SPL XIII - Commencement Thread

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It doesn't make much sense that a team is granted the ability to get more players than they had previously in light of one of their members quitting.

Though I believe it should just be a 1 for 1 exchange, at the very least the other credits should be only for mid-season.
 
What is the distinction between the Tyrants drafting an rapist, unbeknownst to them, and the Cryonicles drafting a player that didn't plan to play? Neither team was privy to this knowledge.

The current ruling suggests that the Tyrants are in some way more responsible for drafting a player and his reprehensible behavior than the Cryonicles' situation. This obviously is a silly indictment.

Why aren't both teams just given a 1 for 1?

This is a bad TD call. Please fix. Thx.
 

Triangles

Big Stew
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I agree that the unequal treatment of us and the Tyrants with these decisions was unfair. However I really object to us being told that we have 3 picks and then suddenly having them taken away. We already submitted the picks and added the players to our Discord, and it's incredibly unfair to them for them to suddenly have their spot taken away by a TD decision. The call came with no prior notice (at 4am for Gingy and I as well).

Maybe the most awful thing about this decision was that Gingy and I had extended correspondence with Merritt before the initial decision was made in which he carefully repeatedly justified the half refund decision. He argued for following the Gr8astard precedent from SPL VII as the reason we got half back instead of what we wanted which was a full refund. Of course just getting 3k was never even mentioned or entertained as a possibility.

Say what you will about fairness - the fair thing to me seemed to be to give the Tyrants money too instead of suddenly reversing our decision and completely fucking over our new players. Everyone on the Cryos is hugely upset about this call, most of all the people whom you've just taken an SPL spot from.
 

Jirachee

phoenix reborn
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Don’t believe everything Foxinator is telling you. He has purposely held my ranking down in order to have his team ranked first. I see through your veil of lies and I’m not afraid to speak up.

I have read the vile words you used to describe my past performances. It’s quite telling of your bias.

Shame on you, Foxinator. I remember a similar thing happening when reyscarface had his own team ranked first in SPL 6, only to spectacularly crash and burn. As a wise man once said: twice the pride, double the fall.

Consider this post to be a curse. The Tigers shall never win SPL until this injustice is made right.
 

lax

cloutimus maximus
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The Smogon Premier League XIII Power Rankings are now out. Here you go!

Thanks a ton to the following people for helping with art, grammar/prose, HTML, and plenty more: antemortem, dex, Estronic, Kalalokki, Kris, Lumari, Quite Quiet, Rabia, and Zracknel. Your contributions are all appreciated by the entire tournament community. It was a pleasure and an honor working with all of you!
the tours community def appreciates all you do with the writing and compiling, but surely I'm not alone in thinking these prs lack the spice?

I'm tryna see "lax has had horrendous performances relative to his price in these past tournaments. This along with the fact that he's playing a completely new tier is another risk Dave took that may not pay off."

not this "lax has won before so he'll be fine"

again, no shade to you finch. I just think instead of being super friendly and positive, we can call out the weaknesses of players constructively instead of just hard flaming. it was shown to me that fmg could lead his team to a "deep playoff run", but his team was also ranked 9th place... I'm sure there's a way to bridge the gap between wooo everyone is poggers and being realistic about how people will perform
 

Finchinator

-OUTL
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the tours community def appreciates all you do with the writing and compiling, but surely I'm not alone in thinking these prs lack the spice?

I'm tryna see "lax has had horrendous performances relative to his price in these past tournaments. This along with the fact that he's playing a completely new tier is another risk Dave took that may not pay off."

not this "lax has won before so he'll be fine"

again, no shade to you finch. I just think instead of being super friendly and positive, we can call out the weaknesses of players constructively instead of just hard flaming. it was shown to me that fmg could lead his team to a "deep playoff run", but his team was also ranked 9th place... I'm sure there's a way to bridge the gap between wooo everyone is poggers and being realistic about how people will perform
This is actually a really valid concern and I felt the same in the middle of writing this article largely because of writing parts I normally did not.

A big thing I do most of the time is delegate tasks such as having others write-up tiers I am less personally familiar with. This time around the bulk of the writing happened from the 24th to 26th of December and I did not want to make people take time away from their Christmas to contribute to a Pokemon article.

