Tournament PUFL - Discussion Thread

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Regiboob

Regiboob

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The PU leadership team has decided to hold the inaugural PUFL* this year, hosted by myself and jrm-gray_! This tournament will run alongside PUPL XII and be an opportunity for less proven players to play our beloved PU tiers in a team setting. As is the case in most FLs, the following player and manager restrictions will apply:
  • PUPL managers may not manage in PUFL. They are, however, free to sign up as players. The same player restrictions will apply.
  • Any player that has featured in a PUPL starting lineup in any tier by Week 4 may not play SV PU. Subbing in does not count. These players are, however, free to play other tiers.
  • For old gens, any player that has played a game in PUPL by the end of Week 4 may not play that tier in PUFL. This includes getting subbed in to play a tier.
  • Players that play the bo3 slot in PUPL are locked out of all three gens.
Since this is the first iteration of the tournament, its format is very much up for discussion. This is the purpose of this thread. From internal discussion among PU leadership, the following stand out as salient talking points on which we would love to hear the community's thoughts:

Discussion Points
  • The inclusion of RBY PU and GSC PU, which are omitted from PUPL.
    • Likely without restrictions on players that played these tiers in PUCL.
  • The number of SV PU slots - we could have 2, 3 + a bo3 slot, or 4.
  • The number of teams.
    • Depending on the number of slots decided upon above, with either 4 or 6 teams, the number of playing slots per week could be 40, 48 60, or 72.
As you may have noticed, much of this will also depend on the level of interest in this tour, so this thread will also double as a hype thread to gauge that interest.

Share your thoughts and opinions below! And please be nice and stay on topic. Obviously.

*The name of the tour is also up for discussion.
 
I do not think people playing or managing in pupl should be playing or managing in pufl in any form. Farm leagues are a chance to showcase lesser seen talent not in pupl; having pupl players be able to play, even as tiers they don't play in, subverts that. This obviously also doesn't cover someone like robjr playing sm in pupl and then proceeding to play sm in pufl, for example. The only exception I would make is pupl players managing.

Format imo should be PUPL games + RBY and GSC to give more people a chance to play.
 
I disagree with yunie almost entirely. Frankly half of what puts these new players on the map to begin with is when they run into and beat these known competent players that double dipped in the big PL. If you wish to limit teams to how many players who qualified for PUPL can actually get in like how some of the language PLs dictate a need for people who speak the language, then sure. But shoehorning the ability for people to play and match up against talent to show their stuff just stifles development for both the meta and players.

The other thing worth considering is suspect slots, similar to how UUFPL does it with ADV, DPP and so on. Unbanning or removing some elements people like or dont like to try out would be beneficial as a testing ground. Like SS PU + Virizion or ORAS PU with -heat rock + victreebel / Eggy. The specific choices don't matter a ton, just considering these for where its applicable works.
 
Yunie said:
I do not think people playing or managing in pupl should be playing or managing in pufl in any form. Farm leagues are a chance to showcase lesser seen talent not in pupl; having pupl players be able to play, even as tiers they don't play in, subverts that. This obviously also doesn't cover someone like robjr playing sm in pupl and then proceeding to play sm in pufl, for example. The only exception I would make is pupl players managing.
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In RUFL, if i remember not wrong, RUPL level player played will locked SV and their start tier in RUPL, for example, if robjr signup he only allow on SS/ORAS/BW/etc.

Also i disagree it cause play with better player can improve tournament quality and game quality, play with better player also can grown player's skill, some decent player who interested manage also can give team better resource than not PUPL level player's manage, and if NOT ALLOW PUPL level player play or managing, i feel very pessimistic about player number and quality.

It is clearly about how player be known, like LBN said, won more famous player, it can't only point at individual, teamtour is another way make them famous.

agree RBY/GSC PU in PUFL, more SV slot, more team.

Also draft MORE Chinese player plz!
 
