Sword and Shield Champions League I
Hosted by: Zac, Murphy Lawden, Yash Vortex
Tournament Rules and General Guidelines
Spreadsheet (Placeholder until made)
This thread will handle all the information that players and manager will need for the tournament. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact any of the hosts.
Hosted by: Zac, Murphy Lawden, Yash Vortex
Tournament Rules and General Guidelines
Spreadsheet (Placeholder until made)
This thread will handle all the information that players and manager will need for the tournament. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact any of the hosts.
How does SSCL work?
There will be 8 teams, each with their own manager and assistant manager. Management duos will do a SPL-style auction on Pokemon Showdown!, where they will take turns nominating and bidding in an auction for players who signed up to assemble their teams with limited credits available. The teams will then play one another for 7 weeks, with a new opponent each week. This will culminate with a Playoffs week consisting of the Top 4 teams overall from the 7-week main season.
How does one signup as a player?
Player signups are projected to begin later today (Sunday, March 9th) and will be open until 24 hours before the auction (see below; about two weeks). You should include your name, timezone, metagames you are willing to play, and any expected inactivity. Do not sign up if you cannot commit to the entire tournament.
If I am selected as a manager, can I still play for my team?
Each team will be allowed to self-purchase one manager for 15k or two for 40k auction credits. Managers must inform the tournament hosts 24 hours before the auction date.
When is the SSCL Auction?
We expect the auction to take place on the weekend of the March 14th or 15th. This may change depending on manager availability.
When does SSCL Week 1 start?
We expect Week 1 to take start of March 16th. This may change depending on the final auction date.
There will be 8 teams, each with their own manager and assistant manager. Management duos will do a SPL-style auction on Pokemon Showdown!, where they will take turns nominating and bidding in an auction for players who signed up to assemble their teams with limited credits available. The teams will then play one another for 7 weeks, with a new opponent each week. This will culminate with a Playoffs week consisting of the Top 4 teams overall from the 7-week main season.
How does one signup as a player?
Player signups are projected to begin later today (Sunday, March 9th) and will be open until 24 hours before the auction (see below; about two weeks). You should include your name, timezone, metagames you are willing to play, and any expected inactivity. Do not sign up if you cannot commit to the entire tournament.
If I am selected as a manager, can I still play for my team?
Each team will be allowed to self-purchase one manager for 15k or two for 40k auction credits. Managers must inform the tournament hosts 24 hours before the auction date.
When is the SSCL Auction?
We expect the auction to take place on the weekend of the March 14th or 15th. This may change depending on manager availability.
When does SSCL Week 1 start?
We expect Week 1 to take start of March 16th. This may change depending on the final auction date.
The General Manager of a team is essentially the boss of a team. The GM is the final word in all decisions (barring the hosts) regarding their team. The GM decides which players play on the team, who plays in what position, and even handles the team finances. Managers also make sure that the team keeps running on a day to day basis. If a team fails to complete their matches by the end of the allotted time, the onus is on the manager to inform the hosts as to what happened in order to make sure that proper activity calls are made.
Because of these responsibilities, The General Manager is probably the most important part of the team. As such, the position of GM is not one to be taken lightly.
• General Managers are chosen largely on the subjective opinions SS Moderation Team with limited input from the hosts as to who they believe would be fit for the position. Being fit for the position includes the knowledge of excellent battlers in the community (for fielding a competent team), having above average activity on the forums, Pokémon Showdown and/or Discord (in order to ensure that you don’t abandon your team), as well as possessing a necessary amount of “gravitas” (If you can’t make a player do what you tell them to, such as play an undesirable metagame, you’re not going to make a good manager).
General Managers are required to acquire one or two Assistant Managers. The General Manager gets full sovereignty in choosing their assistant manager. The assistant manager is essentially the second in command for the team. They have all of the functions and roles as the General Manager does, the GM just trumps them in head-to-head decisions.
Lastly, the General Manager has the following duties:
• They shall choose one or two Assistant Managers.
• They shall make the hosts aware of any player retentions by the time player signups close.
• They shall be present at the live auction, or appoint someone (an Assistant Manager) to participate in the live auction in their stead.
• They shall send the hosts weekly rosters.
• They shall ensure to the best of their abilities that their battlers complete their matches on time.
• In the event that a match fails to be completed, they shall inform the hosts as to why the match failed to be completed, and what their battler did in order to finish the match.
• They shall communicate any grievances with the hosts.
Because of these responsibilities, The General Manager is probably the most important part of the team. As such, the position of GM is not one to be taken lightly.
• General Managers are chosen largely on the subjective opinions SS Moderation Team with limited input from the hosts as to who they believe would be fit for the position. Being fit for the position includes the knowledge of excellent battlers in the community (for fielding a competent team), having above average activity on the forums, Pokémon Showdown and/or Discord (in order to ensure that you don’t abandon your team), as well as possessing a necessary amount of “gravitas” (If you can’t make a player do what you tell them to, such as play an undesirable metagame, you’re not going to make a good manager).