As an extension of this, I did not feel comfortable taking as many "shots" at people who may do poorly that I did not know as well (big thing is I don't want some of my initial interactions with people being negative honestly). This led to a more matter-of-fact and generally optimistic tone surrounding a handful of the tiers in the article rather than being critical or perhaps just realistic if someone is lowly ranked. In future editions I will return to the normal practice of delegating the writing and we will absolutely achieve a stronger balance.

I tried to make up for this by including statistics about the old generation prices in the introduction (probably my favorite part of the article) and the players by their ranking, but also by integrating more jokes -- you may notice the team write-ups have a lot of them because that's more free-flowing and caters to my strengths as a writer. Here are some of my personal favorites that made the cut:
  • first place in each tier gets ten points, second place in each tier gets nine points, and so on until you reach the BIGs player in tenth
  • we will also be including player statistics like the last few editions of Power Rankings have done, which can help show off the achievements of some players and inflate ABR's already enormous ego
  • The auction happened on the 19th of December, where nine managerial duos and the betrayers of JabbaTheGriffin set out on a mission to draft the best team possible.
  • The pride of the OU Pokémon Showdown room, a title that is in the running for oxymoron of the year, surpassed even the most optimistic of expectations.
  • In a society where turmoil has surpassed measurable quantities, negligent transgressions have aligned themselves with the status quo, and hardship has defined the daily experience of far too many, a single movement has brought together countless Smogon users: Free Jabba.
  • While his wife's paperwork is still processing, CALLOUS' first divorce ended in a publicly messy and awkward fashion as he split from ex-Tigers manager and long-time friend JabbaTheGriffin for Bushtush only to neglect to even give him the slightest consideration in the auction while documenting his betrayal on YouTube for the entire community's viewing pleasure.
  • Thankfully, not all relationships are crumbling, being drafted onto the Tigers has assured Finchinator's everlasting connection with failed SPL campaigns will continue for yet another year.
  • Standout retain beatiful will help lead their SS core to prosperity after a stellar 2021 campaign that really had no weak points besides his adoption into the Fox family as Ox's rightful son.
  • In a world where LC players become top-end SPL CG OU retains and any given German with numbers at the end of their names become threats off of the bench, the Classiest may have the strongest congregation this SPL. Sadly, that world is not ours.
  • They concluded that in order to win SPL, the Tyrants had to acquire one of the most controversial and influential figures in recent Smogon history: Will of Fire. On top of this, they had to purchase someone capable of winning across the generations with a long history of success: -Tsunami-.
  • After winning WCoP and SCL in succession as a manager to close out 2021, rumor has it that manager Stone_Cold decided that he wanted to play SPL on "hard mode", which led to him retaining RBY player Hayburner, going from 3k to 9.5k on... bench player... ez, and soaring up to 18k on z0mOG.
  • After years of inconsistency and coming up emptyhanded, the Scooters finally landed in good hands thanks to the retention of Niko. His experience from last SPL, where he led the Scooters with a 6-3 record, will help soften the burden of first-time Scooters managers Excal and McMeghan, who can clearly use the expertise alongside them as they assume a novel position.
  • There are countless different draft strategies that can involve any of the hundreds of possible SPL players working in tandem with each other. We have seen teams pair together players by nationality, prior rapport, complementary experiences, and so on. However, the strategy of recreating non-Ojama SPL VIII Scooters core is a novel and intriguing one that Sharks management seemed to subscribe to in late 2021
  • With the same management as last year's team, which was only good enough for fifth place, the Raiders decided to take some new risks this time around. Sadly for the SPL XIII Raiders, these risks consisted of drafting a 2017 join date strictly SS playing user, who may not make it out of the regular season unbanned, to play DPP and selling off both of Tricking's OLT trophies for extra cash to afford an ORAS player.
  • After LC superstar Luthier decided it was time for a change of scenery, he sold off his lifetime supply of Berry Juice, retired a wealthy businessman, and began his conquest of SS OU with his newly found spare time.
  • After winning both WCoP and SCL last year, it seems manager Stone_Cold wanted to play on hard mode, drafting Samqian to start in SS OU.
  • For better or worse, Finchinator has grown into one of the faces of Smogon over the years. The main issue for the Tigers is that the "or worse" bit of this dynamic seems prevalent.
  • The Ruiners rolled the dice on one of the most creative and high-ceiling BW players this season and I just rolled the dice on one of the stupidest puns in Power Rankings history.

