Smogon Champions League - Team Name Suggestions

[Havens]

INDIGO PLATEAU

• Indigo Plateau Elites
• Victory Road Aces
• Indigo Arsenal
• Indigo Champions

For what it's worth, a team name already exists via a combination of the former two names on that list, being Victory Road Elites. It's been utilized in Smogon Exhibition, and even has logo art via LifeisDANK (in my signature below) that can be adapted to Zracknel's design if needed.

Otherwise, I'm a fan of the Studio Beatniks/Indigo Platoon names. A couple of ideas from myself off the top as well:
-Stream Thieves (Smogon streamer reference, Rayquaza mascot)
-United Pokemon Service (UPS/TFP(?)reference, Pelipper mascot)
-One-Hit Wonders (Studio/OHKO reference, Meloetta mascot)

 

[Yellow Paint]

Well, I'll give Trainer's School a shot. I hope we get some good suggestions in!

Trainer's School Ex Machinas

Ex Machina means "from the machine." The mascot for this would be Metagross, potentially drawn as Professor X (from his School for Gifted Youngsters). X-Men bits aside, we also go the Latin angle, which is always college-y, and we get some mad science in with crazy robotics.

 

[Lets In The Sun]

The Diplomacy (Translations): To be honest, I think it is quite difficult to keep the word "Translations" for the name, so I thought "The Diplomacy". I used the word diplomacy to refer to the representation of the translators towards the PS community. They are in charge of making the articles accessible to other languages and promoting it so it reaches more communities (To be honest im not sure which mon could fit, but with some research i think Shaymin-sky could work)

Harvard Trainer's Academy (Trainer's School): Straight to the point, I see them as the "Elite" among trainers of the Trainer's School (Probably Slowking for the Logo)

Socialist Mediators (Social Media): this one is because i imagine a logo with Genesect with its 4 discs (Representing the media)

Btw Showdown Shoguns is a masterpiece of name, make it come true

 

[az]

smogoff stroganoff

logo: intimidating beef stroganoff

potential recruitment campaign material:

are you strogn enough to be a smogoff stroganoff? sign up today..

maybe it seems out of place for it to be a food but it's the off-topic forum — this was a stroke of genius that i planned out the whole time

 

[Hogg]

Yeah, apologies re: the Orange Island Rangers suggestion, someone PMd it to me and I wasn’t aware of what it referenced so I included it on the list of suggestions I’d received. Removing it now.

As far as timeline and name selection goes, I think I’ll leave this thread open for suggestions for another week or so… let’s say until Friday, March 19. I’ve been talking to some of the artists, animators, social media folks etc who will be working on this project, and if we could have the majority of team names selected by early April that should give us sufficient time to coordinate art creation and branding well in advance of this year’s tour.

I want to make sure that anything we choose is something that the artists are confident they can work with, but I also think it would be fun to have the community make the final decision on the team names. My thought is that we come up with a collated list of some of the best suggestions, and then do a public vote to narrow the field down to 10. So that we don’t run into overlap, I think it makes the most sense to split any vote up by sections. I’d also like to start attaching potential mascot ideas to each suggestion as well. Ideally we can get a vote out by late March, and have team names more or less selected by April.

 

[sugar ovens]

Showdown (or tech projects, whatever you wish) - Data Crunchers
Sports Arena - Arena Sp@rtans.. or Arena Sportans/Spartans but have the "a" circled in the logo
Smogoff - Offroad Wheels (off the beaten road, like doing stuff differently than firebot, different from the rest of forums. A more jokeish name with sth like rolycoly or something playful using flame wheel for logo)
Bitworms, Screenworms, Wordworms - any writing-related section, though i don't know if there is a good wormmon for a logo.. Smogon Bitworms
social media - Spirit Mediums
Translations - Lang Ninjas (tongue ninja greninja would make a pretty good logo. possibly pronounced similarly to "languages".. maybe not, idk)
Mt. Pyre - Blazing/Flaming Sailors (the set-ship-on-fire-and-let-it-burn-on-a-body-of-water-funeral thing that is overused in all kinds of media). Shadows could work too, but it isn't so closely related to the funeral stuff. Perhaps that's a good thing.
Trainer's School - High Hopes Owls (you have those for the people you teach. (noct)Owl is a symbol of knowledge. Tinted Lens.) Or if you don't think it's going anywhere.. the Sisyfoxes (delphox has a convenient pointer.. wand). Sisyfoxes might work for grammar check too, just let the Delphox correct the mistakes in "sysifoxes" on the logo. Or with hard "grammar check sisyfoxes" "grim sisyfoxes" "GC sisyfoxes"


