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Tournament PUCL I - Format Discussion

DugZa

DugZa

Carpe Diem
is a Community Leaderis a Top Tiering Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Top Community Contributor Alumnusis a Metagame Resource Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Former Smogon Metagame Tournament Circuit Champion
PU Leader
Stolen and edited from NUCL II

The PU moderation team has decided to replace PUBD with PUCL while incorporating the new flex format from NUCL. Manager signups for PUCL I will be going up within the next week or so, with Week 1 set to commence on mid-late January. The format will more or less be the same as NUCL with not much up to change. That being said, we have two discussion points in particular that we'd like to get some community input on, and would also like to give you all some time to familiarize yourselves with the new format in case you have been living under a rock haven't been following NUCL.

PUCL Format (NOT UP TO CHANGE)

- The tier slots for PUCL will be the following:
Code: 
SV 1
SV 2
Flex A1
Flex A2
Flex A3
Flex A4
Flex B1
Flex B2
Flex B3
Flex B4
As a reminder, Flex slots are 4 distinct tiers ranging from SS to RBY that are picked by each team every week. For example, Team A can select SS SM DPP GSC and Team B can select SM ORAS BW RBY; however, Team A can't pick SS SS ADV GSC.

- There will be no retains, retains carrying over from PUBD to PUCL makes no sense as the format change can heavily impact the perceived value of different players.

- Total budget will be 130k as usual.


DISCUSSION POINTS FOR THE COMMUNITY (POINTS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE IMPLEMENTED AND ARE UP TO DISCUSSION)

1) Manager Prices
  • Should 2 manager buys be allowed or should we limit it to just one?
  • If it's only one manager buy how much should it cost?
  • If it's two manager buys how much should they cost? Different options were brought up on discord (15k/30k, 15k/35k, 20k/40k/ 17.5k/40k etc.)

2) SS PU [Suspect] Slot

This is the more contentious topic and the main reason for having this format discussion thread. We want to gauge how the community would feel about replacing the SS slot with an SS [Suspect] slot instead. The exact details of the suspect slot are not decided either but if we do go ahead with a suspect slot we strongly prefer the suspect slot have multiple unbans over one singular Pokemon. Some pokemon that have been brought up as unban candidates in talks regularly are;
:virizion::espeon::guzzlord::scyther::araquanid::raichu-alola::scrafty:
​
These are just few of the options but if it goes through, we hope posts on this thread will help us better identify which exact Pokemon we want to unban for the suspect slot. This is obviously not a final decision by any means, we want to see how the community would feel about having a SS suspect slot to figure out if a metagame with unbans is better than the current SS PU metagame which is arguably our most disliked PU old generation right now.

---

Thread will be open until the end of the week at least, potentially longer; we'll make a final decision depending on the responses in the thread. Get to posting, thank you!
 
As someone who has managed both NUCLs, I’m really excited about the announcement of this tournament. I hope I get the honor of managing in it too! This format is a blast for everyone involved managers, players, and anyone who enjoys competitive Low Tiers. Big congratulations to PU for making this happen.

1) Manager Prices

Personally, I'm not a fan of the double manager self-buy option. It's really difficult to find a balanced way to make it work. In most cases, it ends up being either not worth it to buy both or just a total bargain.

In the recent NUCL, with the 15/35 price we had three pairs of self-buys:

  • Loocas + Shen
  • Garay + Watashi
  • FC + Tier

Out of these three, the first two were ridiculously cheap selfbuys players who would typically go for more than 20k each. As for FC and Tier, their combined price in the last two NU auctions was 10.5k, so yeah, not the best deal.

If the double self-buy is kept, I think a price split like 15/40 would be better. This way, you'd clearly push for one manager to play while making it clear what kinds of pairs should go for the double self-buy without giving them that much of an advantage.

2) SS PU [Suspect] Slot

I tend to stay away from anything related to SS, so I don't have a strong opinion on that. But honestly, adding even more uncertainty and volatility to an already unpredictable format like CL seems like a risky move. I'm not sure how many tours or games have been played with unbanned mons from SS PU, but personally, debuting a format like this in a tier team tour wouldn't be a decision I’d make as a leader.
 
- 2 managers, 15k/30k. PU in recent memory has pretty balanced manager pairs. Don't really think a lot of tour players are signing up to manage to game some sort of system consistently (cough Monotype cough). Not opposed to 1 manager buy either tho.

