Announcement Restructuring OM circuit and permaladders for 2025

[Isaiah]

There's an observable (and in some cases fatal) decline in ladder activity for metagames that are turned into permaladders after a couple of months of temporary high activity as OMOTM, and it's gotten to the point where we literally have to hack a fake "spotlight" concept just to dodge PS ladder activity requirements. Why does this matter? It means we're preserving ladders for metagames that plainly lack the consistency in activity to meet standards + arguably denying them the activity they used to have as temporary spotlight ladders. It's not farfetched to say that having 7 permanent ladders is *a lot*, and the numbers agree with that, so OM forum staff/leaders want to remove the permaladder spotlight and require that permaladders are able to meet PS ladder requirements (can expand on this later if anyone is curious) in order to stay on the sim. This goes into the next point, which is that

New permaladder metagames should not be added to the individual circuit until they have demonstrated a certain level of activity and interest after becoming a permaladder. The bare minimum for this will probably be something along the lines of actually being able to maintain enough plays per month to avoid getting ladder removed from PS over a prolonged period of time, which also links to being able to run suspect tests that successfully produce double digit voter numbers even if you subtract people who get them from suspect tours (e.g. Godly Gift barely hit 12 even with multiple tours). So, the second part of this proposal is going to involve reducing the number of circuit metas from 6 (AAA/STAB/BH/MNM/PIC/GG) to 4 (AAA/BH/STAB/MNM). The four metagames in question have demonstrated that they have the longevity (in terms of engagement and activity) to 1) retain decent ladder/tournumbers regardless of fluctuations in interest and 2) actually run suspect tests, which are largely becoming more and more standard as community involvement and influence in tiering increases, so they seem like a fair starting point to legitimizing these new requirements.

So, what do we want to actually happen? In theory, this should proceed as follows:

• PIC and GG will not be on the 2025 OM Circuit. Note that this doesn't mean they can't be in OMPL or other big team tournaments; it just means they likely won't have cemented slots like the 4 circuit metas will. An idea that was floated is letting the community vote on which metagames to include in the remaining 4 slots of OMPL and having a discussion thread in advance of the tournament, but we can discuss specifics on how to best determine OMPL slots at some later date.
• PIC, Inh, and GG will keep their permanent ladders and face removal + go back on OMOTM/LCOTM rotation if their activity declines enough to not meet PS ladder standards.
• Implement more stringent standards for when an omotm can become a permaladder (this isn't cemented yet and will have to be figured out by forum mods, although suggestions are welcome) and subsequently a circuit meta to best avoid exponential declines in activity.
• Since these tiers are still likely to be popular enough for people to want them in e.g. OMPL even if not in circuit, we'll probably need to be sure to still schedule unofficial tournaments for them in the subforum before those big team tours happen.
  ​

The tier leaders of each metagame were already made aware of this ahead of time and have had a month to collect their thoughts/feedback on the matter, so now it's a public thread to make everyone aware of the plans. The goal is to end up with a more standardized (even if smaller) circuit and metagames that we can keep consistent without it seeming like we need to make a major change every single year. Post your thoughts below (if you have any).

 

[UT]

I think reducing the number of circuit metas makes sense; those four have consistently been the four most played metas for at least half a decade now and have shown greater sustainability than the other options.

The only thing I dislike about four circuit metas is the implications on playoffs; I have enjoyed watching the bo5 format, and am not sure how to make that work with only four circuit metas (or for that matter, how to super cleanly do bo3). I would be curious to hear proposals for circuit playoffs in light of this.

I am also interested to hear ideas for other, unofficial tours for the non-circuit metas. There should hopefully be more room in the tour schedule, and I would love to see something like Spotlight league return (maybe it will be more successful with a few more relatively popular options).

also abolish WC

 

[QT]

I think reducing the number of circuit metas makes sense; those four have consistently been the four most played metas for at least half a decade now and have shown greater sustainability than the other options.

The only thing I dislike about four circuit metas is the implications on playoffs; I have enjoyed watching the bo5 format, and am not sure how to make that work with only four circuit metas (or for that matter, how to super cleanly do bo3). I would be curious to hear proposals for circuit playoffs in light of this.

I am also interested to hear ideas for other, unofficial tours for the non-circuit metas. There should hopefully be more room in the tour schedule, and I would love to see something like Spotlight league return (maybe it will be more successful with a few more relatively popular options).

also abolish WC

I think the obvious ideal situation here is that one of the three manages to pick up enough ladder plays that it can stay and we have 5, but equally obvious is that if wishes were fishes we'd have no problems in the first place. Speaking purely selfishly for singles, I would want for GG to stay in the circuit since of the three it's the one I'm best at and I swear I'll win OMGS and Circuit one of these days; speaking purely selfishly for team tournaments, I would want to keep PIC in since it's great fun to spectate if you have a teammate who knows what they're doing.

