Rejected SPL XVI Format (SV OU Slots)

[Rubyblood]

In my opinion, 2>4

It's more coherent in the context of an end-of-cycle like SV. We're slowly getting to gen 10.
I understand the argument that slot 3 and 4 sv brings to light many players who wouldn't have the chance to do so in a 2-slot format, but like I said we're coming to the end of the cycle and a lot of players have already had the chance to shine.

The SPL remains the most prestigious tournament and I don't see any problem with not all SV players playing, as the best of them will be playing anyway.

So for me, having too many sv games is something that can bore a lot of players who play the tier, because innovation becomes more difficult, and to be honest, the tier has already evolved a lot in recent years. If the council acted before spl, maybe my opinion would change, because a metagame that doesn't change for several tournaments isn't worth being over-represented #BanGliscor


So I'm going to propose a solution that might suit everyone without adding unofficial tier like Natdex or a totally different format like DOU.
The idea is to have 3 SV representations and to have a compromise between 2 and 4, all of which have valid arguments.

Here is the following format :

SV1
SV2
BO3 ST
SS
SM
ORAS
BO5 Classic
BW
DPP
ADV
GSC
RBY

This format is the most optimal because it doesn't punish the SV playerbase and it doesn't give too large a sample of the game. Adding a bo3 and bo5 format makes the spl much more competitive, as it's obvious that the rng has less impact in a bo3 or bo5 format than a bo1 format.
For me, it's absurd to add bo3 in every slot, but it's a bit unfortunate that only the rby is in bo3.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Fear]

What the 'optimal' SPL format is changes every year because the parameters change. How one feels about 10 vs 12 player is also subjective, because its based on what tier you are playing, if you have higher chances to get bought ect.

Respecting the need of inclusivity for the best players of the site, I wouldn't feel compelled to post in favor or against 12 player SPL just because of logistics. With that said, I dont understand the obsession to have the format locked to 10 players or 12 players or 14 players because sometime we might have a gen 12. I won't worry about future iterations from now and neither should any of you,thats the whole purpose of this forum section for.

As I see it, the true argument this time around revolves around SV vs the other 8 OU gens, more so than 10 vs 12 players . Last year SV was still relatively new and DLCs also kept things fresh (SV release date was 22 Nov 2022) but this time around its different.

In 12 player SPLs, SV being 33% of the weekly overall outcome is huge (4/12 slots) no matter how you dance around the topic. Its unfair when you put that side to side with the other gens. In comparison any of the other old gens is 8% (1/12 slot). And its not like there aren't enough SV major tournaments either.

Personally, I dislike 12 player 4 SV slots SPLs. The players on the team I landed the last SPL pretty much gave up in current gen after mids, they didnt know what to play, they started recycling stuff and the games were uninspiring. To put it bluntly, it was boring. I'd rather have protagonist slots than having 20 SV games every week again. I'm pretty sure not even the SV mains bother checking all the replays every week, surely I don't.
Bring forth the manager counterargument all you want, its pointless to me listening how you outmanuevered and found 3k SV talents and got rewarded, as if you could't do that outside of the 4 SV slots or if it were 2 slots. Tony did it in SPL 9 before it was even cool.

Regarding accessibility, again, I don't mind having 12 slots if there's going to be variety.
In my opinion, right now 10 player > 12 bo5 slot/DOU/whatever >>> 12 player 4 SV slots.
By all means do 9+3 when we have a new gen.I even accepted the 4 CG slots when SV were fresh. But I urge you to really consider before making another 4 SV slot SPL.

 

[Charmflash]

4 slots is good. 2 CG OU was supported back in the day because the playerbase was smaller and the level of play was unbalanced and really not great with 4 slots. The playerbase has grown considerably since then, and 2 SV OU is no longer enough slots to fit every player that is SPL-ready, and proof of that is the past SPL and current SCL having more slots and still having a balanced field. The data that Luigi and Nat posted above confirms it. I see no reason not to go with 4 slots.