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Yunie said:
I do not think people playing or managing in pupl should be playing or managing in pufl in any form. Farm leagues are a chance to showcase lesser seen talent not in pupl; having pupl players be able to play, even as tiers they don't play in, subverts that. This obviously also doesn't cover someone like robjr playing sm in pupl and then proceeding to play sm in pufl, for example. The only exception I would make is pupl players managing.
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Hi as someone who pretty regularly dips into these in uu bc its fun to get out of the bw hole, i fundamentally disagree with this because if all of the players are unproven then they have no-one to showcase their skill versus that would be deemed a "good win" by the General playerbase and thus no reason for future pupl managers to remotely care about the "good wins" from here

Obviously if ur starting in a tier in pupl you shouldnt be able to play that tier in this thatd be antifun for most but frankly if some random fucking owns me in this on fundies in a tier im not intimately familiar with i'll be remembering their name when it comes to future draft seasons
 
agree with lbn and tack, completely barring pupl folks from this causes a disconnect with the community and overall lowers tour quality and the chances people get to prove themselves. just do what uufpl does and bar people from playing something they've played in pupl by x week. pupl managers should not be able to manage though, duh. rby and gsc should be included, throw them a bone, they hardly ever get chances to play outside of the couple of indies a year. six teams is unviable, it should either be four or eight unless the signups are too much for four but we don't have enough interest for eight. as for SV PU, i think either a Bo3 SV slot or something similar to uufpl where non-sv pupl starters can play sv would be cool.

edit to avoid double post/one liner: don't do any suspects, none of these tiers (minus ss, but that's been having suspects across several more official tours) have things that could be tested on the same breadth as DPP/ADV UU and i think that it would harm the quality of the tour.
 
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I might write something more serious/in depth in the days to come but really really want to second that we need RBY and GSC in this tour.

EDIT: lmao this got in depth real fast I am so sorry enjoy this
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Regarding RBY and GSC

To make a pitch for these metagames as a whole: GSC PU has undergone a lot of great changes in the last few months thanks to the recent drops(and rise of Hitmontop) and RBY PU is actually a very fun metagame that doesn't take a lot of investment to learn on the surface, but takes an understanding of the metagame to navigate around some of the crazier swings that RBY can offer. There are objectively good and bad calls you can make with your resource management despite the lack of items and RNG-fishing heavy nature of the tier. I don't consider myself tied to any one community, but I always think it's important to go to bat for these two because the average person does not realize that they are actually real communities and have deep misconceptions about the competitive validity of these tiers.

Should PUPL players be allowed to play in PUFL?

If the idea is for a low stress, "newer player" teamtour to facilitate growth in the community, I am with eeriespell and Metallica126 that you WANT these newer players to rub shoulders with better players not just on their team but also to face off against in matches. With all due respect, what makes people take notice of "newer talent" is when they have replays against these stronger talents that they can point to in order to get signed for bigger tours. The issue with "farm leagues" on paper is that you DO want to give newer players opportunities, but if you exclude too much of the top cut talent, you run the risk of your tour being "unserious" where players just flop around in their tiers making clicks that would be punished by any player who remotely knows their tier, thus defeating the purpose of this being a good "exposure" tournament for the tier.

Now let's compare this to if you allow for a blend of stronger players to come in and play, Even if the newer/less experienced players don't win the match they're sending on their resume, showing they have the game sense to hang with these higher level players could convince managers to make a signing for something like a future PUPL or teamtour that they would not otherwise make. I am a firm believer that no matter what generation of Pokemon you play, it is ALWAYS important to seek out newer/underexplored talent. If you play CG you want to find the next gem that might help push the metagame forward, and if youre an oldgen player(like me) you really want to find more people to play with and also trade notes with on the tier.

If I seem particularly passionate about this subject it's because I selfishly have a lot to gain from it. The main metagames I have interest in(ADV, DPP and BW) for PU, I am most likely a bench or undrafted pick for in PUPL. But this sort of tour would be a perfect fit for a player like me to learn more about these metagames, slot into one of them, and be given better teams by managers/teammates who have more experience in these formats, and if someone had me as a teammate then I would be able to help them learn the basic fundamental structures of RBY PU(there will be more than enough people who will show up to play, but you never know who might be willing to give a tier like this a try in a lower stakes setting).

