All Gens Retro Cup of Pokemon 2021: Semifinals

[Golden009]

⏮ 2020 | Spreadsheet | Discord

Signups | Qualifying | Round 1 | Tiebreaker | Round 2 | Semifinals | Finals

Introduction

Retro Cup of Pokémon features all tiers absent from the World Cup of Pokémon. That means this year, it will be an RBY OU, GSC OU, ADV OU, DPP OU, BW OU, ORAS OU and SM OU tournament. Each national team is required to have 7 players, plus exactly 3 substitutes. This tournament will feature 16 teams in the first round, with team formation and qualification priority given to RCoP 2020 qualifiers, followed by WCoP teams that were not in RCoP, followed by completely new teams (that aren't supernations/rest-of-the-world). The latter rest-of-the-world will only be allowed if there are less than 16 teams. Qualifying rounds will be created if there are more than 16 entrants, in a similar way to WCoP. For the first round, players will be randomly assigned into 4 groups of 4 for each generation (×7), with the top 8 teams with the most wins collected proceeding. The seeding tiebreak will be the highest ranking points (6 points for sole 1st, 4 points for sole 2nd and 2 points for sole 3rd, shared between spots if necessary) within the group, just like WCoP and then randomization as the secondary tiebreak. The qualifying rounds and round 2 matches will be full 7 vs 7 man matchups. RBY OU will be first-to-2-wins, (best of 3 excluding ties), while the rest will be first-to-1-win.

Semifinals

vs.

Brazil (3-4) Italy
Captains: Spl4sh | Amaranth
RBY OU: Thiago Nunes <0-2> Amaranth
GSC OU: Hyogafodex <1-0> Oibaf
ADV OU: Shakur <0-1> fran17 BluesEnergy00
DPP OU: lighthouses Spl4sh <0-1> hellpowna
BW OU: A Hero's Destiny <1-0> Raiza
ORAS OU: Luigi <1-0> Pais
SM OU: TDNT <0-1> Niko

vs.

Canada (1-4) Argentina
Captains: Genesis7, Kristyl | mixwell, ziloXX
RBY OU: ForgottenOnes <0-2> ziloXX
GSC OU: EviGaro <vs> Raichy
ADV OU: Mushi Musha <1-0> Kyundai
DPP OU: Heysup <vs> ElectricityCat
BW OU: Bushtush <0-1> Abejas
ORAS OU: Splash <0-1> Enzonana.
SM OU: Skypenguin <0-1> ACR1

Play first-to-1 win in every tier except RBY (first-to-2-wins), and post your wins/losses and replays.

Deadline: Sunday August 8th, 11:59 PM EDT (GMT -4) / 5:59 AM CEST

As always, good luck and have fun
​

 

[Abejas]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5ou-1388923064 won with a bit of luck. ggs

 

[Finchinator]

I demand that the series between Argentina and Canada is paused until a proper hosting decision is applied. The activity win that ultimately advanced Team Argentina was mishandled blatantly by the host and this outcome is entirely unacceptable. If this decision and logic is to stand, then there are far too many ways to manipulate activity wins and scheduling leverage that are clearly not allowed by or intended due to the rules. I am tagging Lutra as the RoA leader, Boat as the head TD, and Golden009 as the host to rightfully pause the tournament.

wow i did not want to have to make this post

With all due respect, perhaps you should not have made it then.

Re: Jonfilch vs. Enzonana.
Enzonana initially attempted to make contact with jonfilch Mid-Thursday through a mention on the RoA discord; however, jonfilch claimed not to see it and it was not followed up by a Smogon or Discord DM.

The fact that this is the start of the post, let alone even included, alone shows that there is no leverage for any activity whatsoever. For starters, neither player followed the scheduling guidelines by contacting early and the contact that was made on Thursday holds no leverage or relevance whatsoever as it was not done properly. The first rule of scheduling is that you need to directly message your opponent, be it via public VM (or if you do so via PM, then be ready to make it public to the host if there are any questions). There is no obligation to make yourself visible in or unmute any given discord server, especially one that many participants are not even in to begin with. Could you imagine if I tagged my SPL opponent in the SmogTours discord and tried to use this as leverage in scheduling? With everything going on and the fact that it is a chat open to everyone in the entire community, there is no way to know they will see this and there is hardly a way for two people to have a full scheduling interaction. There are VMs (and even PMs) for a reason -- the entire scheduling guidelines outlines this at length and yet the decision made here completely neglects this and any semblance of precedent. This alone disqualified either starting player from activity and Enzonana from getting any leverage for his random tag of his opponent four days into the round. It is as if neither party was in touch with the other for the first five days of the round, which is a huge red flag for any one-sided activity call in a team tournament as is.

