with other ND tiers is mostly following them on the forums and helping some teammates test or prep in a few tournaments. Consequently, I generally keep them to myself as I’m acutely aware that that most things I’d have to say would be based on vibes or simply regurgitating what others have told me. It would be nice if people on the flip side of the coin would do the same.
I do think as a tier Ubers does have some minor issues, although they are not the ones brought up in this thread. These issues are minor in the grand scheme of things and do not result in the tier being in such a poor state that it isn’t worth of being in a tournament. I do think there are varying levels of validity to the criticisms being raised, but I’ll get to them later.
There are criticisms, but please don’t just shit on Ubers (this honestly applies to pretty much non-OU tier) in some random discord if you don’t meaningfully engage with it. Every tier has its issues, but a lot of these criticisms are rarely applied in earnest to OU. I’ve seen a fair amount of people dogpile on Ubers, but a lot of this crowd barely engages with the tier, if at all. There are certainly valid criticisms of Ubers, but please keep this energy for every tier. I don’t recall these concerns about the quality of the tier resulting in any of y’all advocating for slots to be reduced during the tera OU metagame that resulted in a significant portion of the tournament player base despising the tier.
Should I engage in the process of arguing why Ubers should receive a slot instead of another tier, my opinion carrying any weight or influence should be cause for concern. I would hope that an attempt to do would be recognized for the cynical ploy that it is and ignored. I simply do not know enough about other tiers or their playerbases to argue for or against their inclusion.
Slots
As mentioned before, I’m not going to advocating for Ubers to replace another slot. Instead I’d like to propose adding a slot or two. I’m anticipating some level of resistance to adding a single slot as that would get rid of tiebreaks. This, and any tournament, should generally have as many slots available so long as the quality of the games is not impacted. Tiebreaks are cool, hype, or whatever word you want to use – so long as they are natural. When they are artificially imposed, tiebreaks are just lame. I’m probably not going out on a limb when I say most people would not be willing to give up their tier receiving representation in a tournament to watch people play other tiers with tiebreaks while also calling it hype. If a tiebreak happens, great, but it should not be a reason to keep a tier out of a tournament.
Obviously I’d prefer Ubers to get its own slot, although the Bo3 that has been proposed would also be cool if that were not to happen. I’d also be happy to see UU/RU in some capacity, but I’m not the one to advocate for them. Danbear already has and I’d imagine Runo and Iride will as well. This also applies to SS iterations of doubles, monotype, and lower tiers if they have the players to support a pool. As long as the format is eligible and an support a good pool I'm in favour.
SVOU (Seth Banned)
SVOU (Seth Banned)
SVOU (Seth Banned)
SVOU (Seth Banned)
SSOU (Seth Banned)
SSOU (Seth Banned)
SV Mono
SV Doubles
SV Ubers (Seth forced to start and commentate every match w/ hidin)
SV whatever else b/c people like tiebreaks
I can't speak to the inclusion of Ubers too much, but given it remains a Tera metagame it is notably different from other ND tiers, and it seemed to be the wildest/fishiest tier in what I saw during NDBD.
I'ma be real, I would not call NDBD the best respresentation of Ubers. Some people were meming and multiple starter level players went undrafted. Part of the reason I strayed away using heat during NDBD is because I was worried about leaving an impression like this. The tier is certainly restrictive (slightly too much currently imo), but I would not describe it as fishy.
I think at the very least a Bo3 slot should be considered, but having an actual UU/RU slot would make for actual mains/builders being able to gain an edge for their team rather than all 8-10 slots just being the regions best clickers getting passed squads. Building is about half (maybe more, maybe less) of the skill in Mons, after all.
I heavily agree with this mentality.
Ubers in my opinion should not be in this tour for largely similar reasons as UU / RU (the list of quality ubers builders is quite small which would give smaller regions issues, probably far worse in the case of ubers than UU or ru) but also the fact that the tier is just not fun to watch out of any nd tier.
I do think we have a wide enough distribution of builders, but I can understand the concerns. I'm wondering why you consider it the most boring to watch out of any tier? It can be at times, but I also don't see how it is more or less boring than balance or fat mirrors in other tiers.
Asia + Oceania
Europe
UK
France
Spain + Latin America
Brazil
India
China
Canada
USA South
USA Northeast
USA Midwest + USA West