*sigh* sorry, next time i will think of the names first and make a post after instead of editing and editing. also sorry for potential nonsenses, i'm not really english enough

 

[az]

Edit: this is lame but for Technical Projects, you could just do the Technical Machines or some shit.

technical machines owns actually

conxeptually transforms these mundane discs into fighting mecha

 

[Gilbert arenas]

Policy review mews
Articulate aviators
The RM ttars

 

[Zephyri]

Showdown (or tech projects, whatever you wish) - Data Crunchers
Sports Arena - Arena Sp@rtans.. or just Sp@rtans.
Smogoff - Offroad Wheels
Bitworms, Screenworms, Wordworms - any writing-related section, though i don't know if there is a good wormmon for a logo
social media - Spirit Mediums
Translations - Lang Ninjas (tongue ninja greninja would make a pretty good logo. possibly pronounced similarly to "languages".. maybe not, idk)
Mt. Pyre - Blazing/Flaming Sailors (the set-ship-on-fire-and-let-it-burn-on-a-body-of-water-funeral thing that is overused in all kinds of media). Shadows could work too, but it isn't so closely related to the funeral stuff. Perhaps that's a good thing.
Trainer's School - High Hopes Owls (you have those for the people you teach. (noct)Owl is a symbol of knowledge. Tinted Lens.)

i have nothing of my own to say but i think all of these names are top tier 10/10 names; they're all iconic, two syllable words that are fun to chant and are fun to be a part of, they're all related to their home forum to the point where you could figure out what forum they're based on from sight but they're also not just "forum name+cool group of people to create alliterations" and are easily identifiable super gj on this :)

 

[dice]

the quincy quagsires

 

[rush of my blood]

MT. SILVER

(MT.) Silver Eagles - Moltres/-Galar

for those who don't know Moltres is Mt. Silver's legendary

picture

 

[Triangles]

Program Technicians - Scizor in lab coat as logo
Arena Fanatics - Ambipom wearing multiple foam fingers on his various hands
Orange Island Sentinels - Probopass as an Easter Island statue
Battling 101 Academics or Battling 101 Analysts - Magnezone
Mt. Silver Goats - Gogoat kicking with its hind legs (also fits with the competitive mons trope of 'oh he's the GOAT' - I guarantee a team with this name would be hilariously obnoxious in the stours disc)

I could keep going forever

 

[Dorron]

Flying Press Antarticles - The logo could use an Ice-type Pokemon (Antartic-les, ik it is antarctic) or a Durant (Ant-Articles)

It can also derive Antarticles in Antartickles (Maybe a Cinccino? Antar-tickles)

 

[kaori]

Tourna Mences

 

[Dave]

Smogons Greatest Hits:
Smogons Greatest Graphs - I’m sure there’s a solid mascot for this elodin

 

[ima]

 

[Expulso]

SMOGCOURT SUPREME

• Smogcourt Jesters
• Smogcourt Martials

TRAINER’S SCHOOL

• Schoolhouse Lycanrocs (yes yall said no pokemon names but it fits so well w schoolhouse rock :/)

SOCIAL MEDIA

• Midtown Socialites (midtown is close enough to media ig, socialites seems cool from social and any M place name would work for the first name)

ok when i started i thought i was gonna have more ideas than this lmao oops

 

[Aurella]

White Forest Artisans
Battle Stadium Spartans
Contest Hall Cabarets/ Game Corner Cabarets (prefer the first)
Orange Island Kahunas (adjust exegg heads to see/hear/speak no evil)
Victory Road Rangers
Showdown City Shoguns

 

[Kalalokki]

As far as timeline and name selection goes, I think I’ll leave this thread open for suggestions for another week or so… let’s say until Friday, March 19. I’ve been talking to some of the artists, animators, social media folks etc who will be working on this project, and if we could have the majority of team names selected by early April that should give us sufficient time to coordinate art creation and branding well in advance of this year’s tour.

