Howdy! It's been about 11 months since the first edition of RBYOMPL began, and I'm still surprised that we got that tournament running. Now I'd like to see if we can do it again. For those new, RBYOMPL is a team tournament designed to celebrate RBY's wide array of niche tiers. The purpose of this thread is discuss the format, scheduling, and tier inclusion for RBYOMPL II. Here's what I got so far.
Format
I have hopes to expand RBYOMPL to 6 teams × 8 tiers, but I'm not particularly confident that that is achievable. After some discussion, I'll put out a tier inclusion survey as I had done last year to gauge the total number of likely players and the relative support for each prospective tier. I would be overjoyed by 6 × 8, but 6 × 6 is my expectation.
I think the format of 5-week regular season → top 4 semifinals → top 2 finals worked perfectly last year, and I intend to run it again this year, even if we somehow put together 8 teams (though the regular season would be 7 weeks in that case). I think this allowed us to get a lot of games and keeping many teams alive, without letting the tournament overstay its welcome.
Schedule
Up for debate, but my assumption right now is:
One week for discussion until a tier survey is released.
One week to reply to the survey, further discussion, and the announcement of included tiers.
One week for manager signups.
Two weeks for player signups.
This has us starting the first week of the tournament right around the first week of March.
Tier Inclusion
Last year, the tier lineup was:
1v1
LC
NC97
STABmons
Stadium
SU
Here are my thoughts on these tiers and a few others.
RBY 1v1 was very popular last year and netted a lot of signups. While the tier has become less popular lately and the nature of the tier turned a few players away, I still think 1v1 has too high of numbers to exclude. I'd favor it returning, but I think it is the second-easiest to justify cutting.
RBY LC ought to return as the most active and popular OM. It'd sooner get two slots than lose the one it has. If possible, I'd like to squeeze the Sleep and Accuracy-lowering Moves Suspects in right before this tournament starts so we can get the ideal metagame for RBYOMPL II.
NC97 is somewhat controversial, but it has very dedicated fans. It also had a very successful live tour hosted by Shane late last year. It's inclusion is obvious to me.
RBY STABmons is still one of my favorite tiers so I will continue to advocate for its inclusion. It had a very competitive showing last year and I would be delighted to see it return.
Stadium OU is probably the most cuttable tier. It had the smallest playerbase by a pretty noticeable margin and a few people who showed up for it last year have since kind of lost interest. I really like Stadium OU, so cutting it would be regrettable, but to me it is obvious that it is what must go if anything is being swapped in.
RBY SU proved to be a very popular inclusion last year, seeing a lot of competitive games and metagame development. I felt like it was a fan favorite. I would like to see it return, and I believe this is the debut forum tournament after the banning of Accuracy-lowering Moves from the tier.
RBY ZU was narrowly cut last year and also failed to make it into RBYPL VI. I feel like it's kind of owed inclusion at this point. My only hesitation is that I think it, especially when SU is also already present, doesn't fit the spirit of a supposedly OM-focused tournament. I think it is completely necessary though if we want any shot at getting up to 8 tiers.
Regarding a final slot, the main choices I see are: another LC slot (possibly LC TBs or some kind of suspect slot), Tradebacks OU, Modern Generation I, and Revelationmons. I've also heard Tradebacks UU, Challenge Cup, and Draft get kicked around as ideas. Also possible is debuting a new tier like BH and just rolling with it. I think 7U is dead. While it is pretty small, I think I most favor Revelationmons as the eighth tier (original lineup + ZU), but I'm very much open to ideas here.
Please discuss. I plan to publish a tier inclusion survey in about a week, based on how any discussion here goes. Cheers!
Format
I have hopes to expand RBYOMPL to 6 teams × 8 tiers, but I'm not particularly confident that that is achievable. After some discussion, I'll put out a tier inclusion survey as I had done last year to gauge the total number of likely players and the relative support for each prospective tier. I would be overjoyed by 6 × 8, but 6 × 6 is my expectation.
I think the format of 5-week regular season → top 4 semifinals → top 2 finals worked perfectly last year, and I intend to run it again this year, even if we somehow put together 8 teams (though the regular season would be 7 weeks in that case). I think this allowed us to get a lot of games and keeping many teams alive, without letting the tournament overstay its welcome.
Schedule
Up for debate, but my assumption right now is:
One week for discussion until a tier survey is released.
One week to reply to the survey, further discussion, and the announcement of included tiers.
One week for manager signups.
Two weeks for player signups.
This has us starting the first week of the tournament right around the first week of March.
Tier Inclusion
Last year, the tier lineup was:
1v1
LC
NC97
STABmons
Stadium
SU
Here are my thoughts on these tiers and a few others.
RBY 1v1 was very popular last year and netted a lot of signups. While the tier has become less popular lately and the nature of the tier turned a few players away, I still think 1v1 has too high of numbers to exclude. I'd favor it returning, but I think it is the second-easiest to justify cutting.
RBY LC ought to return as the most active and popular OM. It'd sooner get two slots than lose the one it has. If possible, I'd like to squeeze the Sleep and Accuracy-lowering Moves Suspects in right before this tournament starts so we can get the ideal metagame for RBYOMPL II.
NC97 is somewhat controversial, but it has very dedicated fans. It also had a very successful live tour hosted by Shane late last year. It's inclusion is obvious to me.
RBY STABmons is still one of my favorite tiers so I will continue to advocate for its inclusion. It had a very competitive showing last year and I would be delighted to see it return.
Stadium OU is probably the most cuttable tier. It had the smallest playerbase by a pretty noticeable margin and a few people who showed up for it last year have since kind of lost interest. I really like Stadium OU, so cutting it would be regrettable, but to me it is obvious that it is what must go if anything is being swapped in.
RBY SU proved to be a very popular inclusion last year, seeing a lot of competitive games and metagame development. I felt like it was a fan favorite. I would like to see it return, and I believe this is the debut forum tournament after the banning of Accuracy-lowering Moves from the tier.
RBY ZU was narrowly cut last year and also failed to make it into RBYPL VI. I feel like it's kind of owed inclusion at this point. My only hesitation is that I think it, especially when SU is also already present, doesn't fit the spirit of a supposedly OM-focused tournament. I think it is completely necessary though if we want any shot at getting up to 8 tiers.
Regarding a final slot, the main choices I see are: another LC slot (possibly LC TBs or some kind of suspect slot), Tradebacks OU, Modern Generation I, and Revelationmons. I've also heard Tradebacks UU, Challenge Cup, and Draft get kicked around as ideas. Also possible is debuting a new tier like BH and just rolling with it. I think 7U is dead. While it is pretty small, I think I most favor Revelationmons as the eighth tier (original lineup + ZU), but I'm very much open to ideas here.
Please discuss. I plan to publish a tier inclusion survey in about a week, based on how any discussion here goes. Cheers!