Being picked up and starting as a new player despite there only being 2 SM slots in SPL X was the single most accomplishing feeling I have had on this website. Especially after being ranked 20th and putting up the second best record of the tier. Back then any new player showing up as a starter had a lot of hype and mystique about them but nowadays, while still a step up from oupl or tournaments like that, it just feels like part of the course. Id personally like the premier league to be featuring the elite rather than everybody who can hang with the elite, and have other tournaments that allow you to break into the elite and replace the weaker players there.

 

[Mada]

Hi. I did some other data searching for the seeds 1-20 vs seeds 21-40 comparisons since I think counting winrates and losses it's not helpful if you don't have in mind whether they played high or low seeds themselves.

As we can see, seeds 1-20 with their worsts and bests excluded played against an average seed of 14.05 whereas they won against players with an average seed of 13.4 and lost against players with an average seed of 13.0

Seeds 21-40 instead played against an average seed of 18.39 and had their wins against players with an average seed of 18.27 and their losses against an average seed of 17.2

If we then go look at the winrate of the 2 seeds we see:
seeds 1-20 had a 55.17% winrate, which becomes 58.49% if you exclude the 2 worst scores.
seeds 21-40 had a 42.74 winrate, which becomes 39.36% if you exclude the 2 worst scores.
On top of that, from seed 21-40, 15 players went negative, whereas from seed 1-20, 8 went negative.
Player on seeds 1-20 also had a winrate of 61.54% when their oppos had an average seed higher than 15
Players on seeds 21-40 had a winrate of 33.33% when their oppos had an average seed lower than 13
(15 and 13 are numbers taken randomly to gather 4-5 players of data for both)


This data just tells us that seeds 1-20 were way more consistent than seeds 21-40 even though seeds 21-40 played "weaker" oppos.
2 major examples I noticed of numbers being right, was looking at Rubyblood and Kushalos scores (sorry guys) where we can see:
Ruby (9) went 1-5 with 5 losses against AVG Seed of 6.0 and his win being against the seed nr. 40
Kushalos (21) went 1-8 with 8 losses against AVG seed of 6.0 and the win being aganst the seed nr. 36


With those winrates being seen, I personally believe 2 slots would fit better as 4 slots clearly offer some poor-quality games, with a relevant gap between the high-end and low-end players. As SPL is supposed to provide the highest qualitative gameplay, I still find new players like me, who did decently in recent tours, to struggle playing their games properly, but that there is a lot of stuff to learn just by being on the bench with more experted and proven players starting, so talented players won't get wasted.

And as I had the opportunity to take part of last SPL and current SCL, I also think that new talents always have space to help the team behind the scenes. Also, in SV in order to do well you need to be very active in ladder/replays thread following the meta, which means a couple of players would need a break for some weeks, and every tour there is some slot underperforming, some teams always are out by week 6/7 or there are bans and cancers; and all those scenario's help new talents getting the chance to play, wheras there is a lot to learn by playing tests with good players, and discussing the meta/building with them.

 

[Star]

We will be sticking with 4 SV slots for SPL XVI.

12 slots will inevitably be the norm in the future as we potentially add another gen next year. Changing the number of slots to 10 this year and back to 12 next year messes with auction economics for both years with regard to values of retains etc. and avoiding that is ideal.

There have been a few different posts in this thread with the regard to the quality of the "top half" vs the "bottom half" with 4 slots. Obviously when you add 20 extra players to a pool, the newly added players are supposed to be somewhat "worse" than the ones that would have been in with 2 slots. There have been various posts in this thread analyzing the gap between the 2 groups with Luigi's and Nat's showing a lack of notable differences and Mada's showing some.

Ultimately we don't feel that the past 2 years have shown that there is some steep drop-off in quality with SV 3/4 and they have remained competitive. The player base is also bigger than ever, and we have seen breakout tours from many of the people that were originally part of the "bottom half". The downsides of these extra slots are minimal, and they allow us to maintain format consistency and afford opportunities to players who have largely been able to keep up at the SPL level so we don't see a reason to change this now.