Ultimately, I am content with the article as it seems that many of my fellow community members are and, as I said: If the rankings can at least beat the infamous ape, add another line to CALLOUS's manager signup resume, and be a fun read for the community, then I will personally be content.

Thanks for reading.
 

MANNAT

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Can we talk about how ridiculously the Tyrants and Cryos are getting robbed? As someone on a different team the current decision is beneficial to us by comparison, but this is just ridiculously unfair. How is either team's situation remotely different from what happened with Ojama in SPL 11? If anything, the team that drafted Ojama was more at fault there because he more or less told them he wouldn't play for them pre-draft whereas these two teams were absolutely blindsided by the events that unfolded with their respective players.

I understand why the Tyrants were upset with the Cryos getting a refund when they only got one replacement player, but the decision that should have been made was to give the Tyrants more replacement players, not reduce the amount that the Cryos got. Both the Tyrants and the Cryos should get a full refund on spies and John W, and it's a mockery of this tour to only give them a 3k sellback to replace such significant slots. I know that other teams are clearly absolutely terrified of the players these teams are going to pick up from the undrafted pool judging from the outrage expressed at the Cryos decision, but I for one value the pursuit of justice over my own personal interest. I implore the Tournament Directors to make the right decision here and make all right in the world.
 
I will try to calmly and peacefully advocate for a full refund for both the Tyrants and the Cryonicles. I do apologize if things got heated or if personal insults were thrown at hosts. At the end of the day you want to do your best job hosting and we want to do what's best for our teams. People (myself included) get very invested and can let emotions take hold when things don't go as planned or when people disagree with us. Anyway, onto policy.

To start, I'd like to start by talking about why we, the Tyrants and Cryonicles, reasonably deserve the full money amount of our lost players. The first part that I hope no one genuinely disputes is that we are not at fault or responsible for our players leaving or getting banned. We made retains and purchases with the assumption that they'd actually "go into effect" and we didn't get a single thing out of our players. They didn't play a game and week 1 didn't even start. We paid 16k (cryos 14.5k) for 0k value. We request full value back because it is the closest we can get to our initial value. It isn't close btw. A bunch of 3ks, while useful, were not even picked up in the initial auction so it definitely wouldn't be an outright buff. Do we want them? Hell yea. Do we think we're better off with them compared to right after draft? No, but we're trying to make the best of some shit situations. I get why other teams would want us weaker but I do genuinely believe it's in the best interest of SPL to make the tournament as competitive as possible, by offsetting the unfortunate circumstances to the best of our ability.

The thing is, most people seem to agree with the above. Like I don't think many people have been saying we don't "deserve" a full refund it usually just boils down to finer nuances of the rules. Regarding precedent and semantics, it is truly not that hard to justify or implement a full refund. For starters, precedent usually serves two main functions. The first function is to provide a guideline of expectation for how the rules work. The second function is to guarantee fair and equal treatment to those engaging in the same actions. Regarding the first point, neither John W nor Spies, for different reasons obviously, did not get banned or quit because of what they expected their teams to get after. If anything, if precedent pointed to less than a full refund, this would never be used as motivation for a player quitting. Precedent is irrelevant in this aspect. Regarding fair treatment, we all thankfully agree the Tyrants and Cryonicles should be treated equally here. Precedent would be unfairly broken if we got LESS than what people before us got, because then our expectations were unmatched in the negative direction. You can make things better than people expect, just not worse.

Side example: Say someone normally gets a 2 year ban for ghosting in SPL. If bea ghosted this SPL, it would be very hard to justify giving him MORE than 2 years. The usual punishment is 2 years so going worse than that is an unfair handling of an expectation and an unfair application of the rules. However, if current rules / policymakers agreed that 2 years was excessive and in fact 1 year was better, we could still give 1 year to bea. We can break expectations or precedent in the positive direction. We can be more generous than you promised, just not less. In this case, we can be more generous than precedent indicates if the precedent is too harsh / unfair in terms of SPL bans or cancers.

