Tournament NU Team Tournament II Format Discussion [ DONE ]

[Finchinator]

Hi, this thread will be about the format of the second NU team tournament. Please leave your thoughts on the draft format, number of teams/slots, and tier format as soon as possible if interested. This thread will be open for the next few days and manager sign-ups will go up in the next week.

1. Draft format

• Snake Draft
  • We had NU Snake I last year and this would be a continuation of that format. This gives each team the same number of picks, but limits opportunities of certain teams to land certain players depending upon order.
• Auction Draft
  • We have an auction every year for NUPL and the auction is often considered to be the best drafting format for official tournaments as we see in both SPL and SCL. This lets managers budget their auction as they feel optimal with minimum and maximum player thresholds, but not assuring each team has the same amount.
• Blind Auction
  • Meri and I discussed this after it was brought up in the SCL thread -- see here for initial idea by lax and here for for explanation by Hogg -- this would be a novel type of auction that gives managers a chance to set their priorities as they please without being able to gauge the interest of opponents.
• Others
  • Let us know any ideas you have!

2. Number of Teams

• 8 teams
  • Historically the standard, but requires more manager sign-ups and gives more regular season weeks -- likely means 8 slots per team
• 6 teams
  • Fewer weeks, but could open up to more slots -- likely means 10 slots per team

3. Number of slots and what they are

• 10 slots
  • Opens up to 2 more formats being included, but requires a greater amount of formats -- likely means only 6 teams and less regular season weeks
• 8 slots
  • Keeps the quality of play up and is the standard, but could risk cutting out a format or two -- likely means 8 teams and more regular season weeks

Locked slots:
SS NU #1
SS NU #2
SM NU
ORAS NU
BW NU
DPP NU
ADV NU

Potential additions:
SS NU #3 and/or SS NU #4
Bo3 (SS, SM, and ORAS)
GSC NU
RBY NU

 

[Oathkeeper]

I think this goes without saying and I know etern is with me on this, but I'm wanting Snake II. While it was my first stint as a manager and I did a crappy job in terms of how our season went, it was fun to pick the players that I wanted and just have some fun in an NU team tour. I feel it is simple enough even for newer managers who have a desire to manage for the first time as well like I did last year. Regarding the number of teams, I'm happy with either 6 or 8, but I prefer 8. The reason being is because for a 5-week season, some teams could potentially be out by Week 3 and that's just a downer for any team in that position, whereas by Week 3 in a 7-week season, teams still have hope of being that 4th seed in. I think others can sympathize with me here when I say that 8 teams is the best option. And while I do plan to manager for whatever tour we're doing, it gives more opportunities for newer managers to have some hope! Lastly, as far as the slots go, I'm kind of partial to: 3 SS / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP / ADV. As much as I like RBY and GSC, those are metas that are best saved for NUPL where they belong, to showcase older gens of NU (eternally can also agree with me on this). However, I wouldn't be opposed to throwing GSC in there since Snake is simpler in terms of getting a player for it and precious credits wouldn't have to be spent on such rare players imo.

So, in short, give me: Snake II with 8 teams and either 3 SS / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP / ADV or 2 SS / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP / ADV / GSC

 

[Ren-chon]

I honestly think we should include both GSC and RBY NU in this tournament, and make it 10 slots with a 3rd SS NU one (this tour would likely happen after the DPP remake is out, so 3 SS NU would help explore what could be a totally different tier). First things first, Im aware GSC NU doesnt have the best popularity in our team tours due to the disaster it was back when we first experimented with it; however, as much as Im not up to date with the current tier, from the little Ive seen the tier seems far different from the raichu days, and a more dedicated playerbase compared to before when we had like 2 or 3 users who actually played the tier while the rest were trying it out just for fun / were filling in. Id probably be against the idea of implementing both if this was NUPL, but considering this is our "secondary" team tournament should mean we can take more risks exploring new ideas and attracting new playerbases. It can very well end as bad as last time, but it can also work out just fine and potentially being implemented in Classic and/or NUPL. Also, worth noting there seems to be little to no overlap between the RBY, GSC and other consolidated NU tiers (with maybe the exception of ADV), so they wouldnt be "poaching" each other and lowering the overall quality; on the contrary, itd attract more players that otherwise wouldnt even consider signing up. Gotta admit though I dont have a good idea how big the RBY NU base is, but going from some of the posts on this thread it does seem to have a decently sized one for an old gen, but Ill leave it up to them to comment further on this since Im sure the RBY NU community will be voicing their thoughts here too

