Tournament NUCL II - Format Discussion Thread

[MrSoup]

I cannot explain how frustrating it is that the only two tiers I still play on smogon are tied to the NU community. NUCL was supposed to be the tour where our tier was guaranteed inclusion. Why would I or any other RBY or GSC player sign up for this? At worst we won’t even get to play or be drafted at all and at best we’ll have to play every week against someone who’s forced to be in the slot and doesn’t know anything. This proposal does not encourage inclusion; all it does is alienate actual RBY and GSC players like me from wanting to interact with the NU community. This is a completely terrible idea. I honestly thought it was a joke when i read what people were saying.

also what the hell are we even allowed to post here

 

[Ren-chon]

^thats pretty frustrating that this tour was already designated for an adv suspect and was used as a basis to put that on hold, and now if the proposal goes through as is each of the old gens cant rly expect to get more than a couple sets in the entire tour bc of the incentive structure.

Thats... Thats not true at all. It was NEVER mentioned that this tour would be used as a way to get reqs. All I said is that, historically, when you have an old gens suspect you often pick qualified voters through tournament results. That DOES NOT mean NUCL was gonna be such a way to get votes, Im simply stating what has happened in other suspects. Idk where this idea that a glalie suspect would be carried out during this tournament even came from??? Hell, not even the TLs themselves were aware LMAO this just came absolutely outta nowhere. Also let this topic die here. Its factually wrong and has nothing to do with the format itself

im reposting asking again for an answer to this question bc someone else also asked me about this, we do not understand what this sentence means and what we are and arent 'allowed' to talk about in this thread. (i also in general do not understand the purpose of prohibiting discussion bc its "already decided on".) as usual i will try to follow whatever rules are prescribed regardless of what i think of them, however it isnt possible to do so because this instruction is not intelligible to me (and it seems to some others as well) as written.

Youre allowed to discuss anything under "DISCUSSION POINTS FOR THE COMMUNITY". The format itself isnt up to discussion because that WILL be the format for this years NUCL. What we are discussing and want peoples opinions on are the points under discussion points, the second half of eterns post. In fact, just judging from community reaction, we can safely assume the tournament will be 6 tiers, 5 weeks regular season, and pending a lot to no flex player (aka a user being allowed to play 2 tiers). THESE are discussion points. Arguing over NUCL returning to last years format and ditching flex slots altogether isnt.

what about the system for choosing flex tiers

Theres no "system". Each team picks 2 tiers, no repeats from the same team, and thats it

whether having all four flex tiers be fairy gens would be permissible (which is likely to happen frequently if there are no guards to prevent it bc of the draft incentives + if old gen mains dont sign up knowing they are unlikely to play)

Thats just part of the tournament then. If managers want to focus on fairy gens, let them do so. That would be a cool strategy if anything, same way other managers will focus on tiers with a smaller playerbase but with good players who will surely farm there

whether repeats can be eliminated so that teams dont have to have 3 players capable of each of sv-swsh and 2 capable of rby-bw if they want to select any of these formats themselves without taking a wild risk (and ofc no ones going to draft two gsc nu mains with this format so)

Taking the risk is part of the tournament, and will be a good skill expression for managers. Eliminating repeats would just make things even more confusing (if team A and B invested in a good BW player and they want to pick BW, then let them do so. Why shouldnt them? This can be counteracted by one of the teams deciding to not pick BW banking on it being chosen anyway and instead picking another tier theyre good at, effectively giving them 3 tier choices)

what about bfm's proposal for rotation > flex, is that "in bounds"?

Actually a good idea for next edition, but not for this one unfortunately. Like the OP said, we are not accepting any changes to the format itself

and like for me personally vague threats dont lead me to shut up, but it makes sense that some ppl feel like they cant even talk in this thread when they have no idea what they are and arent 'allowed' to say here

...what? There have been no threats whatsoever, and weve been INCENTIVIZING discussion here. Only deleted posts so far have been one liners that added nothing to the discussion

 

[BeeOrSomething]

Considering the format is not open to change, I am voicing in support of cutting RBY and GSC from the tournament. The majority of NU community players do not seem to care about our tiers and I and multiple others I’ve talked to in the RBY and GSC community feel that inclusion would be nothing but a detriment. I don’t think most NU players would complain if this happened. If this community is so against proper inclusion then you should own it.

 

[Stories]

I'm a bit confused on the flex slots. I don't think the flex slot player should also be in another slot at the same time, it bloats the value of a single player like if zS were to self buy for 10k then play in sv and the ss flex slot, that would be like a 5k per slot purchase of one of the best players in each format. From what I can gather the flex player also has to be a different player each week? This doesn't really make sense to me but the overall premise is really cool

 

[juoean]

Thats... Thats not true at all. It was NEVER mentioned that this tour would be used as a way to get reqs. All I said is that, historically, when you have an old gens suspect you often pick qualified voters through tournament results. That DOES NOT mean NUCL was gonna be such a way to get votes, Im simply stating what has happened in other suspects. Idk where this idea that a glalie suspect would be carried out during this tournament even came from??? Hell, not even the TLs themselves were aware LMAO this just came absolutely outta nowhere. Also let this topic die here. Its factually wrong and has nothing to do with the format itself


Youre allowed to discuss anything under "DISCUSSION POINTS FOR THE COMMUNITY". The format itself isnt up to discussion because that WILL be the format for this years NUCL. What we are discussing and want peoples opinions on are the points under discussion points, the second half of eterns post. In fact, just judging from community reaction, we can safely assume the tournament will be 6 tiers, 5 weeks regular season, and pending a lot to no flex player (aka a user being allowed to play 2 tiers). THESE are discussion points. Arguing over NUCL returning to last years format and ditching flex slots altogether isnt.