To tie my point back to RBY/GSC: RBY and GSC would doubly benefit from this because with the limited number of teamtours for these gens, it sometimes means that our genPLs end up being the "sink or swim" playground for these newer players, which is ideally not how you want your genPLs to run. JensenDale and PHB11677 are both friends of mine who went through this in back to back years, playing GSC NU and RBY PU respectively in the genPL with minimal experience in the generation.. While they have both drastically improved since then with Jensen becoming a respected name in the GSC NU community and eventual GSC RUTL and PHB winning the RBY PU open(or cup? I always mix them up) this year, FLs are the type of opportunity for these people to get the "first tier experience" out of the way and have a resume to send managers.

How many SV slots should this tournament have?

I don't have any interest in SV PU, but because it's the current generation, it probably deserves more slots. However, I fully endorse a bo3 slot. That is the most competitive way to play this game, you would be incentivized to put your "best" player in Bo3, and the other SV slots get to learn from them in the process and have more games overall. This is what I saw happen in RBYPL and ADVPL and that dynamic was super supportive. I think this would be a great choice for PUFL.

HOW MANY TEAMS?

PUFL is meant to get people the chance to play in a lower stress setting and get more exposure to the tier at large. Therefore, I am for MORE VOLUME OF GAMES PLAYED because it means more chances to learn/grow and fight a variety of skill levels.

SUSPECT SLOTS?

Personally I do not like the nature of UUFPL introducing these random suspect slots into a farm league. I feel like it gives a semi dishonest view of what the metagame is actually like. There's also levels to this though. For example in UUFPL, we have ADV UU + Sceptile and GSC UU + Venu/Typh. The former has never been discussed and is largely a meme pick for novelty; the second has been discussed for at least a year now in the metagame. I just don't like the idea of a "newer player" teamtour being about a slightly modified version of the tier they want to learn/play more of. That's me, and maybe it's petty, but it is also honest.


THE TL;DR

TL;DR: there is a fine balance that has to be achieved for something like a farm league between including newer names but also having enough relevant names to make the tour competitive. RBY and GSC would doubly benefit from this because with the limited number of teamtours for these gens, it sometimes means that our genPLs end up being the "sink or swim" playground for these newer players. Get as many people the chance to play as you can.

Quick fixes that you "could" do include barring people from playing the same tier in both PUPL and PUFL if you really want, but still having them play so they can support their tier

Thanks.
 
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First off, very happy to see we're running PUFL! Excited for more ppl to get a shot to shine, I hope many players find a breakthrough in this tour.

Including RBY and GSC feels in the spirit of the tournament so definitely support that, GSC in particular could really use the rep as it's something like 5 months until next tour :tymp: and best not to place restrictions via who played PUCL imo.

Based on what I know and talking to others, it definitely seems like we can support 6 teams here. Probably 2SV to keep things simple, and this wasn't talked about so I assume it's not in but no Bo3 (SV SS SM) slot would be for the best.
 
BigFatMantis said:
SS - RBY, 3 SV, 1 SV Bo3 with no PUPL restrictions (anyone can play the Bo3 slot)
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if I didn't make it clear in my semi-rambling post above, I agree with BFM and think that the SV PU bo3 slot should not have any restrictions, also gives each team an incentive to draft a high level player who can support the other SV PU slots.
 
To find a midground between authorizing PUPL players or not, I think we could do a cap on the number of PUPL Starters you can have in your team. I think a solution like this would be good, as it both lets newer player get to know newer players while still reserving seats for them.

The only thing that concerns me with that idea is how expensive some top players will go, as they will have even more value if the number of PUPL starters on the opposing teams is limited. For that reason, I think it'd be nice to also put a tier lock on PUPL starters.

My proposition would be :
For a PUFL with 12 slots, each team may put in their line up a maximum number of 4-5 PUPL Starters, who will not be authorized to play in the same tier they are starting in PUPL. The managers are able to buy more than 4-5 PUPL Starters, but may only slot 4-5 maximum at the same time.
 
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TLDR: Same format as PUPL with RBY+GSC and no Bo3, maybe suspect slot for RBY/GSC if those communities want it

I don't think Bo3 should be in a FL. The point of a Bo3 slot is to showcase "the peak" of the tiers gameplay, and for a FL I feel like it's counterintuitive and also a lot of stress. Otherwise, LBN and Tack already outlined why PUPL players playing in a FL is okay.

