Smogon Snake Draft IV - Introduction

Status
Not open for further replies.
God mamp just SPITTING FACTS.

Also talking about spitting facts, and im saying as someone who has joined all the team tours by some way in the past ~4 years or so, i think you should start re-thinking the SSD's existence. This tour doesnt have the general respect of the community as SPL does, many big names dont bother joining and since its format changed to fit as basically a secondary SPL (with no much identity at all, since spl also has lower tiers) this tour is basically hiding in the shadows of the general circuit, in my opinion. Dont get me wrong - im fully motivated for this season, won this thing before and dont think the pools will be terrible, but come on, i dont think we should keep pretending like its ok the way this tour is seen for some time now and the way you kept trying to improve a format that was not liked by the community as whole (with basically not fully success). Usually i would not care to who joins or who doesnt at all, but with it happening, we just got to see how flawed is a draft format if everyone isnt invested at all. The tour will keep rolling and will have its personal level of top playerbase, so it will stay competitive, but well its just not optimal at all and im sure im not the only one thinking the same. Either make it an actual secondary SPL or just nuke it from next year onwards IMO.

tl;dr nobody has been caring to SSD, re-think if it should keep in the circuit from the next year onwards.
 
Last edited:
Eternal Spirit said:
God mamp just SPLITTING FACTS.

Also talking about splitting facts, and im saying as someone who has joined all the team tour by some way in the past ~4 years or so, i think you should start re-thinking the SSD's existence. This tour doesnt have the general respect of the community as SPL does, many big names dont bother joining and since its format changed to fit as basically a secondary SPL (with no much identity at all, since spl also has lower tiers) this tour is basically hiding in the shadows of the general circuit, in my opinion. Dont get me wrong - im fully motivated for this season, won this thing before and dont think the pools will be terrible, but come on, i dont think we should keep pretending like its ok the way this tour is seen for some time now and the way you kept trying to improve a format that was not liked by the community as whole (with basically not fully success). Usually i would not care to who joins or who doesnt at all, but with it happening, we just got to see how flawed is a draft format if everyone isnt invested at all. The tour will keep rolling and will have its personal level of top playerbase, so it will stay competitive, but well its just not optimal at all and im sure im not the only one thinking the same. Either make it an actual secondary SPL or just nuke it from next year onwards IMO.

tl;dr nobody has been caring to SSD, re-think if it should keep in the circuit from the next year onwards.
Click to expand...
cara nem li puta post grande mano sai fora
 
Eternal Spirit said:
God mamp just SPLITTING FACTS.

Also talking about splitting facts, and im saying as someone who has joined all the team tour by some way in the past ~4 years or so, i think you should start re-thinking the SSD's existence. This tour doesnt have the general respect of the community as SPL does, many big names dont bother joining and since its format changed to fit as basically a secondary SPL (with no much identity at all, since spl also has lower tiers) this tour is basically hiding in the shadows of the general circuit, in my opinion. Dont get me wrong - im fully motivated for this season, won this thing before and dont think the pools will be terrible, but come on, i dont think we should keep pretending like its ok the way this tour is seen for some time now and the way you kept trying to improve a format that was not liked by the community as whole (with basically not fully success). Usually i would not care to who joins or who doesnt at all, but with it happening, we just got to see how flawed is a draft format if everyone isnt invested at all. The tour will keep rolling and will have its personal level of top playerbase, so it will stay competitive, but well its just not optimal at all and im sure im not the only one thinking the same. Either make it an actual secondary SPL or just nuke it from next year onwards IMO.

tl;dr nobody has been caring to SSD, re-think if it should keep in the circuit from the next year onwards.
Click to expand...

fala merda pra caralho mas pr da fpl cade?
 
Eternal Spirit said:
God mamp just SPLITTING FACTS.