Jonfilch re-contacted on Saturday, and their availability did not seem to line up; at this point, I requested a double sub. However, Enzonana was able to extend their availability to jonfilch's given activity window (after 4 PM EST), making a double sub unnecessary, and waited for at least an hour past that with neither jonfilch or one of US Northeast's subs arriving to play the game despite being given ample notice from Team Argentina.

So for practical intents and purposes, Jonfilch contacted first and gave his activity -- yes, it was late and he does not deserve much credit for this, but the other side was completely negligent as well and deserves no credit whatsoever.

At the point of the double substitute request, we already had to scramble as we were on a very limited clock during a busy period. The conflict in schedules has to be documented before the middle of the weekend in order for this to work and the guidelines make this clear; that is another reason why there is absolutely no basis for activity here. If this double substitute was enforced earlier in the week, which would be proper due to the fact that no contact at all was made for three days and no proper contact was made for over five days, then both teams would have sufficient time to react OR the players could have been forced to make an agreement at the very least. This was not done. The fault lies on my team and Team Argentina, but nobody was positioned for activity whatsoever.

Because of this hour-long window, where US Northeast initially claimed to be available but was not, I have no choice but to award an activity win to Team Argentina, which means that they will advance to the semifinals and play Brazil.
mixwell ziloXX mc56556 steelskitty

If you think an hour of time, which we initially were led to believe they could not make and was only established after a six days of no scheduling and a day of conflict, is enough to grant a team a tournament-deciding activity win, then you are mistaken. This is nowhere near enough to grant activity. This is a clear-cut dead game. The series should be 3-3 and proceed to a tiebreak. That is the only logical conclusion.

I have no interest in investing my time in tournaments that are willing to decide the fate of an entire team on rulings that do not follow the guidelines or common sense moving forward and I can assure you that others feel similarly.

 

[ACR1]

 

[mncmt]

Rooting for Kristyl gl.

 

[Mister Magnus]

I demand that the series between Argentina and Canada is paused until a proper hosting decision is applied. The activity win that ultimately advanced Team Argentina was mishandled blatantly by the host and this outcome is entirely unacceptable. If this decision and logic is to stand, then there are far too many ways to manipulate activity wins and scheduling leverage that are clearly not allowed by or intended due to the rules. I am tagging Lutra as the RoA leader, Boat as the head TD, and Golden009 as the host to rightfully pause the tournament.

With all due respect, perhaps you should not have made it then.


The fact that this is the start of the post, let alone even included, alone shows that there is no leverage for any activity whatsoever. For starters, neither player followed the scheduling guidelines by contacting early and the contact that was made on Thursday holds no leverage or relevance whatsoever as it was not done properly. The first rule of scheduling is that you need to directly message your opponent, be it via public VM (or if you do so via PM, then be ready to make it public to the host if there are any questions). There is no obligation to make yourself visible in or unmute any given discord server, especially one that many participants are not even in to begin with. Could you imagine if I tagged my SPL opponent in the SmogTours discord and tried to use this as leverage in scheduling? With everything going on and the fact that it is a chat open to everyone in the entire community, there is no way to know they will see this and there is hardly a way for two people to have a full scheduling interaction. There are VMs (and even PMs) for a reason -- the entire scheduling guidelines outlines this at length and yet the decision made here completely neglects this and any semblance of precedent. This alone disqualified either starting player from activity and Enzonana from getting any leverage for his random tag of his opponent four days into the round. It is as if neither party was in touch with the other for the first five days of the round, which is a huge red flag for any one-sided activity call in a team tournament as is.


So for practical intents and purposes, Jonfilch contacted first and gave his activity -- yes, it was late and he does not deserve much credit for this, but the other side was completely negligent as well and deserves no credit whatsoever.

At the point of the double substitute request, we already had to scramble as we were on a very limited clock during a busy period. The conflict in schedules has to be documented before the middle of the weekend in order for this to work and the guidelines make this clear; that is another reason why there is absolutely no basis for activity here. If this double substitute was enforced earlier in the week, which would be proper due to the fact that no contact at all was made for three days and no proper contact was made for over five days, then both teams would have sufficient time to react OR the players could have been forced to make an agreement at the very least. This was not done. The fault lies on my team and Team Argentina, but nobody was positioned for activity whatsoever.

