Tournament RUPL XII Format Discussion

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It's that time of the year again! RUPL XII will soon start, with Manager Signups going live on the 17th February. We plan on expanding the tournament to 10 slots especially after the participation in RUBD (which did not offer CA but had more signups than RUPL).

The tiers we are looking to include in this year's RUPL are:

4 SV / 1 SS / 1 SM / 1 ORAS / 1 BW / 1 ADV + 1 Bo3 / 1 SV

Feel free to discuss!

Regarding ADV: We wanted to add it since there is a significant push for the community to include it in RUPL. This was echoed by forum moderators and TLs as well. Unless there are any legitimate drawbacks from its inclusion + a valid replacement suggestion, we will be including it in RUPL.
Regarding bo3 or another SV slot: The goal (at least as of posting) of this thread is to discuss this. I am biased against including bo3, since rest of the slots are bo1 and you essentially prep more and get rewarded with the same yield as other slots. It's a slot to see highlight matchups and while it's good for spectators, it is more work both for the player involved and managers.

The only drawback to having 5 SV slots is that the quality of the playerbase may not be high, since this will have 40 SV slots in the tour. Personally, I am okay with this, as SV quality in RUBD was high and the tour did not have some higher quality players involved.
 
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Just wanted to chime in here since I've been vocal in the Discord about my thoughts on the matter. I think just looking at the RUPL sheets demonstrates the general vibe of Bo3 in recent years; a few top players perform really well, while a majority of teams struggle to find one person to hold the slot down, and as a result a bunch of players end up with negative records trying to save their Bo3. I don't think the idea of Bo3 being hype for the spectators is wrong in any capacity but watching a star player start 0-3/1-3 just to get benched or moved into a different tier and having some unsuspecting backup come in to get farmed is not really the most enjoyable viewing experience and puts a negative light on a slot that could otherwise be a fifth SV, where it is much easier to coordinate prep and get good clickers if needed. At the end of the day each pool should be competitive and a fifth SV assures it is more than a Bo3 slot does - not to say that SV won't have some bad records but it's much easier to build for and put somebody in if needed.

TLDR:
5 SV
SS / SM / ORAS / BW / ADV

2024 - Franklin and mncmt had great seasons in Bo3, though a handful of teams clearly did not and a few players got pushed into the slot to get farmed.
1738854287342.png

2023 - A bit more competitive than 2024, though some teams still had no hope as they struggled to get even two wins from multiple players here.
1738854063467.png

1738854069558.png
 
FlamPoke made some good points about the BO3 slot, but I do want to point out the burnout that BO3 creates applies just as much to the starters as it does the unsung heroes: the supports. You don’t know how stressful it was supporting TheFranklin in BO3 last year. It was like herding some A-list Hollywood actor who can’t stay out of trouble off set.

“What Z users do you like here?”
“I don’t know, I’m hanging out with my family today.”

“Stakataka looks good into this scout.”
“I have an in-person chess tournament this weekend.”

“You play in an hour, right? Which SV team did you decide on?”
“I haven’t tested either yet, I’ll need games here in a second.”

I need an antacid tablet just revisiting these memories.
 
bo3 is pretty hype to have, its something you slot your best player in and will reward good draft planning and execution as you probably need to build your roster around said player to begin with
having a consistent set bewteen the 2 leading players for each team every week is hype and fun and good imo
arguments about people having bad records in bo3 is just.. complete nonsense? in all of those examples you have 1-2 players with an actually bad record the rest either have like 1 or 2 losses on it or are dead even, i dont understand why 'this slot is top heavy therefore its bad' lol
as for the argument of having to build 3 new teams every single week and thus it being too time consuming i would be willing to wager the people who have the best records in all those examples definitely didnt do that, if anything best of 3 favors you being able to reuse teams, since not everything is riding in that 1 game
dont understand how 1 extra sv slot adds more to the tournament than the bo3 slot
 
I say stick with the Bo3 format, it works and people love it while showing to be fun to watch. 5 SV slots "kind of" feels like overkill I think? 4 is plenty imo and there will be no shortage of good meta development and competitiveness with 4 slots. Not much else to say here, the others got it covered pretty well :blobthumbsup:
 
lighthouses said:
bo3 is pretty hype to have, its something you slot your best player in and will reward good draft planning and execution as you probably need to build your roster around said player to begin with
having a consistent set bewteen the 2 leading players for each team every week is hype and fun and good imo
arguments about people having bad records in bo3 is just.. complete nonsense? in all of those examples you have 1-2 players with an actually bad record the rest either have like 1 or 2 losses on it or are dead even, i dont understand why 'this slot is top heavy therefore its bad' lol
as for the argument of having to build 3 new teams every single week and thus it being too time consuming i would be willing to wager the people who have the best records in all those examples definitely didnt do that, if anything best of 3 favors you being able to reuse teams, since not everything is riding in that 1 game
dont understand how 1 extra sv slot adds more to the tournament than the bo3 slot
Click to expand...
seconding everything in this post :blobthumbsup: keep bo3
 
ADV RU has seen more than enough players enter it, so it should be included. From my understanding, ADV RU hasn't broken into the greater ROA community yet, but it has gained more than enough traction to warrant a slot in RUPL. Especially given its success within the RU player base as a whole.
 
Bo3 is an inferior choice simply because there is more SS RU on the tournament than the necessary slot, no player should be forced to go through having SS RU as a defining game every week...