Furthermore, you still can link this to the Ojama SPL 11 situation if you really wanted. Like yes there was a trade but there was still a full refund. It was technically possible to either negate the trade and give Bigs a non-full refund, or to go through with the trade and give the Tyrants a non-full refund. It was specifically avoided because neither the Bigs nor the Tyrants were at fault then. This is very easily applicable to SPL 13's Tyrants and Cryonicles.

I believe that, according to the above arguments, as well as support from even parties that should be biased against us (such as CALLOUS), the Tyrants and Cryonicles deserve a full refund for their lost players. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Much Love,
The Dove
 
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lax

cloutimus maximus
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnuswon the 10th Official Ladder Tournamentis a Past SPL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
RBTT Champion
I would like to echo the wise washer's sentiment (first paragraph mostly).

I will try to calmly and peacefully advocate for a full refund for both the Tyrants and the Cryonicles. I do apologize if things got heated or if personal insults were thrown at hosts. At the end of the day you want to do your best job hosting and we want to do what's best for our teams. People (myself included) get very invested and can let emotions take hold when things don't go as planned or when people disagree with us. Anyway, onto policy.

To start, I'd like to start by talking about why we, the Tyrants and Cryonicles, reasonably deserve the full money amount of our lost players. The first part that I hope no one genuinely disputes is that we are not at fault or responsible for our players leaving or getting banned. We made retains and purchases with the assumption that they'd actually "go into effect" and we didn't get a single thing out of our players. They didn't play a game and week 1 didn't even start. We paid 16k (cryos 14.5k) for 0k value. We request full value back because it is the closest we can get to our initial value. It isn't close btw. A bunch of 3ks, while useful, were not even picked up in the initial auction so it definitely wouldn't be an outright buff. Do we want them? Hell yea. Do we think we're better off with them compared to right after draft? No, but we're trying to make the best of some shit situations. I get why other teams would want us weaker but I do genuinely believe it's in the best interest of SPL to make the tournament as competitive as possible, by offsetting the unfortunate circumstances to the best of our ability.

The thing is, most people seem to agree with the above. Like I don't think many people have been saying we don't "deserve" a full refund it usually just boils down to finer nuances of the rules. Regarding precedent and semantics, it is truly not that hard to justify or implement a full refund. For starters, precedent usually serves two main functions. The first function is to provide a guideline of expectation for how the rules work. The second function is to guarantee fair and equal treatment to those engaging in the same actions. Regarding the first point, neither John W nor Spies, for different reasons obviously, did not get banned or quit because of what they expected their teams to get after. If anything, if precedent pointed to less than a full refund, this would never be used as motivation for a player quitting. Precedent is irrelevant in this aspect. Regarding fair treatment, we all thankfully agree the Tyrants and Cryonicles should be treated equally here. Precedent would be unfairly broken if we got LESS than what people before us got, because then our expectations were unmatched in the negative direction. You can make things better than people expect, just not worse.

Side example: Say someone normally gets a 2 year ban for ghosting in SPL. If bea ghosted this SPL, it would be very hard to justify giving him MORE than 2 years. The usual punishment is 2 years so going worse than that is an unfair handling of an expectation and an unfair application of the rules. However, if current rules / policymakers agreed that 2 years was excessive and in fact 1 year was better, we could still give 1 year to bea. We can break expectations or precedent in the positive direction. We can be more generous than you promised, just not less. In this case, we can be more generous than precedent indicates if the precedent is too harsh / unfair in terms of SPL bans or cancers.

Furthermore, you still can link this to the Ojama SPL 11 situation if you really wanted. Like yes there was a trade but there was still a full refund. It was technically possible to either negate the trade and give Bigs a non-full refund, or to go through with the trade and give the Tyrants a non-full refund. It was specifically avoided because neither the Bigs nor the Tyrants were at fault then. This is very easily applicable to SPL 13's Tyrants and Cryonicles.

I believe that, according to the above arguments, as well as support from even parties that should be biased against us (such as CALLOUS), the Tyrants and Cryonicles deserve a full refund for their lost players. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Much Love,
The Dove
Cool
 
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