As for n. of teams, I believe sticking to 8 is the way to go. 6 makes the tournament overall way too short, and even takes some hype away from playoffs due to the top 3 cutoff format. We have a decent amount of SS NU players to fill in 3 slots on 8 teams I believe, although of course you arent gonna have 24 top tier ones. Ive been seeing an increase in new users lately who didnt get the chance to play in NUPL or last NU Snake, so an extra slot could mean new blood coming up (like OnArceus who made his debut last NUPL and went on to start in SCL). As for the other tiers... I mean, weve been getting through just fine with 8 teams in regard of old gens, so I dont think itd be an issue here either lol the debate between 8 or 6 teams should primarily focus on the quality of SS slots imo. Also please for the love of god dont do draft, auction or blind auction are way better in every single aspect for literally everyone. 10 slots, 3rd SS + GSC + RBY, 8 teams, (blind) auction please.

 

[roxie]

NUPL just feels too prestigious and traditional to change as we're trying to get GSC and RBY back on our team tournaments. This feels the time to include RBY and GSC since this is our secondary (lesser important) tournament. ROA has been working on the two tiers over the years with their dedicated GSC and RBY days and as a room, we've been supporting the formats week by week since the beginning of August in our Room Events megathread. I'm in favor of 10 slots and an auction / blind.

NU "Snake Draft" Rebranding and/or Replacement Tournament
I think we can both agree that the GSC/ADV/DPP/BW communities are pretty shallow and because the player base is so low, I personally do not think it should be included inside of NUPL. However, I am not saying that past generations should be removed from NU team tournaments completely. Snake-style tournaments feel way less competitive than auction-style drafts to me and I'd prefer for our "biggest" tournament to be way more competitive than our snake-based tournament. Having a choice to bid on two historically good NU players let's say Finchinator and Garay Oak (both 30k+ in NUPL) is way better than the first two teams just getting it handed to them.

I would like for this tournament to represent our past generations instead. Did you know that our NU Classic tournament happens right BEFORE NU Snake Draft? This gives managers an amazing idea of who recently/actually plays the tier and it gives players a chance to show their skill in preparation for the tournament.

- SS / SS or SS Bo3 / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP / ADV / GSC
- SS / SS / SS or SS Bo3 / SM / ORAS / BW / DPP / ADV / GSC / RBY

The formats shown above are the visions I see for this tournament. GSC NU is now included inside of our Homefield Tournament and hopefully NU Classic in the future. I am not a huge fan of the Snake-style draft but I think I can see a justification for both kind of? SS Bo3 is something I tossed in to support my "support current generation more" argument.

This was a long post and I wanted to add a lot more..thanks for reading.

 

[etern]

I'd definitely lean towards snake again, we've already done it once so it can be the start of a new nu subforum tradition, the auction style is fun and interesting with less chance of disaster compared to a blind auction. (Not that i'm against a blind auction style tour ever happening, I just think a snake draft should take priority over it).

On the topic of format, I honestly think 4 SS / 1 SM / 1 ORAS / 1 Bo3 is the optimal one for a few reasons. 1. It'll be beneficial to promote more current gen gameplay before gen 8 gets overshadowed by whatever new games come out in the next year or two, 2. more current gens slots will have synergy with a snake draft style because there's a bigger pool of viable players to pick from, and 3. I think as Finchinator has said, NUPL might be the better vehicle for promoting NU's oldgens. Having the exact same format as NUPL (for the most part) would be pretty boring and make Snake feel like a reductive version of something more prestigious. Another option could even be keeping NUPL as is, keeping Snake as a Smogon-Tour style tournament focused on CG, and then have a third tour with the blind auction and include stuff like GSC and RBY for a fun atmosphere kind of tournament.