For unofficial tours, one possibility I would like to float is a team tour run before OMPL that included all three of the metagames in question (and any other meta that wins enough popularity to be considered?). I think it would be smart to, instead of getting lost in the weeds of which meta is the best without hard data, to have had an entire other tournament people can look to for hard data. It's also much better in the case of us getting rid of a meta from the big tours circuit, since any manager looking to draft can just look at how people performed there instead of guessing based on their posts in the metagame thread or their record in ompl 3 years ago. Possibly we could also combine this with it being specifically aimed at people not otherwise playing in OMPL - like I feel Farm League always should have been, a way for up and coming players to get noticed and scouted and then actually drafted in a real tour while their skills are still sharp and everyone remembers what they can do - but I don't want to commit to that if it means excluding, say, all the GG players who we would want to have in OMPL that year, so it might be for the best to keep them separate ideas.

 

[Chessking345]

The only thing I dislike about four circuit metas is the implications on playoffs; I have enjoyed watching the bo5 format, and am not sure how to make that work with only four circuit metas (or for that matter, how to super cleanly do bo3). I would be curious to hear proposals for circuit playoffs in light of this.

From what I've seen a number of people seem to dislike the 4-meta circuit mainly because of the implications to the playoffs meta so I would like to toss out some random ideas assuming playoffs is with 4 metas. I won't comment on the 4 meta thing itself.

1. Bo7 playoffs, each of the 4 metas can be played twice. Higher seed picks first, loser picks next.
+ Fair distribution of metas with no significant advantage to higher seed.
- Bo7 is a lot of games to be played.

2. Bo5 playoffs, all 4 metas once with one twice. The repeated meta should be selected by higher seed. To compensate, it can be an option to let the lower seed pick first meta. Options for repeated meta:
a. Every playoffs player locks in one meta for the entire playoffs, this limits the target picks in certain matchups later on.
b. Higher seed picks meta each week.
c. Lower seed bans one meta each week and then higher seed picks.
+ Bo5 is probably the optimal number of games to be played
- Higher seed gets a larger advantage depending on how it works, which could also just be fine as a bonus for higher seed.

3. Bo3 playoffs. Higher seed picks first, loser picks next.
+ Fair distribution of metas while not being too many games like Bo7.
- One meta gets dropped and its Bo3 which feels too short.

4. Play all 4 metas and allow ties, change format from single-elimination to Round Robin with 8 (or even 6 if duration is a concern) players. Options for winner:
a. Top 2 scoring players play out a finals match of any format (Bo3, Bo5, Bo7 all possible).
b. Highest score at end through various tiebreak score calculations, if not possible do a tiebreak match, tiers decided randomly or use seeds.
+ Fairest distribution of metas (all 4 will get played for each match!), way more games maybe leading to more tension and hype, also rewards consistency.
- 7 weeks base is significantly longer than 4 currently which can end up longer. Tiebreaks can be annoying. If no final match less excitement at end.

5. Same as 4. but Swiss instead of Round Robin with 16 players. Can potentially add:
c. 2nd and 3rd play, winner plays 1st.
+ Similar to 4. But Swiss over RR allows technically more flexibility with timings and allows more players.
- Swiss. Lower week count means less spread out scores.

Edit - 6. Same as 4. but instead of 8 or 6 players 1 match per week, 9 players 2 matches per week. Players will be split into 3 groups of 3 each week to play against both other players. Total duration for RR part would be 4 weeks.
+ Similar to 4. But no duration issue and can fit extra player(s). High number of games per week (36 total, 9 matches).
- Players do have to prep for both opponents and play a constant 8 games each week.

Personally I think 4/5/6 would be interesting to see if the schedule allows for the longer duration (which tbf with less circuit tours probably?). Between the three I prefer 4/6 as 16 players is a lot esp if metas get reduced so 8 (or 6) seems fine and RR is kind of just a better format. I like 6 most as long as players don't have an issue prepping 8 games every week lol.

 

[MAMP]

add bo1 cc1v1 as the 5th meta for playoffs. let god decide

 

[Dunfan]

I suggest reintroducing rotating ladders.
An example as to why it is ideal is that Inheritance's 2024 regular monthly activity was 431 battles average while its spotlight activity was 7209 average, almost 17 times the amount. If a meta is only active one month out of three, the two other months can instead welcome metas that are in the exact same situation to have a permanently active rotation.
This allows us to keep our ladders and more easily do suspect tests, improving our metas much faster than if they were OMoTM/LCoTM dependant. This, in turn, frees up the OMoTM/LCoTM slots for more unique or less developed metas. A win for everyone involved.

