Welcome to the official
The fourth edition of the Smogon Snake Draft will be a team-based tournament where 10 team managers draft their team from a pool of players and duke it out for the following nine weeks to make it to playoffs, where the top four teams face off to determine this year's winning team. This year's tiers will be:
- OU
- OU
- OU
- OU
- DOU
- UU
- RU
- NU
- PU
- LC
- TonyFlygon & TDK - (Rumble Hall Rattlers)
- EviGaro & HJAD - (Ambrette Astrotias)
- rozes & Eternally - (Shinto Ruin Serpents)
- Tricking & Mysterious M - (Lake of Rage Leviathans)
- Aurella & Will of Fire - (Black City Mambas)
- Eternal Spirit & M Dragon - (Lanakila Nagas)
- Averardo & Prinz - (Celadon City Cobras)
- xImRaptor & Gondra - (Sky Tower Lindworms)
- Analytic & Jordy - (Terminus Taipans)
- Christo & FlamingVictini - (Berry Forest Bushmasters)
The General Manager of a team is essentially the boss of a team. The GM is the final word in all decisions (barring the hosts) regarding his or her team. The GM decides which players play on the team, who plays in what position, and even handles the team finances. Managers also make sure that the team keeps running on a day to day basis. If a team fails to complete their matches by the end of the allotted time, the onus is on the manager to inform the hosts as to what happened in order to make sure that proper activity calls are made.
Because of these responsibilities, The General Manager is probably the most important part of the team. As such, the position of GM is not one to be taken lightly.
• General Managers are not eligible to play in the Smogon Snake Draft. You can either play or manage, not both.
• General Managers are chosen largely on a subjective opinion of the hosts as well as Tournament Directors as to who they believe would be fit for the position. Being fit for the position includes the knowledge of excellent battlers in the community (for fielding a competent team), having above average activity on the forums, Pokémon Showdown and/or Discord (in order to ensure that you don’t abandon your team), as well as possessing a necessary amount of “gravitas” (If you can’t make a player do what you tell them to, such as play an undesirable metagame, you’re not going to make a good manager).
General Managers are required to acquire one Assistant Manager. The General Manager gets full sovereignty in choosing his assistant manager. The assistant manager is essentially the second in command for the team. They have all of the functions and roles as the General Manager does, the GM just trumps him in head-to-head decisions.
Lastly, the General Manager has the following duties:
• They shall choose one Assistant Manager.
• They shall send the hosts weekly rosters.
• They shall ensure to the best of his/her abilities that his/her battlers complete their matches on time.
• In the event that a match fails to be completed, they shall inform the hosts as to why the match failed to be completed, and what his/her battler did in order to finish the match.
• They shall communicate any grievances with the hosts.
• They shall oversee all trades the team makes.
Because of these responsibilities, The General Manager is probably the most important part of the team. As such, the position of GM is not one to be taken lightly.
• General Managers are not eligible to play in the Smogon Snake Draft. You can either play or manage, not both.
• General Managers are chosen largely on a subjective opinion of the hosts as well as Tournament Directors as to who they believe would be fit for the position. Being fit for the position includes the knowledge of excellent battlers in the community (for fielding a competent team), having above average activity on the forums, Pokémon Showdown and/or Discord (in order to ensure that you don’t abandon your team), as well as possessing a necessary amount of “gravitas” (If you can’t make a player do what you tell them to, such as play an undesirable metagame, you’re not going to make a good manager).
General Managers are required to acquire one Assistant Manager. The General Manager gets full sovereignty in choosing his assistant manager. The assistant manager is essentially the second in command for the team. They have all of the functions and roles as the General Manager does, the GM just trumps him in head-to-head decisions.
Lastly, the General Manager has the following duties:
• They shall choose one Assistant Manager.
• They shall send the hosts weekly rosters.
• They shall ensure to the best of his/her abilities that his/her battlers complete their matches on time.
• In the event that a match fails to be completed, they shall inform the hosts as to why the match failed to be completed, and what his/her battler did in order to finish the match.
• They shall communicate any grievances with the hosts.
• They shall oversee all trades the team makes.
All players must sign up if they wish to play in the Smogon Snake Draft. It is important to note that the Smogon Snake Draft is an 11 week event and that the activity level of a player is significant. Do not sign up to play for a team if you do not intend to see the tournament through to the end. This includes maintaining a competitive attitude if your team is already eliminated from playoff contention. You never know whether or not winning your end-season matches will make you a more valued player next season, so even if your team isn’t necessarily in the playoff picture anymore, there’s always value in playing your best. Failure to complete matches in a timely manner consistently may result in being barred from entering the Smogon Snake Draft in future seasons.