But to chime in with an actual argument, I think having a slot that is just gonna be a "reuse" city cause of practical reasons ofc, I feel it is honestly very lame, very few people nowadays can make that slot a worthy spectacle imo. Another SV slot is arguably the lesser of 2 evils Id say, Id honestly vouch for another SM slot. I just feel a bo3 slot being a "reusing teams" fest is just astronomically boring. Huge possibility that many SS teams are just Mac3/sol teams fr fr


I wish another old gen slot could be an option but I dont know if that would have enough traction. Some food for though. May as well let ADV join for the big game tbh
 
gonna also throw my own hat against bo3. It's such an annoying format to both prep for and balance out and that farming argument is 100% accurate. I don't really care what takes its place, whether its SV5 or even a 2nd SS or even nothing at all; tiebreaks are really something frustrating to both experience and deal with on both the team doing it and team that sits around waiting for it. This part is more conjecture, but I think there's only been a singular time where I've been on a team waiting for a tiebreak to happen who didn't get immediately clipped in the next round after waiting. It's pretty fuckin demoralizing to sit around for a week and then there's extreme examples like UUWC being like 3 fucking months long because on constant tiebreaks. I know we want 10 slots, but I think it might be worth considering doing SV5/6 and then ADV for 11 slots instead. I know its a lot of SV but considering how much signups we got last time and in RUBD, this is less unreasonable than it sounds

Personally my vote would be SV5, I think the player quality should be more than sufficient especially with the custom grabbing alot of the custom fishers who are on average very damn good at the game.
 
I support keeping BO3 for a couple reasons:

1 - Well yeah, prepping for this is like more work, I mean that's the essence of it so, yeah. However, I don't necessarily see how would that be so big of a deal that it would justify cutting it straight off the tour. Despite the fact that prepping for different generations is actually hard, it's not like the dudes that will play this slot haven't been doing this for years. Diogo mentioned it, but you DON'T send whoever you want in a multigen BO3 slot, hence why we have people like Sensei, Punny, mncmt, Star etc. playing in this specific slot each year. No manager will ever throw a random 3k new player to the sharks for such a special slot to approach. Notice how they are also players who have been around ever since those old gens were the current ones for the most part. I don't know most of them, but from that perspective, I don't think I'm wrong if I assume they might have enough experience for it not to be concerning whatsoever, otherwise they'd prolly never make it to a full season.
Might be unrelated, but as of me, having been around Franklin and Star on that slot, I could tell it never felt like a problem for the ones playing, although one was actually building/prepping deep (i.e. vetoing btboy because "how come hp steel mandibuzz dont work to diancie sir Franklin") and the other one wasn't. No sé what's going on in ppl's heads though, so I might be wrong.

2 - Ok this one may sound stupid, but I mean yeah so what. See, I like the fact that the tours we made kinda had their "signatures" (RUBD with the blind draft thing, RUGL with the noobs (jk), some of our solos etc) - I'm putting quote marks because obviously we didnt invent those -, and I feel like BO3 is the signature of RUPL. Considering that it's pretty much the slot everyone's been waiting for to be played, removing it equals to be eating a döner kebab with no sauce ON PURPOSE (I had it the other day it was the worst lunch break of my whole fucking existence). Jokes aside, I feel like the tour would feel empty with no bo3 slot, as no other RU tours have it and it's a pretty good opportunity to see some of the best players at different "stages".
Dont know if that makes sense but yeah tl;dr BO3 is the signature / most hype slot to me so I wouldnt like it erased

3 - With the amount of SV gaming that we're already about to have, I really think we don't need another SV slot. You could argue that bo3 adds a de facto 5th SV slot.
4 - I strongly agree that reusing is boring, but in this case, I don't think that really kills the fun and the spectacle that brings bo3 for two reasons. First of all, because we still have stuff to explore in SV, and creative builders isnt really what's missed out there, so we're allowed to hope for at least balls being put on the table. Secondly, with that amount of old gens, adding 1 or 2 more regi/milo stall or ninetales/lax teams to the pl usages is not the end of the world.
I'm not gon talk too much about it cuz I'm a huge part of the problem but tours now are mostly about reusing until earth explodes, just see what's been going on for the past few years (thankfully there are exceptions), I dont think we can really do much about it unless we do a full CG (dont do that). I agree with whatever Aldo said about SS tho.

Tl;dr bo3 + ADV, those are my favorite slots so basically 100% biased and no objectivity like at all, I might've forgotten some things but I already write way too much thanks for reading hope whoever gets btboy ends up 8-0 keep spreading peace
:blobthumbsup:
 
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Okay, I'll steer the conversation back to something more relevant

I don't really have an opinion on whether Bo3 should be included or not, it seems like a pain to prep for without reusing teams, which idk if that's the best, but if that's what spectators like, then I'm fine with it. But I will say this:

Include ADV RU. Its been a massive success in the RU community, and including it in RUPL will legitimise it even more. Just a good overall metagame that has a good sized playerbase.


Hate on every tier :fino:
You ain't a true hater if you don't do this.
 
Hello everyone! The manager signups are on their way so it's time to conclude this thread. Thank you to every player who posted their thoughts here as well as everybody who contributed to the conversation on Discord.

We took all of this into account and the final decision for this RUPL will be to keep Bo3. This slot contributes to giving the tournament a proper identity while offering a great show for every spectators and rewarding good drafting plans. It does require more preparation than other slots but as the SS and SM teams are very oftentimes pre-existent, we feel like this argument is not enough to ignore what this slot brings to the tournament. These games featuring known teams also doesn't feel that important since the idea behind this slot is to have highlight games where the excitement comes from the players themselves, so the teambuilding is quite secondary in the case of Bo3. The fact that it is worth the same as every other slot does feel like a flaw (which still isn't the opinion of everybody) but sadly this flaw seems to be inherent to the Bo3 slot.

RUPL XII will therefore feature these 10 slots: four SV, one of each old generations (SS, SM, ORAS, BW and ADV) and Bo3. At the end of the tournament, a survey will be conducted among the players and a question about the Bo3 slot will be included to eventually revise this decision if needed.
 
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