Tournament Rules and General Guidelines

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Luigi

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Welcome to the Smogon Tournaments Forum! This thread lists rules that all who wish to participate in Smogon's tournaments must follow, and also acts as a guide to acceptable practices within the forum. Please make sure you read through the entire thread at least once.

Tournament Hosting guide can be found by clicking on Munchlax
Live Tournament Hosting guide can be found by clicking on Dusknoir
Scheduling guide can be found by clicking on Scizor

How to play in Smogon Tournaments

Signing Up for a Tournament

Before getting into this, it should be noted that signing up to play in a tournament is a commitment to playing. If you don't think you will be bothered to build the required teams to play, or you are going on a holiday in a week, please do not sign up. Tournaments will generally take a couple of months to finish, to give a general idea of the amount of time you may need to dedicate. You are expected to log in at least once every couple of days and preferably daily, and should be available for battle reasonably often. If you are only available for a few hours a week, live tournaments such as the Smogon Tour are more suitable. If you sign up to tournaments and repeatedly fail to play your matches, you risk being given a Warning and / or banned from playing in tournaments.

Signing up for a tournament is extremely simple. All you have to do is read the first post to make sure you understand the rules, then post saying "in" or that you want to join. If the tournament requires you to do something else like submit teams before the first round, you should try to do that as soon as you can. If you have any questions, you may either post them in the thread or contact the host privately.

Note that Smogon's hosting rules require most tournaments to accept the first 62.5% of players that sign up, and then randomize the remainder of the players, so if you posted before someone that got in and you didn't, this is the most likely reason why. The reason for this is that basically every tournament uses a number of participants that results in no byes and either two or three players in the final round (32, 48, 64, 96, 128, 192, 256, 384, or 512), and for tournaments that fill up quickly, we don't want to eliminate the chance of participating for those in unfortunate timezones.

Even if you don't get into a tournament, if the host is efficient and willing to do it, you could ask to be substituted into the tournament if someone drops out or goes missing. If you missed out and are interested in joining, simply post in the current tournament thread or send the host a PM stating that you would like to be a substitute if possible.


Playing in a Tournament

Once you have signed up and the host posts Round 1, it is strongly recommended that you contact your opponent immediately by sending them a VM on their profile. Let them know when you think you will be ready to play, your timezone, and maybe your availability if you know what that will be. Try to respond in a timely fashion whenever your opponent contacts you. If someone misses a scheduled time and the match is in danger of going uncompleted by the deadline, the host will nearly always award the win to the player that showed up, so scheduling a battle is a sure way to avoid being eliminated by inactivity. Don't be lazy!

Here are some rules we enforce for players in tournaments. There is a good chance you will receive a Warning or potentially be banned from tournaments if you fail to adhere to these:
  • If your user name undergoes a change, it is your obligation to report the change to the hosts of any tournaments you are participating in, as well as your opponents in those tournaments.
  • Avoid dropping out of a tournament midway through unless you have a good reason for doing so. Check this thread for more information on this subject.
    • If you do have to drop out, you must notify the host and your opponent.
  • [NEW] Leave your profile open to VMs or be the first to initiate contact when a round is posted. Failing to do either of these things may result in receiving an activity loss. See here for more details.
  • Always schedule promptly after the round goes up and in public, failing to do so leaves you at risk of being subbed out or getting an activity loss. Scheduling in private such as via pm or discord is discouraged, but if done, make sure to show proof of scheduling to the host.
  • Endeavor to complete your battles before the deadline of each round. If we notice a pattern of laziness, we may decide to punish you.
Pre- and In-Battle Rules

These rules explain what you aren't allowed to do before and during a battle, and what standard rules must be followed.

Definitions of Standard Clauses: (these clauses apply across all Smogon tiers)
  • Sleep Clause: If a player has already put an opposing Pokémon to sleep using a sleep inducing move and that Pokémon is still sleeping due to that sleep inducing move, the player cannot put another opposing Pokémon to sleep using a sleep inducing move.
  • Species Clause: A player cannot have two of the same species of Pokémon on their team, based on the National Pokedex Number. For example, a player cannot have two Koffing on his or her team.
  • Evasion Clause: Players cannot use Double Team or Minimize in any of their Pokémon's movesets.
  • OHKO Clause: Players cannot use Horn Drill, Guillotine, Sheer Cold, or Fissure in any of their Pokémon's movesets.
  • Timer Clause: If a player exhausts the timer, he/she loses.
Definitions of Other Clauses
  • (Standard only in RBY and GSC) Freeze Clause: If a Pokémon on a player's team is frozen and another Pokémon on that player's team would become frozen, it does not become frozen.
  • (Standard only in BW and ORAS) Swagger Clause: A player can not use the move Swagger
  • (Standard only in ORAS, SM, and SS) Endless Battle Clause: Players cannot intentionally prevent an opponent from being able to end the game without forfeiting.
Self-KO Clause and Ties
  • Self-KO Clause is an antiquated concept that is not used in Smogon tournaments. The one exception to the rule is if the tournament is live (weekly Smogon Tour, Suspect Tours, etc.). For all standard tournaments here this rule does not exist. It Does Not Exist.

