Proposal Regarding the Slam and Classic format

[Bouff]

Approved by BKC

Hi all, writing this thread since I think Slam and Classic could use some changes. Obviously Slam starts next week so this is awkward timing but I’d still really like the conversation to be had regardless.

Putting it bluntly, the cup system (using cup and open interchangeably here) isn't good and qualifying for playoffs is difficult for almost everyone, barring those who have a very large amount of time to play multiple series in a single week. Scheduling for up to five Bo3's a week is a massive pain due to the amount you have to play throughout alongside accommodating to timezones. This leads to burnout for a lot of people and some end up just dropping entirely. Beyond that, this is compounded through playoffs ending up having a good number of people who are great at one tier but not as good at the others. While that's great for gauging who's the best at a single tier, it isn't for someone who's the best at all of them, and that's what the focus of these tours should be. The format's also arguably archaic in that from its inception, it was made to be the most important tour for that tier. Back in 2012 and for a few years onwards, that was true - aside from Slam / Classic, the most representation they'd get would be SPL and subforum tours like UUPL, RoAPL, etc. Since then, however, entire circuits have been developed, and we have a plethora of more tournaments, alongside the integration of more subforum team tours for some tiers. The overarching thing for all of this is that as it is now, the tournament is too strenuous and drags itself out too long, which makes it unenjoyable and uncompetitive.

To that end, I'd like to propose an overhaul, removing cups entirely and making it Bo5 - essentially, having it with the same format as playoffs do as of now, as a response to the issues I outlined above. It’ll reduce the stress imposed from having to schedule so much, since you’ll effectively have to play five games max a week as opposed to much more from the way things are now. Mind you, I won’t pretend that you’ll be in all five cups for the whole tournament, but even if you’re still in two or three you’ll probably be playing more than you would this way. More importantly, though, it’ll better fit a vision of what the tour should be in a competitive sense, which is showing off who the best players are at all of the tiers played in it are. This obviously isn’t to say that we’ve had playoffs filled with people who are just good at one tier, and the winners absolutely fit the scope of the tour’s goal, but having it changed to this would make it so that you have more people who are consistently good ending up further in the tournament. For Slam in particular, this is also appreciated with the constant metagame shifts / bans making it so that you constantly have to make a lot of new teams - you still will have to adapt to it, but it’ll be much easier to do so, as it's a lot easier to have five teams you can use throughout as opposed to ten - fifteen.

I get that there’ll probably be a concern that the cups format will be missed due to highlighting the best players of a particular tier, and that’s certainly valid as that aspect of it is exciting. With that being said, circuit tournaments still hold that aspect up - the best players from those tiers sign up for them more often than not, and in that sense seasonals are better than opens competitively in that you’re more likely to draw someone who’s more acquainted with the tier. Sure, you probably won’t have some tour players that are signing up solely for the ring, and seasonals will probably still not be as popular as opens if they’re gone, but I don’t think that diminishes the quality of them. There’s also the matter of point distribution in circuits with the removal of them; speaking honestly, there’s not a big loss there since restructuring circuits are not a big deal since they have a lot of other tournaments that are important to them. I think adapting them as such is worth it for making two of the biggest tournaments of the year even better.

That’s about it - as I mentioned before, the timing for this post isn’t ideal since Slam is so soon, so if we can’t change it for it this year then fine, but I think we have enough time till Classic starts for this to be valid as well. I don’t think having it be inconsistent with Slam is something damning, so in that sense I’d like to see thoughts on this that aren’t “but it’s so soon”. Thanks for reading!

 

[Excal]

As someone who qualified for classic playoffs last year, I strongly support this change. The current status quo is horrible from a competitive standpoint for reasons Bouff outlined and more. As it stands, classic rewards tier specialists significantly more than the well-rounded old gens player, which I feel is flawed. In addition, getting an unlucky bracket pairing in even just one cup can be incredibly punishing and ruin someone’s run before it even starts. I believe that in a Bo5 format, the better old gens player will win more often than they may in individual Bo3s.

During my run last year, I’d consider myself having had very rough bracket luck, facing several known & formidable players extremely early on comparatively. I got eliminated from 4 cups in the same week (Tony in GSC round 3 or 4 idr, dice in round 5 ADV, soulwind r5 DPP, and kingler r6 BW). You could say that this was deep enough in the tour to justify this schedule of opponents, but having scheduled several sets within the weeks before that and putting in my best effort in as many of them as I could caused me to burn out tremendously. Obviously everyone’s classic experience is different, but I felt like this kind of intensity and high-stress qualification situation was both not worth it at all and also very avoidable with format changes.

