SPL Retains

[z0mOG]

Sup, I wanted to call for discussion about how I think the retain system should change for the future of SPL. I wanted to get this thread out with a healthy amount of time before manager sign ups start (although who knows when that will be with the tourney schedule changing as often as it is). FTR I haven't decided if I'd like to sign up this upcoming year, but regardless of if I do, I'd like to nip this in the bud.

Retains have become far too prevalent in recent editions of SPL. In the last SPL alone, 26 unique players were retained. Of those 26, 12 were retained after a trade for a player's retain rights (trading rights being something I'll hit below). Retains on paper are a great addition to this tournament, allowing managers who made an investment the prior year to be rewarded in the following season for their initial pick up. Instances such as grabbing the winner of Grand Slam for 3k despite none of that player's main tiers being in the tournament, but having the ability to 'steal' away that player cheap in the next year once their main tiers are added, finding a new player and developing them into a great player thus being rewarded the year following, etc. However, retains in their current state are more designed to holding a "would-be" expensive player to the same team year after year and denying the right of other managers to ever have a chance at these players. To name-drop a couple shining examples from SPL 9:
Team Raiders has retained the following players:
TDK for 16k
TDK, who has been retained for the third year in a row, despite being in a pool that would have comfortably seen him going upwards of ~30-35k judging by the prices of other top level SM OU players. This isn't a "steal" that the managers from last year were able to get themselves though, seeing as he's been on lock since SPL 7(and not even by the original team to purchase him). Given how cheap he is now, TDK could even be held onto for 4 more years before even coming close to this arbitrary mark!

Indie Scooters has retained the following players:
Ojama for 28.5k
Ojama, who has been on lock since at least SPL 5! (Maybe even longer but it's hard to parse through these pre-SPL 6 threads for quick info). On top of just being retained for 5 years, his rights have been traded nearly every season.

The TL;DR of the above points is that retains have become too powerful and prevalent, leading to absurd advantages/disadvantages of teams before the draft actually happens. In a community where manager turn-over rates are usually between 50-70% per year, it's very blatant how a manager's odds of winning the tour reside too heavily on which team they can snag in the manager signup thread.

I've spoken with Hikari and Hogg as representatives for the TD team and they informed me that fixing the retain system was on their horizon already, I'm using this thread to present my suggestions for changes and spark discussion from those who are likely to participate in this up-coming SPL.

Some potential solutions I've come up with:
a) Setting a maximum price that a player can be retained for.
I settled on 15k as the optimal price cap on retains. The reason for this is that it denies any one player from being retained MORE than twice, while also ensuring the high value players all make it into the auction market for a fair shot between all teams. 20k would also be a somewhat reasonable price to settle on, although it nullifies the first reason for the 15k cap unless a specific year limit is placed on per player.

b) Setting a retain limit on players.
If that sounds confusing, it really just means "X player may only have their retain rights purchased Y number of times." 2 times would be my preference on this, as it ensures no player is stuck to one team for more than the arbitrary amount of 3 years at a time (one full generation though!).

c) Lowering the number of retains a team is allowed to purchase.
This one is fairly basic and I'd push for it to be implemented regardless of the other suggestions.

d) Removing the trading of retain rights.
I believe this should happen above any other solutions, seeing as trading retain rights doesn't even belong with the entire concept of what a retain is. On top of being illogical, it gives too much power to the teams who have multiple good retain-worthy options and are free to trade away rights after picking their 3. As a similar alternative, I had the idea to perhaps limit teams to 1 trade all season, be it for a player's retain rights or an actual player post-draft/at mids, thus forcing teams to avoid being greedy when looking for retain trades.

e) Cutting retains entirely.
I sure hope this won't happen, as retains are great when balanced and not abused, but it is definitely worth considering as a viable option. Every team starts off on the same foot, although it would hurt team identity and purpose.

f) Any combination of suggestions a through d.


Anyway, please don't hesitate to respond if you agree or disagree with anything I've presented or have possible solutions of your own! The tournament itself is still decently far away so this thread's lifespan has no reason to be cut so short.

Also one thing I didn't specifically address above was whether or not a player should be allowed to deny being retained, but I wasn't entirely sure where to fit that point in. FWIW it would probably be used to support cutting retains entirely.


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e: Somebody suggested I edit in my personal best case scenario. I'd personally most want to implement the 15k max price and remove trades/limit trades to 1 per team.

 

[Genesis7]

I think limiting the amount of retains/price cap/amount a player can be retained are all decent suggestions. However, removing the ability to trade for retains could create a lot of situations where players no longer want to play for their manager, want to be with a new manager duo, or dislike the new managers that have taken over their team. This creates the refusal to join certain managers issue that we saw in Snake writ large. Basically a selfish player can hinder a team's chance to succeed in a large way by refusing to be retained and forcing the managers to let them enter the auction (and it would be assumed that these managers now do not want to bid on the player for fear of them cancering). Of course the current rules do not prevent this selfishness, but at least with the current ruleset the team can get some kind of return for the player.

I think removing retains altogether would be a better option than removing the option to trade retains. With that said, I do agree with you that the flip-flopping and over-trading of retains is an issue (see blunder and ojama traded from the classiest, or star traded from the cryos), but removing the retains creates a bigger issue.

Nice topic though and hopefully this will generate a good solution.

 

[ABR]

Thanks for posting this, probably about time to start the discussion.

There was some talk in TD chat and there's no hard decisions coming any time soon but ideas were thrown around and one (by Hogg) particularly stood out to me. Instead of setting a hard price cap on individual retains, he suggested that we could set a price cap on a team's retains as a whole. So, for example, we could say each team has a maximum 30k of retains, otherwise keeping the same mechanisms as last year. I said 30k because it can mean 3 minimum price retains, one big player retain, or some in-between. It's a neat and tidy cutoff via the aforementioned but I think it also subjectively makes sense as a limit.

As far as nerfing retains goes, which seems to be a goal the OP has in mind, this would mean teams kind of have to choose quality vs quantity so the tradeoff inherently limits what a team can do. At the moment I do think this is a cool idea to implement, and probably favor it.