As for the number of slots, 10 feels like overkill nowadays with tournaments in general having less participants than they did say 4 years ago, so maybe that can be another boon to a third tour that distinguishes it from these two? Also in terms of teams, 8 > 6 for sure, focusing on current gen will allow that to work without too much quality deteriorating.

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

2 SS is extremely unviable. I've clowned on gsc nu in the past and the concept of rby nu existing does not usher particularly warm feelings into my heart, but i would rather see both of those in this tour than 2 SS slots again.

I haven't been a super big fan of Bo3 in the past few years. Part of it comes from what is, in my opinion, extremely poor ORAS representation. ORAS NU is my favorite tier and it's become the tier in these tours you just throw some random tour player into and pass them teddeh rmt's or teams that were viable in the year 2015. half the time watching these games makes me want to die. i think we're at the point where more than 5 oras games a week is too many. if the ppl want Bo3 I would much rather see all SS Bo3.

As for the auction/draft format I'm inclined to lean towards auction. With auctions it's definitely easier to plan and execute a coherent team draft, especially when ur thinking about team chemistry, and it's (theoretically) more inclined towards parity where underperforming high picks/reaches in a snake draft can rly hurt your team, and you have more options on how you want to allocate your capital. although given how baffling money spending was in the first 20 or so mins of this past nupl draft, however, i think the argument can be made team parity just comes down to managers making good decisions during the draft. Blind auction could definitely be cool as well, if for nothing else to see how much finch would go for in that format.

 

[Aurella]

2 SS is extremely unviable. I've clowned on gsc nu in the past and the concept of rby nu existing does not usher particularly warm feelings into my heart, but i would rather see both of those in this tour than 2 SS slots again.

I haven't been a super big fan of Bo3 in the past few years. Part of it comes from what is, in my opinion, extremely poor ORAS representation. ORAS NU is my favorite tier and it's become the tier in these tours you just throw some random tour player into and pass them teddeh rmt's or teams that were viable in the year 2015. half the time watching these games makes me want to die. i think we're at the point where more than 5 oras games a week is too many. if the ppl want Bo3 I would much rather see all SS Bo3.

As for the auction/draft format I'm inclined to lean towards auction. With auctions it's definitely easier to plan and execute a coherent team draft, especially when ur thinking about team chemistry, and it's (theoretically) more inclined towards parity where underperforming high picks/reaches in a snake draft can rly hurt your team, and you have more options on how you want to allocate your capital. although given how baffling money spending was in the first 20 or so mins of this past nupl draft, however, i think the argument can be made team parity just comes down to managers making good decisions during the draft. Blind auction could definitely be cool as well, if for nothing else to see how much finch would go for in that format.

Seconding this, particularly on the bolded part. Some days before NUPL Auction, me and Luck brought up wanting 3 SS slots for the tour. Others agreed that 2 slots was an oversight, but we were told it was too late to change that. 3 SS slot NU team tours are of much better service to the growth of the cg playerbase than 2 slots + helps decongest oversaturated SS support on some teams.

 

[phoopes]

When it comes to snake vs. auction I don’t particularly have a preference because I’m not going to be managing. However, I’m a huge proponent of 10 slots, with the three additional slots being SS#3, GSC, and RBY. Which shouldn’t be surprising given I’m an RBY player but still lol

I’m all about community integration. UU has started to bridge the gap with RBY players by including us in UUFPL and considering us for UUSD, so I think it’d be really cool if NU did the same thing. RBY NU is a pretty new tier, but there’s already a good amount of skillful players and a ton of viable mons that keeps every game fresh and exciting. Check out some replays from RBYPL II (currently ongoing) to see what I mean. The tier is having some good success there, and I think what’s cool is that a lot of the starters aren’t RBY NU specialists. If you know RBY mechanics in general, it’s not terribly hard to pick up on, which means that even if snake draft is selected as the format the managers won’t need to worry as much (this is a concern in UUSD that spending a pick on a “specialist” will be bad if said specialist can’t play a certain week/drops out).