If you think an hour of time, which we initially were led to believe they could not make and was only established after a six days of no scheduling and a day of conflict, is enough to grant a team a tournament-deciding activity win, then you are mistaken. This is nowhere near enough to grant activity. This is a clear-cut dead game. The series should be 3-3 and proceed to a tiebreak. That is the only logical conclusion.

I have no interest in investing my time in tournaments that are willing to decide the fate of an entire team on rulings that do not follow the guidelines or common sense moving forward and I can assure you that others feel similarly.

 

[ACR1]

First of all schedule guidelines aren't rules, they are a guide, as it is said in the own word.

They had a good range of time and the important thing of this was having the players at that time, like our player did. Enzonana was on at 4pm gmt-4 for like 4 hours from that time.

If you guys know that a player isn't going to have a good activity or some problem, and you don't have a sub to replace him it is a mistake of the captains.

I know that this isn't the best TD decision but it is in fact the fairest. Btw, we didn't try to fish an actwin, it seemed more like a deadgame fishing or a double sub instead by you.

 

[Finchinator]

First of all schedule guidelines aren't rules, they are a guide, as it is said in the own word.

This is absolutely ridiculous. That thread is the official baseline for all scheduling. Activity wins are not decided by how the host subjectively feels about a situation, but rather by precedent and rules based upon an actual foundation -- aka that thread with the guidelines. You are purposefully misconstruing it in bad faith if you think otherwise.

They had a good range of time and the important thing of this was having the players at that time, like our player did. Enzonana was on at 4pm gmt-4 for like 4 hours from that time.

This means absolutely nothing if there was no proper scheduling for this time, which I clearly outlined there was not. Otherwise, I could dodge my opponent for six days and stay on from 3am-7am and say "hey, I was on for like 4 hours from that time, I want activity". This holds absolutely no basis. You are missing the point.

If you guys know that a player isn't going to have a good activity or some problem, and you don0t have a sub to replace him it is a mistake of the captains.

Our player was just as active as your player. Neither of them made proper contact for the first five days and we even reached out first over the weekend. This means absolutely nothing here.

I know that this isn't the best TD decision but it is in fact the fairest. Btw, we didn't try to fish an actwin, it seemed more like a deadgame fishing or a double sub instead.

You guys got an activity win out of a situation which is a clear-cut deadgame. I am not saying anyone fished or saying anything negative about you, but the host clearly made the wrong decision.

 

[hs]

This is absolutely ridiculous. That thread is the official baseline for all scheduling. Activity wins are not decided by how the host subjectively feels about a situation, but rather by precedent and rules based upon an actual foundation -- aka that thread with the guidelines. You are purposefully misconstruing it in bad faith if you think otherwise.

This means absolutely nothing if there was no proper scheduling for this time, which I clearly outlined there was not. Otherwise, I could dodge my opponent for six days and stay on from 3am-7am and say "hey, I was on for like 4 hours from that time, I want activity". This holds absolutely no basis. You are missing the point.

Our player was just as active as your player. Neither of them made proper contact for the first five days and we even reached out first over the weekend. This means absolutely nothing here.

You guys got an activity win out of a situation which is a clear-cut deadgame. I am not saying anyone fished or saying anything negative about you, but the host clearly made the wrong decision.

bro touch some grass

 

[ACR1]

They scheduled exactly at 4pm gmt-4 and he was online for like 4 hours from that, so I might say it is fair enough. Also since you want to follow the rules to the letter, the guidelines say that he should just wait 30 min and he stayed 4 hours
And saying "Our player was just as active as your player" is a lie,
Enzonana tagged him on discord, then tagged the captains and just after all that, jon said hehe lets play sunday 4pm -4

 

[Finchinator]

They scheduled exactly at 4pm gmt-4 and he was online for like 4 hours from that, so I might say it is fair enough. Also since you want to follow the rules to the letter, the guidelines say that he should just wait 30 min and he stayed 4 hours

There was no proper schedule for then. Not between the initial players or the once-agreed upon substitutes. There was some half-assed attempt at salvaging a game last minute that we never came to terms with. Enzo literally said he was available after the substitute proceedings were already well underway, well past the point of no return. We even made our side of the situation abundantly clear in a chat with your captains and the hosts, which you conveniently ignore any mention of at all.