Regarding the other suggestions I suppose I can address them one by one.

a) Setting a maximum price that a player can be retained for

I think this is an inferior version of what I discussed above. It makes more sense to limit from the scope of teams as a whole instead of just limiting "expensive players" at some arbitrary cutoff and still enabling the cheaper ones. I don't know why we'd allow a 3k to 10k but not a 13k to 16k.

b) Setting a retain limit on players

My issue with this is that it's basically saying "retains (with all their other traits) are flawed, but we'll allow the flaw in its full form for one year and then stop it after one year." The other tweaks address balance itself and not just keeping the same level of balance to a smaller timeframe.

c) Lowering the number of retains a team is allowed to purchase

I don't mind this one as much as the above two suggestions but I still think the 30k per team limit includes the goal of this one in a more wholesome way. With the 30k limit, any retain >10k means you have a maximum of 1 more additional retain and any retain >20k means you have 0 additional retains. Still like I said this option is decent.

d) Removing the trading of retain rights

This idea has been thrown around a bit recently and while it has some nice aspects to it the negatives are a lot more apparent. The upside is that it'd be more true to the traditional definition of a retain, which is keeping a player on the same team. The downside is something Genesis7 touched on and I definitely feel some of the same concerns. You basically limit a manager's options and which specific team you get now matters more because the options become retain vs auction instead of retain vs trade vs auction. I liked the appeal of this initially but the more I think about it the less I like it.

e) Cutting retains entirely

So, as with everything it is easier to do less/smaller changes, and that'd mean keeping retains. Obviously it's not the only reason but one could make the argument that it has simply become a part of SPL, and thus should be kept. Additionally it's true that rewarding long term investments is a positive, so long as the managers are actually the same year to year. This is probably my biggest issue with retains - the fact that there often is manager turnover and someone with 0 involvement in drafting a player can reap the benefits the following year. Moreover though, you can argue that the entire system of retains just gives advantages that have no reason to exist in the first place and we'd have the most balanced playing field overall if everyone just went into the draft with the same amount of money. That's probably true but you have to weigh everything here. As for me, I'm not sure how I feel on this topic but it's worth thinking about for sure.

 

[Nails]

i posted this suggestion in a similar thread a year (or two? iunno) ago, retain prices should ramp over time. if it's your first season being retained +3k, second season +3.5k or 4k, third season +4k or 5k, etc. keeps the spirit of a dynasty league, where continuity between rosters makes each team feel like more than just a name and a logo and actually gives them an identity, while also toning down on the long term reward for finding a diamond in the rough. retains are a key and healthy mechanic in spl, they just need a numbers nerf.

i think the numbers i came up with in the older thread were pretty good, i do not remember what they were or where the thread was located though.

 

[Rewer]

I feel like the biggest problem with retains right know is the situation where players who previously had less precieved value can be acquired for much less than they're worth. 40k for BKC is one thing, but there's a 19k TDK in Raiders right now. And who remembers stuff like 10k Tesung? When the retaining value is way less than the market value, I feel like this is where the biggest unfairness about retains lies.

Unfortunately, I can't come up with a solution to this problem other than those already mentioned, but how does everyone feel about changing the retaining price? Why does it have to be 3k? Perhaps a nerf to retains could be increasing the retaining price to maybe 5k, wouldn't really solve the problem but it could easy up a bit of the unfairness around retainig and also discourage retaining people for absurd prices. Or perhaps a system where the retaining price goes up and down according to your tournament performace? Or a formula where the retaining price goes up with your current price? Or what Nails mentioned about buffing the price of consecutive retains to avoid situations like the Ojama one where it seems like he'll never see himself in an auction again. I dont really know, but I feel like the price doesn't have to be 3k and can be toyed around.

 

[power]

I meant to post in here earlier because this is something I work with irl; retention rights function pretty much identically to financial options in the sense that the value of having retention rights to a player is equal to the difference between their value in an auction (we'll make the simplifying assumption that this is their true value which may or not be true) and the price you pay if you exercise the option.

Firstly, this is extremely obvious but retention rights have no value if this difference isnt positive; If Ojama cost 50k to retain but is only worth 35k in a draft no one would ever trade for his retention rights.

Now obviously it's ok for people to have a slight advantage for a year, as people concede. I'll give an example for clarity:

Suppose Player A was purchased for 10k in SPL 1 in the draft. Over the next year, he wins OST and makes Smogon Tour finals. He's predicted to go for 25-30k in SPL 2 auction, but his team elects to retain him for 13k.

I don't think most people in this thread are against this; the problem comes when that team retains him over and over and over. The issue is when he's still worth 30k the third year and is being retained for 16k.

Thus, the issue is that in future years the price of a player is not being revised. In finance you would solve this issue by hiring an external unbiased auditor at the time of SPL 2 to give you a fair assessment of Player A's worth (for example 25k), since Player A is not being bought via the auction. Then, if that team decides to retain Player A during SPL 3, they would have to pay 3k + 25k = 28k, not 3k +13k. This solves the fundamental issue; that players can be retained cheap year on year on year because they're being valued off of a 2015 assessment of their skill in 2018 and 2019.

Unfortunately, this is Smogon and not the real world, so an unbiased auditor doesn't exist; most people who actually knowledgable enough to value a player probably have a stake in their valuation because they're probably a competing manager or something.

Perhaps we could have the host provide assessments of player value? This fix wouldn't go into effect until SPL 11, but perhaps the host for SPL 10 could provide an estimate of a player's value for all retained players. If the estimate is higher than the retention price, then anyone who re-retains that player in SPL 11 would have to pay 3k + the estimate, not 3k + the retention price.

I don't know if people trust hosts with this task, though. Options is an area that really deeply interests me irl, so I thought this thread was super interesting from a finance perspective. I don't know if this proposal is of any help to you guys; I'm not involved in the tour community to where I can judge whether you guys trust hosts to make this judgement.

 

[z0mOG]

I'll follow up to some of what has been responded so far, I really appreciate the amount of people interested in the thread and discussing the topic in the smogtours discord.

First, I think I've changed my mind as to what I'd (personally) like to see happen. I'm more leaning towards nuking retains entirely. There just doesn't seem to be a way to fairly nerf retain trading without doing away with it altogether.

However, removing the ability to trade for retains could create a lot of situations where players no longer want to play for their manager, want to be with a new manager duo, or dislike the new managers that have taken over their team. This creates the refusal to join certain managers issue that we saw in Snake writ large. Basically a selfish player can hinder a team's chance to succeed in a large way by refusing to be retained and forcing the managers to let them enter the auction (and it would be assumed that these managers now do not want to bid on the player for fear of them cancering). Of course the current rules do not prevent this selfishness, but at least with the current ruleset the team can get some kind of return for the player.

I think Genesis put it best as to why removing trades while still keeping retains is not a very viable option.

Another point that was brought up to me by LL was:
LLToday at 7:14 PM

like i understand why people wanna keep retains because having familiar faces on teams multiple years in a row, but if that's the case why are retain trades allowed

One of the main arguments in favor of retains even existing is that they are seen as the face of "Team Identity" and part of what makes SPL unique from other tournament leagues across different sports/games. However, when upwards of 12 different players rights are being retained to a team they weren't even initially on, this point becomes null.

I think due to the inability to fairly remove retain trading and the original points I had above about retains as a whole, I'd most support just doing away with the act entirely. I almost see it as to a point where the choice is between "Do we want a fair tournament?" or "Do we want teams to have pre-existing advantages and disadvantages at the gain of team identity?", and the choice (to me) is pretty clear.