 

[Isaiah]

I suggest reintroducing rotating ladders.
An example as to why it is ideal is that Inheritance's 2024 regular monthly activity was 431 battles average while its spotlight activity was 7209 average, almost 17 times the amount. If a meta is only active one month out of three, the two other months can instead welcome metas that are in the exact same situation to have a permanently active rotation.
This allows us to keep our ladders and more easily do suspect tests, improving our metas much faster than if they were OMoTM/LCoTM dependant. This, in turn, frees up the OMoTM/LCoTM slots for more unique or less developed metas. A win for everyone involved.

If a metagame can only be active in one month out of three, then it should just be an omotm/lcotm. Making the other two tiers not have ladders doesn't change the fact that the meta in rotation isn't active enough to sustain a ladder and meet PS rules + it seems a bit strange to say that omotm/lcotm are being freed for "more unique or less developed metas" while talking about giving special privileges to metagames that appear to lack enough of a playerbase to retain permanent ladders.

 

[dhelmise]

the 2024 circuit is reaching its end, so unless someone has any ideas that havent been brought up yet, this will be implemented into the 2025 circuit by the year-end.

 

[RR RR]

Ngl I'm a very casual player who literally just plays Shared Power and randbats and I'm mostly here by chance, but while I'm here, might I ask why you're not mentioning Shared Power at all when talking about permaladders? Is it staying?

 

[Isaiah]

Ngl I'm a very casual player who literally just plays Shared Power and randbats and I'm mostly here by chance, but while I'm here, might I ask why you're not mentioning Shared Power at all when talking about permaladders? Is it staying?

Shared power's ladder doesn't have the same activity issues and also isn't in consideration for the circuit, so we have no reason to take action on it at the moment.

 

[Isaiah]

An idea for next year's circuit that's been floated is an outline that looks like:

OM Majors - January 5
Almost Any Ability Winter Seasonal - TBA
STABmons Winter Seasonal - TBA
Balanced Hackmons Spring Seasonal - TBA
Mix and Mega Spring Seasonal - TBA
Premier League - TBA
Almost Any Ability Summer Seasonal - TBA
STABmons Summer Seasonal - TBA
Balanced Hackmons Fall Seasonal - TBA
Mix and Mega Fall Seasonal - TBA
Other Team Tour - TBA
Playoffs - TBA

The two biggest changes here would be:
1) Every individual circuit tournament is a double elim seasonal (majors is an outlier), meaning
2) OM Grand Slam would become its own entity outside of the OM circuit (still awards a banner)

Thoughts? Concerns? Alternative suggestions?

 

[Hera]

how would pl and other team tour be included in circuit? would we actually end up giving points to particpants of these tournaments, and if so, how would that work?

 

[Isaiah]

how would pl and other team tour be included in circuit? would we actually end up giving points to particpants of these tournaments, and if so, how would that work?

Team tours don't give circuit points. They're just shown in the schedule to give perspective on timing

 

[MZ]

I know I only barely pay attention to OMs anymore and just join whenever, but slam out of circuit would kill any serious interest I’d be able to muster in OMs. I skimmed the thread and don’t see it mentioned anywhere, if you’re worried about making non-core OMs in slam count for circuit points then there are like 5 suggestions I could spout off for that. I would absolutely not remove it though, own ribbon or not.

 

[Ivar57]

So with the ongoing discussion about the look of the circuit next year I thought it would be a good idea to get the opinion of a portion of the playerbase on this. And what could be a better sample than the 16 people who qualified for the om circuit playoffs this year? I tried getting opinions from everyone in an unbiased way by asking everyone the same question.

The message I sent to everyone

Hey, I'm compiling the opinions of all 16 qualified players of the ongoing om circuit playoffs on the new format for the circuit of next year. I would like you to release a short statement. If you have not read it yet please do so at: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/restructuring-om-circuit-and-permaladders-for-2025.3753373/ What it comes down to is that gg and pic will be removed from the circuit next year. This has big implications both for qualifying for the next circuit and the following playoffs. If you can spare me a bit of your time feel free to tell me if you think this is a positive or a negative change and why. In the end everyones statement will be combined in a single smogon post. Thanks in advance.

Below is the opinion of everyone, including myself.

Sammyce123

So all in all, I think that gg should be included in the circuit (tho this might stem from bias idk), but pic should not. Firstly, gg has a rich history in OMs and it is generally well-liked by both the casual and competitive playerbase (at least from mere observations), and it would add a 5th metagame so that majors / grand slam / circuit can be proper bo5 metagames with no metagame being repeated twice, making it overall more competitive with less one-sided player mus that favor the higher seed.

Additionally, ladder play should not be the definitive metric for if it's in a tournament circuit, which is entirely independent of the ladder itself. Of course, having an active ladder would help in many different areas of the metagame, such as development, suspect tests, learning the meta as a newer player etc, but suspect tests can be done when it's a spotlight ladder, and learning the meta can still be done by asking for games and learning from resources (which from experience is reasonable).