General Managers are required to acquire one or two Assistant Managers. The General Manager gets full sovereignty in choosing their assistant manager. The assistant manager is essentially the second in command for the team. They have all of the functions and roles as the General Manager does, the GM just trumps them in head-to-head decisions.
Lastly, the General Manager has the following duties:
• They shall choose one or two Assistant Managers.
• They shall make the hosts aware of any player retentions by the time player signups close.
• They shall be present at the live auction, or appoint someone (an Assistant Manager) to participate in the live auction in their stead.
• They shall send the hosts weekly rosters.
• They shall ensure to the best of their abilities that their battlers complete their matches on time.
• In the event that a match fails to be completed, they shall inform the hosts as to why the match failed to be completed, and what their battler did in order to finish the match.
• They shall communicate any grievances with the hosts.
Total money for teams is 150,000 credits.
In the weeks preceding the Live Auction, a time will be chosen where at least 1 Manager or Assistant Manager from each team can meet and perform a live auction in order to choose players. The Manager and/or Assistant Manager present will be expected to remain at the auction for the entire duration, which should take approximately 3 hours.
Once a time is set, all attending Managers + Hosts will enter the place where the auction will be held - most likely a group chat for the auction. Spectators are allowed to join in to watch the auction, but will not be able to speak. Discussion on the bidding should be relegated to the SS Discord.
The hosts will first ask a team to nominate a player. The order by which teams will nominate players will go in a randomized snaking pattern from the first chosen team to the last chosen team, then the last chosen team to the first chosen team. Details of said player will be displayed and bidding will commence, starting at 3000 credits, with the nominating team automatically placing the first bid. The auction will then be in real time. Managers will simply put in their bids in the chat, raising a minimum of 500 credits. If after 15 seconds there are no new bids, the player is sold to the highest bid in the channel. Updated credit totals will be displayed and then the next manager in the rotation will be prompted to nominate a player.
Managers: it is necessary for you to field a roster of 12 starters and a minimum of 2 substitutes. Playing Managers and retains are included in the roster number. Players will be locked into playing only the tiers they signed up for the entirety of the regular season AND playoffs (excluding tiebreakers). This still applies to players who go for 3k!
In the weeks preceding the Live Auction, a time will be chosen where at least 1 Manager or Assistant Manager from each team can meet and perform a live auction in order to choose players. The Manager and/or Assistant Manager present will be expected to remain at the auction for the entire duration, which should take approximately 3 hours.
Once a time is set, all attending Managers + Hosts will enter the place where the auction will be held - most likely a group chat for the auction. Spectators are allowed to join in to watch the auction, but will not be able to speak. Discussion on the bidding should be relegated to the SS Discord.
The hosts will first ask a team to nominate a player. The order by which teams will nominate players will go in a randomized snaking pattern from the first chosen team to the last chosen team, then the last chosen team to the first chosen team. Details of said player will be displayed and bidding will commence, starting at 3000 credits, with the nominating team automatically placing the first bid. The auction will then be in real time. Managers will simply put in their bids in the chat, raising a minimum of 500 credits. If after 15 seconds there are no new bids, the player is sold to the highest bid in the channel. Updated credit totals will be displayed and then the next manager in the rotation will be prompted to nominate a player.
Managers: it is necessary for you to field a roster of 12 starters and a minimum of 2 substitutes. Playing Managers and retains are included in the roster number. Players will be locked into playing only the tiers they signed up for the entirety of the regular season AND playoffs (excluding tiebreakers). This still applies to players who go for 3k!
The league stages consist of a Round Robin tournament. Every team will face every other team once through 7 weeks of play. Each manager will submit to the hosts a roster no later than the deadline of the previous week. This roster will list the starting players and what metagames they will play.
When the week starts, teams' players will face off in their respective metagames / tiers. The SS OU 1 from Team A will face the SS OU 1 from team B, SS OU 2 will face SS OU 2, and so on. Whichever team wins the most battles will be declared the victor for the week. Rather than score based on how many individual battles a team wins, the primary thing that matters is who beat the most teams. As such, points are awarded based only on wins and losses versus teams as a whole, not individual players. Beating a team in a week’s matchups is worth two points, tying with a team is worth one point, and losing is worth none, simple as that. At the end of the round robin, the top four teams in the points proceed to the playoffs. Semifinals will see #1 vs. #4 and #2 vs #3, Finals will be the winner from each of the semi-final rounds.
There are a few regulatory things during the league stages that need to be outlined.