Theres no "system". Each team picks 2 tiers, no repeats from the same team, and thats it


Thats just part of the tournament then. If managers want to focus on fairy gens, let them do so. That would be a cool strategy if anything, same way other managers will focus on tiers with a smaller playerbase but with good players who will surely farm there


Taking the risk is part of the tournament, and will be a good skill expression for managers. Eliminating repeats would just make things even more confusing (if team A and B invested in a good BW player and they want to pick BW, then let them do so. Why shouldnt them? This can be counteracted by one of the teams deciding to not pick BW banking on it being chosen anyway and instead picking another tier theyre good at, effectively giving them 3 tier choices)


Actually a good idea for next edition, but not for this one unfortunately. Like the OP said, we are not accepting any changes to the format itself


...what? There have been no threats whatsoever, and weve been INCENTIVIZING discussion here. Only deleted posts so far have been one liners that added nothing to the discussion

jsyk, this post reads as if you did not read most of what has already been posted in the thread.

~ each team picks two tiers is a "system". or if you dont want to use the word system, then use whatever word you want. but this is obviously what i was talking about, the "system" "mechanism" whatever word for how the four flex slots are chosen in each mu. there are various prior posts in the thread suggesting different 'systems' for choosing the four flex slots, "pros and cons" of various options, etc.

~ reasons for preventing a duplicated flex slot have been brought up over and over again throughout this thread. if you only have one person on your roster willing to play rby nu, or only one player who is able to play gsc nu, then you effectively cannot ever nominate these slots / youd be forfeiting the second one in the event that the opposing team also selects it. or as people have also brought up, youd end up with a second rby or gsc game with no one who plays the tier available to play it and therefore may end up with games full of nonsense clicks that the players and the spectators all hate.
you similarly need 3 xy-swsh players and 5 sv players to be able to nominate those slots, but since there is more playerbase overlap as well as more similarity across the tiers that is much more realistic.

~ drafting entirely around fairy gens isnt 'one way' to approach the draft, its kind of the only practical way. with the playerbase overlap u can draft 8-10 top players who can each play in 2+ of the fairy gens and u can be prepared to play any of 6-8 three times or 9 five times. then u get a few picks left just to be semi-covered for the old gens.

you cant draft two players for each of rby-bw. there are not enough slots on a team to do this and to still have the new gens covered. for something that is only giving you 2/10 slots per week.... the most u can realistically do is draft one player for each, and then u can still only play them when theres a gap in the opposing draft so that u know they wont pick the tier themselves. or, ig u can just pick one or two old gens to draft two top players from and just fish for that. (and if various teams do that for a different old gen then we will get a bunch of old gen games in which only one team has someone who actually plays the gen.)
u can argue this is "interesting" at the level of draft strategy i suppose but i dont see how it could be argued as good for the actual tiers, 'game quality', etc. honestly the *best* scenario i can see here is that every team prioritizes xy-sv and that the entire tour is played just in fairy gen slots.

~ ok @ whats in the "discussion points" section. so... basically just "flex player" and whether sv is included in flex (but not whether xy-swsh are?) and whether there is any sort of bo3.

but again you write "ditching flex slots and returning to last years format" when literally none of the examples of things that have been proposed or could be proposed that i just listed are this. so i dont understand like did you not read anything, if you did read it then why are you writing it this way when most of we have been discussing various things is very clearly not "ditching flex slots and returning to last years format".


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

i agree with beeorsomething that this format would literally be (much) worse for both rby and gsc than just being excluded from the tour entirely, for all of the reasons we have been bringing up in this thread, and if those were our two choices then id prefer the latter. tho it is not clear that the latter is an option we are being given either (other than potentially organizing our communities to not participate). ofc i dont speak for everyone and there may well be players who do not think it is worse than just not being part of the tour. and obv i cant speak to adv-bw playerbases at all other than reading what people say here.

lastly as soup touched on, it rly is tiring that over and over again in tour format discussions theres a conclusion that is eg "ok rby and gsc will not be included in nupl but they will be in the next tour nucl" and then the next tour comes around and its not the case. i dont know who is making the decisions or if they are the same people but like the liberalism is so annoying. dont say "next tour will include rby and gsc" if you have no power to make that happen. tournament format discussions should not be following the culture of electoral politics where every year we hear promises about the next tour that will be abandoned as soon as the current format discussion ends. and it is sooo easy, just dont make promises that wont be kept. it isnt 'reassuring' to be told rby gsc will be included next time if they actually wont be, it just cultivates distrust etc.

 

[shiloh]

I posted my thoughts on Discord, but I want to summarize them here as well bc i think its a good midground between the two sides here.

As one of the few people thats actually hosted a "flex tier" tour, I think it is a good idea and actually does help with a lot of issues a copy-paste PL format would have. You still have the ability to "main" a tier and play it a majority of the tour if you are good at it, which helps players in old generations that might not want to play other tiers / not have the opportunity to play the tier a lot, but also gives players the option to jump around more and get a more unique and enjoyable experience than just having to play the same tier every tour (without being overly penalized for it). This also helps with cross-tier community building as you are going to get a lot of new players to tiers that may not have had the chance to play it before, and also encourages picking up new tiers / branching out of just your main.

I do think the current format is to restrictive to the above however, as you basically have to be one of your teams two best players in order to play your tier every week. I think the ideal format for a flex based tour is to have an increased amount of flex tiers, and reduce the guaranteed slots by a larger amount.

The two suggestions are either: 5 flex slots from each team (10x flex) or have 2 sv slots locked between the teams and 4 flex slots from each team (sv sv flex x8). Lock sv out of flex tiers as well, and if there is a worry about lack of sv representation bring back WC and make it all sv imo. This tour should be more about fostering all nu generations, and trying to bridge the gap of playerbases / tiers while also bringing something more than just PL copypaste.