Also talking about splitting facts, and im saying as someone who has joined all the team tour by some way in the past ~4 years or so, i think you should start re-thinking the SSD's existence. This tour doesnt have the general respect of the community as SPL does, many big names dont bother joining and since its format changed to fit as basically a secondary SPL (with no much identity at all, since spl also has lower tiers) this tour is basically hiding in the shadows of the general circuit, in my opinion. Dont get me wrong - im fully motivated for this season, won this thing before and dont think the pools will be terrible, but come on, i dont think we should keep pretending like its ok the way this tour is seen for some time now and the way you kept trying to improve a format that was not liked by the community as whole (with basically not fully success). Usually i would not care to who joins or who doesnt at all, but with it happening, we just got to see how flawed is a draft format if everyone isnt invested at all. The tour will keep rolling and will have its personal level of top playerbase, so it will stay competitive, but well its just not optimal at all and im sure im not the only one thinking the same. Either make it an actual secondary SPL or just nuke it from next year onwards IMO.

tl;dr nobody has been caring to SSD, re-think if it should keep in the circuit from the next year onwards.
Click to expand...

fodase
 
Eternal Spirit said:
God mamp just SPITTING FACTS.

Also talking about spitting facts, and im saying as someone who has joined all the team tour by some way in the past ~4 years or so, i think you should start re-thinking the SSD's existence. This tour doesnt have the general respect of the community as SPL does, many big names dont bother joining and since its format changed to fit as basically a secondary SPL (with no much identity at all, since spl also has lower tiers) this tour is basically hiding in the shadows of the general circuit, in my opinion. Dont get me wrong - im fully motivated for this season, won this thing before and dont think the pools will be terrible, but come on, i dont think we should keep pretending like its ok the way this tour is seen for some time now and the way you kept trying to improve a format that was not liked by the community as whole (with basically not fully success). Usually i would not care to who joins or who doesnt at all, but with it happening, we just got to see how flawed is a draft format if everyone isnt invested at all. The tour will keep rolling and will have its personal level of top playerbase, so it will stay competitive, but well its just not optimal at all and im sure im not the only one thinking the same. Either make it an actual secondary SPL or just nuke it from next year onwards IMO.

tl;dr nobody has been caring to SSD, re-think if it should keep in the circuit from the next year onwards.
Click to expand...
every since the fire flames straight gods pitvipers won it easily and retired as the only undefeated team tour team of all time it hasn't been the same bro
 
Hello! I am Eeveeto, and since after Wcop I am positive on the Sheet, I am probably considered relevant enough to have a 1% chance of my proposal being taken into account. What is the proposal regarding? The replacement of Snake Draft in future years.

So, the Tournament I am proposing would still be a Team Tournament. I don,t care regarding the method of choosing players for the team, it could be like it is now, it could be like in SPL or any arbitrary decision such as the ones of the different editions of CoronavirusPL.

10 players would still play every week, although the number could be changed if needed. 6 of the slots would play normal Tiers, I don,t care which, since this is not the important part. Lets say 3 play SS (well, current Gen) OU, 1 SM OU, 1 ORAS OU and 1 BW OU, but this could be changed to whatever Tiers suit best, as long as they are commonly played Tiers.

The fun part comes with the other 4 slots. They would consist in each team choosing 2 Tiers out of a very wide range of them. This would make every week match-up different from the previous one. At the same time, it would allow uncommon but very fun Tiers such as ADV UU, DPP LC or GSC Ubers to be played in an oficial environment, rewarding managers who choose players specialized in obscure metagames. Of course, a limit should be put regarding what Tiers can be choosen in order not to see games in something like Monotype Monocolor RBY Doubles UU for example. Still, I think this would be a very fun and at the same time competitive enough idea, since a similar format of Tournaments has already been tried in some Spanish and Latinoamerican communities, being popular enough there.



Now, the other reason for which I am making this post is regarding the moccs that I have been paying attention to. In all of them so far I have seen my name picked, so I am going to boldly assume I will get picked in the real Draft too, as it should be :blobthumbsup: . However, I could not but notice that in all of the moccs I have been described as an OU player exclusively, despite what I have written in my sig-up post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-snake-draft-iv-signups.3668544/page-12#post-8563767 . Now, this makes sense and if the manager who drafts me tells me to play OU, I will shut up and do my best there. Still, despite lots of lower tier main players that have signed up probably outclass me in their fields, I would like to be given a chance to play any Meta that is not the OU one. LC is the one I play the best, but I can defend myself in UU, RU, NU and PU too. While destroying foes with broken threats like Eevee and Charmander, I can still provide Eeveetechnology to my teammates, since I will be participating in the last 2 cycles of OLT (being this one of the reasons I don,t want to play OU in Snake).

So, I hope both of my proposals are read by the right people. Have a nice Eeveening!
 