As for pic, I believe that it's an incredibly fun and engaging metagame to both play and watch, but it simply does not fit the structure of a singles-based circuit where most competitors solely have a singles background. This makes the barrier for entry a lot harder, and it overall makes the process of learning and integrating into all 5 circuit formats a lot harder than if it had been removed. However, it should definetly still be in team tours cause it's so fun to watch and it has the playerbase + metagame development to be a competitive addition to ompl / omwc / etc.

Ivar57

I personally think the change from 6 to 4 tiers is not a good one for the health of the Circuit. GG and Pic both add something interesting and help to keep oms diverse and engaging. Ladder activity seems like a bad metric to use when most people participating in tours barely touch the ladders at all. What I am trying to say is that a lack in ladder activity is not the same as a lack of tour activity and metagame development. For that reason I would like to see the current set of metagames being kept.

If a cut does need to be made I would at least keep GG to have the circuit at 5 metas. 4 metas in the circuit will have a big impact on both qualifying for the playoffs and the playoffs themselves. It is very likely that more single tier mainers will make the cut, this is not an issue in and of itself but that also means that more generalist style players will not make it, likely dropping the quality of playoffs. On top of that none of the proposed solutions for the 4 metagame problem seem balanced and/or enjoyable to me.

RoFnA

Having 4 tiers instead of 6 in a tournament streamlines the competition, saving time for players and organizers. It reduces the complexity of scheduling and ensures matches are more engaging. Players get more downtime to recharge and socialize, creating a better overall experience. Plus, it leaves room to “touch grass” and enjoy life outside the game!

Quantum Tesseract

I am rather heavily opposed to a 4 meta circuit, as I mentioned earlier on in that thread. I don't love the idea of inactive metas getting into the spot, but given that we don't have an active format in our back pocket I'd bite the bullet and say keep one despite their issues. Between the two of them, I would prefer keeping PiC; I don't play it much outside of tours like circuit invitationals, but I think it has a really good spectator experience that it's hard to match. While I would prefer GG being removed to PiC, I think given a choice between GG and 4 meta circuit I lean the former, either compared to doubling up or bo4

ghostlike

I don’t like removing gg and pic. The charm of OM circuit is that you can play a variety of vastly different metagames and removing gg and pic won’t do it any good. (Also kind of subjective but I think AAA BH MnM and Stab are stable for a reason and it can make them a bit boring. GG and PiC are less explored so I find them more fun)

Clas

To say the least, I do not think that going down to four tiers in circuit is going to be a good change - to be honest, all I see this doing is reduce interest overall, make the grand slam and champs experiences worse, and just in general causing more headaches than it would solve. Six is imperfect, but it's better than four in every way, as there is a wider array of metagames to showcase skill and promotes wider tiering knowledge and skill over a single tier. Five metas would obviously be ideal, and if one tier had to go it would be PiC just due to how jarringly different doubles is compared to singles although I am a fan of doubles myself.

Now, I understand the difficulties. For one, the ladder activity for both just isn't really there compared to the Big Four, and so this hurts from a leadership standpoint since it comes off across as potential incompetency and either potential metagame stagnation or poorer tiering quality thanks to the lower number of players on ladder where suspect tests are a lot more feasible. Isaiah talked about this in private with me a little before the announcement, saying that GG and PiC being very close to not hitting PS ladder requirements consistently is a really dangerous thing for keeping circuit ribbon, and annoyingly this is just plain true, with not really many solutions to the problem past hoping the metas get the ladder plays or cycling to another meta that has the plays which just repeats the issue of "will this get enough plays or not" (see Camomons before its circuit removal). That being said, cutting down to four metagames won't be a good change, since again it means that there's less focus on diverse metagame knowledge and more focus on just being good at one, maybe two, since there are now fewer tours for circuit, plus the obvious issue of how the hell Bo5 would work.

In the case of four metas needing to happen no matter what happens, I would at least like to propose that in Majors R2 / Slam / Champs that the tiebreaking meta is chosen via !pick at the start of the week, as our current system is already fine as is and quite simply we don't need to give players with higher seeds even bigger advantages - to the people that say that it doesn't matter about having second pick, yes it does because 9/10 times you'll be down a meta from the start and that creates way too much pressure alongside leaving less room for error than if the same players swapped seeds. Every other system I've read so far for these three multi-OM tours have quite frankly been shit proposals that have poor foundations in regards to the incredibly high majority of people affected by said changes, such as higher seed picking TB and an overly complex striking system, and changing to Bo3 over Bo5 is just promoting the higher seed meta advantage even more.

I'd also like to touch upon Grand Slam, and I'm just confused how it would work - would it use the current system or would it be similar to OM Majors, or what? This is really unclear in how it works in the new system and I don't see the point in changing how circuit works without a solid foundation in how the new Grand Slam system works and community engagement to help smooth out the edges. I say this because it potentially isn't an issue, although the lack of a multi-metagame tour outside of OM Majors for circuit seems like it, again, promotes single-tier ability over multi-meta ability, which is undeniably counterintuitive for a multi-meta circuit. I'm not sold on the idea of GS being separate yet, but I'm still personally willing to listen.

pannu

I do not like the removal of gg or pic and I do not like changing the circuit format either.