One of the main counterarguments seems to be that people “like cups”, but these are often either from people who won’t qualify for playoffs or people who are fortunate enough to be able to coast to playoffs effortlessly. I’ve talked about classic’s format for a while with other people who’ve qualified in the past, and it seems to be a frequent consensus that the tour in its current format is either “terrible” or not worth playing due to the time commitment and effort needed during the qualification phase. If people have better alternatives to the format than the one presented in the OP, then that’s cool. I just think a change needs to happen because it’s hard to make it more strenuous and unforgiving on competitors who are trying to qualify for this tournament than it currently is.

 

[lax]

Clearly, Bouff's thread spurred a lot of discussion. One of the arguments says that if you simply want to play a bo3 of your favorite tier, you should just sign up for the circuit tournaments. However, there is a clear distinction between a shiny trophy and a ribbon. People want to play their favorite tiers AND win a trophy, which is the biggest issue with his suggestion (in my opinion). Most overhyped, jerking tournament players don't really care about ribbons at all while the tier's community members love the idea of a ribbon. Ribbons are ok, but they all look exactly the same and are hard to distinguish anyways. My proposal is to replace ribbons completely with a trophy, specifically this trophy:

This new, brown ribbon would apply to all of the circuit tournaments for old gens, OMs and lower tiers. This adds more prestige to the old ribbons and more players would sign up for circuit tournaments. I made the color brown for the older people who dislike lower tiers or circuits and believe these tournaments are unbefitting of having a trophy. A trophy is still a trophy, though.

With this implementation, a bo5 OST-style tournament would be totally valid

 

[Ereshkigal]

I'm not really a tournament player, as I'm a poor player overall, but I'll still give my opinion for what it's worth.

I've never thought about it too much but I think reworking the Slam/Classic format is a great idea. I will not speak about the number of games you must play or other things that were already mentioned. Instead I will speak about another thing that I feel is also important. This is that tours like Slam/Classic are not currently very dynamic. Indeed these two tournaments are more often than not, if you succeed to go far in the cups, very long (they take like 6+ weeks during cups if you manage to go far enough + another 4 weeks for playoffs) and that might lead to a sort of weariness.

The proposal that Bouff made kind of make up for that, as with bo5 there's no need to make top 16 anymore, and therefore that makes the tournament much more dynamic in my opinion.

That's a shame tho that this discussion is only occurring now since Slam is happening really soon, but hopefully measures will be taken for Classic and future Slams.

 

[Expulso]

I think that entirely replacing Grand Slam's Opens with a Bo5 tournament is not a good idea. The rapid change of current-gen lower tiers makes it very hard to keep up with all 5 at once, so it is better for Slam to have a format that lets you focus on less tiers.

Since Classic's tiers, the oldgen OUs, are far more stable, I think it is possible to run that tour in a Bo5 rather than cups format. It is more possible to spend time getting good at all 5 tiers, since the tiers don't change that frequently.

As an example of the above point: let's say that I really wanted to win Classic, so 3 months before I start learning RBY, playing RBY games with friends, etc. By the time Classic comes around, I could reasonably feel confident in my RBY skills at that tier. Since the old gen OUs are always around to be picked up (with rare changes, like the dpp dug ban), it's more possible to learn them all in advance of Classic and then play them at a high level. This doesn't even mention the fact that you could also, say, watch the many high-caliber OU tournaments, like SPL, old gen ribbon playoffs, the previous Smogon Classic, etc. to learn the tiers and get teams.

Lower tiers are a lot different in this regard. If i tried to watch last Slam to learn the current Slam tiers, it would be almost completely useless; the tiers are completely different. A whole new DLC came, with consequences such as most of the UU mons now being RU-NU and replaced by former OU mons such as Scizor and Zeraora.
Compared to the above RBY example, if I were playing PU games the last few months in an effort to learn PU, by the time Slam rolls around that effort would not be very useful. Talonflame, a mon that currently has ~60-70% PU tour usage, will almost certainly rise to OU (oops! meant NU) the week before Slam.


TL;DR:
Learning all 5 Slam tiers at a high level is close to impossible to plan for in advance due to the rapid change, so I don't think the Slam format should expect that.