    If both Pokemon faint simultaneously in DPP, ADV, GSC, or RBY, the game is ruled as a tie. Tied games do not count as played games in overall standings and will be expected to be replayed within the round's initial deadline. Similarly to this, tied games do not count towards the total number of games played in "best of X" series. In other words, if a tournament includes "Bo3" RBY, what is really being played is "first to two wins" RBY.

    However, ties simply don't exist in later generations. The developers removed ties from BW and have not added them back since. There's a lot of inconsistency with the mechanics of their tiebreaking system but Smogon follows them to stay true to the cartridge. The main ones are listed below:

    Note: The following list is for SM, XY, and BW, and not for DPP, ADV, GSC, or RBY

    Self-KO Moves (Destiny Bond, Explosion, Final Gambit, etc.):
    Attacking Pokemon Loses

    Offensive Recoil (Life Orb; Double-Edge, Flare Blitz, etc.):
    Attacking Pokemon Wins

    Defensive Recoil (Rocky Helmet; Iron Barbs, Rough Skin):
    Attacking Pokemon Wins (SM)
    Attacking Pokemon Loses (XY and BW)

    Passive Damage
    (Status, Weather, etc.):
    Faster Pokemon Loses
Further OU tier-specific bans and complexities
  • RBY OU
    • Banned moves: Dig, Fly
    • Cleric Clause: Pokemon must be at full health and without status conditions at the start of battle
    • Tradeback Clause: Tradeback moves from GSC are not allowed
  • GSC OU
    • Cleric Clause: Pokemon must be at full health and without status conditions at the start of battle
    • SleepTrap Ban: Having a sleep inducing move and Mean Look or Spider Web on the same moveset is not allowed
  • ADV OU
    • Baton Pass Clause: Smeargle cannot have both Ingrain and Baton Pass in its moveset
    • 3 Baton Pass Clause: Limit three Baton Passers
  • DPP OU
    • Banned abilities: Sand Veil
    • Banned items: Soul Dew
    • Baton Pass Clause: Teams may not have more than one Pokemon with Baton Pass in its moveset. Additionally, Speed + another stat may not be passed
  • BW OU
    • Banned abilities: Arena Trap, Moody, Sand Rush, Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Shadow Tag
    • Banned items: Soul Dew
    • Banned moves: Swagger, Sleep-inducing moves (Spore, Sleep Powder, etc.)
    • Baton Pass Clause: Teams may not have more than one Pokemon with Baton Pass in its moveset. Additionally, Speed + another stat may not be passed
    • Weather + Speed Ability Clause: Teams are not permitted to include Pokemon with the abilities Drought and Drizzle with Pokemon with the abilities Chlorophyll and Swift Swim. They may have one or the other
  • ORAS OU
    • Banned abilities: Arena Trap, Moody, Shadow Tag
    • Banned items: Soul Dew
    • Banned moves: Baton Pass, Swagger
  • USM OU
    • Banned abilities: Arena Trap, Moody, Power Construct, Shadow Tag
    • Banned moves: Baton Pass
  • SS OU
    • Banned abilities: Arena Trap, Moody, Shadow Tag
    • Banned moves: Baton Pass
General Tournament Rules

Disconnections and Timer Clause
: In live tournaments with short time constraints such as the Smogon Tour, if a player disconnects or times out, the opponent will be given the win, unless the player that timed out was in a position where they couldn't possibly lose. In other tournaments, if a player disconnects and contends that they could still win, the battle will be recreated by the Tournament Directors from the point of interruption. Timing out is still classified as a loss, unless the reason for timing out is a disconnection. If there is any suspicion that a disconnect was carried out deliberately to take advantage of this rule in any way, we reserve the right to exercise a harsh punishment.