GG and PIC are my favorite oms to build / watch respectively so I'm a bit biased but I think that aside from council griefing with bad tiering decisions both are fine irt. Having a competitive player playerbase, gg is constantly one of the most played tiers in ompl/omwc from my personal experience, and pic always has obscenely competitive pools with both consistent heavy hitters (yuki, chrom, frixel) and "new" players (atleast to the tier: think like tkhanh, baaat, RL) in tours. As a frequent omcord matches caller I can also say that high-level pic games are always a highlight to watch in vc, even with most of us not playing doubs. Circuit format is totally fine, and I'd even argue fun this year.

There's 0 good reason to change it and "bad ladder activity" is a weird argument to make to insinuate that they're unpopular or inactive tiers

Evie

I personally don't like the change regardless of my bias towards PiC, as I think removing the tiers from circuit is very unnecessary. Removing these tiers also creates a very awkward situation in playoffs with 4 tiers not having an effective solution for how to pick the metas. I also think removing these tiers from circuit would cause damage to the tiers, as having two circuit individuals is incredibly important for encouraging new players to get involved with the metagame. Removing these would significantly harm the activity and development of these tiers.

TTTech

Make it bo5, but keep gg imo. Not saying keep gg cuz I'm council but I just enjoy playing gg and watching it. Doubles in a primarily singles circuit never made sense to me. I would rather it just be bo5 wit the 5 remaining tiers. Building 6 teams every week (if you're not getting passed teams) is a tall enough task as it is, especially when the majority of the players in the OM community don't play doubles unless its to get circuit points. There's less of a building strain when you're only prepping 5 teams and you know the exact 5 tiers you'll potentially 100% play if it goes to a game 5

Icemaster

The circuit playoffs must be kept as bo5: A tier being repeated is too big an advantage, so is a tier being cut (presumably by a higher seed) If instead you make the loser pick each tier then you'd have to prep 2 tiers for every format as you don't know what's going to be repeated Circuit is already annoying you have to build 6 teams You're forced to have friends in the community or deal with learning 6 metas at once especially with how quickly oms change and ban shit So cut just one of PIC and GG IMO, and imo PIC is the worse of the two

Don't really care outside of this - circuit playoffs is the only time I have to participate in GG and PIC

Kinetic

I support pic being removed since it's the only doubles meta in a singles circuit which is just jarring and makes prep more difficult unless you have friends that play it or just happen to also be good at doubles. I'd rather keep godly gift though; sure it's a smaller tier than aaa/stab/bh/mnm, but it also feels better than like stab (hopefully neon is able to fix that tier). I'd rather just have a 5 meta circuit and i think godly gift is the best choice for the 5th. I'd even support gg > stab in a 4 meta circuit with the way stab is rn (but again hopefully that changes with neon being tl)

Fc

Pic removal is good it shouldn’t even be in circuit this year it’s actively a detriment, more neutral on gg it feels fitting to keep and also 5 metas > 4 always but it’s the least active afaik and has the least history so it makes the most sense
I’d probably personally only remove pic
But I’m not super complaining if gg goes I just think it’s fine to keep

abriel

1) Support PIC's removal since it's the clear black sheep of the metas and 6 is a clunky number for playoffs. GG's removal makes sense in theory based on the fact that it gets no plays outside of team tours, although the implication for playoffs sucks bc the bo5 format is ideal for OMs imo. I'd like to keep bo5, with making it happen by either biting the bullet and keeping GG, or having all players lock in a meta at the start of playoffs stage and having the higher seed's meta get played twice. bo3 with high seed pick first loser pick next is probably more fair but also lame. alternatively delete bh as well and play bo3 bc i hate playing bh in playoffs.

2) Removing slam from circuit is dumb lmao, it gets more signups and interest than the rest of the circuit combined nowadays and seperating the two serves to kill interest in both.

also if the number of metas is 4 or 6 and a meta is being dropped, please implement something like in the main grand slam where the meta that's being dropped is selected by the players at the start of the week, prepping for that was much less stressful when i knew ahead of time which tier i didn't need a team for.

damflame 3

I think that the next circuit have to stay around something like this, only 4 ssnl/open is a good thing for the playerbase, we can focus on less tier and be better in it, about the championship i would still consider the same format as before but i don't have any really strong opinion on it, I would play in the ssnl and everything not because I like the new circuit or i don't, I just play it because i like the tiers

But if I had the choice I would keep a 6 tiers circuit or maybe just a cut to five, 4 is a really bad number I think. I would consider to keep GG in circuit

Betticus IV

While I do agree there are currently too many tiers in circuit, I do not think cutting it down to 4 would be the best. As discussed in OM cord when it was first announced, this makes best of 5 a bit more difficult and a repeat of meta will usually be lopsided/in favor to one player (most likely the higher seed), and things like coinflip for repeat meta just feels goofy and would add unnecessary variance/bring it down to luck on who gets their stronger meta. Disregarding ladder play, I think GG adds some of the most unique and rewarding gameplay and was one of the most fun to learn for champs.

