Context: A player was drafted for Smogon Snake Draft IV and then traded promptly. Upon arriving in his new team's chat, this player has approximately one line over ~2 weeks despite managers reaching out to him on numerous occasions. While I do believe this team should get a replacement pick, I also believe establishing this precedent and rule is important in the long haul for future editions of SSD.
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Smogon Premier League and Smogon Snake Draft are the two official Smogon team tournaments that involve drafts; WCOP is the third, but it is regionally basedever since we adopted actual eligibility rules a few years back, so it has no place in this discussion. As many of you know, SPL has a sellback system that allows for players who have been purchased to be sold back if they quit or are inactive. This is done around "midseason" and is compensated during an auction using leftover credits as well as sellback credits. For more on this process and the system surrounding it, feel free to check out the following threads which show what this looked like during the most recent SPL: SPL XI Administrative Decisions, SPL XI Midseason Auction, and SPL XI Midseason Signups.
SSD has no system for replacements if they are not clear immediately after the auction, which can cause a problem if this happens as a team is likely to be shorthanded throughout the tournament. It is true that managers are permitted to report users who cancer to be tournament banned still, but this user being tournament banned does not help their team in any capacity as they are still without a compensatory pick. In a format where each team has fourteen drafted players -- no more or less, it would make sense to maintain this number throughout each team whenever possible. I am aware that replicating the SPL midseason draft format is impossible for SSD, but there is a workable solution regardless. The only allusion to this in the rules can be found in the quote below:
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I am proposing that we implement a new replacement pick ("sellback") system for players who cancer and/or went inactive for SSD.
This proposal does come alongside some conditions that people should discuss and the hosts should finalize if we do end up implementing the proposal:
Finally, this is predominantly addressed towards the hosts of SSD: MajorBowman, Merritt, and kjdaas. I understand that, as hosts, being presented with a novel situation and prompt complaints is not an easy situation to handle, so I understand whatever discussions (with TDs, the community, or anyone else) and processes that may need to occur before a conclusion is reached may take some time. Thank you for reading.
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Smogon Premier League and Smogon Snake Draft are the two official Smogon team tournaments that involve drafts; WCOP is the third, but it is regionally based
SSD has no system for replacements if they are not clear immediately after the auction, which can cause a problem if this happens as a team is likely to be shorthanded throughout the tournament. It is true that managers are permitted to report users who cancer to be tournament banned still, but this user being tournament banned does not help their team in any capacity as they are still without a compensatory pick. In a format where each team has fourteen drafted players -- no more or less, it would make sense to maintain this number throughout each team whenever possible. I am aware that replicating the SPL midseason draft format is impossible for SSD, but there is a workable solution regardless. The only allusion to this in the rules can be found in the quote below:
I find this rule to be too limiting and in need of prompt reform. It is not fair to managers to have to make this snap judgement in the week between when a tournament draft occurs and when the matchups are posted. In addition, there was not even going to be a week before we lobbied for a gap week, which happened after the introduction thread was posted with this rule. As it stands, this rule is not very useful and it does not give managers a proper mechanism to obtain a replacement player when they deserve one. I will be outlining a proposal for proper replacement picks below.2. Player Replacements – Player replacements may only happen between the auction and the start of the first round. As soon as matchups are posted, player replacement will no longer be accepted. Only acceptable reason for replacing a player is team cancering, as defined by our official tournament rules.
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I am proposing that we implement a new replacement pick ("sellback") system for players who cancer and/or went inactive for SSD.
This proposal does come alongside some conditions that people should discuss and the hosts should finalize if we do end up implementing the proposal:
- We should give managers the opportunity to submit an appeal to replace a player during the first few weeks of the season.
- The hosts much approve this in order for it to go through.
- There can be guidelines as to what conditions must be met for a team to be eligible for a replacement player and a player to be subject to being replaced. This can go hand-and-hand with the team tournament cancering rules as well as inactivity rules.
- Recent SPL precedent backs this and it is infinitely better than having the managers vote as a collective.
- Replacement picks should be made around the middle of the season, likely sometime during week 4 or 5 of the regular season.
- This means there is still a noteworthy incentive for talking to your prospective picks before drafting them and drafting with team cohesion in mind as you can be without a slot for a few weeks if things go south due to picking someone who did not work out.
- Recent SPL precedent backs this and it is roughly the middle of the season, which makes it less of an arbitrarily selected point and more of a justified one.
- Replacement picks should only be players who signed up for the tournament initially.
- This prevents players from withholding their sign-up initially to only play under the condition that a specific team has a replacement pick. To clarify: the pool of replacement picks would be those interested in participating who signed up initially, but did not get drafted.
- It is worth discussing if these players would have to abide by the rules about tiers they signed up for the first two weeks of the season (i.e: would they only be allowed to play the tiers they signed up for initially for the first two weeks?) and I do not personally have a stance on that.
- Recent SPL precedent backs this and it is the most fair option.
- Priority in making replacement picks should be given to teams who appeal for a replacement player first.
- It is possible that multiple teams have players quit, cancer, or go inactive and appeal for a replacement player. It is also possible that they would both want to pick the same player from the replacement player pool. Seeing as there is no auction to bid on players, it would only make sense for teams who appeal first to get priority. This is not something that is precedented as far as I know, but it seems like the only logical way to distinguish to me.
- If you feel otherwise (on this or any other points), please post your own opinion as I am not trying to force things into place myself and I do not want to be the only voice here. I am happily making a proposal for the best of the tournament moving forward, but there are lots of things to discuss pertaining to it.
Finally, this is predominantly addressed towards the hosts of SSD: MajorBowman, Merritt, and kjdaas. I understand that, as hosts, being presented with a novel situation and prompt complaints is not an easy situation to handle, so I understand whatever discussions (with TDs, the community, or anyone else) and processes that may need to occur before a conclusion is reached may take some time. Thank you for reading.