This will let ppl that just play one tier have a lot more feasibility to actually just play that one tier throughout the tournament, while also giving people that dont want to specialize a more enjoyable tour since they would have more options of tiers to play each week. Duplicate tiers also isn't as big of an issue in this format, as it also adds some fun things like if both teams have solid gsc players you end up with 2 gsc slots, and since you do have a player who is strong in a tier you will have a second slot that will get a lot of help from the "mainer", making it easier to pick up the tier and potentially increasing the playerbase if players find these tiers enjoyable.

I think the current format is trying to hard to "meet in the middle" between the two formats, and needs to go one way or another to find its true identity, with either embracing flex slots and making it a majority of the slots or just being a second PL style tour but with RBY + GSC.

---

On team #s / format, I do think if you do 4/5 flex tiers you will have the ability to do 8 teams. With more flex slots you have less of a need to spend big money of specific tiers, and can pick up a lot more players who are willing to play any tier (and i think there are a lot of those, specializing in a tier is rare nowadays and theres a lot of people hungry to play any tier in a tournament to get the experience / learn). I think 8 teams is not that hard to reach with this, and would make the tour even better than just having 6 teams since it will help highlight the best parts of this format, with more players encouraged to pick up new tiers / increase the playerbase of tiers since more ppl will have to learn them.

Don't do the GSCPL / RBYPL 6 team format if 6 teams is chosen though, having to play 3 teams twice sucks, and having to play one team 3 teams is also terrible.

 

[LHF]

Although I think it's a little odd to not facilitate discussion regarding the flex tiers, I'm going to respect the moderation team's choice to keep it in stone.

However, I've still got some pretty hefty notes and feedback to deliver, and I hope that all of this is taken with earnest consideration - if not for this year then at least for next. If you read through all of this, you are a trooper.


- I think "flex players" are not a good idea. I understand you're trying to keep them in check by only allowing one player to double up for one week only, but a traditionalist perspective to team tours would encourage teammates interacting with one another in practice games and generally supporting other players to new heights. It's pretty clear to me that this tour is trying to take on more of a "Battleship" sort of structure with its flex picks, where you try to target an opposing team's weak points with your flex pick. I can somewhat get behind this(more on that later), but a flex player takes away from the identity of a team imo and props one player up into "protagonist" territory for the week.

- You could go from 6 to 8 teams if you wanted to but I will point to past precedence from how the GSC community chose to handle GSCPL. If you click my profile you can see my discussion post in that thread and my thoughts here remain similar; keeping a 6 team format ensures the signup quality remains high and you have better games as a result of it. However, I will emphasize that each tour leader has a decision to make as to whether or not they wish to have more inclusivity(8 teams) vs. higher quality(6 teams). I don't think there's a wrong answer, but it is up to the philosophy of what you want your tour to accomplish. This is probably the point I would say is worth getting community consensus on more than any other.

- I have no opinion on one or two manager self-buys. I'd lean toward one if my gut tells me anything, just so that the other can be fully committed to managing, but again there's arguments that two self-buys are equally valid. Do what you think works best.

- Something I am extremely ardent on is that SV should not even remotely be considered for a flex pick. The point of tours like this in my mind are to be a celebration of a tier and its various involvements. There's plenty of opportunities to play SV already whether it be official tours or a ladder. You've already got 3 slots dedicated to this tier already, so a possible 4th is excessive especially because it can and will take away from the older gens.

...And this leads me to a bit of a rant that I hope will be taken constructively instead of negatively.

I have to echo BeeOrSomething's point regarding GSC NU participation. It should go without saying that Bee is an active presence in the GSC community, but most specifically NU. I'm going to preface this by saying I am still a relative newbie to GSC NU but I'm not a green player, so don't think I'm trying to "big league" anyone here as much as I am offering feedback from someone who's circled around the waters of tours for about a year now.

Given that GSC lower tiers is already a fringe community as it is, I can echo BeeOrSomething's sentiment in saying that this is unintentionally choking out possible participation from RBY/GSC specifically, but I think this really extends to Fairyless generations as a whole. If people sign up for a team tour, they want to be actively involved in the team process, and for people that generally stick to one or two tiers like @MrSoup(which are going to just be rotation picks anyway), what incentive is there for top talent from those tiers to show up?

The reason I believe there is significant backlash from the RBY/GSC voices is mainly such that these communities are not as connected to the remainder of Smogon as later oldgens are. This is also true of the Ubers community of which I've been a part of for a year or so now, where RBY and GSC are their own isolated little hubs compared to the interconnectivity of later gens(we literally have "Penta" Ubers tours as an example of this, one of which I think is going on right now from Gens 3-7). The odds are likely that if you play one of those tiers, you've dipped your foot into the other tiers at least somewhat even if you're nowhere near as competent in one as you are your "main" tier.

As I've hinted at, this is generally NOT true of the RBY and GSC communities. I understand you're trying to throw these past gens a bone here by having the flex picks. But here's the question we need to ask ourselves here. If these players want quality matches in their own domains, why wouldn't they just play friendlies on their own instead of potentially sticking around a team just for a CHANCE to play?

A possible rebuttal I anticipate is that the idea would be to draft one or two oldgen specialists and try to snipe a win on the other team, but please think about this from a player perspective: if, for example, you draft a GSC NU open winner to try and claim an easy W over another team with an ill prepared GSC slot, what is really driving their participation? They don't really get the fun/anticipation/battle experience from prepping for a strong opponent, and again, they could probably develop their own metas more by just trading notes with other experienced players of their tier.

I don't think it's really understood how much this(assumedly unintentionally) throws shade at these communities and suggests that these generations are not as valued, even if(again, ESPECIALLY in the case of RBY/GSC) they are black sheep compared to others. At best it suggests they're a way to throw the tier a bone, and at worst a potential option to be highlighted in the spirit of inclusivity but rarely if ever selected, with no guarantee that a team ever elects to use any one given tier. Winning tours and being part of a team is cool, but realistically if people sign to a tour, they want to be actively involved instead of riding a bench more often than they are not.