Although I really enjoy pic as a meta to watch, and the playerbase is there to support it during team tours, for the majority of the circuit/champs it seemed to be the one people were least confident when it came to learn/play. I think this is just due to it being a doubles format and that being fundamentally different from singles, especially when adding the variance that OMs bring. I think of the metas to cut from circuit, I think PiC is unfortunately the one to look at.

also this won't rlly incentivize tier mains to participate in more tours, will just make them more common in champs, does that lead to more competitive gameplay? Unsure/don't rlly think so since I felt my other tier games I was much less confident/knowledgable about interactions than I was in AAA and that led to a bit worse of gameplay

I guess its moreso about how they decided to cut it so it'd either be a bo3 or u have repeat meta which I think is worse, and it kind of feels like if u want the bo5 w no repeats u have to choose between the two metas which is annoying because from a spectator and player perspective bo3 from champs would be lame

Les2BG

I think it's a disastrous idea that will just make the OMs even more unbalanced than they already are. From a competitive point of view, are we going to have a 4 tier playoff format? Are we going to have to play in bo5 by replaying a tier 2 times? At that level we might as well delete the stab so that we can be sure of having a well-broken environment.

By taking this kind of action we're removing tiers who were competitive and interesting for the attractiveness of OMs to find other players: PIC double players and GG is in my opinion (my opinion may be biased but I think my arguments are understandable) the OM that can attract the most people. It's already an OM that's easy to get to grips with but where you still have plenty of room for improvement to become really good via the build, especially given the bevy of playable pokémon, which increases the chances that new players will find a pokémon they like, for example in VR, play with and therefore enjoy the tier. The tier allows you to play pokémons that you don't often come across, such as Electrode-Hisui, Volcanion, Zarude, Reuniclus etc, as well as big legendary pokémons, which makes the teams fun for new players, who can make new combinations that aren't really possible elsewhere, according to my knowledge. There's a good balance between Oms and the classic tier, which is good for the appeal of Oms as a whole.

In conclusion, most people oppose the change to 4 metas for various reasons.

The most common solution proposed is to make a cut to 5 metas.

14 people mention wanting to keep gg around.
7 people mention wanting to keep pic around.

Thank you for reading, I hope we can find a good solution to also make the circuit great next year!

 

[Greybaum]

i've been very vocal about how i think the suspect process is awful. it's a slog, it doesn't properly test player ability OR knowledge, and the influx of smurf accounts ruins the experience for new players. but having the tiering done by council alone is significantly worse.

quickbans should be reserved for pokemon so blatantly broken that a suspect would have a foregone conclusion and be a waste of time better spent on metagame development. having quickbans for every pokemon on the other hand introduces far too much personal bias - the vote is no longer about whether a pokemon is quickban worthy, but is effectively instead a suspect being voted on by 7% and 6% of the gg/inh community respectively. (i got these %s by grabbing the most recent ompl signup pool and adding any missing council members to the numbers).

yes, inh and gg can run suspects when they win Other Metagame Of The Month, but it's not feasible to only be able to have a suspect once every five months. it's even less feasible for the timing to line up so perfectly that we don't have at least 3 months of downtime with a potentially unhealthy element in tournament play. it's somehow even LESS feasible that any of these tiers will be picked for omotm every single time it's eligible. so what, are we just abusing leaders choice every couple of months again? we already did this with spotlight ladders and it was pretty clear that we still couldn't get enough numbers for suspect tests. it won't happen. instead we'll just have a 3 or 5 person council voting on every psuedo-suspect which is absolutely not something we should be allowing for officially supported OMs.

so how do we make a four tier circuit playoffs bracket work? easy. there's multiple ways to do that
1- higher seed picks a tier to double up on, bo5
2- lower seed picks two tiers to strike; higher seed picks between the remaining 3 to double up on
3- we convert playoffs to a double elim bo3. higher seed strikes the tier they don't wanna play.
4- the tier that gets doubled up on is randomly selected at the start of the week (don't do this)

chessking also put a few ideas up ranging from good to horrible but like. deciding this is the job of the OM leaders. all i want to do here is prove that adapting circuit playoffs to work with 4 tiers is possible.

if we really want to have 5 tiers, unironically add shared power. a lot of people consider it an unbalanced mess conceptually, and perhaps that's true, but it's the only other tier that has enough active players to potentially run regular suspect tests. this makes it far more competitive than inh, gg, or pic imo even though i'll be called crazy for that.
lastly, keep slam in circuit. if we're having slam take on a different format like including gg/inh/whatever then you can do that and just be selective for which opens count for circuit IMO.