- Suspect slot sounds good. The SSPU thread looked to have virtually gone nowhere and this seems to be the only way to put an end to the seemingly never-ending discussion. Might also see some new batters in the tier rather than the same people playing it over and over. Not that it's a bad thing, but new flavors are nice.
 
I tend to enjoy SS PU but even if I thought tiering action could be done I don't think a suspect slot is good. After managing multiple smpl's with suspect slots it generally just goes no where, people reuse builds or just replace 1 mon with whatever is being suspected then all you get out of it is a small sample size that potentially use new things while adding a lot more work on prep if you want to explore it. In past smpl's they've tested a bunch of mons to be dropped back from ubers and it's just never been a good slot imo, would probably be the same thing here. It wouldn't be like the worst thing ever if people want it but I don't think it's particularly good, and don't think SS PU needs a big shakeup, the tier has felt mostly stable since I've played it (been a while but the actual mons haven't changed since).

Don't have as many thoughts on selfbuys I just tend to think 2 managers being able to leads to better pairings since people want to play more than they want to manage just by numbers. Pricings can be whatever just should be high, I think 20 for both or something around there where the first 1 is cheaper both work.
 
I'm in favour of having a suspect slot, but I think this could only work if multiple Pokémon get freed as to avoid the scenario Fc is describing above. I'll start by saying I believe SS PU is in a good spot, and so I won't be mad if nothing comes out of this suspect slot. However, I also believe we should center tiering around including as many elements as possible while maintaining metagame health, and I'm willing to bet we could free a few Pokémon without ruining the tier; Virizion, Alolan-Raichu, Scrafty, Guzzlord, Espeon, Araquanid, Drampa, Clawitzer, Vanilluxe, and Scyther are all Pokémon worth looking into. However, I only care much about the first three so I won't expand on the others too much

Virizion is scary, but it was never given time in a post-Talonflame metagame to evaluate. Mixed, despite its upsides, is held back quite a lot in a tier ruled by sand. You want life orb on it for damage, and then you also want synthesis to offset the recoil and be able to consistently take advantage of Pokémon like Eldegoss. However, when your recovery move only heals 19% with sand up, you become much easier to limit. There's also not a whole lot you want to switch into. The two main targets, Sandslash (Knock Off) and Gigalith (Toxic), have ways to punish you, which leads to my next point: building with Virizion locks you out of using Grass-types with more utility, whether that be Eldegoss, Tangela, or Ferroseed. I call this one the Gourgeist Syndrome, and any good Pokémon that is limited in how much you can use it because of sand's ubiquity fits the term. Other Viriz sets, Swords Dance and Calm Mind, have their own share of issues. I think the addition of Doublade + Articuno-Galar is more or less equivalent to Talonflame's past presence, and having a faster Pokémon able to revenge kill Virizion in Alolan Raichu would also contribute to this.

Alolan Raichu is not broken. If we free it this tour and it turns out to be broken, then my ego will take a hit and I'll stop talking for a little bit, but I am 100% certain it's balanced. Electric Terrain is vastly inferior to Grassy Terrain, as you lose passive recovery + boost on grass moves in exchange for sleep immunity which like, yay I guess? Besides that, Alolan Raichu doesn't really force out all that much that would be useful against Electric Terrain, and in a tier where the second best Pokémon runs SE priority, the opportunity cost of not using Grassy Terrain seems too high to justify. I get it, people don't want to free Pokémon they deem to be "cheesy," but I think this is a flawed approach to tiering. Pokémon should be banned because they're broken/unhealthy (as objective as it gets), not because we don't like them (fully subjective). I could confidently load a few of my teams into Alolan Raichu terrain and not be concerned, as I believe we already have the tools for it and it ultimately won't impact building much. I think it's likely people will use it a lot early on then realize it's just not worth the effort. However, we're in desperate need of offensive pivots, and boots 4 attacks could be cool to have!

I never really though of Scrafty as broken, and voted ban the first time around as I believed it'd get another chance down the road. Tagging Excal here as he might have more to say about this. Its ban happened at a very awkward moment, when OU had already moved on to the next generation and everyone was mentally done with lower tiers, and for this reason the entire process was rushed. As someone who was on council at the time, we had talked about a Doublade suspect then, but decided the ramifications of a potential ban were not worth getting into, so we opted to look at Scrafty instead. It's slow and not that strong, which ends up giving you a lot of ways to handle it with in-game positioning, something that'll become easier with a Virizion unban. I won't really mind if this one goes nowhere, but it deserves to get looked at even if just on principle.