I want to close this out by saying that I really do believe you guys are trying to create something unique here, and I really do respect that effort to try to differentiate this tour from others. I would not spend 20 minutes of my life writing a post like this in good faith if I believed otherwise. I just hope it's equally as understood, however, that the way the older tiers feel slighted by this is not the best look and has the potential to backfire. I would like to be wrong, however.

Despite the critical nature of this post, there's no ill will here as much as it is a hope that there can be some positive discussion as a result. Cheers and thanks for reading.

 

[etern]

Gonna quickly respond here to a couple points that have been brought up a ton so we're all on the same page.

1. ALL NU tiers (SV - RBY) will maintain at minimum the same level of representation they had last year. That means they'll all be a part of a team-tour, nobody is missing out or getting cut. (NU Classic will similarly have all our oldgens from 1-8 as we did in 2024).

2. We're going to talk about revising the format for this tour amongst the mod team in the next couple days so that we can address the concerns being brought up. (Personally I like shiloh's idea for having 2 SV Slots and then 4 Flex slots per team, but I'm also receptive to the idea of reducing the amount of tiers here to make things less overwhelming).

3. We've been discussing a third teamtour for 2025 for a while now. I hadn't announced it yet because the details are still being discussed, but an oldgen-focused tour that spotlights Gens 1 - 5 is certainly one of the leading options we may go with! That isn't relevant for this thread but I'm bringing it up to quell any worries people have had about their tiers being erased without representation. That isn't happening and has never been on the table.

I'm still in the process of reading through everything and taking everything all of you (from this thread, the discord, and pms) have to say, so bear with me. While I appreciate the passion, we could all make an effort to be less aggressive when discussing these things with eachother. There's no need to have an 'Us vs Them' debate when we all want the same thing, a fun and high quality tour that everyone can enjoy. Let's focus on how we can make the flex slot concept perfect for this tour and get more commentary on that. I've seen a ton of cool ideas and I think we're heading in the right direction. I'll give a status update towards the end of this week once we've all had a chance to regroup, and we can go from there. Thanks everyone.

 

[LHF]

Gonna quickly respond here to a couple points that have been brought up a ton so we're all on the same page.
I'm still in the process of reading through everything and taking everything all of you (from this thread, the discord, and pms) have to say, so bear with me. While I appreciate the passion, we could all make an effort to be less aggressive when discussing these things with eachother. There's no need to have an 'Us vs Them' debate when we all want the same thing, a fun and high quality tour that everyone can enjoy. Let's focus on how we can make the flex slot concept perfect for this tour and get more commentary on that. I've seen a ton of cool ideas and I think we're heading in the right direction. I'll give a status update towards the end of this week once we've all had a chance to regroup, and we can go from there. Thanks everyone.

Although I wrote my post just a bit ago, I will say I appreciate your willingness to post this. I really meant it when I said the idea is unique and seems to be more of a version of managerial Battleship. I think that any presumed bitterness toward this concept came toward the idea that the format was effectively locked in as was written before with very little in the way of players feeling it was possible to give feedback, and the perceived slight that comes when older gen players (reasonably) thought there would be a guaranteed slot for them has now been left up to chancethat their managers would want to put them in on any given week. It's already pretty tough for some of these tiers to find consistent play unless you find your way into friend circles that discuss and develop them.

I know I sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but especially in the case of the ancient tiers, I would think they really just want the chance to be recognized by the NU community for what they are and maybe attract some new eyes on them. UPL did a lot for me to get me into GSC Ubers and eventually into GSC as a whole, including GSC NU. This came after a year of me thinking GSC was just "rest talk lol" the meta and playing literally every other generation other than that(and RBY, but maybe I'll make that journey someday, who knows?). I'm now at a point where it's my favorite competitive generation and the only one I put serious time into anymore(the irony is not lost on me). So I hope that puts my post into greater perspective and hopefully explains why others might feel the same as me.

This is why I'm so passionate about seeing older tiers get their representation alongside modern ones, because you never know who might make a pivot after seeing a new(but really old) meta they never considered in the past.

Speaking directly to your/Shiioh's proposed suggestion, I'd be more into the idea of 4 flex picks if it meant that we locked off SV from them(leaving two SV, 4 old gens represented) as you mentioned; it fits with the idea of what this tour seems to be going for in terms of intelligently assessing your opponent team's collective strengths and weaknesses. I am personally still against the idea of flex players for the same reason I wrote in my post above - that I think it puts too much emphasis on one player rather than the team, which imo goes against the whole spirit of this idea- but again I'm just one guy and I'd encourage others to drop any thoughts they have on this here.

 

[Django]

5 flex slots from each team (10x flex) or have 2 sv slots locked between the teams and 4 flex slots from each team (sv sv flex x8). Lock sv out of flex tiers as well, and if there is a worry about lack of sv representation bring back WC and make it all sv imo. This tour should be more about fostering all nu generations, and trying to bridge the gap of playerbases / tiers while also bringing something more than just PL copypaste.

This will let ppl that just play one tier have a lot more feasibility to actually just play that one tier throughout the tournament, while also giving people that dont want to specialize a more enjoyable tour since they would have more options of tiers to play each week. Duplicate tiers also isn't as big of an issue in this format, as it also adds some fun things like if both teams have solid gsc players you end up with 2 gsc slots, and since you do have a player who is strong in a tier you will have a second slot that will get a lot of help from the "mainer", making it easier to pick up the tier and potentially increasing the playerbase if players find these tiers enjoyable.

