Smogon Premier League - Administrative Decisions

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Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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Important rulings from past, current, and future SPLs will be posted in this thread. Note that this thread may not include or will contradict rulings from very old SPLs (think I - VI) as standards have changed; consider the listed rulings as most relevant. Additionally, recent rulings that no longer apply due to later rulings will also not be listed. Finally, rulings that are covered in the general rules and guidelines will not be included unless they are meant to set precedent for future decisions.





 

Eo Ut Mortus

Elodin Smells
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More information has been brought to us since managerial selection, and we are forced to revoke CALLOUS's managerial slot based on the following:

- For an off-site tournament, hunting down a player's phone number and making a very intrusive phone call to ensure they would play their match
- Conducting a one-hour interview for the explicit purpose of platforming a user permabanned from Smogon for hate speech, who then proceeded to double-down on their positions in said interview

For the sake of both community safety and professionalism, we take both issues seriously and must grant the Tigers' slot to another pair. Averardo and atomicllamas will be the new managers of the Tigers.
 

Eo Ut Mortus

Elodin Smells
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Re: CALLOUS

Following discussion amongst the full set of TDs, the consensus reached was the reinstallment of CALLOUS/Jabba as the managers of the Tigers. The disqualifying factors previously deemed important have since been recontextualized in the discussion thread and are deemed insufficient to overturn the TDs' initial decision. If anyone feels that we overlooked anything else, please start a thread in Tournament Policy about it. There may still exist sentiment that this selection was the wrong one, but correction should be oriented at our process rather than the decisions themselves in cases where they aren't egregious and objective rule violations, and I believe this to be one such case.

Most people are correct in understanding this issue is one of a decision being overturned without full consultation of the TD team, but the fault lies entirely with myself, not SS. I won't ask for it to be excused, but I only ask that it is seen for what it is, a poor judgment call, rather than anything malicious or coercive. Through communication with SS, I was presented information following the managerial selection that, in my eyes, warranted its overturn without need for further discussion. I made a call in the heat of the moment; I was wrong to do so, and I should've both made a greater effort to verify every account and awaited further TD input before taking action. Even if it had ended up being the right call, handling things in this manner devalues the input of the other TDs and shouldn't be the way we operate. I want to apologize to those affected by the decision and its subsequent reversal, especially CALLOUS/Jabba and Averado/atomicllamas.
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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RE: Tiers signed up for

The measure for preventing price fixing established last SPL is in place this season. As a reminder, players will only be able to play the tiers listed in their signups post for the first two weeks, and having no tiers listed will be considered as being open to playing any tier. This rule is not enforced for retained players and anyone with a 3k price tag.

Refusal to play a tier you signed up for is punishable, so if your current signup post lists a tier that you would not be willing to play, please edit it accordingly. We will use the format under your post at the moment signups close at January 2nd, 3 PM EST.
 

Merritt

no comment
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Head TD
RE: Auction Trading

The hosting team has decided to allow teams to trade players during the auction with the caveat that all midauction trades may not include auction credits. Due to concerns about the potential exploitation and abuse of trades that involve auction credits during the draft, midauction trades may only be player(s)-for-player(s).

Only managers will be allowed to propose or accept a trade. Once a manager for each team has confirmed the trade with the hosts, the hosts will finalize the trade at the top of each drafting round - after the 20th nomination and before the 21st, after the 40th nomination and before the 41st and so on.

Retained players are not eligible to be traded during the auction and may only be traded during SPL's mid-season.
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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RE: Retention Deadline

We were asked for confirmation on what is exactly the deadline to retain a player as we have found that our written rules and actual practice differ. We have set the deadline for a player to confirm retention at the same time as when player signups close for this SPL and future ones. The deadline for this SPL is January 2nd, 3 PM EST (GMT-5).
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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RE: Dice vs Elodin

On Tuesday, Dice and Elodin scheduled for Friday 6 PM GMT-5 via Discord with Elodin noting the day before that he "might travel the weekend" and "friday is prob ideal for us". Elodin DMed Dice 20 minutes before the scheduled time to see if he wanted to play after an ongoing RBY series, and when there was no response, Reyscarface pinged the Tigers 19 minutes after the scheduled time requesting Dice to log on or for a substitute, and again at 24 minutes after. CALLOUS responded immediately, refusing to sub a player in for Dice. Elodin left shortly after.