 

[ElectricityCat]

Well, Finchinator talked about many things, I will not stop to answer point by point. I'm simply going to give my personal view on the facts since my captains surely won't.

About schedules/scheduling:
Honestly, I'm with finch on this one- I think both parties did an awful job at scheduling. however, Jonfilch contacted his opponent on Saturday because Enzonana showed disagreement with the captains of the other team.

Who knows when jon wanted to contact Enzonana if this didn't happen like this. I repeat, I think neither Jon nor Enzonana did a good job scheduling. Neither of them has the right to cry about this.

-----

Double sub situation:
I don't think this is a bad idea on the part of the host(s) of the tour. Two players couldn't reach an agreement, thus this idea comes to light. However... When the double sub was proposed, Argentina did not agree. Thus when we received the statement / release, I wanna believe that my team appealed against this double sub idea. Argentina, honestly, does not have a great repertoire of subs as US does. So, by making an effort, Enzonana was okay on extending his disponibility to be within reach of whoever his opponent was to be. This was made with the purpose of completing the match; it really didn't make a difference if Enzonana played against Isza or against Jonfilch or Sabella. Argentina was ALWAYS in favor of playing and finishing the match. Only thing is that, competitively speaking, US would of have had an advantage against Argentina if the double sub situation were bound to happen. Thus, it was appealed against it and Enzonana canceled all his plans and expanded his availability for whoever his new opponent was to be.

-----

Final host decision situation:
As my teammate already said earlier, no decision is ever perfect. actwin is a bit of a stretch scheduling was not done properly, and everything happened last days before the deadline. However, deadgame is not the correct decision either because it only hinders and slows down the tournament with a tiebreaker- Argentina was always in favor of finishing and completing the match. We feel there was a bit of a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the US in trying to reach an agreement, because our player not only was already available to play against jonfilch (in his own schedule), but because playing against Isza, or Sabella, or whoever, it wouldn't of have made a difference. Enzonana would be able to reach them.

-----

My final thoughts:
No actwin nor deadgame. Hosters should have gotten a little bit more involved in this situation and give proper and solid solutions to this situation in time. As the latter did not happen, in the eagerness to make a decision that does not harm any of the parties I would have given an extension so the ORAS game could've been played. This would have avoided the inconvenience of having to play a tiebreak and would have solved the problem in a fast and simple way.

 

[ziloXX]

 

[Ravenna]

Argentina vs Canadá GMT-3

Kyundai vs Mushi Musha Wednesday 3 pm
ZiloXX vs ForgottenOnesThursday 2:30 pm


Ill be editing the rest of the matches, lets have a good series Canada.

 

[Mister Magnus]

 

[Finchinator]

The host hasn’t been on for a day and a half since the decision dropped (obviously everyone is allowed to take a day off and I hope everything is ok above all else) and we absolutely deserve a right to appeal this decision. It eliminated us from the tournament, created all sorts of new/unsustainable precedent, and directly contradicts the rules, so a review, if not an overturn, should be the bare minimum here.

This is a really timely issue due to the fact that games are being scheduled/played for this round that will be void once proper rulings are enforced and nobody wants that mess. I am tagging Lutra as the RoA leader, Boat as the head TD, and kjdaas as a TD that is also involved with RoA — I know people are busy, especially during the week on no notice, and I do not expect a complex situation to be sorted overnight. However, it does absolutely deserve to be sorted and a bare minimum ask is to pause the Canada-Argentina series and give RoA leadership and the TDs time to review and potentially revise the activity decision.

Seeing as ACR1 is so sure he is right here from his proper posts, I assume he must be ok with this as well seeing as his team has nothing to lose if he is right, so this seems like a no-brainer. If this issue is not reviewed and the decision is not given a proper appeal, I will go to higher places, so I reckon it is best to handle now, too.

 

[ACR1]

" i demand yall to stop the series until i get the decision i want"

And btw im not the captain of team Argentina kek

 

[Finchinator]

" i demand yall to stop the series until i get the decision i want"

And btw im not the captain of team Argentina kek

Nah, if they decide to uphold the decision, that’s fine. We just deserve a proper appeal, especially considering the neglect for rules and precedent.