Agree with this totally actually, more flex slots gives this tour more viable strategies and increases the chance that the oldest gens get more play time. It also gives the tour a more solid sense of identity and separation from NUPL, which is great. I'd suggest allowing one repeat (e.g. SS, SS, ADV, RBY) being possible as this gives you the same range of options as the original format. Agree with locking out SV from flex in this case. For clarity you also should be able to pick the same range of flex slots every week.

This is why I'm so passionate about seeing older tiers get their representation alongside modern ones, because you never know who might make a pivot after seeing a new(but really old) meta they never considered in the past.

Totally agree with this as well, and the flex slots are a great way of achieving this. A copy paste 12 slot tour with all gens doesn't actually help cross gen pollination if the tiers are already isolated. More likely the mainers for each tier just work in their own tier and nothing else, and no one else tries the tier. The flex slot option increases the chances of there being, for example, 2 gsc slots in one week which forces someone into the tier and forces the gsc mainer to help out.

They don't really get the fun/anticipation/battle experience from prepping for a strong opponent, and again, they could probably develop their own metas more by just trading notes with other experienced players of their tier.

I'd encourage you to look at the results of previous tours with these tiers included - you already see exactly what you're describing. The top of the RBY-BW pools are dominated by specialists, while the bottom of the pool is generally people who flex into many different tiers. The quality of matches there is exactly what you're going to end up with in this format. If anything it's better because in the case where there are two "niche" tier top players on opposing teams, the likelihood is you get two slots for that tier in a week rather than one.

If people sign up for a team tour, they want to be actively involved in the team process, and for people that generally stick to one or two tiers like @MrSoup(which are going to just be rotation picks anyway), what incentive is there for top talent from those tiers to show up?

This is just how team tours work...players who exclusively play one tier are less valuable than those who can play multiple. This is why in the oldgen pools you see specialists dominating the pools and generalists getting more mixed results. The absolute top level of play in tiers will never be in team tours - individuals are the place where you're more likely to get those top level matchups. Any format of team tour won't change this effect. The motivation for top talent is the same as anyone: to win, to play as part of a team, and to do more than just play your own favourite tier.

--------

In general I think it's also worth noting that there's a very real issue on the horizon where there are too many gens for team tours to support them all. The flex slots format is an interesting experiment to include as many gens as possible without making rosters unviably large. This same problem will exist in SPL etc in the future, and in all side forum tours, so actively trying to find a way to solve it is good. NU also has a history of innovating here (we literally invented tier specific PLs) so it makes sense to keep trying to push things forward. It won't be perfect but we will learn from it and improve it.

 

[Tuthur]

I really like shiloh's suggestion. Let's not make Master gens stand out from Classic gens. If 2 SV - 4 + 4 Flex doesn't fit, surely either 2 SV - 3 + 3 Flex, or 4 SV - 3 + 3 Flex will.

I would also appreciate if we can have repeats. I don't see the point in limiting options for managers and teams, when we don't even have any sample to tell us this could be broken. Not repeating between weeks seems like it's not going to happen based on what etern said, but I'd like to still mention a point on why to not include it that I've not seen people talk about. It makes the order in which you play teams matter way too much; I don't think this needs further explanations, but as the order you play teams is out of managers hands, I'd prefer if we didn't add another element that makes it matter even more than it already does.

On no repeat of the same tier, I believe it should be tested unrestricted. If picking 2 RBY + 2 GSC is the best against the opposing team, why not try it? Disallowing it kinda kills the point of the tournament in my opinion and it should be at least tested once before ruling it's bad. The only points I've seen against it is annoying if the opposing team also picks one of the repeat tiers. But do we really believe it's a situation that is likely to happen? Both teams wanting to have the same tier is understandable if they both drafted a great pilot, but if you're picking multiple time the same tier, it surely isn't going to be a strength of the opposing team. Just like for tiering, don't ban what's not broken.

Ok now that the serious part is over, let's be funny and talk about silly bo3

1. bo3 stimulates cg development: as seen in tours that have bo3 slots such as PUPL and RUPL, the bo3 allows builders to express more creativity in current generation, seeing as the impact of 1 game is not as significant as in the bo1 format. I will not claim that it develops the older generations as much, but that is just a symptom of them being oldgens rather than an implication on the part of the bo3 format. There is a lot of recycling, however that leads me onto my second point.

The bo3 stimulates to pick and play because you have to split your prep time into 3.

2. Most entertaining format. Everyone loves best of threes, it is the site's lifeblood and allows spectators to enjoy watching a series. It is the most fun with regard to skill expression. The betterplayers gravitate towards the best of three, and thus this will help us entice great players to join the tournament to raise the quality of gaming that we will see this tour.

First statement is subjective, and the rest is completely wrong. Take a read at what one of the actual betterplayers think of bo3. This in the context of SPL, but his reasoning applies to every tournament on this site.

3. This last point is wack. "It seems already tough to beat your opposing team's pick, but it's doable in bo1; in a bo3 you're not going to see many upsets and let people express preparation in a tier they don't master." I don't know about you, but I prefer it when the better player wins. That is what happens in a best-of-three. Your statement boils down to "I want the worst player to win" or "I would prefer a cheese strat that works in bo1 get me a win" rather than the best gravitating towards the top.

If you're playing in the opposing team flex slot, you are 90% of the time going to be the underdog in the pairing, otherwise you'd be starting in your teams flex slot. Your teams flex slots are most likely than not be the games you aim to get wins from as you can pick them according to what the opposing team picks. So this means you are probably not going to be well versed in the generation you are starting in (otherwise the opposing wouldn't have made that pick), so having to play a bo3 is going to be three times harder than a bo1 format. The time you need to spend preparing is also going to be increased and it's going to be a much harder challenge to upset. BO3 is going to be a very safe pick for every team in comparison to every other slot, making its result very predictable (hence boring) and makes aiming for different draft strategies suboptimal (also boring).