Bo5 single elim for Classic seems like a viable option. I am not an oldgen player, though, so I will let others speak on whether they'd prefer for Classic to be Bo5 or Cups/Opens.

 

[elodin]

even though I agree with the scheduling/burnout issues that come up during qualification, I can safely say I prefer the current format compared to the one suggested in the op. if i understood correctly you are proposing a single elimination bo5 tournament? i think it's very unrealistic to assume this format would reward better "all-around old gens" players when i could easily see great players being lucked out early on due to the reduced amount of games played overall. last year we saw a finals match between soulwind and abr, two players everyone would agree are top 5 overall in classic tiers (if not top 1 and 2), but i'm not so sure we'd see either of them in finals under your suggested format, because one of them could easily be lucked out earlier on or just lose facing rby luck, gsc baton pass, rse baton pass, dpp paraspam and bw cheese. not a great format imo.

also i must say having qualified for both classic and grand slam in the past, the current format does not end up with players who are really good at one tier at all. take any list of players from any classic playoffs edition and you'll see this statement is just straight up incorrect. this can be done easily by going to the classic replay archive thread. in fact, if you take a look at that thread you'll notice that the end result is actually quite the opposite as the one you outlined. i don't remember a single edition in which a player qualified solely by being great at one tier and winning that tier's cup. i'm pretty sure both danilo/asta have won adv cups in the past and none of them have ever qualified for playoffs.

the reason why this ends up happening is because even if you are really good at one tier, winning the cup you main is still extremely difficult due to the fact that it is essentially a tournament under the format you are suggesting as a replacement in the op lol. there's no way to guarantee someone like troller, fear, danilo, linear or asta won't just get lucked out early on in their main tier's cup. and even if they do end up making a solid run/winning (which is even more challenging considering by the time quarters/semis of each cup comes along it's not just luck you're up against, but actual good players) you're still going to need points from other cups to qualify for playoffs, which aren't exactly easy to get when you're not good at the other tiers. there's a reason why we don't see 1 tier mainers in classic playoffs ever.

so yeah, while i do think some of the issues outlined in the op are right regarding the current format, the one suggested as a replacement seems to be a lot worse. i personally am not looking forward into being thrown into a single elimination tour and getting beat early on by cheese/luck from a player who would probably not even make playoffs if he had to play the amount of games required to qualify right now.

edit: Excal

A good counterexample is the poffs scenarios from last classic, wherein the qualification cutoff was lower than other years. There were quite a few instances of specialists coming extremely close to playoffs qualification. On paper, dice is an example since he qualified for tiebreak with only 7 points across 4 tiers. 2 better examples are Hipmonlee and Nails, who would have qualified for poffs and tiebreak respectively, with almost all of their points coming off of RBY cup. Nails would probably have been the best example by having 14/18 of his points coming exclusively from RBY. It's kinda awkward to mention specific people's names and I'm not trying to imply that these people are not good at other tiers, it's all just on-paper stuff.

ok so in 1/6 editions of classic we've had a total amount of two players who exclusively main rby almost qualify. and dice, who has played multiple editions in the past (in fact he reached finals in classic iii) is an example because he qualified when he only had 7 points across 4 tiers... while those 2 rby mains didn't? shouldn't this be a perfect example of what i mentioned? "you're still going to need points from other cups to qualify for playoffs, which aren't exactly easy to get when you're not good at the other tiers." why did dice qualify for like his 3rd or 4th playoffs while nails/hipmonlee never did? how is this example not just proving my point? lol

 

[Excal]

also i must say having qualified for both classic and grand slam in the past, the current format does not end up with players who are really good at one tier at all. take any list of players from any classic playoffs edition and you'll see this statement is just straight up incorrect. this can be done easily by going to the classic replay archive thread. in fact, if you take a look at that thread you'll notice that the end result is actually quite the opposite as the one you outlined. i don't remember a single edition in which a player qualified solely by being great at one tier and winning that tier's cup. i'm pretty sure both danilo/asta have won adv cups in the past and none of them have ever qualified for playoffs.

A good counterexample is the poffs scenarios from last classic, wherein the qualification cutoff was lower than other years. There were quite a few instances of specialists coming extremely close to playoffs qualification. On paper, dice is an example since he qualified for tiebreak with only 7 points across 4 tiers. 2 better examples are Hipmonlee and Nails, who would have qualified for poffs and tiebreak respectively, with almost all of their points coming off of RBY cup. Nails would probably have been the best example by having 14/18 of his points coming exclusively from RBY. It's kinda awkward to mention specific people's names and I'm not trying to imply that these people are not good at other tiers, it's all just on-paper stuff.