 

[katerina]

 

[Ravenna]

The host hasn’t been on for a day and a half since the decision dropped (obviously everyone is allowed to take a day off and I hope everything is ok above all else) and we absolutely deserve a right to appeal this decision. It eliminated us from the tournament, created all sorts of new/unsustainable precedent, and directly contradicts the rules, so a review, if not an overturn, should be the bare minimum here.

This is a really timely issue due to the fact that games are being scheduled/played for this round that will be void once proper rulings are enforced and nobody wants that mess. I am tagging Lutra as the RoA leader, Boat as the head TD, and kjdaas as a TD that is also involved with RoA — I know people are busy, especially during the week on no notice, and I do not expect a complex situation to be sorted overnight. However, it does absolutely deserve to be sorted and a bare minimum ask is to pause the Canada-Argentina series and give RoA leadership and the TDs time to review and potentially revise the activity decision.

Seeing as ACR1 is so sure he is right here from his proper posts, I assume he must be ok with this as well seeing as his team has nothing to lose if he is right, so this seems like a no-brainer. If this issue is not reviewed and the decision is not given a proper appeal, I will go to higher places, so I reckon it is best to handle now, too.

The final decision was given by the host about two days ago and the series are already scheduled and being played, I dont think its fair to pause the tournament just because your team is out for your own fault, this being the bad administration of your captains over this situation and your teammates, Jon and the person that was going to sub him never appeared for the game and that's a no-brainer.

The screenshots posted above make it clear that even in the situation of a double sub your own sub player didnt appear to play the game. Even in this scenario where you subbed someone that didnt confirm to the captains that he was available to play over jonflinch, this is why it wouldve ended in an activity win for my team due to us always being available to play the series. We were available to play any time on Sunday like i told Jackie and Iguana in the captain chat during that moment. This is why I consider it totally unfair for my team to go back and play a tiebreak for a situation in which we were more then ready to play and had the intention of doing so. Your players and captains did the total opposite, the later who in the whole Sunday didnt bother to make a sub that could actually play the series and waited for jon flinch (if there wasnt a double sub it would still be a normal game in which if you dont recieve an answer from your player you can still sub him out for someone who can actually play).

And I put emphasis on this, I clarified in the captain chat that we couldnt make a sub because none of our players were available and that enzonana agreed to play on his phone in the initial schedule he gave jon at the beggining. The host clarified that if enzo could extend his availability then the double sub wasnt neccesary (reason why it was never done)

Based on the above, enzonana contacted jackie to play with jon and the host confirmed that the double was unnecessary, Jackie ended up confirming that neither Jon nor the player who was going to be a substitute in the event of a double sub (Isza) gave an answer to the captains to make the game happen during that day. This is were there is another mistakes by the players and that captain because:

1. In the discussion of the double sub, why do you sub in a player that didnt answer you to start with?

2. Jon flinch gave a specific time in which he was available, which apparently was the only time he had free in the week and even then he didnt show up during 1pm till 8 pm (not even to answer his captains?!?!?!) So he was always unavailable to play sunday? I say this because he never showed a trace of activity during his supposed availability.

I really dont think there is anything else to explain, the hosts were aware of the situation because it all occurred in the captains chat and even the host didnt make official the double sub due to the situation of both teams. If you guys had issues with your players and captains in which neither the official player nor the sub appeared to play is something you should argue and neither the hosts nor us are part of that debate. Also dont forget the little details, jackie (your captain) saw the intent of enzonana to schedule with his opponent and even then s/he didnt tell jon till the next day where enzo tried again to contact the captains telling them to please tell jon to schedule.

And no, I dont deny that they were both idiots for realizing such a dumb schedule, but even then, you can tag zarel, the mom of enzonana, his great grandmother or the freaking president of USA and even that wont take away that you guys (both players and captains) really handled the situation pretty poorly. We tried everything to play the series and you guys were never there, you let my player wait more than 2 hours for someone to appear and play.

Its really horrible to win a series against you guys via activity win and determine our semifinals spot this way but its the decision more in line with the whole context of the situation, context which the hosts know and thats why they took that decision. Now after this ridiculous circus I hope you have a great day and that next time your teammates schedule and play the games instead of making some pity post that covers the uselessness of your captains and teammates.

 

[ziloXX]

 

[Iguana]

" i demand yall to stop the series until i get the decision i want"

And btw im not the captain of team Argentina kek

I'd like to take a moment to respond to this. In the event that a team or individual believes a host decision to be incorrect, they have a right to appeal. This is not about appealing until we get a decision that benefits us the most; it is about reviewing what in our opinions is an erroneous host decision. Part of the reason Finch has made these appeals in this thread is because neither steelskitty nor I received a formal response to our appeal in the Captain's Conference channel of the RoA Team Tours Discord, and it is unfair to any of the remaining teams in this tour for this decision to be left unreviewed while the legitimacy of the next round is uncertain.