-

To touch on the other above posts regarding more specific retain nerfs:

Thanks for posting this, probably about time to start the discussion.

There was some talk in TD chat and there's no hard decisions coming any time soon but ideas were thrown around and one (by Hogg) particularly stood out to me. Instead of setting a hard price cap on individual retains, he suggested that we could set a price cap on a team's retains as a whole. So, for example, we could say each team has a maximum 30k of retains, otherwise keeping the same mechanisms as last year. I said 30k because it can mean 3 minimum price retains, one big player retain, or some in-between. It's a neat and tidy cutoff via the aforementioned but I think it also subjectively makes sense as a limit.

For the most part, I am fine with this as a change and I think the idea behind it is good, accounting for both a "soft" cap on the amount of players a team can purchase as well as prevent the top level 30k+ players from being locked up for eternity. I'm not sure if I agree with the 30k spending cap, seeing as that still allows for situations like the TDK one above, where he is retained year after year. 30k is a long way away for someone starting as a 10k retain, so it doesn't entirely cover every issue. 20k as the cap would be more geared to covering this, as well as maxing out 2 players to be retained each season (that may sound extreme but some teams don't even have 2 strong options, so I don't think it is extreme).

i posted this suggestion in a similar thread a year (or two? iunno) ago, retain prices should ramp over time. if it's your first season being retained +3k, second season +3.5k or 4k, third season +4k or 5k, etc. keeps the spirit of a dynasty league, where continuity between rosters makes each team feel like more than just a name and a logo and actually gives them an identity, while also toning down on the long term reward for finding a diamond in the rough. retains are a key and healthy mechanic in spl, they just need a numbers nerf.

i think the numbers i came up with in the older thread were pretty good, i do not remember what they were or where the thread was located though.

I feel like the biggest problem with retains right know is the situation where players who previously had less precieved value can be acquired for much less than they're worth. 40k for BKC is one thing, but there's a 19k TDK in Raiders right now. And who remembers stuff like 10k Tesung? When the retaining value is way less than the market value, I feel like this is where the biggest unfairness about retains lies.

Unfortunately, I can't come up with a solution to this problem other than those already mentioned, but how does everyone feel about changing the retaining price? Why does it have to be 3k? Perhaps a nerf to retains could be increasing the retaining price to maybe 5k, wouldn't really solve the problem but it could easy up a bit of the unfairness around retainig and also discourage retaining people for absurd prices. Or perhaps a system where the retaining price goes up and down according to your tournament performace? Or a formula where the retaining price goes up with your current price? Or what Nails mentioned about buffing the price of consecutive retains to avoid situations like the Ojama one where it seems like he'll never see himself in an auction again. I dont really know, but I feel like the price doesn't have to be 3k and can be toyed around.

This is another unique solution that I think could be successful if someone is able to come up with a fitting price increase system. I think it may need to be applied retroactively in order to have a strong enough effect, but I'll leave that can of worms for somebody else to open.

 

[pasy_g]

I think limiting the amount of retains/price cap/amount a player can be retained are all decent suggestions. However, removing the ability to trade for retains could create a lot of situations where players no longer want to play for their manager, want to be with a new manager duo, or dislike the new managers that have taken over their team. This creates the refusal to join certain managers issue that we saw in Snake writ large. Basically a selfish player can hinder a team's chance to succeed in a large way by refusing to be retained and forcing the managers to let them enter the auction (and it would be assumed that these managers now do not want to bid on the player for fear of them cancering). Of course the current rules do not prevent this selfishness, but at least with the current ruleset the team can get some kind of return for the player.

I think removing retains altogether would be a better option than removing the option to trade retains. With that said, I do agree with you that the flip-flopping and over-trading of retains is an issue (see blunder and ojama traded from the classiest, or star traded from the cryos), but removing the retains creates a bigger issue.

Nice topic though and hopefully this will generate a good solution.

I don't get the idea behind this at all. If you wanna retain a player you know you hate, and he hates you, guess what - you don't. That argumentation only makes sense for unlimited retains, because now you can expect some value for having had a player on your team in the previous year, with the current system you can not expect that at all. You only have limited options to begin with.

The fundamental question to even discuss the topic should, in my opinion be, which direction the community wants to go, regarding big tournaments. This would also be essential for other topics which eventually will come up sooner or later, like bo1 vs bo3, which tiers will be played, etc. Do we want to make the tournament all about fun and try to give character to teams, so we keep the retains at any cost, which will undeniably lower the competitivness. Or do we want to make the tournaments as competitive as possible, where the solution would be to just entirely nuke retains . This also effects a lot of decisions for the other two big team tournaments and is basically the root of most those big discussions.

I think talking about such a general topic is the first step into the right direction, since now we are just listing arguments for both sides with people talking in different directions, which i don't think will lead to much progress.

Now how to do that. Maybe a big vote with everyone who has played in the last iterations of those said big team tours? After that showing off the results publicly, give the community some time to discuss the results and its on the TDs to read the results and give a red line we use to discuss along.

Just to add i don't want this to become a black/white thing where we have a 48 to 52 percent vote and have a winner, that case would pretty much be equality and it means we wanna go a midground way. Would be comletly different if its like 65 35 or even a bigger discrepancy.

Glad to hear what you guys think about that and maybe somebody nukes my idea or has a better idea how to execute that!

 

[lax]

I don't get the idea behind this at all. If you wanna retain a player you know you hate, and he hates you, guess what - you don't. That argumentation only makes sense for unlimited retains, because now you can expect some value for having had a player on your team in the previous year, with the current system you can not expect that at all. You only have limited options to begin with.

The fundamental question to even discuss the topic should, in my opinion be, which direction the community wants to go, regarding big tournaments. This would also be essential for other topics which eventually will come up sooner or later, like bo1 vs bo3, which tiers will be played, etc. Do we want to make the tournament all about fun and try to give character to teams, so we keep the retains at any cost, which will undeniably lower the competitivness. Or do we want to make the tournaments as competitive as possible, where the solution would be to just entirely nuke retains . This also effects a lot of decisions for the other two big team tournaments and is basically the root of most those big discussions.

I think talking about such a general topic is the first step into the right direction, since now we are just listing arguments for both sides with people talking in different directions, which i don't think will lead to much progress.

Now how to do that. Maybe a big vote with everyone who has played in the last iterations of those said big team tours? After that showing off the results publicly, give the community some time to discuss the results and its on the TDs to read the results and give a red line we use to discuss along.

Just to add i don't want this to become a black/white thing where we have a 48 to 52 percent vote and have a winner, that case would pretty much be equality and it means we wanna go a midground way. Would be comletly different if its like 65 35 or even a bigger discrepancy.