Simulator Glitches: Any battle mechanics not properly implemented in the simulator used for a tournament battle are fair game, unless explicitly banned by that tournament's rules. Illegal movesets that are not restricted by the simulator fall into this category as well. However, this does not include faulty tier scripts; for example, if there was a bug in the BW OU tier script that allowed you to use Drizzle and Swift Swim on the same team, taking advantage of this would result in disqualification in that battle. If a game breaking glitch is discovered, we will make a blanket tournament ban on that glitch via an announcement in the Tournaments forum until it is fixed.

Cheating: Cheating in it's various forms is entirely prohibited. Players found to be cheating will suffer Tournament Bans and be infracted accordingly. Some forms of cheating may lead to the match that the cheating happened in being replayed, while others don't. What consists of cheating can be found later on in this thread, though it is always up to TD discretion. Repeated offenders are always treated more harshly, as are people in positions of power such as Tournament Directors and Managers. Admitting to cheating might get your punishment reduced by up to 25% of it's length. We reserve the right to offer immunity to a cheater in exchange for information regarding cheating.

[NEW] Attempted Cheating: Attempting to cheat is tantamount to cheating and will be punished just as severely, even if no actual cheating materializes from the attempt.

Timer: The timer is always on during tournament games. The rules for what happens in case of a disconnection can be found here.

Identity: Pretending to be another player in relation to a tournament battle is strictly prohibited. Do not try to impersonate or play as another player. You may request that your opponent log on to their main account to confirm that they are who they claim they are, and they must comply.

Draws: If a battle ends in a draw in an elimination tournament or team tournament, there should be a rematch between the players with the option for both players to change teams.

Throwing: Losing on purpose to benefit your opponent is strictly forbidden, and will lead to the person throwing being Tournament Banned. What constitutes throwing is up to the Tournament Directors' discretion.

Host / Tournament Director Decisions: The host may make a judgment call on the outcome of a battle with a disputed result, even if one player has broken the rules. If you believe the host has made an unjust decision, you may inform the Tournament Director responsible for the tournament of the situation and request that they make a final call on it.

Sportsmanship: If a player displays exceedingly poor sportsmanship before, during, or after a tournament battle, they may be disqualified or otherwise punished.

Player Agreements: Players are allowed to make agreements about their game before it happens, as long as it doesn't break the rules of the tier that the game is happening in, for example agreeing to "No Snorlax GSC OU" is acceptable, but agreeing to "Celebi allowed GSC OU" isn't. The players are not allowed to agree to play a different generation than what they were paired up in, nor a different game. It should also be noted that this is all entirely based on honor, Tournament Directors would not hand out a loss to a player that agreed not to bring Snorlax and then brought it.

Server: All tournament battles should be played on the Smogtours server. If a valid reason is provided and both players agree, playing on the Main server is acceptable, though know that you risk a recreate not being possible should either player time out. Playing anywhere else is unacceptable.

Forum Bans: Users banned from the forums will be disqualified from any tournaments they are in, except under exceptional circumstances. More information can be found here.

Playing on a Proxy: Any user playing on a proxy is subject to being disqualified from tournaments, if their behaviour is suspicious.

Playing before the round is up: Any game played before the round is officially posted doesn't count. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Live Streaming: Any stream of a live Smogon Tournament game must include a two minute delay. Attempting to provide or receive advice through livestream feed is considered a form of ghosting.

[NEW] Mechanics Questions:

Providing players with additional information during a match is generally not permitted. The main exception to this is player-requested mechanics queries, which are allowed if they are both objective and specific. For a question to be considered objective, it must be something that could be answered without knowledge of the game's current state. For a question to be considered specific, the question cannot be an open ended request for information; it must be asking about a single mechanic. Valid mechanics queries also include questions about how the simulator behaves (for example in cases where a mechanic is not currently implemented correctly).​
Questions about mechanics must be requested by the player; unsolicited information about mechanics should not be sent.​
Objective mechanic questions that would be allowed:​
Can a magic guard pokemon be fully paralyzed in DPP?​
Will Steelix's defense overflow if it uses Curse under Reflect in GSC?​
How long is sleep in ADV?​
Non-objective questions that would not be allowed:​
Will that Rotom-W outspeed my Gyarados?​
- answering requires assumptions on EVs, natures, items​
Can the opposing Chansey use Softboiled in my RBY game?​
- requires knowing Chansey's current HP value​
Does the enemy Clefable have Calm Mind?​
- inviting speculation on Clefable moveset, not a question about mechanics​

Cheating

Tournament Bans: Anyone found to be guilty of cheating as defined below will be tournament banned for the appropriate length of time. Being tournament banned means immediate disqualification from all tournaments you are currently in, the inability to join any new tournaments or post in the tournament forum for as long as the tournament ban lasts, a 2 point infraction and a red Custom Title that demarks you as tournament banned.