Team Argentina may enjoy mocking the efforts to appeal this decision, but I don't find particularly funny the thought that concerning precedents regarding scheduling, activity wins, and the ability to appeal host decisions may stand if this decision is left unreviewed. I enjoy a well-functioning tournament system when I participate in Smogon tours, and I assume you all do as well.

The final decision was given by the host about two days ago and the series are already scheduled and being played, I dont think its fair to pause the tournament just because your team is out for your own fault, this being the bad administration of your captains over this situation and your teammates, Jon and the person that was going to sub him never appeared for the game and that's a no-brainer.
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There are so many erroneous points in your post, so I'm going to take a few minutes to correct you. Firstly, the tournament is being paused because the RCoP hosts have made a controversial and questionable decision, which merits review by themselves and TDs due to its significance of deciding which team advances in playoffs. This is the sort of thing where if the hosts are going to make this decision, it needs to be correct and completely based on the precedents and rules clearly established for our tournaments.

View attachment 362853
View attachment 362851
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The screenshots posted above make it clear that even in the situation of a double sub your own sub player didnt appear to play the game. Even in this scenario where you subbed someone that didnt confirm to the captains that he was available to play over jonflinch, this is why it wouldve ended in an activity win for my team due to us always being available to play the series. We were available to play any time on Sunday like i told Jackie and Iguana in the captain chat during that moment. This is why I consider it totally unfair for my team to go back and play a tiebreak for a situation in which we were more then ready to play and had the intention of doing so. Your players and captains did the total opposite, the later who in the whole Sunday didnt bother to make a sub that could actually play the series and waited for jon flinch (if there wasnt a double sub it would still be a normal game in which if you dont recieve an answer from your player you can still sub him out for someone who can actually play).

You talk a lot about our sub, Isza, and how "even in the situation of a double sub [our] own player didnt [sic] appear to play the game." Now, I find that a little strange, seeing as your team never actually subbed someone else in for the double sub. How exactly do you propose we schedule with a player your team hasn't subbed in? Something that's annoyed me a bit since this whole debacle began is how Team Argentina seems incapable of understanding exactly what a double sub entails: both teams sub out their player from the relevant slot, and then both teams sub in a new player, who has been one of their subs. You shared a lot of screenshots in your post, so let me share one that's equally important:

The double sub decision was set in stone by one of the hosts of the tour, Golden009. At this point, I subbed in Isza, and you already shared the screenshot to verify that. You all on Team Argentina have been consistently arguing that we are at fault because Enzonana was available to extend his availability, meaning that we needed to get jonfilch online and to play the game. Once again, this logic is faulty and problematic.

This is a message exchange, clearly illustrating that since we made it very clear to our team that we subbed in Isza for jonfilch due to Golden009 deciding this was a double sub situation, he (reasonably and understandably) assumed he didn't have anything more to do. The presumption behind this activity call decision and Team Argentina's outrageous arguments is that we on Team US Northeast needed to (hours before deadline, mind you):

1. get jonfilch online;
2. sub him back in to play the match against Enzonana (this is illegal, by the way, since we already subbed him out for Isza in the double sub, and you cannot legally sub in a player who has been subbed out);
3. have them play the match before deadline.

And this also touches upon another of Team Argentina's arguments: that Golden009 reversed his decision. Well, when a tour host makes a decision, gee, I tend to think of that as definitive. But let's entertain for a moment the idea that Golden009 can reverse his earlier decision hours before the deadline. We're faced once again with the same issues: jonfilch reasonably understood the situation to be that he was no longer needed that day to play an ORAS OU game, and to expect that we'd magically be able to get him online to play is...well, I've used lots of fitting adjectives to describe this already.