So yeah, big RBY guy here which means I’m obviously supportive of GSC as well even though I don’t play or watch the tier. Let’s have some more variety with 10 slots (with the 10th slot being another SS NU haha, but I’m supportive of that because it gives more new/up-and-coming players a chance to show off their skills).

 

[pac]

I'm also going to support the 3rd SS, GSC, and RBY format for the event. Am an RBY player so I am admittedly biased haha.

• 3 SS slots is essential, since I don't think 2 slots is enough to show off all of the up and coming players that deserve the spotlight.
• For RBY NU, it's easily the most outside spectator friendly of all the RBY tiers, having upwards of 25 viable mons with the Wrap shenanigans from UU that many despise being toned down dramatically thanks to many of Fire Spin's inherent flaws. Toxic, multiple Set-Up Sweepers, and other factors make the games very fast paced unlike OU which can be slow at times, with it being a lot of bulky or hyper offensive strategies. It's also one of the more simple RBY tiers for anyone to get into, meaning that non-RBYers can get the tier very easily. It's a great RBY tier for any tours like these.
• If I'm supporting RBY and 3rd SS, I'd obviously be supporting GSC even if I'm neutral on it as a tier. There's been a ton of work going into the tier to make it better, and I think there are enough players for it to justify an inclusion. Couldn't hurt to try out.

 

[Plague von Karma]

Voicing my support for 10 Slots + RBY NU like the above, the RBY community is very interested in integrating further with the wider regions of Smogon. I don't have a lot to say that pac and phoopes haven't covered already, but I'm too biased and vocal for my own good, so here I go anyway. You'll definitely see me entering this if it happens to go through!

RBY NU is definitely the easiest RBY tier to get into and is somewhat reminiscent of what you would see in modern gens. In the words of Hipmonlee, it's just pure Pokemon: you've got your type chart, your setup, your pivoting, all in its most primative state. I think that an NU team tour (not sure which, can't speak for that) would be the perfect opportunity to pitch the tier to a wider audience so it can see further development. We've been working on strategy dex resources for the tier lately and a good few of the top tiers are getting uploaded soon. Plus, we continually update sample teams on the RoA site, so you can truly just pick up and play. Easy to get into with a bit of RBY mechanics knowledge - which we have a recent resource on here - and just nuanced enough to give a nice skill ceiling. Notable players like Enigami and Serpi are really asserting themselves in RBYPL too, so it'd be amazing if we had more tours to see if this keeps going. People are always looking for games in the RBY Discord and I encourage any curious NUers to join and give the tier a shot! There's enough in those links to get you started!

A big benefit to RBY is that the community generally uses BO3 as a standard, which makes it very easy to fit into tours that appreciate those slots. While I'm not entirely educated on how the greater community conducts its team tours here, if you're out for a BO3 slot and CG's isn't well-liked, perhaps this could be the better option? RBYers love prepping for BO3 stuff and there's plenty who play NU, so you shouldn't be too strapped for willing hands either. I'm not sure if NUPL would be the place for NU given its high value, but I'm not against it either. Given RBY UU is being looked at for UUSD, perhaps an NUSD is the best opportunity? I think a dialogue on this would be a good way forward.

 

[Hogg]

Probably not going to play so no real input on what y'all choose but just posting to say that if anyone has any questions about the particulars of the blind auction format I wrote up, please feel free to ask! I think it's a pretty cool option that I'd love to see in practice.

C/Ping the full rules here:

sealed bid aka modified vickrey auction

Sealed Bid Auction (modified Vickrey)

Team captains nominate players, and all submit sealed bids. Highest bidder wins the auction, but pays the second-highest price (min 3,000). In-auction sellbacks are allowed.