I want to make sure that anything we choose is something that the artists are confident they can work with, but I also think it would be fun to have the community make the final decision on the team names. My thought is that we come up with a collated list of some of the best suggestions, and then do a public vote to narrow the field down to 10. So that we don’t run into overlap, I think it makes the most sense to split any vote up by sections. I’d also like to start attaching potential mascot ideas to each suggestion as well. Ideally we can get a vote out by late March, and have team names more or less selected by April.

Closing this now and we'll be back with a public vote soon.

 

[Hogg]

The results of the vote are tallied! They are as follows:

So, assuming we go with the top 10 exactly, the green would represent what teams make it in.

That said, there was a fair bit of discussion in #scl about opening things up to a second runoff vote following the first. Some people expressed concern that the names could be a bit too similar, some were upset that we had multiple repetitive names while other options were left off of the voting slate, and still others brought up that the Smogcourt Royals/Smogcourt Knights/Renaissance Knights trio could end up drawing votes off of each other, reducing their overall score. However, the artists requested having something to begin working on by early April in order to guarantee getting things done in the proper timeline.

My proposal would be to take all of those that >50% of the voters selected. With more than half the community seemingly supporting them, I think they are safe picks and can give the art crew something to start working on. That would mean the top 7 names: Power Plant Dynamos, Uncharted Terrors, Circuit Breakers, Orange Islanders, Showdown Shoguns, Indigo Platoon and Studio Gibles / Studio Gible. Then, we do a runoff vote for the remaining three slots.

So with that, I'm unlocking the thread for some more discussion. Shall we go with the top 10 here, or look at a run-off vote? Chime in below!

 

[Kalalokki]

I also think we should go with that top 7 and vote on the last 3 slots, where Mt. Silver Foxes, Arena Spartans / Sport Arena Spartans, Technical Machines, Smogcourt Royals, and Renaissance Knights would be the 5 voting options. Any other candidates have too few votes and didn't really compete with those 5 above as much for votes imo.

Some other stats from the votes themselves though:

• No one voted for this exact top 10 as their 10 favorite teams.
• 7 of the teams in the top 10 were in the preliminary voting people's top 10 and the other 3 were tied for at least 2 votes each (out of 6 voters), reflecting the votes we see now pretty well.
• Only one vote had to be discarded and it wouldn't have changed the final outcome.
• One user managed to vote twice through "double posting", but they were duplicates so it was easy to just remove one of them

 

[Hogg]

I also think we should go with that top 7 and vote on the last 3 slots, where Mt. Silver Foxes, Arena Spartans / Sport Arena Spartans, Technical Machines, Smogcourt Royals, and Renaissance Knights would be the 5 voting options. Any other candidates have too few votes and didn't really compete with those 5 above as much for votes imo.

Some other stats from the votes themselves though:

• No one voted for this exact top 10 as their 10 favorite teams.
• 7 of the teams in the top 10 were in the preliminary voting people's top 10 and the other 3 were tied for at least 2 votes each (out of 6 voters), reflecting the votes we see now pretty well.
• Only one vote had to be discarded and it wouldn't have changed the final outcome.
• One user managed to vote twice through "double posting", but they were duplicates so it was easy to just remove one of them

Since no one has raised any objections, we are going to go ahead with this plan. I'll leave the thread open for time being in case folks have additional input, but expect a follow-up vote in the near future!