But wait, we're not finished! Yet again, we hear Team Argentina arguing that we've done something wrong and that we deserve this activity loss. What about just subbing in Isza for jonfilch and their apparent lack of availability to play Enzonana? Huh, again, that's kind of strange to me because I thought we subbed in Isza for the double sub, which Team Argentina didn't reciprocate? But we can pretend that didn't happen for the sake of argument. So, why exactly are we responsible for subbing someone in and not Team Argentina? Enzonana and jonfilch had similarly small windows of availability for the game, hence the initial double sub decision. Is this because Enzonana magically expanded his availability after jonfilch was no longer online or available, since he thought he was subbed out? That's convenient. Kind of begs the question about why he wasn't available during jonfilch's initial window of availability to begin with...That's okay, though. We can ignore that concerning point too. And we can keep going! Maybe we could have subbed in myself or Sabella, two other subs on our team. Except...what about subbing in Isza for the double sub? Is that nullified by our subbing in another player for the initial game matchup? Could we sub in Isza twice--once for the double sub and once for the original matchup? Is it possible to sub in subs simultaneously?!

A reasonable person I'm sure can see the ludicrous nature of this situation. By this point, we on Team US Northeast assumed this was a dead-game. Team Argentina refused to comply with the initial double sub decision, even implying that they would simply have to forfeit if the double sub decision stood to get the double sub overturned (!), and to engage in the situation further would have set precedents for years to come that would damage the functioning of Smogon tournaments.

One thing I think we all can agree on is that this situation has been poorly handled on multiple fronts. I certainly accept responsibility for that myself. As manager of US Northeast, I could have better monitored my player's scheduling to ensure that we were set going into the weekend. But, to decide this is an activity win for Team Argentina despite their fault in this situation as well and everything we have already mentioned in our appeals is beyond comprehension. We're going round and round here, as we already were in the Captain's Conference channel. It is time at this point for TDs to step in and adjudicate the situation.

 

[Amaranth]

I feel like there is one simple and undeniable truth to this situation:

The hosts decided on a double substitution that was incorrect, because they made the call without exploring Argentina's options fully. Argentina should not be forced into a double sub that does not actually help their odds of getting the game done, given that their substitutes were unavailable, but NE should also be able to trust the host decision when they make one. Neither team did anything wrong; Argentina has the right to refuse a double sub they weren't consulted about, and NE has the right to stick to what the hosts communicate until it is overturned officially.

What the hosts should have done is talk to Argentina before declaring a double sub. That would have made it clear to Argentina that the only possible option was to have Enzonana extend their window of availability; they would have agreed to do so and the game would most likely have happened with no need for any substitutions. The solution was really not that complicated if only the hosts weren't allergic to proper communication. (Even after declaring a double sub there still was some time to backtrack towards this kind of solution, but that also didn't happen.)

The blame rests solely on a host team that has been thoroughly underprepared and insufficient, and has been the direct cause of multiple significant inconveniences already, between the time it took to process R1 tiebreakers and this whole situation.

The unfortunate truth is that it is too late to fix this mistake elegantly; if the hosts have any will to clean up their mess and prove they are not fully incompetent, they should address this as soon as possible, because every day that passes this problem gets worse and worse to fix (Argentina and Canada will play more games, the overall delay on the tournament will grow longer if there is a need to revisit the decision, etc). You've already cornered yourselves into a situation where the tournament will not run smoothly no matter what you decide, the least you can do is own up to it and try to contain the damage.

(And if anyone is curious: RoA unofficials are under the jurisdiction of RoA leadership before TD leadership, and even if it were under my jurisdiction I'd be a biased party as a member of another team that is still in the running, so no, I can't do anything more than very loud and public noise to try and help the situation. Sorry lads.)

 

[Mushi Musha]

won vs kyundai, gg https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1390186160-qli3cib7pl9knh8d7nzvz3x5yii0d10pw

 

[Raichy]

I'd like to take a moment to respond to this. In the event that a team or individual believes a host decision to be incorrect, they have a right to appeal. This is not about appealing until we get a decision that benefits us the most; it is about reviewing what in our opinions is an erroneous host decision. Part of the reason Finch has made these appeals in this thread is because neither steelskitty nor I received a formal response to our appeal in the Captain's Conference channel of the RoA Team Tours Discord, and it is unfair to any of the remaining teams in this tour for this decision to be left unreviewed while the legitimacy of the next round is uncertain.

Team Argentina may enjoy mocking the efforts to appeal this decision, but I don't find particularly funny the thought that concerning precedents regarding scheduling, activity wins, and the ability to appeal host decisions may stand if this decision is left unreviewed. I enjoy a well-functioning tournament system when I participate in Smogon tours, and I assume you all do as well.



