Tournament OUPL VIII Format Discussion

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Hello everyone, OUPL will be returning soon and will run during November and December, and this month will be used to set things up (format, manager and player signups). This thread will be used as a place to suggest format/timeline changes and whatever the community wishes to have for the upcoming OUPL. The tournament will have custom avatar and banner prizes like it did last year.

A potential timeline is as follows:
  • Format discussion - today until whenever, probably Sunday October 6th
  • Manager signups - Sunday October 6th - Sunday October 13th (managers will be announced that day)
  • Player Signups - Sunday October 13th - Thursday night October 24th
  • Auction - October 26th or 27th
  • Week 1 - October 28th (8th week of SCL)
  • Week 7 - December 9th
  • Finals - December 23rd (assuming no tiebreaks)
The format of the previous edition was 10 slots:

SV OU x4
SV OU Suspect Slot x1 (later turned into a 5th SV OU slot)
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
Multigen Best of 3

Personally I'm not expecting another suspect slot unless there's a some Ubers mon like Darkrai people want to play with, but I will list some options to get us started off with for what that slot could be:
  • 5th SV OU - some people will dread too many SV OU slots, but this tournament is also meant for the OU community, which is massive, and I think we'd prefer more inclusion than exclusion
  • Manager battle - I'm not sure how I'd balance this, but it could be a fun slot if managers are up for battling each week
  • ORAS OU - I got a lot of questions about this last year, and I told everyone that ROAPL would handle ORAS OU, but if the community wants ORAS OU, then I'm all for it. It would be better if we had 2 slots for this, so that might be a bit awkward and might lead to cutting out an SV OU slot, but we'll see.
  • SV OU with some twist - basically what we did with the suspect slot last year, where we allowed Darkrai to be played. This one could be a lot of things, such as freeing a random Ubers every 2 weeks, playing with no Tera, playing without some OU mon, or whatever else. Whatever gets suggested, try to keep reasonable and not something like inverse typing.
  • 2nd Bo3 slot - gives more people an opportunity to play in a Best of 3 format against other good players
  • Dynamax SS OU Slot - Dynamax has been long gone and some hate SS OU for being boring, but this is a chaotic option to attempt to play it again with the generational gimmick.
The purpose of this tournament is to provide a platform for the OU community to compete and have fun together in a semi-serious tournament setting. It's a fun way to meet new people, make new friends, and get your name out there if you're hoping to break into the tournament scene. I'll leave this thread open for a while and give the community some time to decide what they want in terms of format and timeline. In terms of timeline, the above schedule I posted could start then, or perhaps a week or 2 delay to let the tour continue into January a little bit. Format wise I think we'll stick with 10 slots and 8 teams like we did last year. 8 teams means 7 weeks so that will not be changing.

Finally, if there are any suggestions in general, like Power rankings or twitch streams/recaps, feel free to suggest those too. A full PR thread will take a while to write up, so do keep that in mind.

I will be hosting and here's to hoping we have another successful OUPL.
 
If we do go with a suspect slot again I would suggest making it limited to testing only one Pokémon for the entire duration of the tournament (or till it turns into another sv slot I don’t know when that is). It’s extremely pointless imo to switch mons every two weeks as it loses the purpose of an actual long term experiment. Palafin would probably be a good candidate to test. I also support not doing a suspect slot at all though, just wanted to say if we do go with one that’s probably how it should be done, one mon only.
 
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Hello everyone,

I was summoned. Saying ORAS in your post 3 times makes me appear.

Nothing would make me (and the oras community) happier than OUPL having ORAS.

ORAS has evolved as a meta quite a bit decently since say 2 years ago thanks to both SPL and masters. With quite a few excellent builders like Xray, Fade, PJ, and myself busting out consistent fresh bangers, returning builders like ABR and MANNAT, and with creative new builders like Blubird and Devin, I think the meta feels as fresh and as fun as ever.

Playerbase wise, it has also grown quite a bit thanks to its inclusion in WCOP bringing new faces in and showcasing just how fun and creative this tier can be. The side tours like ROAPL and ORASPL have been quite successful in bringing attention and discourse I would say from the ORAS OU side. Now with masters ORAS is back to being one of the main courses on the dinner table for the next 3 months and I think everyone is enjoying it. Even my friend blunder is back to laddering and uplaoding ORAS shit's crazy.

2 slots would be ideal but I think I'm happy enough with one slot.
 