 

[Blazade]

"Islanders" does not inspire any kind of competitive ethos, and tbh going by this sounds the same to me as calling yourself a suburbanite. A Kahuna is a chosen and unique battler given distinct responsibilities; an Islander is just someone who lives on an island.

Kahunas has much more pleasant phonetics than Islanders which doesn't roll off the tongue nearly as well. Given that we're going to use the shorthand of these team names quite a bit this happens to matter a lot

Not that I want to get into a whole thing over this but I have friends who'd murder me if I didn't bring up the fact that the New York Islanders are an actual sports team which inspires a competitive ethos and is definitely catchy enough as a brand. I happily voted for them on phonetics alone.

 

[Hogg]

Yeah, Islanders is an actual team name in hockey (similar to Sharks), which is why that name kinda works in my opinion. Another issue with the Kahunas as a team name is that anglicized references to Kahuna can be considered offensive to indigenous Pacific Islanders. I know it's a reference to the Kahunas in the game, and I don't think that it's impossible to pull off respectfully... but I also think that there's a pretty good chance that even if it's done well in terms of name and branding, it'll end up encouraging racist tropes. We already brushed against that with the Orange Island Rangers suggestion, so I'd rather avoid that if possible, and I think we may have dodged a bullet by the fact that most people seem to prefer the Islanders.

Anyhow, I think that we actually have a pretty solid set of names, and I suspect that if we had had a similar discussion when the original SPL names were being picked and didn't have 12+ years of history to shape our opinions on them, there'd be similar outcry about a lot of them. I'm not really sure that adding more names to the runoff voting slate will actually help things, and could serve to create exactly the same problem we had with the first vote. (Also, I think you might be overrating #scl discussion, where a couple of the same people have been very vocal about their like or dislike of a few names, when in fact they only represent a minority opinion when you actually run a poll.)

I'd been planning to put up the second vote today, but I'm willing to hold off on the runoff vote for another couple of days to see if most people agree we should expand or change the slate, especially since we have 7 teams that seem to have a good majority of support. But I do want to caution against delaying things indefinitely, because I worry that it just increases our chances of ending up with something dissatisfying or mediocre. After all, the reason we ended up with Snake names was because we spent so long arguing over different naming options that we eventually had to pick something, and snakes were the least "offensive" of the options after we spent a month+ digging in our heels about how much we hated the other side's suggestions. I'd hate to do the same here, especially when we have the rare opportunity to have the entire tournament's branding built from the ground up by some really excellent professional designers, rather than created in a piecemeal way.

 

[Tony]

Out of the runoff options my favorite right now is for sure the Sandbox Hermits. The name makes a lot of sense, the connection to its mascot is very strong and it's based on a publicly available section of the website. The latter being something I feel invalidates the Smogcourt options altogether, at least for me. I know there's other restricted areas of the website being used for team names as well, such as The Inside Scoop, but the Smogcourt Supreme subforum is literally only for Super Moderators, whereas The Inside Scoop or Policy Review are much more widely accessible. I wonder how many people voting on the names even knew the subforum was called Smogcourt Supreme in full.

The Hermits aside, I've seen some uncertainty surrounding the current Mt. Silver options, both here on forums and in #scl. I don't know if it's too late, but to add onto Dragon Claw's excellent suggestion in terms of a mascot connection for Mt. Silver, what about the Mt. Silver Firebirds? Outside of its obvious Fire / Flying typing, Moltres also seems to (at least in part) be based on Slavic Firebird folklore and I think it would make for a very cool team name, too. If it were still possible to suggest this, then I'd go with the Sandbox Hermits, the Mt. Silver Firebirds and one of the Sports Arena Spartans or the Technical Machines for the remaining slots. If not, then going with both the Spartans and the Machines seems fine as well.

As for the 7 names already locked in, I think they're all excellent. I was strongly considering sitting out this tournament for a while, but everything being handled so well and seeing the artwork for the Dynamos and the Islanders (you're a god, Zracknel) have gotten me really excited about it. Thank you and keep up the good work!