Eeveeto said:
Hello! I am Eeveeto, and since after Wcop I am positive on the Sheet, I am probably considered relevant enough to have a 1% chance of my proposal being taken into account. What is the proposal regarding? The replacement of Snake Draft in future years.

So, the Tournament I am proposing would still be a Team Tournament. I don,t care regarding the method of choosing players for the team, it could be like it is now, it could be like in SPL or any arbitrary decision such as the ones of the different editions of CoronavirusPL.

10 players would still play every week, although the number could be changed if needed. 6 of the slots would play normal Tiers, I don,t care which, since this is not the important part. Lets say 3 play SS (well, current Gen) OU, 1 SM OU, 1 ORAS OU and 1 BW OU, but this could be changed to whatever Tiers suit best, as long as they are commonly played Tiers.

The fun part comes with the other 4 slots. They would consist in each team choosing 2 Tiers out of a very wide range of them. This would make every week match-up different from the previous one. At the same time, it would allow uncommon but very fun Tiers such as ADV UU, DPP LC or GSC Ubers to be played in an oficial environment, rewarding managers who choose players specialized in obscure metagames. Of course, a limit should be put regarding what Tiers can be choosen in order not to see games in something like Monotype Monocolor RBY Doubles UU for example. Still, I think this would be a very fun and at the same time competitive enough idea, since a similar format of Tournaments has already been tried in some Spanish and Latinoamerican communities, being popular enough there.



Now, the other reason for which I am making this post is regarding the moccs that I have been paying attention to. In all of them so far I have seen my name picked, so I am going to boldly assume I will get picked in the real Draft too, as it should be :blobthumbsup: . However, I could not but notice that in all of the moccs I have been described as an OU player exclusively, despite what I have written in my sig-up post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-snake-draft-iv-signups.3668544/page-12#post-8563767 . Now, this makes sense and if the manager who drafts me tells me to play OU, I will shut up and do my best there. Still, despite lots of lower tier main players that have signed up probably outclass me in their fields, I would like to be given a chance to play any Meta that is not the OU one. LC is the one I play the best, but I can defend myself in UU, RU, NU and PU too. While destroying foes with broken threats like Eevee and Charmander, I can still provide Eeveetechnology to my teammates, since I will be participating in the last 2 cycles of OLT (being this one of the reasons I don,t want to play OU in Snake).

So, I hope both of my proposals are read by the right people. Have a nice Eeveening!
Click to expand...
transparent.png
 
Don't really get what's wrong with having a tour that's not as good/respected as SPL tbh. I personally think other official tours in the circuit like OLT & WCOP are far less worth playing than snake, but no one seems to want to nuke those. Snake is not as good as SPL, but it's still getting 400+ signups (more than WCOP got) so clearly enough people want to play in it for it to be considered relevant - why does it need to be nuked if the player base is still there? They've tried fucking around with the pools/weeks format in the past, and at the end of the day the weeks format is obviously more popular, so that's why this tour is generally seen as a secondary SPL - but then again the majority of lower tier PLs & other team tours on this site follow the same format, so why is having a similar format to SPL even an issue?

You're never gonna make another team tour that would be considered as an equal to SPL. You might as well have a lesser tour that's considered second best rather than having no tour at all.
 
Eternal Spirit said:
God mamp just SPITTING FACTS.

Also talking about spitting facts, and im saying as someone who has joined all the team tours by some way in the past ~4 years or so, i think you should start re-thinking the SSD's existence. This tour doesnt have the general respect of the community as SPL does, many big names dont bother joining and since its format changed to fit as basically a secondary SPL (with no much identity at all, since spl also has lower tiers) this tour is basically hiding in the shadows of the general circuit, in my opinion. Dont get me wrong - im fully motivated for this season, won this thing before and dont think the pools will be terrible, but come on, i dont think we should keep pretending like its ok the way this tour is seen for some time now and the way you kept trying to improve a format that was not liked by the community as whole (with basically not fully success). Usually i would not care to who joins or who doesnt at all, but with it happening, we just got to see how flawed is a draft format if everyone isnt invested at all. The tour will keep rolling and will have its personal level of top playerbase, so it will stay competitive, but well its just not optimal at all and im sure im not the only one thinking the same. Either make it an actual secondary SPL or just nuke it from next year onwards IMO.

tl;dr nobody has been caring to SSD, re-think if it should keep in the circuit from the next year onwards.
Click to expand...