Agree with Akalli above although I think as a whole the suspect slot is flawed and largely unnecessary in current gen, I don't believe it's ever an accurate representation, lack of building new teams aside (something I noticed was a problem last year), the condensed volume of games don't really lead to any productive metagame predictions that could let us see whether or not X mon could have a chance of dropping. I believe ORAS has been growing a lot recently, and it seems like a lot of new people are playing that tier a ton + showing a lot of interest, think it would be a nice fit in the tour, I like the idea of incorporating another tier into the OU Community if the player base shows a lot of interest. I know it's not really the "point" of this tournament, but having all fairy gens in here would be cool as well. 5 SV slots could be cool too, if ORAS ends up not being an option.
 
As i managed in the previous oupl, my conclusion was that the sv suspect slot was just annoying to do/prep in. Like i get the idea behind it but i would like it more if ORAS would be included in this. I would go in depth about this but in truth, i am a very lazy writer so i hope you get my point. (Ruffles already mentioned why ORAS can be included in this).
However if you do want to add in a Bo3 Slot, it could very well be a Masters tier slot as well (SS, SM, ORAS).

My proposition would be the following:

SV OU x4
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x1
Masters x1

OR

SV OU x4
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x1
S tour Bo3 x1
 
i think a suspect slot is not necessary with OU currently being in a suspect test-happy era, only thing i can see happening is just a fun slot with unbanned Ubers, and besides not having all fairy gens feels pretty weird, My suggestion is

SV OU x4
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x1
S tour Bo3 x1

or

SV OU x3
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x2
S tour Bo3 x1
 
Last year i enjoyed playing and prepin for suspect test slot but i think the meta is in a v different state atm than how it was back then. I dont think we will benefit from that slot again.
I enjoy ORAS. I vote including it over the other ideas.

Managers idea could be fun too but balancin it when u have elite players like Welliou or Finch managing last year but also SV newbs or like people who dont exactly compete in the tier as much and only manage tours facing each week.. might be tough.

Natdex OU could be interesting, its not an official tier or anything (just like dynamax shit wouldnt be) but it would be fun to see the communities in a relatively big teamtour for once working and playing together.
 
Oras is awesome pick that
But if you really want to test something do
OU with No Tera Blast and Volcarona and Regieleki are Unbanned
Can optionally add stored power ban + espathra/magearna
 
SV OU x4
SS OU x3
SM OU x2
Smogon Tour BO3 ×1

no need for a suspect slot since the tier doesn't change and it will not change based off this tournament.
make all the sv ou tera less, wanna see the skill to be rewarded
oras is not invited to the discussion
 
Mimikyu Stardust said:
i think a suspect slot is not necessary with OU currently being in a suspect test-happy era, only thing i can see happening is just a fun slot with unbanned Ubers, and besides not having all fairy gens feels pretty weird, My suggestion is

SV OU x4
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x1
S tour Bo3 x1

or

SV OU x3
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x2
S tour Bo3 x1
Click to expand...
agree here, I dont think the suspect slot is necessary either, I dont see much encouragement in that slot after what it was last year.

And both of these formats look very cool and inclusive in general, I think it would make a lot of sense to include ORAS being a fairy gen more. :blobthumbsup:
 
I agree with points raised above; we don't need a SV OU suspect slot, not in the current state of the tier, tbh. Adding at least 1 ORAS OU slot seems cool, even if I don't play the tier at all. I'm probably just biased but if we're not going for 2x ORAS OU, then keep 4 SV OU slots; you can add a SV No Tera but not necessary; Tera is part of the gen anyway
Mimikyu Stardust said:
i think a suspect slot is not necessary with OU currently being in a suspect test-happy era, only thing i can see happening is just a fun slot with unbanned Ubers, and besides not having all fairy gens feels pretty weird, My suggestion is

SV OU x4
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x1
S tour Bo3 x1

or

SV OU x3
SS OU x2
SM OU x2
ORAS OU x2
S tour Bo3 x1
Click to expand...
These suggestions seem ideal

edit: I forgot Bo3 Multigen included ORAS, if we're going for this, then 1 ORAS OU is fine imo. STour Bo3 could mean 2x ORAS OU yeah.
 
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Suspect slots always seem cool before the tournament, but never actually do anything conclusive beyond annoy people to build slightly differently during the tournament. I do not think we need one or should include one.

I personally prefer ORAS OU being included if there’s enough ORAS interest.

SV SV SV SV SS SS SM SM ORAS Bo3 is the best. STour generations getting 2x with ORAS and Bo3 splitting gets the best of both. Bo3 slots don’t move the needle a ton for me personally, but 2 ORAS seems a bit much and we do not want an odd number of slots.
 
