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Tournament OUPL X - Commencement

TPP

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Hosted by TPP, goldmason, and cala​

This will be the commencement thread for OUPL X. OUPL will be 8 teams with 10 starting slots this year. This year's managers will be:

List of teams and managers are:

:tapu-bulu: Tapu Labulus - vk Fusien Vioz
:kingambit: Idle Death Gambits - clean hellom Fragments
:infernape: Ironclad Infernapes - Wesleyy Laurel Vulpix03
:gengar: Phantom Troupe - tokyo prison purbaj BluBirD
:tinkaton: Hammertime Harlequins - leng loi Kate JUST ONE GALATINA
:gengar-mega: Shadow Syndicate - Howkings c0mp Kustavan
:squirtle: Squirtle Squad - QWILY fakenagol Ruffles
:xurkitree: Supercell Xurkitrees - Toxinalpaca Kingler Mada

The format for this edition of OUPL will be 10 slots:
  • SV OU x 3
  • SS OU x 2
  • SM OU x 2
  • ORAS OU x 2
  • Best of 3 (SV OU/ SS OU/SM OU)
Tournaments Rules and General Guidelines

General Team Tour Rules & Regulations

Total money for teams is 140,000 credits. There will be no holdover on extra credits from previous years - everyone starts with a blank slate and 140k.

In the weeks preceding the live auction, a time will be chosen by managers to meet and perform a live auction in order to choose players. Managers will be expected to remain at the auction for the entire duration, which should take approximately 2-3 hours. If all of a team's managers cannot, for some reason, find any feasible time that they can attend a Live Auction, then a new team of managers who can find time to make a live auction will be found to replace the old ones.

Once a time is set, all managers + the hosts will enter the place where the auction will be held - likely the Showdown server. Spectators are allowed to join in to watch the fun unfold, but will not be able to speak. Discussion on the bidding at hand should be relegated to the OU room chatroom or any other appropriate chat outlet.

The hosts will first ask a team to nominate a player. The order by which teams will nominate players will go in a snaking pattern from the highest ranked team from last year to the lowest ranked team, then the lowest ranked team to the highest ranked team. The hosts will then tell the details of said player and bidding will commence, starting at 3000 credits, with the nominating team automatically placing the first bid. The auction will then be in real time. Managers will simply put in their bids in the chat, raising a minimum of 500 credits. If after 15 seconds there are no new bids, the player is sold to the highest bid in the channel. The hosts or utilized bot will provide a 5 second warning before bidding is closed on a player. The updated credit totals will then be posted and then the next manager in the rotation will be prompted to nominate a player.

Managers are advised that placed bids are final, and we will generally not permit an undo in the case of a mistake. Exceptions can be made in cases where a team nominates an incorrect player or if a typo in a bid amount would threaten the integrity of the team as a whole. Please make sure to double check your bids before sending them!

Managers are asked to please have a predetermined list of players you intend to nominate as well as potential bid caps, in order to make the process go as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

Managers: it is necessary for you to field a roster of 10 starters, a minimum of 4 substitutes, and a maximum of 20 players, of which all must be paid at least 3000 credits. This creates a soft cap of 101,000 credits on any particular bid - that is, the maximum amount of money you can spend on any one player and still have enough money left over to pay at least 3000 credits a piece on 13 more players.

Remember that there are midseason free agent pick-ups. It may be beneficial to save some credits in order to pick up players midseason, but remember that no new players will be allowed to sign up for the midseason draft.
It is at this time that the tournament will commence. The league stages consist of a Round Robin tournament. Every team will face every other team once through 9 weeks of play. Each manager will submit to the hosts a roster no later than the deadline of the previous week. This roster will list the starting players and what metagames they will play.

When the week starts, teams' players will face off in their respective metagames / tiers. The SV OU 1 from Team A will face the SV OU 1 from team B, SV OU 2 will face SV OU 2, and so on. Whichever team wins the most battles will be declared the victor for the week. Rather than score based on how many individual battles a team wins, the primary thing that matters is who beat the most teams. As such, points are awarded based only on wins and losses versus teams as a whole, not individual players. Beating a team in a week’s matchups is worth two points, tying with a team is worth one point, and losing is worth none, simple as that. At the end of the round robin, the top four teams in the points proceed to the playoffs and will be seeded into a knock-out style bracket where they will face off until only one team remains.

There are a few regulatory things during the league stages that need to be outlined.

1. Substitutes – At any point in time during the week, a team may make a substitution for a currently slotted player. In order to do this a manager must post in the thread, tagging the hosts, the opposing managers and the opposing player stating which player is substituting out, and which player is substituting in. A player that has substituted out for a week cannot be substituted back in. In addition, all substitutions are subject to veto by the hosts if the substitution is suspected to be attempting to “game” the system. Substituting in a player who is unavailable to play at any of the times the opposing team has previously offered in order to force a double substitution is not permitted and the player who was substituted in will be required to be substituted out.

