Announcement RU Third Custom Discussion Thread

[Yourwelcomethanku]

For what it is worth, we do not have to give RUWC a custom to bring it back if people like it so much. Giving it to other than RUWC is with the intention of competitiveness but we can do that while retaining RUWC just without a custom. I personally do not care about custom avatars and don't really care whether or not RUWC gets one or something else does. I would personally prefer that the team tour is something like RU snake draft instead of RUWC, though.

I will say, giving the custom to the circuit winner when the circuit has already well started does seem off. I mean, if you're giving a custom for the circuit, it would be most apt to have decided that before the circuit started. So, it gives people who were seeking a custom less of an opportunity if anybody actually cares that much. Giving it to RU classic I think would be more reasonable but still probably not that popular.

 

[fvkumean]

FREE RUWC

also congratulations to my big friend rylon for won the World Cup, this guy is the goat

 

[Rarelyme]

Hi everyone and thank you for the feedback. Here is an update on the direction we decided to take regarding our non-circuit tournaments for the rest of the year.

Given how RUWC is receiving the most support out of all the formats we have, we will host a 2026 edition. However and as stated in the original post, the moderation team finds that RUWC does not meet the requirements to feature a custom avatar. The tournament will therefore start on August 17th and will not have a prize outside of the HoF bragging rights. We encourage everyone interested in playing to start organizing with the rest of their country/region now. Check out the last edition for information regarding eligibility.

Therefore, this doesn't answer the purpose of this thread so the question remains open: which tournament should give our 3rd custom avatar? Numerous options were proposed in the OP but only two really stand out : RUCL or an individual tournament. RUCL was the most successful format we tried in the past while being significantly different from RUPL. On the other hand, many people seem interested in having a big individual tournament that would exist outside of RU Circuit and award the custom avatar. The moderation team is currently leaning towards RUCL. Please tell us which of these options you think would be best, and if you would like us to host an individual tournament, what format should it be? SV only or have old gens included? Classic single/double elimination bracket, pools into bracket, qualification phase through ladder or room tournaments into bracket, or something else entirely? This tournament will be hosted at the end of the year, probably starting around November.

Passing the mic to you now !

 

[C0nfiden1 0yster]

think an alternative option that isnt really being considered is simply not using the custom at all. The RUCL option seems conflicting with the desire to run RUWC, as that would have a total of four RU teamtours which is rather excessive (while he didnt post here, I generally agree with etern about tour inflation being a problem that lowers the quality of tours). The individual tournament doesnt make any sense either unless someone wanted to run some sort of off-circuit invitational. I believe the best option is to not use it rather than force some sort of prestige into something that is ordinarily reserved for the highest level ru tours (circuit and rupl).

 

[lighthouses]

Making a final post of this because we were arguing about it on discord and i figured i might as well try:

Allocate 1 custom to rupl, 1 to circuit and 1 to a new individual tournament that happens yearly within the RU community.

We can still hold RUCL and RUWC as tours for fun if there is demand for them but allocating the customs like this would help us in many ways:
- it makes rupl more prestigious as the flagship team tour of the community every year, running at the same time as rugl of course to continue to give unproven players a chance to compete.
- it preserves the prestige of winning the circuit at the end of the year, making it so should players want to they can still compete in the circuit throughout the year.
- it gives some way for the ru community to grow. ive been around for a long time and i believe right now were at a big down point in terms of our competitive community, as a manager for rupl i can tell you the sv signups were very dire. In my opinion there simply are way too many team tours reward customs in smogon in general, just leads to people chasing CAs either as managers or good tour players that if not for the CA dont really care all that much. Maybe my experience is different than most but like 80% of the team tours i join nowadays are mostly dead, feels like just clocking in for a shift as everyones trying to farm customs.

The RU open doesnt really solve this issue, as the tour itself is just part of a bigger circuit and not even double elimination. What i am suggesting initially would be something like RU SWISS, where we use the channels provided to us through smogon for advertising it and then hold the even once a year. We place this tour somewhere between rupl which already takes place earlier in the year and the circuit championship which takes place at the very end.

If we want the community to actually grow in size its important to try something different instead of just holding rucl with a custom prize for the same people that manage every other team tour in the site to come in and farm more customs.

 

[zause]

give it to whatever teamtour you do imo, circuit works too just do not give ts to a type C tour lmao.

 

[Incognition]

In my opinion there simply are way too many team tours reward customs in smogon in general, just leads to people chasing CAs either as managers or good tour players that if not for the CA dont really care all that much. Maybe my experience is different than most but like 80% of the team tours i join nowadays are mostly dead, feels like just clocking in for a shift as everyones trying to farm customs.

Click to collapse...

Honestly, I wish I could like your post one hundred times, because you've absolutely hit the nail on the head with this comment. Although there are still several players who like to play because they enjoy the game, I see many managers across different tournaments purely because there's a CA involved, and also particular players who will only sign up for the exact same reason.

I think CAs are over saturated and they give them away for almost anything at this point, and I feel once the hype eventually ends there, the staff will be forced to consider other incentives such as unique trophies/ribbons, cash prizes, etc.

On the bright side on this topic, RUWC doesn't have a CA so that'll be a fun experience, similar to ZUWC earlier this year which still attracted very strong countries/teams.

 

[Rarelyme]

Hello everybody, it's been over two months since the last update and this discussion didn't see much action since then. Out of the two options we put forward, only RUCL seems to be getting substantial support from the community and is overall the safest format. Therefore, RU will host a second edition of RUCL starting the 26th of October (players signups).
The idea of having an individual tournament is good but needs to be polished a bit more. We will definitely keep it in mind for the 2027 RU Circuit and encourage anyone to express their support toward this idea.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to post here. If you have ideas and opinions about how the 2027 RU Circuit should look like, my DMs are always open.