 

[Phantomistix]

Havent felt the need to post yet since everyone else is posting similar thoughts to mine before I could do it, but I'd like to propose a middle ground between no repeating slots and fully allowing them (assuming number of flex slots increases). I feel like allowing 2 of the same tier is fine, but no more. This would prevent situations where a team can just dump all their money (or even manager self buys) on whoever the top of a certain pool is, eliminating competition on other teams and making sure they are heavily favored in those 3-4 slots, especially if a certain pool turns out to be top heavy. It also has the bonus of allowing for more tiers to be represented which is a plus.

Alternatively, and this also works for if we remove the restriction but don't increase the number of flex slots per team, we could make it so that a team can only pick one of their flex slots twice in a row. So for example team Exploding Silvally's might pick 2 SS slots in w1, but they'd only be allowed 1 SS slot in w2, and they can go back to 2 SS slots in w3.

Regarding the whole flex player dilemma, I'm indifferent, but I feel like it might get problematic. It does simplify the draft a bit for managers, which depending on how you look at it could either be a positive or a negative considering the tournament is already very different than normal team tours.

All my homies hate Bo3.

 

[Pokeslice]

I've been yapping a lot in the discord, but I wanted to put it down in this thread, especially as someone who's planning to manage the Diddy's Dittos (No Relation) this tour. Starting with the tour discussion points themselves in the OP:

1) No flex player. A player should only be able to slot into one game at a time. Doing otherwise makes multi gen great players worth infinitely what other players would be and feels like a waste of this tours potential. Allow more people to play!
2) Stay at 6 teams. I'm already a massive fan of having 2 shorter team tours in our circuit schedule with a longer NUPL, especially when one is experimental. Keep it short and sweet and there will be less burnout and more fun :)
3) SV shouldn't be a Flex option because this feels like it should be more old gen based. We already have two locked SV slots, why add more? Alternatively, if the Shiloh option is what's picked, then I'm less adamant on it, but I'm still in favor of the old gen focus.
4) Yes let two managers pick themselves. It's a fun tour anyways and I want to manage with Danny.

For the format:

I'm a massive fan of doing Flex slots for this tour. I think this is a way to integrate every tier we have in a non serious, fun, and unique format and I'm really looking forward to seeing how managing and drafting will turn out for everyone. It adds a level of skill to managing and drafting that a normal tour doesn't have which should make for some unique matchups and counter picking.

With that being said, I think this tour will be better off by going down the route of the Shiloh suggestion. 10 slots with 8 total flex slots allows for this tour to have a unique identity based around this new system while allowing for maximum manager combinations + tier representation. 6 flex slots can also be cool, but I'm leaning 10 slots>8 slots this tour. On top of that, do no duplicates for this tour to allow for maximum tier representation. No one wants to see 4 of one tier, not even SM, and this will let there be more opportunity for other old gens to make an appearance. I assume most teams will have a general structure of SS / SM / ORAS / Filler with SS and ORAS being most likely to be filled with other tiers based on matchup.

We also shouldn't do the Belgium style tournament structure and keep it short and sweet. Like I said above, a 5 week regular season is the perfect length for this tour and allows for it to be competitive to the end with minimal burnout.



Now for the juicy topic: RBY and GSC in this tour and how to encourage games to happen

The reason I believe there is significant backlash from the RBY/GSC voices is mainly such that these communities are not as connected to the remainder of Smogon as later oldgens are

We've obviously been covering this specific topic a bunch in the NU Discord the past day or so, but it deserves repeating here. RBY and GSC NU are fundamentally different than other old gen NUs because they're specifically tied to their respective gens for communities rather than this one. Unlike other gens, which have a relatively wide variety of NU community mainstays who play or understand them, there's no crossover between RBY players and the larger NU community and almost none as well when it comes to GSC. They were post gen creations spurred on by their respective gens independent of the NU community, and unlike DPP or ADV which had a lower barrier of entry mechanic wise, they haven't caught on within the larger communities the way, for example, GSC UU has. Because of this, the average NU community member really has no interaction or understand of the tiers, how they work, who's involved, etc outside of this one month of NUCL discussion and past tours which...didn't go great. I think it's worth noting all of this because it explains the current dynamics. No tier is entitled to representation just because they're called NU, especially as more gens are added. At the end of the day, what gets tour representation are the tiers with player bases and some sort of good standing within the NU community. Even tiers that are considered "worse" like BW or DPP have players who consistently show up to play it and people within the community who like to play it casually, such as myself. This isn't a diss of the tiers or communities; it's just the reality of the situation.

Now with that being the assumption we're working on, I think it's worth noting that this tour was made to give an environment that could include all the tiers, but one that clearly wasn't made to be centered around a lot of the less loved ones. Within the current Flex format, there's totally room for RBY/GSC players to be drafted and get games in, especially if there are 4 Flex slots per team. With 2-3 Flex slots per team, this becomes a bit harder because of how much easier it is to find people for other tiers (again, community overlap), so it really is just a c team pick rather than a real option managers are going to choose. It makes me think there are 3 ways to look at it.