I don't disagree with elodin's point of Bo5 single elimination having its flaws. Optimally it would be double elimination (heard something about the timing of this not being as long as current classic but I'm too lazy to verify this). However, at least in a Bo5 you get more chances to overcome adverse luck in one of the generations than the other scenario. I think it's more forgiving for the well-rounded old gens player as opposed to the "specialist", but ig at that point it's just semantics and it goes both ways.

 

[Amaranth]

Any reason why swiss isn't being floated around in these discussions? I've not been hugely involved in classic in the past, skipping it altogether most years, but now that the timing of it is a lot more reasonable I have more active interest in it. Something like a flat number of rounds of swiss for each gen, and a final tallying up of everyone's wins across all tiers to decide who qualifies, sounds very reasonable to me. The benefits are hopefully clear to see: no more fearing for your entire run on every random game against every random opponent, no more practically being ruled out from playoffs when you draw SoulWind (or whichever other behemoth) round 2, and possibly not even having to schedule as many games each week - swiss is very flexible, you could make more rounds but they're bo1, less rounds but they're bo3, a middling amount of rounds but they're two games per round, anything goes really.

I'm aware there are some drawbacks to swiss - winning a lot early can penalize you as your pairings get harder later on, for instance - but given what I've heard from multiple people who have experienced serious Classic fatigue due to the current format, I believe it at least deserves some discussion/consideration.

why I think swiss is our best shot, hidden for the sake of brevity

The current format is really weird. It simultaneously has too many games, with many people citing fatigue of having to schedule multiple sets per week, and it's also too high variance, with many people lamenting unlucky early pairings or just good old pokemon luck cutting their runs early. Normally these things don't go together; normally if you play more games the variance is meant to be less bad. There is something seriously wrong with the way this all works for this to happen.

I think the main culprit is the combination of random pairings + single elimination. Random pairings introduces significant draw luck, and single elimination makes in-game luck very relevant. These two types of luck compound on one another in a way that makes things pretty impossible to fix: we make rounds bo3 to reduce the in-game luck, but bo3 makes pairing luck especially harsh, because overcoming a difficult draw is less likely. The format works for the best of the best because for them there are hardly any difficult draws - they are the best. But for everyone else this is a real concern, everyone quite likes the idea of bo3 until all of a sudden they have to take 2 games out of 3 off Linear in an ADV bo3 as a non-mainer to have any chances at playoffs.

But we've already seen in threads past that random pairings are unlikely to go anywhere, so the alternative would be looking at alternatives to single elimination. It is pretty clear that tournaments the size of classic cups most likely cannot use double elimination, because it would last a few centuries. Axing the cups for bo5 single elim would go too far in the opposite direction, removing too many games and making pokemon luck too important (though maybe bo5 double elim could strike a good balance). Swiss seems like the ugly duckling that's being left out and I'm not entirely sure why, as it seems to me like it fares a lot better at reducing the importance of single games and rewards consistency across multiple games

 

[Hipmonlee]

I agree that playing in all the cups at once is an utterly brutal slog.

But honestly, prepping, scheduling and playing a bo5 is also a hell of a lot of work to be doing for a long tournament. Especially since you could easily get into a 300 turn gsc game and a 150 turn RBY game and then have to play three more games of pokemon after that.

It's fine for playoffs because its only 4 rounds, and the rewards are pretty high, but a bo5 for two months or however long it would take seems pretty rough.

 

[Boat]

obligatory these are boat thoughts not TDs thoughts

Firstly, I don't think that the format of Slam and Classic necessarily have to be married. I agree with Expulso that Bo5 for Slam doesn't work as well as it does for Classic because the tiers change. I can only imagine the disaster of the week after a tier shift in a format where you have to play every tier.

Secondly, here are the numbers, just so we're all on the same page about duration. Classic currently takes around 14 weeks (2 weeks of signup staggering, RBY Cup took 8 weeks, 4 weeks of playoffs. +1 week for every RR reset in RBY or GSC Cup). Single elimination Bo5 Classic would take 9 or 10 weeks. Double elimination Bo5 Classic would take a whopping 18 to 21 weeks, depending on signups and there's a GF bracket reset.