The sign-up list will then be taken and sorted into appropriate lists for each of the 7 metagames. These lists will then be used by managers for the auction.
The sign-up list will then be taken and sorted into appropriate lists for each of the 7 metagames. These lists will then be used by managers for the auction.
Unlike SPL there are no credits used for this draft, instead it will be conducted in a snake draft format, the order of teams being determined at random and shown right above.
In the weeks preceding the live draft, a time will be chosen by all of the General Managers to meet and perform a live draft in order to choose players. Managers will be expected to remain at the draft for the entire duration, which should take approximately 2-3 hours. If a General Manager cannot, for some reason, find any feasible time that they can attend a Live Draft , then the Assistant Manager will be called upon to fill in the spot. If no Manager can fill the spot for the Live Draft… then a new General Manager + Assistant Manager who can find time to make a live draft will be found to replace the old ones.
Once a time is set, all 10 managers + the hosts will enter the Snake channel in the Smogtours server at the given time. The host will administer the @ rank to the 10 managers, and place modchat on the chat. Spectators are allowed to join in to watch the fun unfold, but will not be able to speak. Discussion on the bidding at hand should be relegated to a different channel.
The draft order will have been determined prior to the start of the draft, and teams will pick in this order. Each team will pick one player, until the final team is reached, after which the draft order reverses and the final team will now get the first pick for the next round, making this a Snake Draft. This process will repeat until every team has a total of 14 players, enough for 10 starters and 4 substitutes.
Managers are asked to please have a predetermined list of players you intend to nominate in order to make the process go as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Each team will have 90 seconds per round to pick their player and if they exceed this limit their pick will be skipped, and they will get to make up for this after the next 5 picks (half a round). On this next attempt, they will have a 30 seconds timer to pick again. Should they fail to do so within the alloted time, they will have this particular pick added to the end of the draft.
In the weeks preceding the live draft, a time will be chosen by all of the General Managers to meet and perform a live draft in order to choose players. Managers will be expected to remain at the draft for the entire duration, which should take approximately 2-3 hours. If a General Manager cannot, for some reason, find any feasible time that they can attend a Live Draft , then the Assistant Manager will be called upon to fill in the spot. If no Manager can fill the spot for the Live Draft… then a new General Manager + Assistant Manager who can find time to make a live draft will be found to replace the old ones.
Once a time is set, all 10 managers + the hosts will enter the Snake channel in the Smogtours server at the given time. The host will administer the @ rank to the 10 managers, and place modchat on the chat. Spectators are allowed to join in to watch the fun unfold, but will not be able to speak. Discussion on the bidding at hand should be relegated to a different channel.
The draft order will have been determined prior to the start of the draft, and teams will pick in this order. Each team will pick one player, until the final team is reached, after which the draft order reverses and the final team will now get the first pick for the next round, making this a Snake Draft. This process will repeat until every team has a total of 14 players, enough for 10 starters and 4 substitutes.
Managers are asked to please have a predetermined list of players you intend to nominate in order to make the process go as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Each team will have 90 seconds per round to pick their player and if they exceed this limit their pick will be skipped, and they will get to make up for this after the next 5 picks (half a round). On this next attempt, they will have a 30 seconds timer to pick again. Should they fail to do so within the alloted time, they will have this particular pick added to the end of the draft.
It is at this time that the tournament will commence. The league stages consist of a Round Robin tournament. Every team will face every other team once through 9 weeks of play. Each manager will submit to the hosts a roster no later than the deadline of the previous week. This roster will list the starting players and what metagames they will play.
When the week starts, teams' players will face off in their respective metagames / tiers. The SS OU 1 from Team A will face the SS OU 1 from team B, SS OU 2 will face SS OU 2, and so on. Whichever team wins the most battles will be declared the victor for the week. Rather than score based on how many individual battles a team wins, the only thing that matters is who beat the most teams. As such, points are awarded based only on wins and losses versus teams as a whole, not individual players. Beating a team in a week’s matchups is worth two points, tying with a team is worth one point, and losing is worth none, simple as that. At the end of the round robin, the top four teams in the points proceed to the playoffs and will be seeded into a knock-out style bracket where they will face off until only one team remains.
There are a few regulatory things during the league stages that need to be outlined.
