ORAS art credits to IMakeNoSense.
The Draft League subforum is launching its next tournament, ORAS IV! Each tournament ran this year will be a part of the 2026 Draft League Circuit and will provide points toward this year's Draft League Championship. This tournament is a Type B tournament and will be hosted by a fairy and Khaz. This tournament will take place in the [Gen 6] Draft tier on Pokémon Showdown! and battles will take place in pools followed by a single elimination bracket.
The following spoilers will cover signup information and rules for the tournament.
Tournament sizes are dependent on number of total valid signups (individuals who sign up, join the Discord server and are verified in the Discord #verification channel). The first 62.5% of competitors that sign up are guaranteed entry, while the remaining 37.5% are randomly chosen from the remaining player pool.
Example: 350 players sign up, leading to a 320 person tour. The first 219 signups are guaranteed to be in the tour and the remaining 101 spots are randomly picked from the 131 remaining signups. Substitutes are picked on a first-come, first-served basis from the remaining signups. Once signups are sorted, the tour will follow the structure.
Example: 350 players sign up, leading to a 320 person tour. The first 219 signups are guaranteed to be in the tour and the remaining 101 spots are randomly picked from the 131 remaining signups. Substitutes are picked on a first-come, first-served basis from the remaining signups. Once signups are sorted, the tour will follow the structure.
- Players will be placed in draft pools sorted by their time zones. They will be tagged in announcements when the draft begins, along with the sheet for their draft pool. It's advised to read the pinned message in your pool chat to further understand rules specific to the draft (as well as the Draft Rules section of this post for bans).
- Once the draft ends, the hosts will release the round 1 matchups via Smogon. These will be posted to the Discord in announcements. Each round, with the exception of battle pools, will always last one week. Battle pools (if applicable) will last two.
- You have up to 90 points with which to draft 8 Pokémon. Costs are listed on your pool’s tab on the drafting spreadsheet.
- You may only draft 1 Mega Evolution and the non-Mega variants of Pokémon may not Mega Evolve.
- If a Pokémon is picked by someone else, you may not pick it.
- For the first round, there is a 12 hour timer. After the first round ends, there will be a continuous 6 hour timer within which you must pick, or you will be skipped, and will be required to make-up your pick when you are next online. All timers are off between 10pm-7am local time (check your pools pinned message for local time).
- Your timer will halve every time you are skipped. It is recommended to leave picks (with backups) with your pool moderator to avoid this.
- The following complex bans are in place:
- Blaziken may not have the ability Speed Boost.
- Greninja may not have the ability Protean.
- No Pokémon may hold the item Soul Dew. - The following Pokémon have access to all of their forms (although you may only bring up to 1 to each battle):
- Pikachu
- Wormadam
- Basculin
- Meowstic
- Pumpkaboo
- Gourgeist - Smogon’s Species Clause applies to your draft.
- All games must be played in the [Gen 6] Draft tier on smogtours.psim.us or psim.us. Be aware that each game on smogtours starts a timer automatically and cannot be turned off.
- General tournament rules and regulations can be found here.
- ORAS cartridge win conditions are in place; there are no ties.
- Each set is a best-of-one set.
- The following clauses apply:
- Species Clause: A player cannot have two Pokémon with the same National Pokédex number on a team.
- Sleep Clause: If a player has already put a Pokémon on their opponent's side to sleep and it is still sleeping, another one can't be put to sleep.
- Evasion Clause: A Pokémon may not hold an item, use a move or possess an ability that can increase their evasion stat
- OHKO Clause: A Pokémon may not have the moves Fissure, Guillotine, Horn Drill, or Sheer Cold in its moveset.
- Moody Clause: A team cannot have a Pokémon with the ability Moody.
- Endless Battle Clause: Players cannot intentionally prevent an opponent from being able to end the game without forfeiting.
- Swagger Clause: A Pokémon may not have Swagger in its moveset. - Quick Claw and King's Rock are banned.
- Baton Pass is banned.
- Any items unreleased in ORAS are banned.
- Rankings within pools may not be 100% accurate as the spreadsheet does not track head-to-head results. Players will advance based on scoring, where a 3-0 and 2-1 record will advance.
- Replays must be posted to the pool/round thread, please mention the result, your opponent's name and your pool number.