Lastly, a bit on Swiss. I love Swiss brackets. And I think in an ideal world where activity wins never happen, Swiss is the perfect type of bracket for Classic, a tournament where having as much data as possible is useful.

boat10/28/2019
Btw its rly funny how classic cups are a textbook example of when to use swiss
And we dont

I do really like Amaranth's idea of running a flat number of rounds of Swiss (as opposed to running a full Swiss until there's a decisive winner). I think it'd be a really cool format that allows people to play a lot of games. However, I don't think this addresses the problems Swiss has on Smogon, nor addresses the concerns in the OP. The biggest issue with Swiss on Smogon in my opinion is that there will be an absurd number of activity wins in the groups of players doing badly. The players that are 0-3 in Swiss with no chance of making playoffs have no reason to continue playing; they won't win the Cup, and they certainly won't win Classic. They'll just stop playing, and that could feed a high number of points to players who can still make playoffs while doing badly in only one or two cups. I'm not sure if this addresses the burnout problem in the OP either; you still have to play 5 cups at once. That's not hyperbole in this case. Currently, by the time RBY and GSC Cup start, 3/4 of the players in BW Cup are out and 1/2 of the players in DPP and ADV Cup are out, so not everyone is playing 5 cups. In Swiss, literally everyone would play all five Cups at once. I don't think that's a good plan.

 

[zee]

Hi all, I'm not really super integrated into the oldgens/tours community but I do just want to comment on the Swiss perspective as it's typically the format used in VGC tournaments, both official and grassroots. As Boat mentioned, a big problem with Swiss tours is that people typically have very little motivation to play the tour out once they are unable to reach playoffs. My suggestion to remedy this is to drop players from the tournament once they hit a certain threshold of losses. This is something that's really common in grassroots VGC tours and helps them run effectively so that there's not a huge lag time at the end of the round rallying up all the dead games or voluntary drops. So just for example, let's say classic has decided to go with 8 rounds of Swiss and all players that finish 6-2 at the end will move on. Once a player hits their third loss, they are dropped from the tour. The activity issue is (mostly) resolved, as the only players in the tour at any point are those with a shot at the playoff. You'll obviously have your early round activity still but these issues are to be expected of any major tour and will get taken care of fairly quickly.

The argument I could see against this being used is that it cuts newer players out of the tour earlier, but from my understanding, all cups were already single elimination, so it's not like this is an entirely new thing.

Just to clarify, I'm only saying that this should be a consideration if Swiss is already chosen for the tour format, as I don't really have a dog in the hunt about what the tour's format is itself, I'd play regardless.

 

[Amaranth]

I'm not sure if this addresses the burnout problem in the OP either; you still have to play 5 cups at once. That's not hyperbole in this case. Currently, by the time RBY and GSC Cup start, 3/4 of the players in BW Cup are out and 1/2 of the players in DPP and ADV Cup are out, so not everyone is playing 5 cups. In Swiss, literally everyone would play all five Cups at once. I don't think that's a good plan.

zeefable has already addressed some of your other concerns, but regarding this, let's also keep in mind swiss could easily be bo1 rounds - since losing a game isn't so punishing anymore, you don't need sets to be bo3 anymore. Preparing up to 15 games at once is rough, preparing 5 is likely fine.

 

[Sapientia]

While it is true that the current format is very draining and demanding for players, I disagree that replacing the Classic with a Single Elimination tournament is any better.

Of course it is less games, which automatically means that it is more random. While you can get out of one Cup with 0 points due to bad luck/draws, you can compensate that while it is just over in a single elimination tournament. I remember some huge discussions regarding seeding for Classic and this would get even worse if we play single elimination.

I do not think that it is actually a problem that people can reach Classic Play Offs if they perform very well in only one or two cups and are not so good in the other ones, as the play offs format ensures that the winner is able to play all tiers. As elodin mentioned, it was also not the case in the past that we had specialist playing against each other in the finals. If you are somewhat okish in every old gen, but not very good in either of them (like me for example), you are just too bad for play offs and need to improve.

I really like the idea of Swiss, but as this would probably mean more and not less games, this might not solve the issue of classic being to demanding for players.

I honestly think that the only solution to this problem is giving the Classic more time and not playing all cups parallel. Maybe even have the Classic Play Offs at the end of the year and play the cups from January to October, so that you can play one after the other. Of course you can also just go to 20 weeks instead of 14 or whatever seems appropriate to at least ensure that only players that go very deep in multiple cups have a lot of games to play. The obvious disadvantage is that this means that you have to commit to play Pokemon the whole year and cannot just appear for playing cups and then disappear again.