Glad to hear what you guys think about that and maybe somebody nukes my idea or has a better idea how to execute that!

The issue with votes is that they mean very little to the TD’s plans, which can be seen as good or bad. On one hand, the TDs are going with and sticking through with their personal beliefs on how to make the tournaments more competitive. On the other, people will always get upset at a decision the TDs make.

This situation is actually pretty close to what happened last SPL regarding 12 and 14 tiers. Lots of people really wanted 14 tiers because it adds more diversity to the tournament and people thought the tiers added would be competitively viable. However, the TDs decided not to go with it despite the majority of the public leaning towards it. Regarding retains, a lot of people would prefer to keep it because it would keep the tournament more fun and provide a sense of continuity. A vote would not alter the TD’s overall mindset on how competitively viable retains are based on what we have seen in the past regarding public opinion.

On the topic of retains in general, I agree with the point LL made regarding retain trades. It really makes no sense for people to argue to preserve their team’s history if basically every spl team traded for retention rights.

I would argue for two different things: remove retain trading and increase cost exponentially to continually retain a single player over the years or just remove retains altogether. For the first option, rewarding a manager for scouting amazing hidden talent for <7k or less and allowing them to buy that person for 10k the next season seems fine. However, just tacking on a 3k season after season is not competitive and also does not really make sense. I talked with elodin in a chat about this and he thought of an idea to create an algorithm to expontentially increase retain worth year by year. Something like 3k->10k->20k->33k (added initial bump up + an extra 3k per year) seems more fair than adding a measly 3k per year. In order to retain someone that initially cost over 10k, it would work the same. 11k->14k->20k->29k etc.. Obviously this system is far from perfect and might not even be good, but keeping the current retain system would be uncompetitive.

Remove retain trading and “balance” out the costs to continually retain someone or just kill retains

 

[Eternal Spirit]

I think the formats abr and nails suggested are fine solutions and both could work perfectly, I would also say that going with 2 max retains instead of 3 is something viable too but the latter two seem to nerf it well enough. IMHO trading retain rights should not be allowed anymore, it def does not make sense if we see by the side of the actual meaning of a retain AT ALL and it would force managers to not only think more about their best retain options, but also will not favor anyone that has more than the max number of worthy retains by giving them extra credits for something that sometimes they didnt even accomplish for in a past year (in case of a new manager/duo taking a team).

Also btw TDS please be inteligent and dont make polls anymore for this neither future decisions, unless you really want to decide something along us. Discussion threads are just enough to have a basis of what the community thinks and the final decision is (or should be) always yours anyway so dont sabotage yourselves giving this kind of power to the community (because yes, if you make a poll you def need to go based on its results, if its not the purpoise just dont make it). The players usually just want to have as much people playing as possible or just want to defend their metagames until the end anyway, majority opinions dont mean the optimal way to go and you have your role for a reason.

 

[pasy_g]

So because something was executed poorly it is straight up a bad thing, huh? Thats how we adress things? Also no idea why you're pinning that down on the vote, that was just the spontaneous most obvious way. The basic idea is still there and could ease up a lot of things. If we want to give the TDs the power to decide that all alone, that's fine by me. A general base line in which direction we want the community to go is still not a bad idea and usually the biggest question a community should ask themselves "What do we want to do/have" "Where do we want to go".

That's the biggest problem i've seen since i started being involved into tournaments again. Nobody really knows what we are aiming at, we have endless discussions with people who talk about completly different things and we are "finetuning" flawed systems. Heck, if you think a community vote is flawed and thus shouldn't be used how could you support keeping the retain system (Smogons most flawed system).

Like, it's really not that big of a deal to talk about some fundamentals that basically influence and ease up every discussion, while also give us a sense of what we actually try to achieve. One step after the other. Do things systematically. We are already talking about concrete algorithms on how to calculate retain prices when the possibility of nuking retains is still quite a realistic one.

To sum up my thoughts: Forget about my randomass idea of a vote. Define goals. Gives baselines to walk along. Discuss step by step.

 

[dice]

retains just make the draft so boring under the logic of “Rewarding Smart Managing”, as if managers do anything anyway. let’s ax them.

 

[Amaranth]

I will preface this post by openly saying that I might not have the best long-term perspective, only having played in SPL9, but I followed the tournament scene for long enough before then and have managed my own share of smaller team tournaments to feel like I can contribute something to this discussion.

I think it’s important to consider the question which z0mOG’s last post raises: do we even want retains at all? I believe that the two main reasons to have retains around, in whatever form we may decide to give them, are (1) building this sense of ‘identity’ and (2) giving managers more/different options. I want to make a point about the first one in particular.

Let’s have a look at how the identity of teams evolved from SPL8 to SPL9 - to keep our samples simple. We had three teams in particular that underwent a drastic turnover - Ruiners, Classiest, and Falcons/Tyrants, which incidentally they were the teams that finished bottom 3 in SPL8 and I don’t think this is a coincidence. Cryos, Wolfpack, and Sharks, who completed the bottom 6, arguably also went through significant changes, but every team in the top 7 kept at least one extremely central figure.
Now let’s look specifically at the influence of retains on all this: Raiders, Scooters and Tigers were coming off of a really strong SPL8 and they were among the teams that played around the least with retain trades. Raiders and Scooters explored a few options while still keeping their star players on lock, and Tigers didn’t trade them at all. The only other team to not trade retain rights at all was the last top 4 team from last year, the BIGs. The really easy and straightforward observation is that winning teams don’t bother on the retain market. They found a formula that worked, they are keeping the formula going forward. Teams with a strong, successful identity generally don’t trade retain rights - or at least they don’t need to.
The teams that finished outside the playoffs made up most of the retain rights action, on the other hand. The Ruiners traded rights of 3 players away, and bought rights for 2 players; the Classiest and the Tyrants were in similar situations where no one really cared to buy retain rights for any of their SPL8 players, but they were able to buy rights for 2 players each with pretty good success. The Wolfpack, who were also looking for a new set of players around the established core of Tony+rozes to improve a 6th place finish, were also quite active. Teams without a strong identity and in dire need of change generally benefit from being able to trade retain rights.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the SPL8 top 4 mostly sat still in the retain market, while four teams from the bottom 5 were very active. Teams that already have a successful identity will look to keep it, teams that don’t will look to find new opportunities to build one. Ultimately, the point I want to make is that removing the ability to trade retain rights is not going to hurt the teams that already have strong identities as they will have strong incentives to not trade at all - it’s only going to hurt teams looking for a new identity after their previous one crumbled or was unsuccessful. Or in other words, allowing retains to be traded only helps with establishing team identities. And the results show this, with Tyrants, Ruiners and Wolfpack in particular immediately bouncing back to a playoff finish in SPL9 and cementing their new identities. It’s a bit counterintuitive but after looking at recent history I am really confident of this conclusion. I agree that if retains exist, retain trading is almost necessary to keep the system healthy and free of team cancering; but I strongly believe that “retain trading does not help with establishing team identity therefore what’s the point of retains at all” is a fallacious argument.