1) Do 2-3 Flex slots and cut RBY and GSC - Probably desirable to many within the respective communities based off this thread lmao, but my least favorite option personally because of the amount of Flex slots. Within 2-3 Flex slots, there's not really room for these tiers because, in reality, they most likely aren't getting picked over more popular and played tiers unless someone wants to counter pick a team without a main. For many reasons, I personally don't feel like having less Flex slots is a good idea, but this is a direction to go. Even with more popular tiers being favored in this tour, with 2-3 Flex slots, there's still real room for BW, DPP, and ADV to get games, especially when there isn't SV flexed. Obviously, this would mean more set tiers for the likes of SS, SM, etc etc

2) Do 4 Flex slots and cut RBY and GSC - The other end of the spectrum and how Shiloh described it in his post, this approach would make the whole focus of the tour based around the Flex slots, but without RBY and GSC. Doing this would streamline the way drafting worked for a lot of people because of the many times aforementioned lack of overlap. Finding SV + pick an old gen or dual/triple old gen threats to flex is so much easier without RBY and GSC for all managers, and with only 6 tiers to pick between to fill, there's a much higher chance of all tiers getting played and managers favoring certain lower tiers in the draft process. The only issue here might be the lack of variety with only 6 tiers, but truthfully, with how many good players can play those 6 tiers, I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of mix ups across teams.

3) Do 4 Flex slots WITH RBY and GSC - Take everything that was written above, but now add two more options into the mix. I'm personally leaning this way because it doesn't just sideline these two communities, but actively gives them an opportunity to play. When there are 4 non repeating tiers, it becomes much more likely that counter picking and different old gen combinations pop up. RBY and GSC now become a real part of everyone's draft plans, especially if those two communities decide to make themselves part of them. I personally lean this direction for the tour, but I also acknowledge that without the two tiers makes sense as well.

if people sign to a tour, they want to be actively involved

Totally taking this out of context to make one last point because it's exactly what I want to say. If people want RBY and GSC to be more active in our tournaments, take initiative. Signing up to manage for example would force people to really consider the tiers when drafting. Linking games to talk about them in the NU discord get's people paying attention. Putting discussion/resources out there during Classic to try and hook NU mains works (see: Oathkeeper, Steppy, Roxie, or Stories). Getting more involved in NU tiers outside of RBY/GSC to increase crossover and community influence will work. etc etc etc etc etc. As much as we want to pretend this is a two way street, it really isn't accurate. Yes there has to be some give from the NU community, which has already taken place in the form of things like allowing them within NU Classic, thanks to Eternbia or a potential Boomer tour, but it also can't be that the only relationship is this thread once a year from RBY and GSC. If it's wanted to be included going forward, it has to be wanted by both parties.

 

[MrSoup]

Signing up to manage for example would force people to really consider the tiers when drafting. Linking games to talk about them in the NU discord get's people paying attention.

This is pretty disingenuous. I’m at an inherent disadvantage when it comes to signing up to manage because 1. Why would I get picked if I don’t play the other tiers 2. I don’t have the knowledge to manage and contribute to other tiers.

Totally taking this out of context to make one last point because it's exactly what I want to say. If people want RBY and GSC to be more active in our tournaments, take initiative.

The power of the nu moderation team to include old gens is so much greater than my possible singular contributions of linking a match. Our GSC community is very small but always enough to fill 6-8 slot team tours. Bee, a GSC mod, has talked to the NU moderators for almost two years now about GSC inclusion. This outreach is typically done collectively as a player base. I dont think its crazy to see that people have lost motivation for taking initiative after being shot down continuously. It's also just a general fact that the GSC community does not feel welcomed by the NU community as a whole from these interactions.

Putting discussion/resources out there during Classic to try and hook NU mains works (see: Oathkeeper, Steppy, Roxie, or Stories).

Bee and I have created many many resources for GSC NU when it comes to analyses, vrs, and metagame discussion. We do these ahead of classic/gsc slam. The last time we updated samples I sent them to Rabia. We don't have an army of people to make resources but when we make them we definitely put them out there.

 

[LHF]

Now for the juicy topic: RBY and GSC in this tour and how to encourage games to happen


We've obviously been covering this specific topic a bunch in the NU Discord the past day or so, but it deserves repeating here. RBY and GSC NU are fundamentally different than other old gen NUs because they're specifically tied to their respective gens for communities rather than this one. Unlike other gens, which have a relatively wide variety of NU community mainstays who play or understand them, there's no crossover between RBY players and the larger NU community and almost none as well when it comes to GSC. They were post gen creations spurred on by their respective gens independent of the NU community, and unlike DPP or ADV which had a lower barrier of entry mechanic wise, they haven't caught on within the larger communities the way, for example, GSC UU has. Because of this, the average NU community member really has no interaction or understand of the tiers, how they work, who's involved, etc outside of this one month of NUCL discussion and past tours which...didn't go great. I think it's worth noting all of this because it explains the current dynamics. No tier is entitled to representation just because they're called NU, especially as more gens are added. At the end of the day, what gets tour representation are the tiers with player bases and some sort of good standing within the NU community. Even tiers that are considered "worse" like BW or DPP have players who consistently show up to play it and people within the community who like to play it casually, such as myself. This isn't a diss of the tiers or communities; it's just the reality of the situation.

If people want RBY and GSC to be more active in our tournaments, take initiative. Signing up to manage for example would force people to really consider the tiers when drafting. Linking games to talk about them in the NU discord get's people paying attention. Putting discussion/resources out there during Classic to try and hook NU mains works (see: Oathkeeper, Steppy, Roxie, or Stories). Getting more involved in NU tiers outside of RBY/GSC to increase crossover and community influence will work. etc etc etc etc etc. As much as we want to pretend this is a two way street, it really isn't accurate. Yes there has to be some give from the NU community, which has already taken place in the form of things like allowing them within NU Classic, thanks to Eternbia or a potential Boomer tour, but it also can't be that the only relationship is this thread once a year from RBY and GSC. If it's wanted to be included going forward, it has to be wanted by both parties.

I appreciate your reply explaining how RBY and GSC were retroactively created and how that has impacted the tiers. I admit I needed that reminder and I do agree that this does make it a bit awkward. However if anything I actually think that strengthens the argument MrSoup puts out in that if you would like RBY and GSC to have more involvement, then the olive branch must be extended downward from the modship because these communities can only do so much from the shadows. Speaking as someone who has looked at the GSC NU resources to learn the tier quite recently(though I'm below average compared to someone who takes it seriously), I can absolutely vouch that the material is there from Bee/Soup/company(other examples of dawnbuster's videos regarding viability of mons in GSC can be used there). But all the best resources in the world can't necessarily attract attention to a tier alone to which we very much agree.