 

[Hogg]

Not really the point of the main thread and not specific to Classic/Slam, but since swiss is being brought up…

I absolutely love the swiss format and I absolutely hate it for Smogon tournaments. Swiss tours are fantastic for live formats and terrible when every round takes at least a week and there is a high drop-out rate and no overall ranking to incentivize remaining in the tournament. (I have similar issues with large double elimination tours as well, for what it’s worth, though formats like OLT’s playoffs can be an exception to the rule.) Single elimination tours are problematic for a lot of reasons, but for months-long tournaments they are good at quickly winnowing the field of disinterested players and avoiding too much player fatigue. (And yeah, I know they can be plenty fatiguing… but imagine how much more so they could be if a month into a 256 person tour you still had ~256 people competing, rather than ~32.)

Not saying it’s an insurmountable problem, but it’s one that I’ve run into every time I’ve poked around at alternatives to big single elim tours for Smogon.

 

[ABR]

From a purely competitive standpoint, the current Classic format is ideal. There are different tiers yea but you have 5 losses to spare overall so bracket / game luck are pretty minimal at that point. Playoff brackets are usually excellent and exciting throughout. I’ve had a ton of fun participating in this tournament for the past few years and it’s probably my favorite overall.

All that said, it might be too physically demanding. Simultaneously scheduling 5 series at once is a lot to ask of people. Maybe we could stagger the cups more but it’s unclear what would actually be feasible and not detrimental.

So, if we do see the status quo as a problem (idk personally), then where does that leave us? Double elimination and swiss are both cool but extremely unreliable on such a large scale. We could do OST style bo5, which asks a lot less of players but also gives less room for error. I’m not sure personally but it’s a good discussion to have regardless.

 

[Moutemoute]

Even tho Slam is pretty draining, I really dislike the idea to change all those individual Opens into one big tournament. I'm enjoying way more the fact to do a BO3 in every tier rather than just a global BO5 like in PO. The biggest issue I see is that once you're out of that big tournament you're pretty much fucked up for the Slam while in the current format, even tho you failed in a tier, you can still adapt and managed to perform better in another open in order to amass enough points for PO. So yeah Slam is draining but I mean, it's the biggest low tiers individual tournament so thankfully this is something you really need to put a lot of investment into in order to reach PO. This idea also cream off even more lower tiers circuit where Opens are important event within the community. So yeah, I fully disagree on this idea for Slam at least since I don't know anything about Classic as a tournament.

 

[Ununhexium]

Any reason why swiss isn't being floated around in these discussions? I've not been hugely involved in classic in the past, skipping it altogether most years, but now that the timing of it is a lot more reasonable I have more active interest in it. Something like a flat number of rounds of swiss for each gen, and a final tallying up of everyone's wins across all tiers to decide who qualifies, sounds very reasonable to me. The benefits are hopefully clear to see: no more fearing for your entire run on every random game against every random opponent, no more practically being ruled out from playoffs when you draw SoulWind (or whichever other behemoth) round 2, and possibly not even having to schedule as many games each week - swiss is very flexible, you could make more rounds but they're bo1, less rounds but they're bo3, a middling amount of rounds but they're two games per round, anything goes really.

I'm aware there are some drawbacks to swiss - winning a lot early can penalize you as your pairings get harder later on, for instance - but given what I've heard from multiple people who have experienced serious Classic fatigue due to the current format, I believe it at least deserves some discussion/consideration.

why I think swiss is our best shot, hidden for the sake of brevity

The current format is really weird. It simultaneously has too many games, with many people citing fatigue of having to schedule multiple sets per week, and it's also too high variance, with many people lamenting unlucky early pairings or just good old pokemon luck cutting their runs early. Normally these things don't go together; normally if you play more games the variance is meant to be less bad. There is something seriously wrong with the way this all works for this to happen.

I think the main culprit is the combination of random pairings + single elimination. Random pairings introduces significant draw luck, and single elimination makes in-game luck very relevant. These two types of luck compound on one another in a way that makes things pretty impossible to fix: we make rounds bo3 to reduce the in-game luck, but bo3 makes pairing luck especially harsh, because overcoming a difficult draw is less likely. The format works for the best of the best because for them there are hardly any difficult draws - they are the best. But for everyone else this is a real concern, everyone quite likes the idea of bo3 until all of a sudden they have to take 2 games out of 3 off Linear in an ADV bo3 as a non-mainer to have any chances at playoffs.