About Activity Decisions
In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent, or if hosts determine an activity win was earned based on public contact. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, it is recommended that you open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold and provide a link to the evidence of an activity win.
For example, if you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.
Please note that all extension requests and activity claims must be posted to the thread, and that all of these will be judged on a case by case basis.
[Credit to the Official Smogon Tournament hosting team for the base form of this rule.]
In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent, or if hosts determine an activity win was earned based on public contact. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, it is recommended that you open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold and provide a link to the evidence of an activity win.
For example, if you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.
Please note that all extension requests and activity claims must be posted to the thread, and that all of these will be judged on a case by case basis.
[Credit to the Official Smogon Tournament hosting team for the base form of this rule.]
Contact your opponent as soon as possible upon the round going up. Activity cases are going to be handled in a very strict manner.
When scheduling, offer as wide a swathe of time when you are available to play. 1 hour of activity on one or two weeknights is unlikely to be considered acceptable.
Schedule specifically - do not schedule for "Friday afternoon" or "Sunday morning", pick a date, a time and note the time zone, ideally as GMT offset.
If either host catches news of ghosting or some other sort of nefarious play, we reserve the right to investigate to the full limits of our ability.
When scheduling, offer as wide a swathe of time when you are available to play. 1 hour of activity on one or two weeknights is unlikely to be considered acceptable.
Schedule specifically - do not schedule for "Friday afternoon" or "Sunday morning", pick a date, a time and note the time zone, ideally as GMT offset.
If either host catches news of ghosting or some other sort of nefarious play, we reserve the right to investigate to the full limits of our ability.
DISCORD HERE: https://discord.gg/TcNr8jgpnR
Matchup Doc.
Round 3
JeoZ vs Babydragonzard
Zygarde12 vs GBlade
Elite4Elwin vs TWiTT
Pyronox vs ogalbina
Thanos vs StarMaiden ;W;
Clb7 vs King Choco
Andrew M vs jscurf
mia asf vs Babyhuey
mbf vs DiamondScyther
Fc vs Fraolain
Roller K vs Minotaur5555
kumiko vs DJS
Bowas vs ALG Spies
Lyra vs Ultrxviolet
SinOfWrath vs divine.lathe
ThinkingSceptile vs Sibwind
sylvea vs robjr
GoldenCyber vs Hadesofender
MrSvancy vs mclagno
JRoberts vs chimp
VoidOfDarknesss vs Razorgliscor
Mada vs yfy
Firechicken1 vs An Agent of Chaos
IMCOOKiNG vs xGinesect
Azcelerator vs thunderbug
SIrKill vs Stefaan
trace vs ETJX
Ryu u Sirox vs NHLKA
profchipboard vs OhioGengar
@[K-12] The Madchine vs thebeardydragon
JackRG vs softlock
DonMarto vs Dustbin Lexi
Zylvani vs AlephSubZero
Haildras vs ZDen
Jamieon vs Steven Stone 007
Mushroom-Flower vs PaperRuby
Treestain vs Offset Product
himynameisbobert vs lavaskull100
Asamuni vs Furyy
steinbaum vs Hys
Professor Shuckle vs Celeste
Figgy7 vs Winner of (Puckbud vs Gengar_Mask)
OrnLatios vs HJ5ean
DyeItTight vs samuelthestrong
Mysterious Player vs FogHorn
Quarante8 vs Ryueen
impersonxtor vs Donnel
Heinny vs a12qsd too
Tech Froakies vs AgencyIsOwn
Almighty Rye vs ZeroNo
Bastien_YG vs laffon
OdinRM vs jeronis
Nalaa vs Treyunt
Idyll vs sablolol
babble vs huuh
churrojr vs Paying Attenton
dawnmidst vs Moron5
God Kohl vs VALCON
gengariza vs naviii 1
EviGaro vs Martiniman64
GamerOfTheYear2020 vs TheHelixFossil1
CanuckChum vs CoffeeBeanz2
Crysite vs Hycrox
lighthouses vs LeftoverHotdish
Round 2 extensions will end 11:59PM GMT+/-0 on Wednesday, February 11th
Round 3 will end 11:59PM GMT+/-0 on Sunday, February 15th
This thread and all future ORAS Cup threads should be considered the final ruling in case of discrepancy between threads, Discord announcements, and Google spreadsheets. Contact a host if you have any questions or spot an error. We are human, after all.