Ghosting: Ghosting is defined as giving any piece of advice to someone playing a game. Any form of direct advice is considered ghosting. A player should be able to make their own decisions based on what they observe by themselves. Asking for suggestions or affirmation adds an unfair dynamic and greatly reduces the chances of making mistakes. Our tournaments are designed to be tests of individual skill, not the skill of one player with the support of others providing suggestions or preventing bad plays. Playing a game while in a voice call with someone else will always be treated as ghosting of the highest severity.

The punishment for ghosting is a Tournament Ban that can range anywhere from 3 months to 1 year, depending on a series of factors.

Note that all of this applies to the Smogtours lobby, as such no suggesting of moves or speculation on the sets of either players will be tolerated.

Leaking Teams: Giving someone's intended team to their opponent is strictly forbidden. If this is found to happen any games that were compromised by counter teaming of this sort will be nullified, and the proper course of action will be taken depending on the tournament. If a team gets leaked to you, it is your duty to tell a Tournament Director, if you fail to do so you are complicit in the cheating.

The punishment for leaking is a Tournament Ban that can range anywhere from 3 months to 1 year, depending on a series of factors.

Collusion: Any attempt to get your opponent to throw or forfeit is unacceptable and will be met with a 3 month Tournament Ban for both the person requesting the throw and the person that threw.

Impersonating: Impersonating someone in a tournament game will get you Tournament Banned for 1 year, letting someone impersonate you in a tournament game will get both involved parties Tournament banned for 1 year.

Falsifying Results: Claiming to win a battle you didn't win will be punished by up to a 1 year Tournament Ban. Always be prepared to prove that a game happened. Falsifying activity, such as making up fake logs or deleting communication also falls under this, as does forging logs to incriminate someone of cheating.

DDOS'ing: Any attempts to tamper with someone's internet connection during a tournament battle will be punished with a permanent Tournament Ban.

Joining a Tournament More than Once: You may only join each tournament once. Signing up to a tournament multiple times by using other accounts will get every account disqualified, the alternate accounts forum banned and the main account Tournament Banned for 1 year.

Joining Tournaments on Alts: Even if you only join with 1 account, joining a tournament on an alt is not allowed and will be punished with a 3 month Tournament Ban.

Team Tournament Rules

Bribing
: Players should only be added to teams if the manager of the team think they'll be making the team stronger. Offering bribes or similar incentives in an attempt to be drafted will be met with punishments for both the manager and player in question

Sabotaging the Team: If a player signs up and is picked for a team tournament they are expected to have the team's best interests in mind. If the managers of a team believe their player is acting improperly they may get in contact with the TD team about it, and if they can prove their player is behaving in a way that we define to be sabotaging the team, such as refusing to play any games, sandbagging, attacking teammates etc, the player in question will be Tournament banned for 3 months and banned from joining team tournaments for 1 year. Should this happen in SPL the team will be compensated with a free pick + half the value of the player (if before round 1) or with the ability to sellback that player at midseason.

Minimum Activity Expected of Players: Being picked for a team tournament also means we expect a minimum level of commitment to that team, regardless of whether a player is starting or not. If a manager finds that their player is not showing acceptable levels of activity, and after attempting to work things out with the player themselves, they may get in contact with the TD team about it. A player whose activity we find to be below this threshold will be infracted with Unsportsmanlike Conduct, a DQ from this edition of the Tournament in question and a ban from the next edition of this same tournament.

Manager Conduct: Managers in team tournaments are held to a higher standard than players when it comes to upholding the rules, as such any cheating done by a manager will be punished more harshly than the same crime would if committed by a player. More specifically, managers found to be cheating will be exempt from participating in the next 2 iterations of the tour they cheated in, as well as not being allowed to manage again for an indefinite length of time. There are also certain types of cheating that wouldn't result in punishment for a regular user, but would if a manager did it, such as offering ghosting or drafting an alt on purpose.

Regular users that have been tournament banned are also not allowed to manage for 2 years after their tournament ban expires.