But we've already seen in threads past that random pairings are unlikely to go anywhere, so the alternative would be looking at alternatives to single elimination. It is pretty clear that tournaments the size of classic cups most likely cannot use double elimination, because it would last a few centuries. Axing the cups for bo5 single elim would go too far in the opposite direction, removing too many games and making pokemon luck too important (though maybe bo5 double elim could strike a good balance). Swiss seems like the ugly duckling that's being left out and I'm not entirely sure why, as it seems to me like it fares a lot better at reducing the importance of single games and rewards consistency across multiple games

Swiss is really good in theory but there are a lot of flaws that occur when it’s not hosted in a live format which Stratos outlined here in a thread a while back, mainly activity

 

[Earthworm]

I disagree with the OP suggestion and agree with the points made by elodin and Amaranth.

Swiss is probably doable with voluntary dropouts made prior to the next round starting combined with punishing activity losses by tournament ban + forced dropout. It may increase player fatigue though, because players who might have normally been eliminated from the tours may feel pressured to continue playing. We'd probably have to stretch out the tournament further to make it possible. Tournament bans might also be seen as an extreme punishment, but I think something on that level of severity may be necessary to make the tournament function.

A lot of people seem to like the idea of swiss, so I think continued discussion of what measures would be required to make it a viable option would be good, rather than just looking at past examples that have failed.

 

[Boat]

TDs have been discussing and we came up with a hypothetical format for a Swiss classic. please keep in mind this is something we're absolutely not ready to commit to. I know this is a pretty "out there" format, but hopefully this addresses some concerns people have regarding burnout in this tournament. feedback would be appreciated

- first 5/6 rounds of each cup are ran as Bo1 Swiss, OLT style where X-3 players are eliminated. points are awarded according to record. playoffs are the same as current classic
- after the swiss rounds, it goes to bo3 and players are playing exclusively for the Cup win. to be clear, after the swiss rounds, cups do not matter for playoffs in any way whatsoever. they're just for glory at that point. the reason for this is that if we only did the 5-6 rounds of swiss, there would be no decisive winner for the cup. however, if we ran the entire 8-9 rounds of swiss, this would do nothing to mitigate burnout, and would only worsen it in reality.
- to avoid players having 5 tournaments at once, we can spread out the signups to start one at a time rather than two. this will still be faster than the current classic

the math comes down to this.
- if you play fewer than 10 series in the current classic, you can expect to play more games in this format
- if you play more than 10 series in the current classic, you can expect to play fewer games in this format

pros
----
not good players get more games
good players have fewer games -> less burnout
fewer people have 5 opponents in a single week, and 5 opponents at once is only possible in exactly one week of the tournament
one unlucky pairing / getting haxed doesnt end your cup
the prep burden is much much lower

cons
----
bo1
byes are very problematic, we will need to find a solution for these
some cup finals overlapping with classic playoffs if theres no gap between end of swiss and playoffs
the scheduling burden is still pretty high once all the Cups start

 

[shiloh]

hey wanted to reply to this as well, mainly responding to the op & boats last post.

regarding bouffs original post, i think most ppl @ this point agree that a bo5 SE becomes a bit too luck based with regards to early pairings. while in the current format you can still run into good players early on, you have a much, much lower shot of being straight up knocked out because of it. while you can run into people like abr, mana, soulwind, etc early on in classic cups, the fact is you still have a chance to beat them & you still have 4 other cups to get points in. last year i got knocked out r1 of gsc, and got knocked out of adv r2 by m dragon, but i still was one of the first to actually qualify for playoffs just because bad early draws isnt the end of the world in the current format. a bo5 se would just completely nullify that, and there are good chances current playoff "locks" get knocked out early because they get paired up early or just get bad luck early on. while a double elim format would remove some of that bad luck, it takes much longer, and the one week break between sets for winners post round 2 would honestly just be more annoying than anything for people in that bracket, and could lead to more drop out and fatigue later on.

the reason why ost can get away with being a single elim tour is because there are multiple other ways to show of CG skills and get a trophy that does not require you to get good bracket luck & good in game luck early on to even have a chance, those being OLT and the STours. old gens / lower tiers do not have that same chance since they both only have one individual trophy granted a year. the current format best makes use of that by allowing the best players to actually make it to playoffs, as it does require the players to be consistently good across multiple tiers or just really great at a couple.