The other argument to remove retains is that it makes the playing ground uneven. I don’t have nearly the same amount of words to spend on that topic for now, so I’ll simply state that if anything I believe that retains, and retain trading included, give smart managers better options to put together a strong draft, and that ‘uneven playing field’ is kind of a weak motivation when, let me say this again, the teams that finished 6th, 8th, and 9th in SPL8 went on to have top 4 quality SPL9 performances partially off the back of smart use of retains, so we have tangible evidence that a bad year definitely does not invalidate any team from having a strong run in the next one if they play their cards well. It’s unquestionable that teams do in fact start from different playing fields with retains existing, but different doesn’t necessarily mean uneven in this case. And yes managers playing their retain game well is crucial, we won an SPL title off of that, please don’t try to pretend otherwise

TL;DR keep retains and retain rights trading. I don’t have thoughts worth sharing about how to change or fix them (yet), but they are not harmful to the tournament at all and they should stay

 

[lax]

I will preface this post by openly saying that I might not have the best long-term perspective, only having played in SPL9, but I followed the tournament scene for long enough before then and have managed my own share of smaller team tournaments to feel like I can contribute something to this discussion.

I think it’s important to consider the question which z0mOG’s last post raises: do we even want retains at all? I believe that the two main reasons to have retains around, in whatever form we may decide to give them, are (1) building this sense of ‘identity’ and (2) giving managers more/different options. I want to make a point about the first one in particular.

Let’s have a look at how the identity of teams evolved from SPL8 to SPL9 - to keep our samples simple. We had three teams in particular that underwent a drastic turnover - Ruiners, Classiest, and Falcons/Tyrants, which incidentally they were the teams that finished bottom 3 in SPL8 and I don’t think this is a coincidence. Cryos, Wolfpack, and Sharks, who completed the bottom 6, arguably also went through significant changes, but every team in the top 7 kept at least one extremely central figure.
Now let’s look specifically at the influence of retains on all this: Raiders, Scooters and Tigers were coming off of a really strong SPL8 and they were among the teams that played around the least in with retain trades. Raiders and Scooters explored a few options while still keeping their star players on lock, and Tigers didn’t trade them at all. The only other team to not trade retain rights at all was the last top 4 team from last year, the BIGs. The really easy and straightforward observation is that winning teams don’t bother on the retain market. They found a formula that worked, they are keeping the formula going forward. Teams with a strong, successful identity generally don’t trade retain rights - or at least they don’t need to.
The teams that finished outside the playoffs made up most of the retain rights action, on the other hand. The Ruiners traded rights of 3 players away, and bought rights for 2 players; the Classiest and the Tyrants were in similar situations where no one really cared to buy retain rights for any of their SPL8 players, but they were able to buy rights for 2 players each with pretty good success. The Wolfpack, who were also looking for a new set of players around the established core of Tony+rozes to improve a 6th place finish, were also quite active. Teams without a strong identity and in dire need of change generally benefit from being able to trade retain rights.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the SPL8 top 4 mostly sat still in the retain market, while four teams from the bottom 5 were very active. Teams that already have a successful identity will look to keep it, teams that don’t will look to find new opportunities to build one. Ultimately, the point I want to make is that removing the ability to trade retain rights is not going to hurt the teams that already have strong identities as they will have strong incentives to not trade at all - it’s only going to hurt teams looking for a new identity after their previous one crumbled or was unsuccessful. Or in other words, allowing retains to be traded only helps with establishing team identities. And the results show this, with Tyrants, Ruiners and Wolfpack in particular immediately bouncing back to a playoff finish in SPL9 and cementing their new identities. It’s a bit counterintuitive but after looking at recent history I am really confident of this conclusion. I agree that if retains exist, retain trading is almost necessary to keep the system healthy and free of team cancering; but I strongly believe that “retain trading does not help with establishing team identity therefore what’s the point of retains at all” is a fallacious argument.

The other argument to remove retains is that it makes the playing ground uneven. I don’t have nearly the same amount of words to spend on that topic for now, so I’ll simply state that if anything I believe that retains, and retain trading included, give smart managers better options to put together a strong draft, and that ‘uneven playing field’ is kind of a weak motivation when, let me say this again, the teams that finished 6th, 8th, and 9th in SPL8 went on to have top 4 quality SPL9 performances partially off the back of smart use of retains, so we have tangible evidence that a bad year definitely does not invalidate any team from having a strong run in the next one if they play their cards well. It’s unquestionable that teams do in fact start from different playing fields with retains existing, but different doesn’t necessarily mean uneven in this case. And yes managers playing their retain game well is crucial, we won an SPL title off of that, please don’t try to pretend otherwise

TL;DR keep retains and retain rights trading. I don’t have thoughts worth sharing about how to change or fix them (yet), but they are not harmful to the tournament at all and they should stay

The issue with this post is what you attribute each team’s success to. It’s all relative to each team and I’m not sure you understand the full picture...

Wolfpack won, as we all know, but using this as your case also highlights all the negatives of retains and trading retains. ABR did not want to play for the Ruiners, the team that bought him previously. Ruiners would have benefitted greatly from his agreement; but because he refused, they were forced into a weird situation where they still wanted to benefit from holding the rights to ABR, so they traded for CS. This is what I mean by the negative parts of retention rights. ABRs refusal allowed the Wolfpack to obtain him for a very low and entirely worth value. We all know that this trade was kind of crazy and many people question why it even went through. It’s not even a stretch to say this trade changed SPL completely. So, in what way did this reward smart management? Looks to me like it rewards having the right friends :shrug:

Onto your next point, I don’t believe the traded retains specifically altered the teams in top 4. There are a lot of factors put into each team’s success that you seem to be ignoring, focusing it solely on having “good trades”. I’ll start from the top: Wolfpack benefitted greatly from acquiring ABR through an extremely low price, Ruiners started off poorly but thrived due to team communication and collectively wanting to turn it around (speaking as a Ruiner), and Tyrants had a smart draft leaving them open for mids and capable management leading to an overall dominant season. That’s not to say retains did nothing, obviously, because undisputed helped the Ruiners a lot and the Tyrants retains put out solid numbers, but I feel like you’re trying to argue too hard that retains specifically caused these teams to succeed when there are way too many factors.

“Smart managers” aka managers with friends benefit the most for no reason. Without retains, we can see who really is capable of crafting a solid team without all the extraneous factors resulting from retains.

“Teams in need of change” can undergo that change in a new season through a new managerial duo or new approach.