All guidelines for eligibility for activity wins in team tournaments were followed by the Dragonspiral Tyrants, and the Circus Maximum Tigers' defense that Elodin did not explicitly state that he was unavailable over the weekend is insufficient. Stating plans to travel implies unavailability and subsequently Dice agreed to Friday 6 PM GMT-5, which Dice missed and no substitute was provided by the Tigers.

Result: Elodin is awarded the activity win over Dice.
 

Perry

slayer
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RE: Kenix

The SPL hosting team was contacted yesterday about user Kenix linking a pokepaste to user Luthier right after their match against Bloody alfa for the 2nd week of SPL started containing an early version of the team Bloody alfa was using for the game. This event only came to light because Luthier uploaded the game to their YouTube channel, and we were able to start investigating the issue from there.
Our Tournament Rules are pretty clear when it comes to when you can share a team with your teammate:

Tournament Rules and General Guidelines said:
Linking the player a RMT of the team they are facing: Allowed.
Linking the player a public replay where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Allowed.
--
Linking the player a private replay where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Not Allowed.
Linking the player a private importable where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Not Allowed.
The team that Bloody alfa eventually used was originally built by a friend of theirs that eventually shared that team with Kenix before SPL started. Furthermore, another version of that team could also be seen in action in one (public) replay for last year's OU Championship between two unrelated users. That, however, does not confer a public status on that particular team. For a rule of thumb, teams are only considered public when any Smogon user is able to find it without asking any other user about it given enough time; that pretty much confides the possibilities to teams posted on the forums or to our social media. It's pretty clear that this is not the case for this specific scenario.
After the conclusion of this SPL, the TD team will convene to discuss and upgrade our rules about team leaking and team sharing. Meanwhile, we ask our players to keep themselves safe by requesting further information about any teams that find your way. Always ask your teammates or friends where they got any teams and/or information about your opponent's team before actively using anything. Meanwhile, all cases will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the SPL hosting team.

Result: Kenix is tourbanned for 1 year, and as such, is disqualified from this edition of the Smogon Premier League. The Congregation of the Classiest will receive 3k sellback credits. The result of the match between Luthier and Bloody alfa is maintained.
 
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Perry

slayer
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RE: Kenix 2: The Enemy is not Perry

We have heard the arguments presented by our community and thus we have decided to shorten Kenix's tourban to 6 months. We have also removed the part that leaned too heavily into leaking of my previous post, as the situations are not the same and they could lead to wrong precedents in the future. We will revisit our rules in the future to avoid cases such as this. Meanwhile, our decision is final for this case.

Result: Kenix's tourban is reduced to 6 months, and he is not barred from participating in next SPL.
 

Eo Ut Mortus

Elodin Smells
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Following discussion amongst all TDs, Kenix's ban is being reduced to 3 months, the minimum amount of time allotted for a ghosting infraction. The consensus we reached was that the severity of the incident warranted a mitigated punishment but ultimately still fell under the scope of rulebreaking. Some people have compared what Kenix did to lobby speculation, but it is certainly on its own distinct level for the following reasons.

1) An entire team was given, a step above the information typically leaked through lobby speculation.
2) Unlike lobby speculation, the opponent could not have possibly been aware their team was speculated.
3) Most importantly, the act is being performed with the intent to give a teammate a competitive advantage. If we recognize that intent and circumstance distinguish what Kenix did from more deliberate and involved ghosting (a point upheld by this revised ruling), we must also recognize these same factors apply in equal measure when assessing the severity of someone PMing their teammate information compared to lobby speculation.

"Leaking" (a trusted party violating expectations of privacy by revealing information to an opponent) is not at play here and is not considered in our ruling.

This decision is being revisited only because the original decision was the result of an error in process that excluded the opinions of the majority of TDs. Barring exceptional circumstances, future decisions will not be revisited in this manner as long as they are adjudicated properly (as it pertains to this case, with the consultation of all TDs without a notable conflict of interest). For the record, we do not expect this oversight to repeat itself; it occurred only due to the high amount of turnover amongst our team within the past year and the fact that almost all of the major administrative decisions within that time period presented a conflict of interest to a TD participating in the tournament.