1. Substitutes – At any point in time during the week, a team may make a substitution for an inactive player. In order to do this a manager must post in the thread, tagging the hosts, the opposing managers and the opposing player stating which player is substituting out, and which player is substituting in. A player that has substituted out for a week cannot be substituted back in. In addition, in order to catch any attempts at garnering favorable matchups in SS OU (where the lineup you choose affects pairings), all substitutions are subject to veto by the hosts if the substitution is suspected to be attempting to “game” the system.
2. Player Replacements – Player replacements may only happen between the auction and the start of the first round. As soon as matchups are posted, player replacement will no longer be accepted. Only acceptable reason for replacing a player is team cancering, as defined by our official tournament rules.
3. Trades – Trades are only possible after the auction and until the end of week 5. This means you can trade before week 1 has begun. In order to complete a trade, both involved managers must submit a PM to the host detailing which player(s) on their team they are trading away, as well as what they are receiving as compensation.
4. Teams that are facing each other may not conduct a trade that week and players cannot play in the week they were traded.
5. Activity decisions – There are inevitably times where two players simply fail to complete a match; however, the nature of the tournament system sometimes makes it advantageous to purposely fail to play (such as when a team is up 6-5 in a week). Because of this, it is necessary to make activity decisions on matches. Hosts are required to make thorough investigations regarding each and every potential failed match during a week. If both parties are deemed to be equally apathetic or enthusiastic about getting the match done, but just have not had the opportunity to make it happen, the match will result in a no contest. However, if it is deemed that one party made significantly more effort than the other in attempting to get the match done, then a win will be awarded to that player. Things that will make it very likely that you will lose via activity include: failing to VM your opponent immediately upon the week’s start, scheduling a match and being documented as missing the match time, failing to provide any concrete times for which you can be reached, failing to respond to an opponent’s VM at all. Note that this is a tournament that requires a very high level of activity and diligence, if you don’t think you can get your matches done, quite simply don’t sign up. All cases of activity will be handled following the rules posted here, so please read them carefully.
6. Rule Breaking – There is no excuse for breaking any of the predetermined rules. If you are caught breaking a rule, you will lose your match. There is no lenience with regards to this. Break a rule, you lose. Period.
7. Reversing Rulings - No ruling will be retroactively overturned once the week following the week that the ruling has been made has ended. This includes: activity rulings / rulings based on rule breaking / anything else under the sun. I'm not going back in time to reevaluate every single decision I've made throughout the tournament on Week 9 because you think you were gypped 1-2 wins along the way and now they're the difference between you and a playoff spot. Any appeals to a ruling must be made during the week that the ruling is made; beyond that, all rulings are final once the week ends.
When the week starts, teams' players will face off in their respective metagames / tiers. The SS OU 1 from Team A will face the SS OU 1 from team B, SS OU 2 will face SS OU 2, and so on. Whichever team wins the most battles will be declared the victor for the week. Rather than score based on how many individual battles a team wins, the only thing that matters is who beat the most teams. As such, points are awarded based only on wins and losses versus teams as a whole, not individual players. Beating a team in a week’s matchups is worth two points, tying with a team is worth one point, and losing is worth none, simple as that. At the end of the round robin, the top four teams in the points proceed to the playoffs and will be seeded into a knock-out style bracket where they will face off until only one team remains.
There are a few regulatory things during the league stages that need to be outlined.
1. Substitutes – At any point in time during the week, a team may make a substitution for an inactive player. In order to do this a manager must post in the thread, tagging the hosts, the opposing managers and the opposing player stating which player is substituting out, and which player is substituting in. A player that has substituted out for a week cannot be substituted back in. In addition, in order to catch any attempts at garnering favorable matchups in SS OU (where the lineup you choose affects pairings), all substitutions are subject to veto by the hosts if the substitution is suspected to be attempting to “game” the system.
2. Player Replacements – Player replacements may only happen between the auction and the start of the first round. As soon as matchups are posted, player replacement will no longer be accepted. Only acceptable reason for replacing a player is team cancering, as defined by our official tournament rules.
3. Trades – Trades are only possible after the auction and until the end of week 5. This means you can trade before week 1 has begun. In order to complete a trade, both involved managers must submit a PM to the host detailing which player(s) on their team they are trading away, as well as what they are receiving as compensation.
4. Teams that are facing each other may not conduct a trade that week and players cannot play in the week they were traded.