I feel like your post just sprouts the unnecessities of retains because your points all have drawbacks and counters.

 

[Amaranth]

The issue with this post is what you attribute each team’s success to. It’s all relative to each team and I’m not sure you understand the full picture...

Wolfpack won, as we all know, but using this as your case also highlights all the negatives of retains and trading retains. ABR did not want to play for the Ruiners, the team that bought him previously. Ruiners would have benefitted greatly from his agreement; but because he refused, they were forced into a weird situation where they still wanted to benefit from holding the rights to ABR, so they traded for CS. This is what I mean by the negative parts of retention rights. ABRs refusal allowed the Wolfpack to obtain him for a very low and entirely worth value. We all know that this trade was kind of crazy and many people question why it even went through. It’s not even a stretch to say this trade changed SPL completely. So, in what way did this reward smart management? Looks to me like it rewards having the right friends :shrug:

Onto your next point, I don’t believe the traded retains specifically altered the teams in top 4. There are a lot of factors put into each team’s success that you seem to be ignoring, focusing it solely on having “good trades”. I’ll start from the top: Wolfpack benefitted greatly from acquiring ABR through an extremely low price, Ruiners started off poorly but thrived due to team communication and collectively wanting to turn it around (speaking as a Ruiner), and Tyrants had a smart draft leaving them open for mids and capable management leading to an overall dominant season. That’s not to say retains did nothing, obviously, because undisputed helped the Ruiners a lot and the Tyrants retains put out solid numbers, but I feel like you’re trying to argue too hard that retains specifically caused these teams to succeed when there are way too many factors.

“Smart managers” aka managers with friends benefit the most for no reason. Without retains, we can see who really is capable of crafting a solid team without all the extraneous factors resulting from retains.

“Teams in need of change” can undergo that change in a new season through a new managerial duo or new approach.

I feel like your post just sprouts the unnecessities of retains because your points all have drawbacks and counters.

The Ruiners management had the simple option of refusing to trade the rights unless a good enough offer arrived, then. It's entirely on them if they chose to trade ABR's retention rights for peanuts - they could have demanded a higher price or they could simply have refused to trade the retention rights to let ABR's price skyrocket in the actual auction. They had a LOT of leverage and simply accepted an offer that was much worse than the one they could get - the Wolfpack likely would have met much higher asking prices. Of course they wanted to cash in on the asset if possible but if the trade very clearly benefitted the Wolfpack more than it benefitted the Ruiners, then perhaps the Ruiners should not have accepted. Getting ABR for peanuts happened due to poor negotiations, not due to 'the right friends'.

And yes obviously if I'm talking about retains I will focus on their effect, I'm not saying they were solely responsible obviously. What I'm saying is that they (1) played a part and (2) trading allowed the managers to successfully restructure and even out the playing field despite starting off with the disadvantage of only owning rights for players and squads that very clearly did not work out in the past year. It's not about proving that they're the biggest positive imaginable, it's about proving that they're a positive. Which you agreed with yourself in your post.

It's not about having friends, it's about managing your options well. I already covered this on the first paragraph and we just seem to disagree with this - and I'm fine if you want to agree to disagree, I firmly believe that the retain system rewards good managers and punishes bad managers, and connections only go so far given the power in the hands of each manager duo, but if you want to believe otherwise I can't stop you

Teams in need of change can indeed shake things up in a number of ways, but removing the ability to trade retain rights is actively going to hinder a manager trying to give a fresh start to a team with really bad baselines from the past season. Again, refer to how the Tyrant retains were part of a plan that allowed them to conduct a certain type of draft that led them to dominance, and how some of Classiest's best players were also retains bought from other teams. You can change the manager duo but you cannot change the retain options they're inheriting - and retain trades do go a long way in helping against that.

Retains are absolutely unnecessary, nowhere did I try to make the point that they're necessary. I'm trying to make the point that they're helpful for team identity and not inherently negative, it's pretty obvious that the tournament would still run just fine if retains were axed altogether

 

[lax]

The Ruiners management had the simple option of refusing to trade the rights unless a good enough offer arrived, then. It's entirely on them if they chose to trade ABR's retention rights for peanuts - they could have demanded a higher price or they could simply have refused to trade the retention rights to let ABR's price skyrocket in the actual auction. They had a LOT of leverage and simply accepted an offer that was much worse than the one they could get - the Wolfpack likely would have met much higher asking prices. Of course they wanted to cash in on the asset if possible but if the trade very clearly benefitted the Wolfpack more than it benefitted the Ruiners, then perhaps the Ruiners should not have accepted. Getting ABR for peanuts happened due to poor negotiations, not due to 'the right friends'.

And yes obviously if I'm talking about retains I will focus on their effect, I'm not saying they were solely responsible obviously. What I'm saying is that they (1) played a part and (2) trading allowed the managers to successfully restructure and even out the playing field despite starting off with the disadvantage of only owning rights for players and squads that very clearly did not work out in the past year. It's not about proving that they're the biggest positive imaginable, it's about proving that they're a positive. Which you agreed with yourself in your post.

It's not about having friends, it's about managing your options well. I already covered this on the first paragraph and we just seem to disagree with this - and I'm fine if you want to agree to disagree, I firmly believe that the retain system rewards good managers and punishes bad managers, and connections only go so far with the power in the hands of each manager duo, but if you want to believe otherwise I can't stop you

Teams in need of change can indeed shake things up in a number of ways, but removing the ability to trade retain rights is actively going to hinder a manager trying to give a fresh start to a team with really bad baselines from the past season. Again, refer to how the Tyrant retains were part of a plan that allowed them to conduct a certain type of draft that led them to dominance, and how some of Classiest's best players were also retains bought from other teams. You can change the manager duo but you cannot change the retain options they're inheriting - and retain trades do go a long way in helping against that.

Retains are absolutely unnecessary, nowhere did I try to make the point that they're necessary. I'm trying to make the point that they're helpful for team identity and not inherently negative, it's pretty obvious that the tournament would still run just fine if retains were axed altogether

What my main point is literally none of this matters if retains are gone. There is no unbalance in teams, no need for all this “leveling the playing field”, and no need for any of this because there are no unbalanced retains in the first place.

Create your own team identity through your managerial skills.

 

[Amaranth]

What my main point is literally none of this matters if retains are gone. There is no unbalance in teams, no need for all this “leveling the playing field”, and no need for any of this because there are no unbalanced retains in the first place.