1. Substitutes – At any point in time during the week, a team may make a substitution for a currently slotted player. In order to do this a manager must post in the thread, tagging the hosts, the opposing managers and the opposing player stating which player is substituting out, and which player is substituting in. A player that has substituted out for a week cannot be substituted back in. In addition, in order to catch any attempts at garnering favorable matchups in RBY OU (where the lineup you choose affects pairings), all substitutions are subject to veto by the hosts if the substitution is suspected to be attempting to “game” the system.
2. Activity decisions – There are inevitably times where two players simply fail to complete a match; however, the nature of the tournament system sometimes makes it advantageous to purposely fail to play (such as when a team is up 5-4 in a week). Because of this, it is necessary to make activity decisions on matches. Hosts are required to make thorough investigations regarding each and every potential failed match during a week. If both parties are deemed to be equally apathetic or enthusiastic about getting the match done, but just have not had the opportunity to make it happen, the match will result in a no contest. However, if it is deemed that one party made significantly more effort than the other in attempting to get the match done, then a win will be awarded to that player. Things that will make it very likely that you will lose via activity include: failing to VM your opponent immediately upon the week’s start, scheduling a match and being documented as missing the match time, failing to provide any concrete times for which you can be reached, failing to respond to an opponent’s VM at all. Note that this is a tournament that requires a very high level of activity and diligence, if you don’t think you can get your matches done, quite simply don’t sign up.
3. Rule Breaking – There is no excuse for breaking any of the predetermined rules. If you are caught breaking a rule, you will lose your match. There is no lenience with regards to this. Break a rule, you lose. Period.
4. Reversing Rulings - No ruling will be retroactively overturned once the week following the week that the ruling has been made has ended. This includes: activity rulings / rulings based on rule breaking / anything else under the sun. I'm not going back in time to reevaluate every single decision I've made throughout the tournament on Week 9 because you think you were gypped 1-2 wins along the way and now they're the difference between you and a playoff spot. Any appeals to a ruling must be made during the week that the ruling is made; beyond that, all rulings are final once the week ends.
When the week starts, teams' players will face off in their respective metagames / tiers. The SS OU 1 from Team A will face the SS OU 1 from team B, SS OU 2 will face SS OU 2, and so on. Whichever team wins the most battles will be declared the victor for the week. Rather than score based on how many individual battles a team wins, the primary thing that matters is who beat the most teams. As such, points are awarded based only on wins and losses versus teams as a whole, not individual players. Beating a team in a week’s matchups is worth two points, tying with a team is worth one point, and losing is worth none, simple as that. At the end of the round robin, the top four teams in the points proceed to the playoffs. Semifinals will see #1 vs. #4 and #2 vs #3, Finals will be the winner from each of the semi-final rounds.
There are a few regulatory things during the league stages that need to be outlined.
1. Substitutes – At any point in time during the week, a team may make a substitution for a currently slotted player. In order to do this a manager must post in the thread, tagging the hosts, the opposing managers and the opposing player stating which player is substituting out, and which player is substituting in. A player that has substituted out for a week cannot be substituted back in. In addition, in order to catch any attempts at garnering favorable matchups in RBY OU (where the lineup you choose affects pairings), all substitutions are subject to veto by the hosts if the substitution is suspected to be attempting to “game” the system.
2. Activity decisions – There are inevitably times where two players simply fail to complete a match; however, the nature of the tournament system sometimes makes it advantageous to purposely fail to play (such as when a team is up 5-4 in a week). Because of this, it is necessary to make activity decisions on matches. Hosts are required to make thorough investigations regarding each and every potential failed match during a week. If both parties are deemed to be equally apathetic or enthusiastic about getting the match done, but just have not had the opportunity to make it happen, the match will result in a no contest. However, if it is deemed that one party made significantly more effort than the other in attempting to get the match done, then a win will be awarded to that player. Things that will make it very likely that you will lose via activity include: failing to VM your opponent immediately upon the week’s start, scheduling a match and being documented as missing the match time, failing to provide any concrete times for which you can be reached, failing to respond to an opponent’s VM at all. Note that this is a tournament that requires a very high level of activity and diligence, if you don’t think you can get your matches done, quite simply don’t sign up.
3. Rule Breaking – There is no excuse for breaking any of the predetermined rules. If you are caught breaking a rule, you will lose your match. There is no lenience with regards to this. Break a rule, you lose. Period.
4. Reversing Rulings - No ruling will be retroactively overturned once the week following the week that the ruling has been made has ended. This includes: activity rulings / rulings based on rule breaking / anything else under the sun. I'm not going back in time to reevaluate every single decision I've made throughout the tournament on Week 9 because you think you were gypped 1-2 wins along the way and now they're the difference between you and a playoff spot. Any appeals to a ruling must be made during the week that the ruling is made; beyond that, all rulings are final once the week ends.
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