Finchinator said:
And copy-pasting the tier, but removing Tera or Tera Blast / adding Tera Preview should be a non-starter. That’s not really even a thing. The tiers would play out vastly differently and it’s not up to this tournament to play god in litigating that.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't want necessary to contradict, not my intention at all, but I think theoretically there is not a huge difference between a suspect slot and a no tera meta. I think that as long there are people committed to invest time in this tier for this tournament it might be worth trying. Can't an oupl format survey be done to see if people actually want to try some new format like that in OUPL like a suspect slot or a no tera/tera preview? I mean even having hypnosis darkrai in oupl suspect slot last year was literally playing god in some sense if you get me, I'm sure there would surely be competent people willing to play these more particular formats.
 
Pais said:
Sorry, I don't want necessary to contradict, not my intention at all, but I think theoretically there is not a huge difference between a suspect slot and a no tera meta
Click to expand...
I agree. Both are bad. In the post directly above what you quoted, I explained the suspect slot has been a failure, too:
Finchinator said:
Suspect slots always seem cool before the tournament, but never actually do anything conclusive beyond annoy people to build slightly differently during the tournament. I do not think we need one or should include one.
Click to expand...
Last tournament, players from multiple teams complained to me about the Darkrai slot not actually being productive.
—-
Pais said:
Can't an oupl format survey be done to see if people actually want to try some new format like that in OUPL like a suspect slot or a no tera/tera preview?
Click to expand...
If enough people want to play something, then they should be able to regardless of my personal opinion or a slot’s history. If hosts want to go this route, I will not stop them. It’s important that what is best for the community happens after all, so I will not stand in the way of that at all.
 
as a manager last year i hated the suspect slot, personally I dont think suspect slots should be in any serious b list tour (sspl, smpl, uupl, rupl etc...). these slots can be fun but i feel they a) take away from the competitiveness of the tour by introducing factors that drastically change the tiers being prepped and played since i consider them a step below officials, b) dont promote a environment that give a accurate conclusion on if something is worth resuspecting or not and c) i personally dont find them fun to build for. Not that the tour has to be super duper serious and super duper competitive but when it comes to what i prefer id like to avoid a suspect slot or anything introducing factors that arent in the current metagames.

given oras' recent revival the last year i'd like to give it a slot, i personally lean towards one oras as i like the format as is otherwise but if it wouldnt be the end of the world if theres two to give more oras players a space to shine equally to the other masters tiers.

giving oras a slot also gives hellom a place to l2p
 
As a spectator, the two-week suspect rotation was not a particularly good indicator of what a world would look like with the unbans in question. It just became a dynamic of people overcorrecting for the pick of the week. Two weeks was not long enough for building to acclimate to the state of affairs.

If there's going to be any suspect/twist slot at all, perhaps it could run for the entire regular season, or at least longer than two weeks, so that it can actually serve as a slightly more serious experiment and not just throwing in an Uber for two weeks.

That said, several people in this thread who actually play in OUPL have already voiced displeasure for prepping/building for the slot, and if the players at large are unhappy about the idea of the slot that should take precedence over spectator concerns or use of the slot as an experiment. I'm just a guy, I don't have a dog in this fight.
 
All in for oras' addition. Just wanted to make a quick post about preferring SV5 > SM2, feels like other than skype/charmflash you've not had newer teams or styles pop up much. It does feel counter intuitive to limit the room for potential growth of said tier, but I'm not sure if a lot will come out of it having a second slot in OUPL - I personally feel that people will shuffle between the same old stuff until deciding weeks/playoffs. As someone who was involved in the managerial decisions of our team last year - it was also pretty difficult to find to fill in 2 SM slots, which seemed to be the case for a lot of other teams (who just threw in a "good" player for SM and hoped for the best). SV is always buzzing and will be considerably easier to draft/prep for all things considered.
Doing SV5 would mean I'd give preference to masters bo3 > stours bo3 so that there's not too much SV
Here's my format of choice
SV x 5
SS x 2
SM
ORAS
Masters bo3
 
Hey, I just wanna share my opinion on what the format should be for this OUPL.

First of all, I agree with others that a suspect slot is NOT needed here, as I feel like the meta has evolved to a point where it is reaching the endgame of it’s development and there is not too much needed to be tested anyone. Now, I believe that there are two options that seem to be the best to me: Either get rid of suspect and move one SV slot to give 3 SS and SM slots (that way there is a fair balance of every single gen as well as give some more representation and opportunities to players of lower fairy gens) or remove suspect for ORAS and put masters bo3 over stours bo3 (gives more lower fairy gen representation and there’d be 4 sv slots anyways).

TLDR:
Option 1 (personally preferred):
SV x 3
SS x 3
SM x 3
Stours bo3

Or

Option 2:
SV x 4
SS x 2
SM x 2
ORAS
Masters bo3
 
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