“Retains are a meme bop”

It's clearly true that retains are unnecessary but does this make them unwanted? Do we not care about 'team identity' and 'the spirit of SPL' anymore? I was arguing from the assumption that we do value these things. If we don't anymore then yeah sure I guess the simple thing to do is the best thing to do, I only played in one SPL so I guess I'm not the one to make the argument for continuity throughout the years being important and positive


Edit: Regarding your "Create your own team identity through your managerial skills" statement, I can only say that some players are so important and polarizing that they're always going to be the face of any team they're on, but I agree with the general idea behind that otherwise

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

As a former (future?) manager, supporting both the retention of retains and retainer trading as well as stricter limitations on retentions. When we did valuations in the past any retention above 16k needed to have an extremely strong justification for it, else just rebuy the player in the auction or an equivalent. The main culprit is the ability to retain players at 10-13-16 scales as a core nucleus of a team. The factors that I think will best address the issue while remaining straightforward are to proceed with reducing the retainer number from 3 to 2, thus reducing the disparity between retainer "rich" teams and "poor", and raising the year over year retention cost from 3k to 5k to disincentivize multi year retentions (and raise the minimum price from 10k to 12k). If people want to retain someone at a 12-17-22-27 scale by all means let them because the trade off at any year after the first become very steep at any underperformance. As for retentions themselves, it's rare that a team will have more than two truly "strong" retention options and so keeping them at that value allows teams to plan out their cores at prices they like relative to the market (i.e. my decision to build around goldun sun and porengan in adv/dpp respectively) while still maintaining enough of a known player base and enough funds for the auction to proceed with the excitement we've come to love from it.

 

[ABR]

No one should expect retains to be totally done away with this year at least, so discussion should be focusing on how to have retains exist in their best form. (entire td team approves this)

If retains stay, trades stay. I think Genesis7 and The Idiot Ninja, and I all got into why this is the case and most should probably agree via the practical implications rather than the philosophy behind retains. There's also the fact that retains are inherently less "broken" if there's a trade fee implied because that's already balancing the price. If my retain was 10k and I was being traded, the managers would obviously demand a high amount so that's enough of a balancing mechanism as is.

Given this, we have 2 more topics to discuss.
1) The evaluation of a player's retain price
2) A team's total retain capability

For 1, this has to remain objective, nothing overly complex like going off records either. Our options here are basically to keep the 10k minimum, +3 every year or have that +3 incrementally increase every year. It'd look something like +3 +6 +9 etc. Practically speaking, the latter would mean TDK is 28k and I am 31k in the upcoming SPL if you want examples. The initial retain year might still be "broken" but I consider that a given and something we just have to live with. This system would prevent continuous abuse though.

For 2, our current system in place is a limit of 3 retained players. The types of limits are either players or prices so we could look into both, but players are the more traditional one. As far as player limits go I think 3 is the right number but looking into a price limit might be interesting. The number of 30k was thrown around in my first post but I'm open to hearing other non-arbitrary suggestions. They should be multiples of 10k.

So, discuss 1 and 2. You're probably wasting your time debating retains as a whole or trades as a whole.

EDIT: THIS IS ABR SPEAKING, NOT THE ENTIRE TD TEAM

 

[Rewer]

I'm in favor of implementing both the 1) +3 +6 +9 system and 2) 2 player limit.

Retaining is too strong in the current system and certainly needs nerfs. Option 1) is a small nerf, but it helps against abusing the system over the years to retain the greatest player for much less than they're worth for so long, and 2) a 2 player limit means you cant walk into auction and afk for an hour because you already retained the key components of the team. Jfc I'm against money cap because imagine if to retain your greatest player you need to pay 31k and the other team has to pay 29k? Now that would be awkward. Nah.

I believe that these two nerfs, while they don't solve all the problems, will make the auction much more fair and interesting with little drawback.

 

[keys]

Before I make my point, I want to throw around a few numbers to put our current retain system into perspective:

SPL 9

Total Amount Spent on Retains (retain trade fees not included): 393K
Total Number Of Players Retained: 26

Average Amount Spent on a Retain (retain trade fees not included): 15.1K
Highest Amount Spent on a Retain (retain trade fees not included): 37K (BKC)

Highest Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 63K (Raiders)
Lowest Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 10K (Sharks)
Average Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 39.2K

SPL 8

Total Amount Spent on Retains (retain trade fees not included): 278.5K
Total Number Of Players Retained: 22

Average Amount Spent on a Retain (retain trade fees not included): 12.7K
Highest Amount Spent on a Retain (retain trade fees not included): 25.5K (Ojama)

Highest Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 48.5K (Scooters)
Lowest Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 10K (Sharks)
Average Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 28K

SPL 7

Total Amount Spent on Retains (retain trade fees not included): 391.5K
Total Number Of Players Retained: 29

Average Amount Spent on a Retain (retain trade fees not included): 13.5K
Highest Amount Spent on a Retain (retain trade fees not included): 40.5K (McMeghan)

Highest Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 64K (BIGs)
Lowest Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 28K (Cryonicles)
Average Amount Spent by a Team on all of it's Retains (retain trade fees not included): 39.2K

Drawing from that data, it's safe to assume that each team currently retains 2 to 3 players per season on average (around 2.6), while the average retain price is roughly 14K. Therefore, each team is roughly spending around 36K each season on retains (not including retain trade fees). With that in mind, I think teams should ultimately be rewarded for "growing" and fostering their own talent from season to season, but retains should also be toned down as a whole, due to the sheer amount of players retained year to year, with fees growing to exorbitant levels these past few years.

Instead of removing retain trading or doing anything like that, why not include the retain trade fees within the total "retention budget" and slightly nerf retains as a whole with it? Lets say out of the total 140K budget, each team has a 40K "retention budget" (the remainder of this would return to the total auction budget after retains are finalised of course) with which it can perform all of it's retention related activities with, meaning that a team trading for retain rights of a player loses out on the total value it can put into it's retains. This allows teams that grow their own talent to potentially reach their full potentials by retaining for the full 40k, allows teams to trade away players' rights and potentially go over this 40k threshold after getting some retention funds back, allows teams to trade for players' rights and have less funds for the actual retains (which seems like a fair nerf) all while still allowing for ample strategy and wiggle room (you'd still be able to retain someone like BKC for 37.5 at the cost of no other retains unless you trade away a few of your other potential retains). I feel like that would be the fairest way to deal with that aspect, even fairer than a 30K "price limit", since that doesn't do anything about trades. Sure, trades aren't a huge "issue", but I feel like rewarding teams that are able to grow their own talent should be something that is done whilst also somewhat discouraging retention trading on a massive scale, given that the goal of retains is to foster some form of team identity and connection.