--

now with boats post. i do agree with what was brought up earlier in that swiss is a great format, but i am unsure if the change needs to happen / how you guys have outlined it currently.

the most surprising one to me is making it bo1. bo1 for an official, unless its a livetour, doesnt make any sense to me. when you currently sign up for the cups you do have the chance of having to play it through, and that would result in multiple bo3s through the course of the tournament, so the fact that the swiss would have more participants going for longer doesn't really mean it has to be a bo1. with it being swiss as well, it allows players to relax a bit on the prep as they do not have to be worried about being eliminated from the cup with each loss, so they would want to put in more time preparing every week for the matchup if they want to give themselves the best shot of staying in. a swiss format like this would incentive repeating times more often through multiple bo3s, as you can be more confident in what you are comfortable in, knowing that if you do get counterteamed, or your opponent just has the leg up on you that day you can still earn points and make it further in the tournament. this format would include rby, which even in teamtours is played in a bo3 format, so having it be bo1 for the one official tournament it gets a year (even for just the prelim stages) is just not the way we should be going about this.

my other concern is from the fact that post swiss, there is no incentive to even playing in the cups. in fact, some people who are in playoffs will probably see a disadvantage to continuing to play in cups, where they probably will have to have mandatory replays, and they would have some overlap with the playoffs as well. from a playoff standpoint this is not a huge deal, but i think it does take away from the value of the tournament somewhat. in both classic and slam, its always exciting to see the way cups pan out, being able to watch the final few rounds of the cup to see who makes it in playoffs, as well as having the best competition in the cup itself, as most people that make it far at that point have no real reason to not keep playing, as while they might already be qualified, it could move them up for seeding to help them get easier early rounds. the cups here probably just become more glorified seasonals, where a lot of the people that make playoffs, or fall short and don't really care about the cups will either drop out or throw. i am unsure what the solution could be for this problem while keeping it a swiss format,

personally i dont really think any change has to happen, and i might be in the minority here, but as someone who made classic playoffs last year + has played in almost every classic/slam since ive been active on the site, i dont really want to even see any changes made to it. while there are some issues with having to schedule 5 bo3s a week, there are only a small handful of people a year that have to deal with that, as most lose early in 1-2 cups, if not more. and even then, a large part of the "prestige" to both classic and slam, is the fact that it does a great job at getting the players who are the best into the playoffs at the end. theres a reason that there are such consistent faces in a lot of these playoffs, and at this point i think it is just a part/expectation of the tournament that you do have to put time commitment into it if you want to make it far and qualify, but is that a bad thing? if people cant juggle officials with work/life/school then its probably better for them to focus on the unofficials, the team tournaments, etc, and not put the commitment to play the multiple bo3s a week that come with the cups. last year around slam i knew i would be a bit busier, so i just signed up for nu open, and that was great for me. while swiss is an interesting format (and its honestly been amazing in olt), i am unsure if classic/slam are the best place to implement it. a tour like ost would make a lot more sense to do a format like boat is mentioning, though i dont think it has to happen in the first place.

 

[Boat]

With the addition of the new TDs, discussion about this topic was revitalized and we've reached a conclusion about what to do with Classic.

We have opted not to make significant format changes this year. However, we did have an extensive discussion about why Classic is such a difficult tour for many players, and we hope to, at least partially, address those reasons. Discussion about player burnout was split into discussion about the schedulung burden and the building burden, with mixed opinions about which is more troublesome.

Regarding the building burden, we discussed a couple options, mostly notably a team lock in the early rounds. We also discussed allowing for hidden rooms on Smogtours (or any alternative that allows us access to both hidden rooms and recreations), to allow players to more easily re-use teams in early rounds. We have no plans for the former. The latter is still in discussion, but any plans for its implementation are distinct from our plans for Classic at this point.

Regarding the scheduling burden, we do have a plan. Currently, Round 1 of each Cup is two weeks long, and the Cups are released two at a time (DPP ADV together, GSC RBY together). This means that anybody who wins two rounds of BW and one round of DPP and ADV is in five cups at once, which is pretty miserable. By releasing Cups one at a time and reducing the R1 deadline to one week, we seek to significantly reduce the number of Cups that players are in simultaneously, while only adding one week to the duration of the tournament.