Curious about what we're currently doing about bots? Check out the latest updates from staff in this thread.
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
For the second time in RUWC history, there will be no US team in playoffs.
On the other hand, with France qualifying, there will be a European team in playoffs for the seventh time in a row, which basically means that there has always been at least a European team in RUWC playoffs.
India will make their first playoffs appearance in RUWC after three participations.
For the first time, two Asian teams (China and India) will be in playoffs.
On that same note, it is the first time that an Asian team (China here) ends 1st in Round 1.
Only five teams have no players that went 0-3: Brazil, France, India, US Great West, and US Northeast.
Six council members have played (out of 9 members), and four of them have gone positive: feen went 3-0 in SV, LBN went 2-1 in SV, lighthouses went 2-1 in SM, and THE_CHUNGLER went 2-1 in ADV.
Besides SV RU, SM RU is the pool with the most people in 3-0 (Luispeikou, Kingler, and Vioz).
With 17 wins and 7 losses, China now holds the record of wins of a round 1 in RUWC since the 24-game pools format came up. Matter of fact, they almost hit the all-time World Cup record of 18-6 (earned in 2012 and 2021 by France and Germany, respectively). These are quite random numbers but I needed to include China somewhere.
Brazil remains the only country to have played every edition of RUWC, without ever being merged with any other team. I just think it was interesting.
Rest of the World now remains the only team to have made playoffs every time they participated.
On the other hand... Italy is the only team to have never made playoffs every time they participated.
If Argentina win in tiebreaks, they can become the second team in RUWC history (bar RUWC 1) to make playoffs on their first participation, the only one so far being Spain. They will also be the second South American team in RUWC playoffs, which never happened before.
If Spain lose, France will be the only European team in playoffs .
Six players that played in the first RUWC made it to this year's playoffs: Ampha (Brazil), lighthouses (Brazil), EviGaro (Canada), feen (Canada), Hurtadoo (France), and rylon (Rest of the World). If Oceania makes it through tiebreaks, ninjadog can join the list.
Each player will have to play two matches this week vs the other players in his slot, the team with the worst score will not qualify to the playoffs.
The deadline for the tiebreaker will be <t:1790578800:F>, have fun!