2. There will be no trades allowed at any point during OUPL.

3. Activity decisions – There are inevitably times where two players simply fail to complete a match; however, the nature of the tournament system sometimes makes it advantageous to purposely fail to play (such as when a team is up 6-5 in a week). Because of this, it is necessary to make activity decisions on matches. Hosts are required to make thorough investigations regarding each and every potential failed match during a week. If both parties are deemed to be equally apathetic or enthusiastic about getting the match done, but just have not had the opportunity to make it happen, the match will result in a no contest. However, if it is deemed that one party made significantly more effort than the other in attempting to get the match done, then a win will be awarded to that player. Things that will make it very likely that you will lose via activity include: failing to VM your opponent immediately upon the week’s start, scheduling a match and being documented as missing the match time, failing to provide any concrete times for which you can be reached, failing to respond to an opponent’s VM at all. Please be certain to review the guidelines for a favorable judgement in an activity decision. Note that this is a tournament that requires a very high level of activity and diligence, if you don’t think you can get your matches done, quite simply don’t sign up.

4. Rule Breaking – There is no excuse for breaking any of the predetermined rules. If you are caught breaking a rule, you will lose your match. There is no lenience with regards to this. Break a rule, you lose. Period.

5. Reversing Rulings - No ruling will be retroactively overturned once the week following the week that the ruling has been made has ended. This includes: activity rulings / rulings based on rule breaking / anything else under the sun. I'm not going back in time to reevaluate every single decision I've made throughout the tournament on Week 9 because you think you were gypped 1-2 wins along the way and now they're the difference between you and a playoff spot. Any appeals to a ruling must be made during the week that the ruling is made; beyond that, all rulings are final once the week ends.

6. Recreations – Under some circumstances, generally due to a true disconnection, the host team may determine that a game must be recreated. Ideally, this recreation will take place immediately, but if the completion of the game needs to be rescheduled then a host or tournament director will recreate the game with the same players at a later time. Neither player may be substituted out for the recreation, but otherwise standard rules for activity decisions will apply.

7. Changes to Tiers (NEW) - Standard practice is that any changes to a tier that happen after a week is posted, e.g. suspect test or council bans, new Pokemon releases, or standard tiering shifts, will not go into effect until the following week. Any exceptions to this will be announced by the host in the administrative thread.
Sellbacks
Up until week 4 managers will have the opportunity to report players that they believe are not meeting minimum activity requirements and/or sabotaging their team to the hosts. The hosts will review the team situation on the first 2 days of Week 5, and if it is found that the player in question is indeed guilty of one or both, the team will be allowed to sell them back. Reports made on team quitters after the end of Week 4 will not be evaluated until the conclusion of the tournament, with the exception of cases of cheating or team leaking/sabotage. Players who are banned from the Smogon Forums for a duration longer than the rest of the tournament and players who are banned from tournaments for actions unrelated to OUPL will also be eligible for a sellback.

If a player is sold back, their team obtains 3k of their value as credits to be used in the midseason auction. The only exception to this is players who become eligible for sellback prior to when Week 1 is posted.

Teams who sell back players before the start of Week 1 will be reimbursed with credits equal to 1.5k+half of that player's retention cost or value in the auction. These credits may be used prior to the start of Week 1 on undrafted players who signed up, and players selected will be eligible to play starting in Week 1. Any of these credits that remain unused will be converted into sellback credits for use in the midseason auction.
At the end of the league stages, there will be a knockout style playoffs involving the top 4 teams in the points. In the event of a tie in overall points standings, the following criteria is used for breaking ties.
  • Overall Points >
  • Battle Difference (total # battles won - total # battles lost) >
  • Best of 3 - each team picks a unique tier with the winner of the Head to Head matchup picking second, then SV OU is the 3rd game. In the event that the two teams tied in the Head to Head matchup, the team with better results against the higher seeds will pick second.
  • Note: a Best of 3 series shall only be used to determine whether or not a team will qualify for playoffs. To just determine seeding among the top 4 teams, the result of the Head to Head matchup during regular season shall be used as the third tiebreak, with a B03 series being offered as a final alternative if teams are tied in every other element.
After the top 4 have been determined, each team will be seeded. The #1 seed will play the #4 seed, and the #2 seed will play the #3 seed. Teams will battle in the same format as during the league stage. At the end of all 10 battles, the team with more wins will advance to finals.

In the case of a tie in playoffs, the advancing team will be decided by a best of three - each team picks a unique tier with the higher seed picking second, then SV OU is the 3rd game.
The tournament will progress in this format until there is only one team left standing, the champion of OUPL IX.
---

This post marks the formal start to OUPL X, which means:
  • Managers can hold official tryouts
  • The auction will be decided soon
  • Good luck, have fun
Here's to a fantastic season!

Commence.
 