 

[Fc]

my surface level thoughts are in the post above but I also wanted to make a post myself expanding on it and also responding to the preliminary schedule posted earlier. For the meta cut, I really don't think it should go down to 4. As myself and a lot of people have expressed 4 is just a terrible number for a circuit, having 1 meta being doubled up in a bo5 sucks and honestly atp I'd rather a bo3 with one cut every set. I just don't think it's a good way to go about running playoffs if you can have such a significant advantage by just grinding one tier in a format that's supposed to promote diversity in meta knowledge and skill. I think GG is definitely the one to stay instead of PIC, a doubles format is just way too out of place here in an all singles format otherwise. There's nothing wrong with one person having a knowledge gap against their opponent but I think it's just not a level playing field with a different amount of pokemon in the game since most people just don't play doubles at all, and the PIC slots in ompl and stuff are almost entirely dou players instead of om players, so it's shown that it's not something people can easily jump into. It's a creative meta and I don't think doubles is as hard to get into as some people would say but maybe that's bc I've played a fair bit of dou, either way it's clearly the one to cut if any and I think it's very far ahead in that department due to its differences. GG is mostly fine, if it's being removed for inactivity it's whatever but I think it's a good format overall and since 5 is the best number for a circuit it's the most natural fit. From my experience it's easy to get into, I picked it up after having almost no games in it for ompl tiebreak and it wasn't like a shock trying to build, and it has good resources available to get into it. Unlike PIC it's also a singles meta, and since half the circuit is already ubers based with mnm and bh it's not a new thing to have to deal with. I'm not overly attached to GG but I really think it should stay to benefit the circuit.

As for the schedule posted, I think it's like the worst thing oms could possibly do. Cutting grand slam from circuit qualifications should entirely be a non-starter, and would kill like over half the activity of both slam and circuit. I know personally I just wouldn't play if it gives no circuit points, there's little incentive and the competition would be even lower because it gives nothing so it's not like signing up to play the best players would even work as well either.

Here is a table of signups for the opens and seasonals of each tier from this year's circuit (by number of replies, didn't check for double posts so could be a small number off on some of them):

Signups

Tier​	Open​	Seasonal​
AAA​	81​	58​
BH​	44​	33​
GG​	40​	28​
MNM​	31​	47​
PIC​	33​	27​
STAB​	57​	36​

Aside from mnm, every tier had a more popular open compared to its circuit, and mnm could be considered an outlier as it was the last tournament in the circuit as a whole so people would want to get the last few points they needed to make the playoffs push, but it could just be better timing or more people were interested so that's just speculation. Either way, the fact is that people care about grand slam. Seasonals are a big commitment time wise and having 8 of them would make things less important per tour, so I'd expect even less signups probably. Slam would also get less signups since it wouldn't count for circuit, and this change would make myself and other circuit competitors less enthusiastic about going for playoffs as a whole since the biggest and most enjoyable (imo) tournament just doesn't give anything.

If anything is done to the circuit at all, please make it anything except cutting grand slam. That would genuinely kill almost all of the hype for the tournament itself and a ton of circuit activity, there's so little reason to ever do it. If you want to reduce its weight in the circuit that's fine, I've been suggesting for a while to make the opens themselves worth less to reduce point inflation at the beginning of the year, where people who don't win omgs can still be circuit qualified just from playing it, like I was this year. If you don't wanna make the opens worth 0 which I have a preference to since it's worked in ubers and ag's classic tournaments making each cup worth 0 and the playoffs worth points, then lowering them to a type C is a start so instead of getting almost 500 points for winning an open + just getting into playoffs you get closer to 300+, a great start for circuit but not an autoqualification. If the points aren't changed I'd still keep slam in its current state over removing it, I think doing almost anything to slam while keeping it is a better decision than removing it.

tl;dr:
- 5 meta circuit with gg >>>>> anything else > bo5 circuit 6 metas > bo3 circuit 4 metas > bo5 circuit 4 metas
- don't cut slam no matter what else is done
- lower points of each open if slam points are an issue, leave in its current state if not

 

[QT]

I didn't mention it in my above posts but I am also against cutting slam. It doesn't really distort the circuit - only like 3 of our contenders wouldn't have gotten in if it wasn't for slam, and all of them would be close - and meanwhile it's a significant addition. If seeds are meant to represent the skill of the players involved, why shouldn't the winner of slam be our first seed? And it's not like these people who qualled from slam are bad picks, either, Icemaster and FC both won their R1 games! It significantly adds to the hype of circuit while making it better quality, we shouldn't break something that works well.

This isn't even bias from me either, I didn't place in slam this year and I'd be a higher seed if it wasn't counted.

 

[Icemaster]

Cutting Slam from the main circuit would help kill OMs tour scene for good. It will fully disincentivize participation in Slam.