• Team captains proceed in a standard snake order to nominate players for auction.
• All teams have 60 seconds to submit their bids.
  • Minimum bid is 3,000 credits.
  • Bids must be in multiples of 200 credits.
  • The team who nominates must bid on the player nominated.
  • Any team that wishes to skip a particular nomination may submit a nomination of “pass.” They will be removed from contention for the player in question.
  • If a team does not bid within 60 seconds, they are considered to have passed on a player.
  • If the team that nominates a player is the only team to submit a bid, the second-highest bid is considered to be 3,000 credits.
  • No bids are visible until the 60 seconds have concluded.
• After 60 seconds have elapsed, all bids are revealed.
• The team with the highest bid adds the player to their roster. Credits equal to the second-highest bid (minimum 3,000) are deducted from their total.
• In cases of a tie for highest bid, ties are broken in the following priority:
  • If the team who nominated the player is one of the tied winning bids, the nominating team wins.
  • If the team who nominated the player is NOT one of the tied winning bids, the player is re-nominated. Only the teams that were tied for the highest bid are permitted to participate. The minimum bid amount is equal to the second-highest bid from the initial auction.
• On your turn to nominate a player, you may instead sell back an existing player.
  • You nominate one of the players from their own roster.
  • Sealed bids are submitted as normal. You are not permitted to submit a bid.
  • The team with the highest bid purchases the player you have nominated. That player is removed from your roster and placed on theirs.
  • The winning team pays a price equal to the second-highest bid. That amount is added to your team’s total credits.
  • If no one submits a bid, the house repurchases your player for 3,000 credits, and that player is added back to the general auction pool.

 

[Stories]

honestly have no qualms with how tours have operated in the past. RBY and GSC are not real and I don't care to play those or watch them be played but I understand others enjoy those formats so I see no reason to not include them.

 

[Pokeslice]

As for the format, I don't care too much. I think both have pros and cons, but are overall fantastic options. The idea of a blind auction is intriguing, but truthfully, I don't fully understand it, although it seems like a really interesting switch up to the normal auction process.

For what should be played, 4 SS slots is the move. This could be the final tour before SS is thrown aside for the remakes, and giving it a proper send off feels like the right thing to do. On top of that, 4 SS slots also allows for newer players and ladder heroes to be given a shot, something that leaning primarily into older gens doesn't let you do. 4 SS feels like the best way to engage the community and give one last spotlight to Gen 8, ultimately building up community engagement with the tour scene as a whole. I'd also be very open to 3 SS slots + 1 SS Bo3 option like Irish mentioned earlier for similar reasons as above. At a minimum, there should be another SS slot added, but 4 is definitely the move.

I do think that going 6 teams with 10 slots (meaning 1 of each gen and 3 SS) would work, too, but I'd personally rather put emphasis on SS in this tour. Giving opportunities to old gens is really nice, except maybe it should be saved more for classics or some other old gen tour (check out the room events!!) rather than the last team tour of Gen 8

 

[dawnbuster]

i was asked to post here as the ceo of gsc nu herself SOO

im happy to see this discussion taking place as someone who has been very heavily involved with the development of + really enjoys gsc nu since the bans of raichu / poliwrath / golduck. i personally think that nusd would be a starting point to try the tier out in nu team tours again, and then we can see with nupl + nu classic after that. with this being the “secondary“ team tour trying out new tiers like gsc and possibly rby as well seems like it would be better here. it would help to further the relationship between both communities as rn its pretty much just room tour nights in terms of representation in the nu community. unlike other old gens gsc nu has dedicated mainers that arent really apart of the nu community itself.

to elaborate further on gsc nu, the tier is developed enough and has a big enough playerbase that WOULD actually be intersted in competing in the tier instead of just filling in / trying it out as a meme i might add. the tier itself is not very complicated at all pretty and easy to build in if you have any understanding of the tier, so i dont think support / subs would be an issue rly. i understand why people might still be weary of the tier (raichu + poliwrath gsc nu is bottom 3 mons tiers of all time), but the current metagame is a lot better than what it was when it was in 2019 nupl. its an enjoyable, fast paced, and balanced metagame that i think anyone, even people more familiar with current gens can pick up quite easily, unlike the boring and rng filled shitshow of a tier it used to be. the tier is much more offensive than it is stall and has just enough diversity in playstyles and pokemon to make it interesting to watch. i think if theres any tour to give it a shot, this is the one. so overall, i would support 10 slots with gsc, rby, and ss#3 rounding it out.

if you like, i can drop a mini power ranking list of sorts of the ppl good at the tier as well

 

[Finchinator]

Manager sign-ups are now up, but this thread is still open to posts

 

[Hogg]

Following up on this, a couple of questions have been asked multiple times, so I think it makes sense to answer them here for everyone. Also tagging in power, who worked with me in figuring these rules out and writing them up.