6 teams is fine, I think that's relatively standard for a tour that doesn't get much signups. 4 teams sounds pretty bad ngl, and would only entertain 4 teams if this tour goes the route of what Ubers did in that one team tour where it was like a small amount of teams but an insane number of slots.

Don't do a suspect slot besides SS, no other PU old gen needs tiering anyway idt. Unless the RBY/GSC community want to do that since I imagine pretty competent mainers will signup for those pools given that they don't get a lot of chances to play their tier outside of indivs.
 
I think you guys should definitely let PUPL players in. I always hated the term "quality signups" because I think it's very belittling so I won't comment on that, but as mentioned above I think it creates a necessary balance between attracting newer players and giving them a taste of what competitive PU is about by facing better and experienced players, even if these are not playing their main generation. Realistically, most teams will have a few PUPL starters facing each other every week, but you must stick to that if you actually want the new heads to improve, otherwise it's just gonna be mickey vs mickey and there won't be much to learn from that.
I guess it depends on how you define PUPL players, but preventing them from signing up wouldn't make any sense, as it would mean that even subs who just happened to be on a team and played zero games wouldn't be able to play a tour in which they had better chances at starting in.
Also I think it's quite strange that people couldn't play an older gen if they subbed in to play it in PUPL. It completely makes sense if you're a PUPL starter, but being prevented from playing a tier you possibly had interest in playing just in because you had to sub that one guy in on a sunday because they are bad at scheduling is probably not a good look lmao

I dont know anything about the current activity of PU, but having four teams is just way too short for a tournament of an official tier like yours. This is even worse if you take into account that the purpose is for newer players to make their first steps into competitive PU, as most of them can legit be out of the tournament after only 2 weeks of play and just won't gonna be given enough time.

Just an RU player here so take it with a grain of salt, but as I've played and managed in every RUGL I think it's pretty cool that PU finally has its own farmers league so I can only hope things will be great and fun
 
Having been fortunate to play in RUGL and now NUFL (alongside other tours for undrafted players like MFL and LCSL), I thought I would share my thoughts.

First, I am happy that we are introducing an undrafted version of this tour, and I hope this will continue to be the trend across Showdown as the PLs are very competitive, especially when several people play just for the Custom Avatar.

I believe we should have 6 teams to enable as many players to participate as possible and also spreads the number of players per team - from the other tiers, I believe the interest will definitely be there.

For formats, I think 3 SV + SV BO3 may be a good idea, although many will feedback that BO3 just causes recycled teams due to the additional prep involved.

I'm not sure about including RBY and GSC PU as if these aren't included in PUPL and the aim is to follow the format and encourage people to get picked in future editions, then it wouldn't be appropriate to include it here, but the interest may say otherwise.

Concerning what other people have said about sign ups - I believe that people playing in PUPL will unlikely sign for this tour as their focus/time will purely be in PL. In addition, these tours have historically been for people purely undrafted from PUPL which may include established players already who were overlooked this time around (there are usually a few big names undrafted across these tours).

I think having managers from PUPL would be beneficial as it would help newer players develop their knowledge/skills and managers will be aware of the additional commitments involved.

Unrelated to this, but I do believe the managers should be chosen wisely, as I had really bad feelings about the UUFPL draft (some managers weren't serious with their drafts), but I hope this will be an exception.

I hope the feedback has been helpful, and I look forward to this tour!
 
Quoting from my post in UFL but same applies to PUPL:

"There should be a quota/ratio that limits the amount of players from UPL that can participate in UFL. I 100% think there should be players from upl in this to promote competitiveness but i also think the FLs should be a place where less experienced players should be able to play to showcase themselves vs good players. I don't think it would be good to be only new players but i think having just UPL players playing diff tiers cause they want to learn those in a different tournament defeats the purpose of a FL which is what i see in most other tours"
 
I ended up writing something for UFL that I think should apply here too:

If a PUPL manager wants to manage this tour too I don't think they should be barred from doing so, but they should be barred from self-buying. I don't see any reason to ban competent managers from sharing good teams, advice and support for their players. I think if the focus is on giving newer players a space to get to play in more competitive environments then we should be giving them access to good managers whose focus will be on helping them.
 
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