As a non OM player it's one of the only interesting tournaments. For OM's tournament scene to grow it must continue to attract players from other communities.

The timing of OMGS before OMPL allows new players to establish themselves in the Opens. This improves OMPL a lot and I think anyone who managed would agree with this.

And to reiterate 5 meta circuit playoffs is by far the most ideal. GG > PIC but I don't feel too strongly about this.

 

[Lana]

Keep slam in the circuit!! Most fun tour of the circuit by far and helps people get back into OMs before OMPL. The individual opens seem to get way more signups than your seasonals do. Removing it from the circuit just feels wrong, a banner reward is not enough incentive for people to sign up for it and play it seriously. Most people have a banner already so it's not too special to have one rn. I think the tour would just die if its not in the circuit, especially with your seasonals potentially overlapping with slam according to the schedule posted. Just keep it as it is!! Also, odd number of metas is always better for playoffs, I would prefer GG > PiC because pic seems to be the clear odd one out although I dont care much about this, just keep it 5 metas though.

 

[dhelmise]

After listening to all of the feedback, the OM mod team has decided to keep Godly Gift around in the circuit for 2025, and we will keep Grand Slam in the circuit.

Speaking of which, the 2025 tournament schedule will be coming soon, with the rough outline of:

Majors
Open 1
Open 2
Open 3
Open 4
Open 5
OMPL
Slam Playoffs
Seasonal 1
Seasonal 2
Seasonal 3
Seasonal 4
Seasonal 5
Other Team Tour
Championships

We have heard some complaints about the Opens granting too many points (as well as a complaint from Fc about them granting points to begin with), so now is your time to speak on that. Otherwise, unless there is any input on that or any other potential issues, i.e. whether Majors needs replaced, if the order of the team tours needs swapped, etc., you can expect this by the end of the week.

 

[Stories]

what was the reasoning for opens not granting points

 

[Chessking345]

Personally think the concern for Grand Slam tours giving too many points is fairly valid, but I don't agree with Fc's proposal on making Opens grant no points and only have points in Grand Slam. To me the biggest issue with Grand Slam + Open tours points is the Grand Slam points itself while being type A, with only 8 participants you get 150 points immediately for free for just qualifying which you accomplished by getting a lot of points through the Opens, so it just feels like giving those 8 players a huge bonus and almost auto qualifying them for Championships.

I think Grand Slam points should definitely be reduced, currently it gives a total of 1975 circuit points, reduce that number while also making it so you have to win games to get any points from it in the first place. Making Opens 0 feels out of place for OMs and it feels poor to give less incentive for players to participate in a variety of them if they don't think they can qualify for the GS Playoffs itself. Ideally maybe it would be like a type BC with half the points of type A but that doesn't exist so uh, type B then feels fine though type C isn't unreasonable.

However I would also like to suggest changing the Grand Slam playoffs format. The single-elimination format with only 8 qualifying players means only 7 matches over 3 weeks get played as well as being very similar to Championships, and 16 players easily feels excessive in this case unlike some other communities. As an alternative, I think that a Round Robin format with 6 qualifying players could have good potential, assuming that it is allowed in terms of circuit tournament as its not elimination and also deviating from the Smogon Grand Slam format. Considering it would grant circuit points, I think a fixed number of points can be granted per match won (total of 15 matches, give somewhere around like 80 per, 1200 total) works, alternatively you could give based on final results. Having circuit points here also provides an incentive to play out the full RR instead of in scenarios like Championships where players without chances of winning give up half-way. The extra 2-3 weeks might be an issue but I feel like you can fit it by doing some combination of making Open 1 W1 start as Majors end, making Opens start times 2 groups rather than 3, pushing OMPL and SSNLs back like 1-2 weeks since with 1 SSNL gone theres basically 3 extra weeks so there's less overlap there too.
TLDR: RR nice because 1. 8-man SElim awkward 2. Differentiates from Championships and like every other SElim 3. More matches, all pairings will play (incentivized by circuit points)

For Majors don't have a strong opinion, I think a multimeta open tour fits very nicely in the schedule so if it were to get replaced it should probably also be a multimeta open tour (because its literally the only one). Without 6 tiers though I can see making it Bo3 instead during Stage 2

 

[dhelmise]

Announcement Thread '2025 Other Metagames Tournament Schedule'

Jan 1, 2025

art by in the hills

2025 Other Metas Tour Circuit

Hello everyone, the OM tournament circuit will return in 2025! OM players will have a chance to prove that they are the best by competing in a series of tournaments throughout the year and earning points. At the end of the year, there will be a seeded playoffs consisting of the top 16 players with the most points. The winner of...

• dhelmise
• Replies: 4
• Forum: Other Metagames

• 
• 

implemented, opens are type c now. om staff can't really justify not having them count for circuit points so we will just keep them at type c so they don't impact who gets where way too much.