There are so many erroneous points in your post, so I'm going to take a few minutes to correct you. Firstly, the tournament is being paused because the RCoP hosts have made a controversial and questionable decision, which merits review by themselves and TDs due to its significance of deciding which team advances in playoffs. This is the sort of thing where if the hosts are going to make this decision, it needs to be correct and completely based on the precedents and rules clearly established for our tournaments.



You talk a lot about our sub, Isza, and how "even in the situation of a double sub [our] own player didnt [sic] appear to play the game." Now, I find that a little strange, seeing as your team never actually subbed someone else in for the double sub. How exactly do you propose we schedule with a player your team hasn't subbed in? Something that's annoyed me a bit since this whole debacle began is how Team Argentina seems incapable of understanding exactly what a double sub entails: both teams sub out their player from the relevant slot, and then both teams sub in a new player, who has been one of their subs. You shared a lot of screenshots in your post, so let me share one that's equally important:

View attachment 362887

The double sub decision was set in stone by one of the hosts of the tour, Golden009. At this point, I subbed in Isza, and you already shared the screenshot to verify that. You all on Team Argentina have been consistently arguing that we are at fault because Enzonana was available to extend his availability, meaning that we needed to get jonfilch online and to play the game. Once again, this logic is faulty and problematic.

View attachment 362888

This is a message exchange, clearly illustrating that since we made it very clear to our team that we subbed in Isza for jonfilch due to Golden009 deciding this was a double sub situation, he (reasonably and understandably) assumed he didn't have anything more to do. The presumption behind this activity call decision and Team Argentina's outrageous arguments is that we on Team US Northeast needed to (hours before deadline, mind you):

1. get jonfilch online;
2. sub him back in to play the match against Enzonana (this is illegal, by the way, since we already subbed him out for Isza in the double sub, and you cannot legally sub in a player who has been subbed out);
3. have them play the match before deadline.

And this also touches upon another of Team Argentina's arguments: that Golden009 reversed his decision. Well, when a tour host makes a decision, gee, I tend to think of that as definitive. But let's entertain for a moment the idea that Golden009 can reverse his earlier decision hours before the deadline. We're faced once again with the same issues: jonfilch reasonably understood the situation to be that he was no longer needed that day to play an ORAS OU game, and to expect that we'd magically be able to get him online to play is...well, I've used lots of fitting adjectives to describe this already.

But wait, we're not finished! Yet again, we hear Team Argentina arguing that we've done something wrong and that we deserve this activity loss. What about just subbing in Isza for jonfilch and their apparent lack of availability to play Enzonana? Huh, again, that's kind of strange to me because I thought we subbed in Isza for the double sub, which Team Argentina didn't reciprocate? But we can pretend that didn't happen for the sake of argument. So, why exactly are we responsible for subbing someone in and not Team Argentina? Enzonana and jonfilch had similarly small windows of availability for the game, hence the initial double sub decision. Is this because Enzonana magically expanded his availability after jonfilch was no longer online or available, since he thought he was subbed out? That's convenient. Kind of begs the question about why he wasn't available during jonfilch's initial window of availability to begin with...That's okay, though. We can ignore that concerning point too. And we can keep going! Maybe we could have subbed in myself or Sabella, two other subs on our team. Except...what about subbing in Isza for the double sub? Is that nullified by our subbing in another player for the initial game matchup? Could we sub in Isza twice--once for the double sub and once for the original matchup? Is it possible to sub in subs simultaneously?!

A reasonable person I'm sure can see the ludicrous nature of this situation. By this point, we on Team US Northeast assumed this was a dead-game. Team Argentina refused to comply with the initial double sub decision, even implying that they would simply have to forfeit if the double sub decision stood to get the double sub overturned (!), and to engage in the situation further would have set precedents for years to come that would damage the functioning of Smogon tournaments.

One thing I think we all can agree on is that this situation has been poorly handled on multiple fronts. I certainly accept responsibility for that myself. As manager of US Northeast, I could have better monitored my player's scheduling to ensure that we were set going into the weekend. But, to decide this is an activity win for Team Argentina despite their fault in this situation as well and everything we have already mentioned in our appeals is beyond comprehension. We're going round and round here, as we already were in the Captain's Conference channel. It is time at this point for TDs to step in and adjudicate the situation.

Bro, you act fished me one rcop when we had sunday as back up because u said u were free on that day too before scheduling. I had problems to make it on saturday and u got the act because u didnt want to play on sunday. I might say u can't claim at all.