"No tier is entitled to representation just because they're called NU, especially as more gens are added. At the end of the day, what gets tour representation are the tiers with player bases and some sort of good standing within the NU community."

I think it's phrasing like this which is what alienates the communities you're talking about. Because in fact, I would argue that we ARE taking initiative by making posts like this to draw attention to our concerns, only to receive comments like the one quoted above. I'm not saying you're wrong to make it, but comments like this completely disillusion the respective RBY and GSC communities from trying to push further. We can only meet the community's attempt halfway, which is why the last part of your post which reads "if it's wanted to be included going forward, it has to be wanted by both parties" rings a little hollow.

I know that words can seem snippy over the internet if you can't hear someone's tone; I mean absolutely no ill will by any of this. But if it really is the "reality of the situation" that people just don't really plug into this scene well, then I think it lends even more toward BeeOrSomething's point that RBY and GSC could simply be removed as in your proposed options #1 and #2. Again I think it's very clear that there is interest being expressed by the playerbases to be involved, because why else would this conversation be going on in the first place... but as you describe it yourself - "as much as we want to pretend it's a two way street, it's really not."

I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The disagreement that seems to be going on here is who bears the onus of responsibility with regards to community integration. There's a suggestion that RBY and GSC need a little bit of extra help to be seen on a similar(even if slightly lesser) wavelength than the other oldgen NUs, which both parties agree on. To defend the point of the ancient playerbases, I could easily point to the body of work produced by the GSC NU community in specific(I cannot and will not speak for RBY as I don't play it) but apparently Bee has been knocking on that door for a while now.

None of this is meant to disparage any user as much as it is made to exemplify a point that there really has been a lot of work done(again, NOT by me, I just give props to hard work when and where I see it) to legitimize these tiers and have them be seen as members of the NU community.
However, if it is a predominant belief that RBY and GSC are just too much effort to integrate with the rest of the community due to their unique origins and the fact that the average NU community member does not know how they work - which is a sentiment that seems to be prevalent throughout this post by bits and pieces I have quoted - then I really don't see why or what more the communities can do to advocate for ourselves.

Having said that, and wanting to keep this constructive because I really do want to keep this as a good faith post: I think that your second proposed option is arguably the best one because it serves the interest of all parties. I think that the proposed identity of this tour appears to be about managerial strategy and a Battleship like approach, and I think this encourages more conscious decision making in composition and attack plans for lineups. it also increases the likelihood that the Fairyless generations will see more play than they otherwise would and keep people more active in a team tour than they would be otherwise if they were called in for week 2, week 5, etc.

 

[RufflesPro]

As a complete outsider who doesn't main NU but rather mains ORAS as a gen and plays ORAS NU as an extension of maining ORAS, I want to say I would appreciate quite a bit if there remains some locked tiers. My concern is if it's just SV + Flex and then people who only play 1 NU tier will be locked out of this tour.

I have zero experience with flex tiers as I never played a tour with them, so I'm not sure how it exactly would pan out in reality. As long as someone like me who plays only ORAS NU, but plays it really well, can participate in this tour and shine and not be a strategical burden to the managers, then I'm happy.

 

[juoean]

As a complete outsider who doesn't main NU but rather mains ORAS as a gen and plays ORAS NU as an extension of maining ORAS, I want to say I would appreciate quite a bit if there remains some locked tiers. My concern is if it's just SV + Flex and then people who only play 1 NU tier will be locked out of this tour.

I have zero experience with flex tiers as I never played a tour with them, so I'm not sure how it exactly would pan out in reality. As long as someone like me who plays only ORAS NU, but plays it really well, can participate in this tour and shine and not be a strategical burden to the managers, then I'm happy.

fwiw i think that with any version of a flex tiers tour, it advantages people who can play multiple gens and disadvantage those who cant.

in the original proposal where you had to draft plan around 8+ out of 10 slots per week in fairy gens, but with none of oras-swsh guaranteed more than one slot, players who could play across multiple fairy gens wouldve been very valued compared to someone who can only play one fairy gen. not that there wouldve been no place for the latter, but if u were drafting 10 fairy gen potential-starters youd want idk 6 or more of them to be able to slot in multiple gens.
tho that proposal also heavily favored fairy gens in general so that might have evened out things a bit for a mono-fairy-gen player

obv it is somewhat tbd how drafts will go, but yes in general a flex-slot format significantly values players who can play in multiple slots, its kind of the core premise of the format to mix things up as compared to the standard 'each player plays the same tier every week'

 

[Ren-chon]

Hi, folks! NU staff has been debating all issues brought up here and on NU cord for the past few days. First, I wanna say we are aware this new format may not please everyone, but I also urge all of you to give it a try for this edition, and depending on general perception from the playerbase we will be making new changes for next edition. With that said, the official format for NUCL II will be as follow:

- 2 SV + 4 Flex lots for each team (SV 1 / SV 2 / 8 Flex).
- Repeats allowed between teams, but not from the same team (Team A and Team B can both pick SM, but Team A can't pick SM 1 SM 2). Repeats are also allowed between weeks.
- 6 teams, with a potential increase to 8 depending on manager sign-ups.
- Regular round robin into poffs, with poffs format TBD depending on number of teams.
- Each player is only allowed to play a single tier every week (so no "flex player" as suggested on the OP).

More details such as list of flex tiers, budget, retains, self-buys and all will be on manager sign-ups, which should be going up shortly. Locking up this thread now. Thank you everyone