5. Activity decisions – There are inevitably times where two players simply fail to complete a match; however, the nature of the tournament system sometimes makes it advantageous to purposely fail to play (such as when a team is up 6-5 in a week). Because of this, it is necessary to make activity decisions on matches. Hosts are required to make thorough investigations regarding each and every potential failed match during a week. If both parties are deemed to be equally apathetic or enthusiastic about getting the match done, but just have not had the opportunity to make it happen, the match will result in a no contest. However, if it is deemed that one party made significantly more effort than the other in attempting to get the match done, then a win will be awarded to that player. Things that will make it very likely that you will lose via activity include: failing to VM your opponent immediately upon the week’s start, scheduling a match and being documented as missing the match time, failing to provide any concrete times for which you can be reached, failing to respond to an opponent’s VM at all. Note that this is a tournament that requires a very high level of activity and diligence, if you don’t think you can get your matches done, quite simply don’t sign up. All cases of activity will be handled following the rules posted here, so please read them carefully.
6. Rule Breaking – There is no excuse for breaking any of the predetermined rules. If you are caught breaking a rule, you will lose your match. There is no lenience with regards to this. Break a rule, you lose. Period.
7. Reversing Rulings - No ruling will be retroactively overturned once the week following the week that the ruling has been made has ended. This includes: activity rulings / rulings based on rule breaking / anything else under the sun. I'm not going back in time to reevaluate every single decision I've made throughout the tournament on Week 9 because you think you were gypped 1-2 wins along the way and now they're the difference between you and a playoff spot. Any appeals to a ruling must be made during the week that the ruling is made; beyond that, all rulings are final once the week ends.
At the end of the league stages, there will be a knockout style playoffs involving the top 4 teams in the points. In the event of a tie in overall points standings, the following criteria is used for breaking ties.
• Overall Points >
• Battle Difference (total # battles won - total # battles lost) >
• Best of 3 - each team picks a unique tier with the winner of the Head to Head matchup picking second, then SS OU is the 3rd game. In the event that the two teams tied in the Head to Head matchup, the team with better results against the higher seeds will pick second.
After the top 4 have been determined, each team will be seeded. The #1 seed will play the #4 seed, and the #2 seed will play the #3 seed. The victors of these matches will advance to the finals match. The winning team of this match will be declared the ultimate victors of the Smogon Snake Draft.
League Stages & Playoffs
Tiebreaks in the Playoff stage (ie when teams are tied 6-6, not when they are trying to get into playoffs) have been changed.
League Stages
Not all 10 teams will qualify to play in the playoffs. Based on the results of the League stage, the top 4 teams will advance to the playoffs.
In the league stages, beating another team gives you 2 points, drawing the match gives you 1 point, and losing it gives you nothing. In addition, the manner in which you win will also be stored; that is, how many you won vs how many you lost. This difference will be used in case of a tie at the end of the league stage.
Playoffs
Based on the league stage, the top 4 teams will be seeded and placed into a bracket, in which they will go head to head. Teams will battle in the same format as during the league stage. At the end of all 12 battles, the team with more wins will advance to the next round.
In the case of a tie, the advancing team will be decided by a best of three - each team picks a unique tier with the higher seed picking second, then SS OU is the 3rd game.
The tournament will progress in this format until there is only one team left standing, the champion of the Smogon Snake Draft.
• Overall Points >
• Battle Difference (total # battles won - total # battles lost) >
• Best of 3 - each team picks a unique tier with the winner of the Head to Head matchup picking second, then SS OU is the 3rd game. In the event that the two teams tied in the Head to Head matchup, the team with better results against the higher seeds will pick second.
After the top 4 have been determined, each team will be seeded. The #1 seed will play the #4 seed, and the #2 seed will play the #3 seed. The victors of these matches will advance to the finals match. The winning team of this match will be declared the ultimate victors of the Smogon Snake Draft.
League Stages & Playoffs
Tiebreaks in the Playoff stage (ie when teams are tied 6-6, not when they are trying to get into playoffs) have been changed.
League Stages
Not all 10 teams will qualify to play in the playoffs. Based on the results of the League stage, the top 4 teams will advance to the playoffs.
In the league stages, beating another team gives you 2 points, drawing the match gives you 1 point, and losing it gives you nothing. In addition, the manner in which you win will also be stored; that is, how many you won vs how many you lost. This difference will be used in case of a tie at the end of the league stage.
Playoffs
Based on the league stage, the top 4 teams will be seeded and placed into a bracket, in which they will go head to head. Teams will battle in the same format as during the league stage. At the end of all 12 battles, the team with more wins will advance to the next round.
In the case of a tie, the advancing team will be decided by a best of three - each team picks a unique tier with the higher seed picking second, then SS OU is the 3rd game.
The tournament will progress in this format until there is only one team left standing, the champion of the Smogon Snake Draft.
Standard Tournament Procedures:
The general tournament rules and guidelines can be found here.
Please read them very carefully.
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