The feedback present in the SPL Commencement Thread has been taken into consideration, and we will continue to work on clarifying and updating the rules regarding ghosting and mid-battle communication.
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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RE: Tigers and Ruiners Week 4 Trade

The managers of the Circus Maximus Tigers and the Alpha Ruiners approached the host team early on in this week to propose a trade. Because the teams are playing each other, they are not able to trade (see Commencement Thread, "Week One" rule #4) and must wait until the beginning of Week 5 to complete the trade, which would mean that the traded players can't play for their new teams until Week 6. This dead period is not present for the "regular" type of trade, where players can be traded in the middle of a week and play immediately the next. The mentioned rule also creates a situation where teams that are playing each other during Week 5, the last time to conduct a trade, either have to trade before or not trade at all, which is a limitation not present for other teams.

Discussion on how to handle these situations in a way that doesn't unfairly restrain teams playing each other from trading while still observing the intent of the mentioned rule will take place following the conclusion of SPL XII. The current solution is to allow the trade to take place after the conclusion of Week 4 and for the traded players to be eligible to play in Week 5. The managers of the teams facing the Ruiners and Tigers have been informed to the trade details, so every relevant team is on the same page with regards to rosters.
 

Perry

slayer
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RE: xray vs Luigi

Before Week 9 began, Luigi and xray made contact to schedule a time. They quickly realized that they had incompatible schedules, with Luigi available only for the weekend and xray available for almost all of the weekdays, and brought this to the attention of the hosts. Over the past few days, the host team has attempted on several occasions to find a solution that works within the constraints of timezone differences and real life commitments for both players. These attempts have failed, and so the host team has to make a call in the interest of having the series completed.

Forcing a single substitution has similar criteria as the basis for an activity win, largely based on effort made attempting to schedule a time. For this matchup, both players provided significant, reasonable periods of availability to their opponent. Despite xray’s numerically greater number of available days early in the week, this alone does not give grounds to justify a single substitution of Luigi. The raw number of days or hours a player is available compared to their opponent cannot be used as the only metric for granting a favorable judgement in an activity case - instead the hosting team is more interested in whether or not players provide sufficient reasonable times to their opponent. Relatedly, availability on the weekend does not inherently trump availability earlier in the week, making a single substitution of xray unreasonable. As such, the hosting team has decided the correct decision is to force a substitute for both players.

A couple additional points:

The Sharks posed the argument that because Luigi played his OST XVII Round of 16 series during a time he designated as unavailable to xray, he lied about his availability for SPL and therefore should be substituted out. This was taken into consideration as context, however we cannot use availability for another tournament as a guarantee of availability for SPL. Beyond general arguments about the perceived relative importance of SPL and other tournaments, the series in question was an extension from the previous week, rescheduled from the original Sunday time to Monday and later Tuesday meaning that prep time already existed for this set, unlike the scenario with the SPL matchup. Given these context details, there are insufficient grounds to back up the claim that Luigi lied about his availability for SPL based on his ability to play for OST.

Arguments that xray attempted to show more flexibility than Luigi, such as playing at unreasonable local times for him (1AM-9AM for example) do not provide grounds for xray to be given favorable judgment, as these unreasonable times for him are still times that his opponent has stated they are unable to play. While the attitude of trying to get the game completed is commendable, offering a wider range of times on days an opponent has stated they are unable to play at all cannot be taken as useful additional effort in scheduling.

Result: Luigi and xray are substituted out. Both teams should provide a substitute as soon as possible. Tagging the relevant managers: M Dragon Trosko Raiza Tricking.
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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RE: Finchinator vs GaryTheGengar

Finchinator and GaryTheGengar scheduled a time for their Week 9 series during the week before agreeing to deadgame on Saturday. The series was not played and neither side claimed activity.

Result: The series is a dead game.
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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RE: Star vs Eo Ut Mortus

Shortly after the finals tiebreaker was posted, an extension for Star vs Eo Ut Mortus was requested due to both players having limited availability over the weekdays. Extensions in team tournaments are almost never granted in the interest of keeping tournaments moving along at a steady pace. However, this would be the last series of the tournament, so nothing is being held up and any other solution is undesirable by comparison.

Result: An extension is granted for Star vs Eo Ut Mortus to April 3rd, 11 PM GMT-4 (24 hours after the original deadline). They've scheduled for 3 PM GMT-4 on Saturday. No additional extensions will be granted.
 
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