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hi, im not really known for ou particularly but ive been taking more of an interest in it recently. i made it pretty far in the ou seasonal (round 9 or 10 I think?) that's ongoing at the moment. i made top 32 in the smou seasonal that's ongoing right now too. alongside that in the past month i made top 16 in the ubers seasonal and won uu invitational. im also 3-1 in masters at the moment.
i made top 16 in the ss seasonal last year alongside winning sspl.
i have a really high upside and in particular my recent track record is really strong. if any captain would like to play tryouts im willing and im always available for a chat if anyone has questions
anyway that's all i want to say thank you for your attention to this matter
oliv out
 
As of right now, Squirtle Squad will be hosting tryouts soon (just send replays and give accomplishments and we can figure out the games during that week too), probably like October 11, 2026. You can send all your stuff to my discord:

na.gol

But just FYI that sunday is the Falcons vs Ravens sunday night football game so i will get back with everyone before the auction. No guarantees on getting bought, but we will check everything out and i'll discuss it with my co's. We will for sure schedule tryouts just FYI

-----------------------------

Also, I was asked by some of the other managers within the league to help them out since they're busy.

1791307681532.png


My brother Fragments who I won ROAPL this year has asked me to post this for him. Can you guys please add his discord:
frag.ments

Him, hellom, and clean are looking for the best players with the best fundamentals. Fragments is one of the best rand batts players of al ltime, so playing the game fundamentally is a big part of his scouting procedure. He wants to know if people are able to double switch, make good reads on archetypes, and click well enough.

1791307782705.png


Another one is my brother JUST ONE GALATINA . Unfortunately he'll be busy with irl stuff. Him, Leng, and Kate are looking for people with the best vibes. If you guys can rap like tha supreme and send it to him so he can review, that would be perfect. They're looking for creative people who will push the OU metagame and innovative the next meta since most of the meta is still virtually unsolved.

His discord is: galatinaddicted
 
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I want to shed some light on these players. They might not be top shelf 20k, but their hunger to improve and desire to participate is seldom found on smogon in 2026. I think their skill and interest warrants a starting / bench spot on any roster.

Gochan / Juseth sepulveda (Lumping them together because their skillset is similar, both of them cover masters gens).
Both of them have improved tremendously in the last year. You'll see their names frequently in ORAS / SM / SS circuit tours.
- Gochan made a deep run in OST earlier this year and is now in 5-0 bracket for masters.
- Juseth has deeper ssnl runs in comparison, with multiple top 8 finishes. He's now in the 4-1 bracket for masters.

If I had to pick
I'd personally choose gochan for SS (I believe the incremental progress that SS warrants fits his style more)
I'd choose Juseth for ORAS, I believe his ability to make calculated aggressive clicks will reap more dividends here. A budget metallica in that sense, if you will.
You will not regret picking them up.
ILoveGarchom
I dont think anyone likes SS OU more than The Administrator. He is pretty familiar with all archetypes / up-to-date with recent metagame trends. Think he has that spark (in the builder) that helps one do well in modern SS. For 3-4k he can reliably get you 4-5 wins or offer good support to your SS starter.
deviously
Indian that can play all the masters tiers to a semi-decent level? where have I seen that before

rgoidslloso81.gif


Jokes aside, I think this kid has a good head on his shoulders. Natural feel for the game and can switch between playing slowly / being aggressive depending on what the circumstances demand. Similar to gochan/juseth, he frequently does well in circuit tours and is currenty in 4-1 bracket for masters. Think he's equally proficient in all 3 masters gens, get him to fill out whatever your team needs at that point of the auction.


All these players are approaching the game in the good ol-fashioned way. Grind circuit tours --> stay involved with the tiers and get better --> Wait for your oppurtunity to play on a bigger stage. Given that they might not have the PR that is needed to consistently get into sub-forum tours, consider this post to be that. They all have the skill to back it up.
 
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Hi there OU people.
With this being the tenth edition of OUPL, and a general decrease in forum activity, the OU moderation team has been hard at work brainstorming ideas to help promote activity. This is why we will be announcing some projects that will occur throughout OUPL, those being:

A Community PR survey: This will involve people voting on a survey to rank the OUPL drafts (more details will be revealed later to the date). The results of this will be revealed after a week or so, showing how the community ranks the teams overall. When the tournament is over, whoever got the closest to ranking the teams correctly will be announced and win a 10k react score prize. If multiple people share the same score, then the prize will be divided equally as possible.

A tier list maker for teams: This will be a simple tier list to rank teams, similar to the community PR, but in image form. This will also people to share what they ranked easily and quickly. (link will be given out once the community PR survey has gone up)

Prediction contest: This will happen weekly, allowing players to guess which players will win each week. This will run throughout the course of the tour, with a 10k react score prize. If multiple people share the same score, then the prize will be divided equally as possible.

History of OUPL: In a few weeks, a post in this thread will be made by ego detailing the history of OUPL, which will most likely be a very indepth review of the topic.

There may be future announcements for projects involving OUPL, so stay tuned!
 
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