I don't know how anybody can write an entire paragraph about why this tournament sucks without giving any quantifiable reason as to why you think it does, but rather appealing to authority over and over (as someone who has joined all the team tours by some way in the past ~4 years or so... many big names dont bother joining... everyone isnt invested at all etc.). In order to derive more constructive feedback out of this I will try to lay out your problems with the tournament by some educated guesswork so please forgive me if I'm wrong, and feel free to correct me / add anything I missed.

You believe the tournament isn't as important as SPL because it is newer, and because it focuses too much on lower tiers.
You believe the tournament isn't respectable because it lacks any team identity.
You believe the tournament has a bad reputation because of it's bad drafting format, as well as it's previous groups system.

Now I'll be giving my takes on those assumed believes -

It is not uncommon for new competitions to need some time earning the same prestige as ones that have existed for years. Sadly the only solution to this is, well, time. In ten years nobody will care which started in 2009/2017.

Boomers shitting on lower tiers for no other reason than to tout their own horn / circlejerk is one of the most unfortunate realities I have come across in this community. OU metagames are not inherently more complex. OU metagames are not inherently more demanding. OU metagames are not inherently "better". Current gen OU has a stronger/larger playerbase. Regarding old gen OU, stronger is debatable, but it has one good piece of evidence: players have had more time to hone their skill in said metagames. Larger is categorically untrue, at least regarding active players.

I completely agree with the lack of team identity continuity. Taking our team last year as example, the leviathans had a base of newish players who had played eachother in some unofficial leagues and pl's such as the ou room pl or the den of thieves pl, and shared various discord servers with eachother, which also included our Canadian manager duo. Yeah let us give that team to the Tricking jerk and the captain of team Greece. I'm sure they will start chanting their team name during the tour, but they don't really care about whether they got the Leviathans or the nagas at this point. Are they even defending the title? It would be way more interesting to see Jyt + Hayburner lead that team as Hayburner was on the last year's edition of the Leviathans, both have good ties to the previously mentioned group of players, and they are also of Canadian origin.

Snake definitely started off with some unnecessarily stiff and uninteresting mechanics. Some have been corrected (games are now being played weekly, thank god), others remain, weighing the tournament down. What I am talking about specifically, is the way in which the draft is conducted. Managers pick their players in a snake-style format, similar to how you'd pick your team at a friendly football game in front of your block. This process itself is heavily determined by rng (pick order), and prevents many strategies you could employ when drafting auction-style, such as going for two top tier players, to give the crudest example. A lot of it is guesswork on who will go for whom at what point in the draft, and trades, which aim to solve some of this have been a huge clusterfuck in the past. To be honest I believe that smogon would ban the snake-draft mentality for uncompetitiveness if it were a mechanic in one of it's tiers. Besides the limitations I mentioned so far, it is also heavily undermining team identity continuity.

TL;DR;
Stop acting like a metagame is more playworthy simply because it has "OU" before it's name, bring back continuous team identity to keep interesting storylines, remove the godawful drafting style, nobody cares that it's named the snake tournament just name it something else.
 
Last edited:
Eternal Spirit said:
Also talking about spitting facts, and im saying as someone who has joined all the team tours by some way in the past ~4 years or so, i think you should start re-thinking the SSD's existence. This tour doesnt have the general respect of the community as SPL does, many big names dont bother joining and since its format changed to fit as basically a secondary SPL (with no much identity at all, since spl also has lower tiers) this tour is basically hiding in the shadows of the general circuit, in my opinion. Dont get me wrong - im fully motivated for this season, won this thing before and dont think the pools will be terrible, but come on, i dont think we should keep pretending like its ok the way this tour is seen for some time now and the way you kept trying to improve a format that was not liked by the community as whole (with basically not fully success). Usually i would not care to who joins or who doesnt at all, but with it happening, we just got to see how flawed is a draft format if everyone isnt invested at all. The tour will keep rolling and will have its personal level of top playerbase, so it will stay competitive, but well its just not optimal at all and im sure im not the only one thinking the same. Either make it an actual secondary SPL or just nuke it from next year onwards IMO.

tl;dr nobody has been caring to SSD, re-think if it should keep in the circuit from the next year onwards.
Click to expand...
I was planning on asking the TDs about making a Tournament Policy thread about this after Snake ended because I believe there are ways to improve the overall quality and appeal of the tournament moving forward, but I do want to address this now as I do not want this sentiment to remain uncontested and spread.