Rapid-fire explanations for the rest: Guzzlord and Drampa are probably fine if you free the above, but maybe not desirable as I think they could push the metagame in an unhealthy direction despite us theoretically having the tools to handle them. Fine with both, but only if people are willing to spend a couple of years rebuilding this tier. I voted DNB on Espeon ~3.5 years ago, and we could manage it with Doublade (+ Scrafty/Guzzlord), but the tier was very different then and Togedemaru was a real Pokémon. There's no way Clawitzer is even that good, it's a worse Magneton on almost every level. I never thought of Vanilluxe as broken, and if we free some of these faster offensive checks I don't even think it'll be that noticeable. Araquanid needs too much support for how little it provides, we have much better breakers and I only see myself using it against an opponent who's consistently weak to it. Scyther would be broken if we freed it right this moment, but alongside Virizion and Alolan Raichu, I think it could find its place
 
Never did much PU tours but I participated in most of the SSPU suspect tests and continue to spectate games so i think i'm semi-qualified...

Anyways, I agree that if a gen8 suspect slot were to occur, multiple elements should be freed at once. To me, I think the dynamic of virizion/espeon/guzzlord was most balanced while also providing a lot of flexibility within the builder (at least my impression from when they were freed, was a while ago though). They all check each other (to an extent), which is fine when you consider the tier also has checks to them already.

I think if any should be prioritized, Virizion stands out. Already as it exists there's a ton of natural counterplay within the tier (doublade, Guno, poisons, fairies, sneasel), and while it can definitely beat some of its checks depending on the set, it cannot beat all, which are often stacked together on teams anyway. Virizion itself would also provide solid counterplay to other PUBLs, like Guzzlord/Araq/scrafty etc... Speaking of which, araquanid was honestly never broken and it was only banned by a small margin anyway iirc, I think it is one of the 'easier' picks to unban, especially if Virizion is.

I also agree that alolan-raichu would honestly not be amazing. Obviously doublade exists but also, common priority is everywhere which matters when its so frail and easy to ware down, not to mention bulky grass types etc. Aside from speculating on counterplay though, it never really received a fair shot at being PU, which I think makes it more important to re-examine.

The tier is not bad currently but it has the potential to be exceptional, which I think a few unbans could achieve. It reminds me of SSNU, where the tier is fine (personally i adore it but that's just nostalgia reasons), but there are so many NUBLs that could theoretically 'check' each other. However, many of the NUBL pokemon were banned off a high majority of votes. Even the ones with a tighter margin would honestly not improve the tier by a drastic amount. Whereas in PU (to me), there are a lot of potential unbans that 1. improve tier quality and 2. were never fairly tiered in the first place.

Even if a suspect slot is undesired because the tier is 'fine as it is', it is still worth it since clearly this is a divisive issue. And if the tier continues to get worse, well, SSNU is always waiting !!!
 
I should post since I wanted the thread released, here goes

1. Double manager buys
In previous tours I’ve seen, I think something like 15k for the first manager / 40k for 2 managers is good. 2 manager self buys should be significantly more expensive than 1 buy. More than double the price at least because it gives you a lot of flexibility going into the draft to have 2 spots covered, especially in a flex format where the managers can likely play multiple tiers competently.

2. SS PU suspect slot
I don’t know much about SS, but I find the idea of suspect slots to be interesting. Even if nothing comes of it and we don’t free these pokemon, it is fun to experiment.

Im of the opinion that if something isn’t broken, it shouldn’t be banned and seemingly some SS players believe a few of these drops would be balanced. I’ve seen people say that players will just reuse builds regardless as is the case for other suspect slot tours. I’d like to point out that reusing is already extremely common even in PUPL, so in my mind there isn’t really a difference, except with a suspect slot you could gain more of a competitive advantage by building with the suspect moms in mind. I agree with other posters that ideally we would test a few pokemon we think wouldn’t be overbearing rather than just 1. I’m in favor of a suspect slot but of course players who actually build and play SS should be prioritized.
 
1. Manager Self Buys:
i'm very much against manager self buys in general, but if it has to happen definitely 1 > 2. signing up to manage if you do it right is already a full time job and juggling playing and managing can be really annoying. and most manager pairs don't really overlap in terms of player quality so it's both unfair to the manager playing and the teams who have good managers who aren't as strong players.
2. SS PU suspect slot:
i never liked the idea of retro-tiering but god ss pu needs it, so i'm 100% in favour of that one
 
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