Why does the winner pay the second-highest bid amount, rather than the highest?

Paying the second price is what makes this a Vickrey auction, versus a standard sealed bid auction. Because the winner will be paying the second-highest bid amount, rather than the highest, it encourages bidders to bid the true value of a player.

Consider this: a player with moderate value is nominated. In a case where you pay the highest amount, lots of captains might prefer to just submit low-ball bids in hopes of grabbing the player for a steal. In fact, you can theoretically build a whole roster that way if you’re OK with adjusting on the fly, tossing in low-ball bids until you get a big discount on an important player and then building out from there.

However, in the case of a Vickrey auction, you’re incentivized to bid an amount closer to what you actually value the player, because tossing in a low-ball bid on the hopes of a cheap pickup can work against you by letting some of the other teams get them for a low price instead.

For those interested in the math behind it, this is a brief but pretty good summary, while this paper goes into a good amount of detail. Basically, in a first price sealed bid auction, a dominant strategy is to underbid, because what you bid affects what you pay. However, in a second price sealed bid auction, the dominant strategy overwhelmingly is to bid the true value of the item in question.

Why are the price units in multiples of 200, instead of multiples of 500 (as we use in SPL-style auctions)?

To reduce the likelihood of ties. While we did work out a system for resolving tied bids, ties still are not ideal and can grind the auction to a halt. Putting things in .2 increments instead of .5 increments makes ties for the winning bid significantly less likely.

What was the impetus for including the sellback option?

More bidders means a greater likelihood that the value of a player will approach their “true” value. However, we’re bidding on people, not arbitrary units of value, and we’re trying to build a cohesive team while we’re at it. That means that there’s often very good reason to not submit a bid at all, which in turn means there’s a decent chance of seeing lots of players where only one or two teams submit bids.

So, we added in a sellback mechanism. This in theory should encourage managers to be a bit more likely to submit bids, because the risk of getting a player that doesn’t fit is mitigated. It also eliminates the need for mid-auction trades, since you can simply place the player back up for auction.

 

[Expulso]

if you like, i can drop a mini power ranking list of sorts of the ppl good at the tier as well

Yes please ty

 

[Pokeslice]

I was thinking about it a bit, and I wanted to know some people's thoughts on this idea. I'm new to the tour scene so, if this has been done before, or is what is done, tell me. I really think 8 teams with a 6 team playoff is the way to go.

From an semi outside perspective (I've been in some team servers and helped one or two of them, but I'm not super knowledgeable), the main problem I've seen with team tours is that, as the season goes on and teams start to get beat down, people lose interest. It has a lot less to do with the length of the tour and more with their squads being mathematically eliminated from contention, which leads to joking around, act wins, and just a worse tour atmosphere. A 6 team playoff would help solve this.

It would be quite simple. The first 2 seeded teams would get a bye (maybe even make two conferences?), giving them extra prep time or just a must needed break while the other 4 teams duke it out for a week. The winner would obviously player the team on bye, and then from there to the finals. In doing this, only 2 teams get pushed out and there is a lot more hope for actually making playoffs and a late push from a team that could help keep people into it. It would also mean that the actual bracket possibly wouldn't be finalized until the last week or two, really giving extra motivation to continue.

It's slightly off topic from the main formatting of the tour, but I do think that this should be implemented to help keep the tour together in the long run. I think it'll be more serious and involving past the first 4-5 weeks, which is when I personally start to see stuff fall apart.

 

[Finchinator]

Snake draft

SS NU #1
SS NU #2
SS NU #3
SM NU
ORAS NU
BW NU
DPP NU
ADV NU
GSC NU
RBY NU

---

We will go with the above. It was pretty much a deadlock and while I preferred the Blind auction and want to integrate it into our team tournaments in the future, we did not have the support to change the status quo format wise. A majority of managers supported 10 slots though, so we will be adding GSC and RBY to the mix!

Thanks to everyone for posting