I believe SSD is worth salvaging for at least another year beyond this, but likely into the distant future as well. This year, SSD was shafted due to some pretty unprecedented circumstances. Let's go over them and why they are relevant:
  • WCOP was much closer in time to SSD than normal
    • DLC's timing caused the balance in the official tournament calendar to be compromised
    • Not everyone wants to play in big official team tournaments that are virtually back-to-back
  • Lower tiers have yet to form their identities this generation
    • Every couple of weeks these tiers have been shifting dramatically and even beforehand there was no sense of stability due to the DLC lurking
    • Historically I view SSD as one of the best outlets for every non-OU community to play, integrate themselves into the tournament community, and simply have fun. This year that may not be the case fully. I played NU last year and felt much closer with the tier and community than ever before; it was one of the most fun experiences I have had on here in recent memory and I think limiting these opportunities to just SPL because there has not been an outcry of support under these conditions would be unfair to these communities
  • DLC2 is around the corner
    • Not everyone wants to invest themselves fully into this metagame when it will be changed entirely right around when the tournament ends and everyone wants to be active for that, too. Therefore, now is a great time to take a break or lessen your involvement temporarily because of the awkward timing I alluded to
  • We are naturally too resistant to change as a community
    • We just saw a WCOP with a first time winner, new competition scattered throughout the playoffs, and dozens of newer players making names for themselves for the first time. A lot of those names signed up. They are not as recognizable as established top players, but they do matter and they are going to be a large part of the future of this community. Cutting off a lifeline for them to develop each year that perhaps is not as high stakes as an SPL or even WCOP would be doing them a major disservice. We need to use the momentum we have and build on it. It may not be what we are used to, but it absolutely is worthwhile.
I do not really mind if we consider structural changes (draft, timing, format, etc.), but I do believe that the third team tournament around this time of year with these tiers is very important to maintain for the sake of our community.

On a personal note: After seeing how many new players broke out on to the scene during WCOP, I am really excited to see some less familiar faces play this SSD and hopefully achieve great results. We need to be less dismissive of newcomers and more welcoming. I have made the mistake of calling newer players out for using teams or sets I view as not worthwhile and realize that I contributed to this dismissive culture, but it is in our best interest to welcome evolution of the game and the community. Keeping SSD in tact enables that.
 
Here are my personal opinions on the PU playerbase, coming from my experience as a long-time PU player and PUPL manager. I mainly focused on PU mains who may be lesser known because I am sure managers are already familiar with tour players
Screen Shot 2020-08-18 at 11.29.34 PM.png
 
With the draft tomorrow at 4pm EST, I wanted to make a pre-draft prediction form to generate some excitement for the draft, power rankings, and tournament which are all upcoming! It will only take a moment to answer, so be sure to fill it out: SSD4 Draft Predictions!

I will reveal the individuals who made the most accurate predictions in the SSD4 Power Rankings next weekend, so stay tuned. Good luck to everyone participating and I hope you all have fun!
 
Finchinator said:
With the draft tomorrow at 4pm EST, I wanted to make a pre-draft prediction form to generate some excitement for the draft, power rankings, and tournament which are all upcoming! It will only take a moment to answer, so be sure to fill it out: SSD4 Draft Predictions!

I will reveal the individuals who made the most accurate predictions in the SSD4 Power Rankings next weekend, so stay tuned. Good luck to everyone participating and I hope you all have fun!
Click to expand...
No thank you.
 
Finchinator said:
With the draft tomorrow at 4pm EST, I wanted to make a pre-draft prediction form to generate some excitement for the draft, power rankings, and tournament which are all upcoming! It will only take a moment to answer, so be sure to fill it out: SSD4 Draft Predictions!

I will reveal the individuals who made the most accurate predictions in the SSD4 Power Rankings next weekend, so stay tuned. Good luck to everyone participating and I hope you all have fun!
Click to expand...
you are appreciated mr. finch. i will be filling out the form to support u

boo teal boooo
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top