On another note, I also believe that players retained for consecutive years should result in additional costs for their teams, considering that you could have players like ABR or TDK retained for 6-8 seasons in a row just because of how low their original price and subsequent retention fees ended up being. Since the 40K "retention budget" would already restrict teams in what they can do, I do not think this cumulative increase should be quite as steep as ABR suggested (3k increments). I believe that the sweet spot for that is somewhere between 1.5 and 2K, something I'm still not settled on. Lets take the example of 2k: If a player is originally purchased for 7k or below, they will be retained for 10k during their second season, followed by 15k in the third season, 22K (4th), 31K (5th) and 42K for their sixth season potentially (this would only be possible if the team traded away 2K+ in retention rights since the 40K budget would not allow it otherwise). I believe 5 seasons for someone who was purchased for the absolute minimum price (retention-wise) seems like a fair benchmark, especially considering how much the highly priced retains would ultimately restrict you within the rest of the retention budget. I feel like a combination of these 2 "fixes" would make our retains a much fairer and balanced system, rewarding teams that draft players for cheaper while still keeping trades and slightly nerfing the long term aspect of a decision that might have been made 5 years ago.

This is obviously just a raw suggestion, but I'd appreciate any form of feedback on this, especially from the TDs.

 

[Triangles]

Well, this thread is an interesting perspective. I've been around for a lot of SPLs and love the tour almost as much as Osgoode loves traps, and I actually have a very different view to pretty much everyone in relation to this subject. The SPL retain system needs a change, but this is completely the wrong direction for it.

Namely, the amount of available retains per team should be increased to 5, and punished less hard by only having a 2k increment instead of 3k.

The thing that makes all real life sports special for fans is the idea of team identities and dynasties while still having an influx of new players and transfers to keep things varied. SPL is a great tournament, but it lacks a fanbase that goes beyond the 200 people who play in the tour themselves. Pokemon and even tournament mons have a waaaay bigger userbase than you would think, but the TDs continually shoot themselves in the foot in terms of expansion.

The wilful selfdestruction of Smogon tournaments is exemplified by things such as the introduction of Snake Draft, a tournament that is conceptually awful in the creation of any sort of spectator experience. Every team is forgettable and indistinguishable from each other, partly because the lack of retains means that teams change their core identity every year, but also because their names all sound fucking stupid because they have to be based on some lame type of snake, which is such a terrible gimmick that you guys spent the better part of a year thinking of a rebrand for it but eventually stuck with Snake Draft again because you just love gatekeeping from casuals by making your tournaments inaccessible and confusing. I mean, on top of that it is for some reason happening at the same time as 2 of the other big current gen tours on the site, and Smogon just did not need a third teamtour ever.

SPL is the number 1 teamtour on the site, but it is DYING because of the way it's run, and certainly won't be helped by terrible policy changes like this suggested one. Signups were hugely down from last year - old players are quitting because that's just the natural progression of things, and the tour scene just doesn't attract any newcomers and young talent because it is so awfully branded. The future of the site looks bleak; some day even Finch will get married and have thick-eyebrowed kids to take care of instead of fucking around here. We need to think of the future and legacy of this site.



I got into mons by watching mons. I'd see games on Youtube, and later watch live big tour games on Shoddy and PO. I wanted to be a name player like the guys I watched, to play in front of spectators, the high of executing a dominant or clutch win in front of people in admiration. And I know a lot of you tour players started in just the same way as me, and feel the same high as me when you win a big game.
Later when I got into team tours, the major pleasure of it was following team identities, and which players had played and managed in different teams. There is some element of dynasty and identity mentality in SPL, e.g. when you think Conflict or M Dragon, you think Sharks. But there isn't enough. If you want to get new players into the game, the would-be generational talents, you have to provide a teamtour product that is marketable and exciting to follow.
And a major step towards that is allowing more retains, and not punishing them as hard. How about rewarding managers for finding an underrated talent on the cheap who pays dividends for seasons to come and becomes the face of a franchise, as opposed to literally punishing them for being good at their job of drafting.
A major and entirely flawed argument that I see in this thread is the idea of parity. Parity is not a good thing! In individual tournaments, one of the most exciting things that can happen is an upset win, where a huge underdog topples a giant to the cheers of the crowd. Imagine an SPL with that dynamic and how exciting a spectator experience it would be. As it is, teams only have a minor power level difference as retains are so gimped. For a player, you get drafted for a bad team, it's your challenge to make it a good team. I bet Baker is loving Cleveland and wouldn't trade his spot for anyone else's, he has the unique opportunity to lead a historical underdog to greatness. That could be the same for new SPL guys coming into the fray and old hands who have been retained alike.

How about we make a move towards mimicking the immensely successful and beloved enterprise that is team sports for the sake of spectators and future players buy allowing teams to build dynasties, storylines and identities, as opposed to literally trying to make another uninteresting glorified Snake with an auction by completely shitting on retains which are already in a weaker spot than they should be.

 

[Rewer]

It was like this before, as you can see here https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ion-and-sellback-announcement-thread.3494357/

The following retentions have become official:

Classiest:
Problems, Golden Sun, LuckOverSkill, 199 Lives, Mr.E

Scooters:
Bad Ass

Frogs:
Dekzeh, Texas Cloverleaf

BIGS:
Floppy, Delta 2777, Alf'

Wolfpack:
Donkey, kingofkongs, Marth, SilentVerse, FLCL, Danilo, DracoMalfoy, Jorgen

Cryonicles:
R Inanimate, Picollo, Aqualouis, Blim, Fakes, dragonuser, blarajan

Sharks:
ShakeItUp, Malekith, Stellar, SoulWind, Conflict, Heist

Ruiners:
Crashingboombang, Annoyer, Ojama

Tigres:
Zebraiken, DestinyUnknown, Royal Flush, Biosci, TV-Rocka, Hot N Cold

If maximizing entertainment is the goal here then sure, buff retains, because dynasties are cool. But it's a matter of value, what does smogon value more, more entertainment in detriment of draft fairness or more fairness in detriment of this dynasty aspect of etreteinment?

 

[xray]

I don't wanna make a big post here but I have to say that I 100% agree with Triangles and think that retains are a great part of SPL and shouldn't be nerfed in any way.
Teams need that kind of identity to be remembered and I do not think that there has been a large gap in terms of skill during the last SPLs because of retains.
As you can see there is basically a different team winning every season.
I'd rather question the other big team tournament on smogon called WCOP because WCOP is actually a lot more unfair than SPL is. As you can see there East basically won every WCOP for the last 4 (?) years. Please think about a way to improve this tour and make it less unfair but not SPL. SPL is a great tour and removing the deserved opportunities a team gets by making a smart deal in one year definitely makes it a lot less hype for me.
There are always good teams and bad teams and i think we are trying to create a problem here before it even exists...

 

[ABR]

We will be posting a decision regarding retains in the near future, probably around the turn of the month. Whether we maintain the status quo or make changes is undecided either way but we do want to settle this by the time manager signups go up.

That being said, now's the time to get your thoughts in. If you found last SPL's ruleset to be ideal, please say that. If you have issues with how it was run, please elaborate in the most specific way possible what you believe contributed to any issues. We can be as specific as needed with solutions but only if we are aware of the nuances of what the underlying problems are.