General Information

Point System

Three of our tournaments, Smogon Tour, Classic and Grand Slam use a point system to determine their playoffs. It's quite simple and works like this:

Rounds 1-3:
Winning in the first 3 rounds gives you 1 point per win.

Round 4 and above:
Winning Round 4 and every subsequent round will give you 2 points per win. The only exception to this is winning a Round Robin final, which will give you 3 points.

Additional Information:
Round 1 Byes and coinflips do not count as wins, as such you will receive no points for advancing to the next round with them. Upon winning the following round you'll get the points for that round as well as the previous round.
Activity wins and your opponent being disqualified do count as wins, you will receive points as normal.


Tournament Directors

Below you will find a list of the current Tournament Directors. Should you have any tournament-related questions, please don't hesitate to contact one of them.

Official Tournaments

Smogon's official tournaments are held at least once annually and are defined as tournaments which award the winner(s) with a profile trophy. They run according to the Major Tournament Schedule, which also provides a link to the Tournament specific forums where your questions may be answered. Current hosts are listed to the right of the tournaments; contact them if you have any questions about the tournament.
 
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Luigi

spo.ink/shadowtag
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 27 Championis a Past SPL Champion
All new tournament-wide rules will be announced in this thread, to start things off:

Playing on a proxy:
We've had many cases of playing on proxies lately and while we understand that in some situations the use of a proxy may be necessary, it makes it extremely hard for us to determine whether someone is a legitimate player or an alt.

So from now on, if we detect suspicious proxy activity on an account, we reserve the right to disqualify that account from any tournaments it is participating in. This does not mean that any use of proxies is completely banned, merely that if we are reasonably certain someone is using them to circumvent the rules, we can act on it.
 
On the ruling of calculations and other timesavers:

Player-requested calculations and other objective timesavers* are allowed. The driving force behind allowing objective timesavers is that these actions require only minimal effort and/or the information is publicly available and easily accessed by the player in the context of the battle. The act of giving other players this information is largely considered negligible and only exists to save time.​
* It is incredibly important to understand that only objective timesavers that provide trivial information are allowed. There are ways that players can provide seemingly OK information that implies a move, thought process, or a route of action; this is not allowed and is considered ghosting.​
If you're not sure if an action is acceptable or not, look at this list:​
Requesting that a teammate do a calculation for you to save time: Allowed​
Doing a calculation that was requested by the player: Allowed.​
Linking the player a RMT of the team they are facing: Allowed.​
Linking the player a public replay where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Allowed.​
Pointing out that their timer is low: Allowed.​
Asking about a mechanic: Allowed.​
Answering an objective question about mechanics: Allowed.​
Doing any calculation that was not requested by the player: Not Allowed.​
Speculation of any kind, such as (this Landorus has to be scarf): Not Allowed.​
Linking the player a private replay where their opponent uses the same team they are facing: Not Allowed.​
Suggesting moves of any kind: Extremely Not Allowed.​
I'm posting here to notify you all that we've edited the above section in our Tournament rules. In addition to linking someone a private replay in which their opponent's team is being used, it's also absolutely NOT ALLOWED to send someone an importable of a team that isn't posted anywhere in public. To clarify, when I say "posted in public" I mean that I should be able to find the team while browsing on Smogon. Examples include the RMT section or a Sample Teams thread. Do not provide an importable you've gotten from someone in private!
 

Eo Ut Mortus

Elodin Smells
is a Programmeris a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
To be eligible for favorable judgment in an activity decision:

Individuals
- If Player A and Player B agreed on a time, and Player B failed to show up, Player A must have checked in via the same medium used to schedule, citing the server and PS name, if different from forum username. They must have waited for at least 15 minutes before leaving. If Player B communicated their delay, this period may be extended to up to 30 minutes.

Teams
- If Player A and Player B agreed on a time, and Player B failed to show up, Player A or another authorized party must have notified their opponent's team and given them the chance to substitute at least 30 minutes before leaving.

- If no time was agreed upon (i.e. due to inadequate communication or scheduling conflicts), a player or another authorized party must have given their opponent's team notice of their last period of availability. This period must have been given at least 30 minutes in advance and must have been at least 1 hour long.

- Notice must be made via a teamwide Smogon Tournaments Discord tag; Smogon VMs/PMs and Showdown PMs may not be recognized as legitimate.

- Parties authorized to make this communication are limited to the player, their teammates, their managers, and any hosts speaking on behalf of the team.

Both
- Your Smogon profile must be set to public. A person has the right to request their profile be set to public through a tag in the thread, and failure to comply within 24 hours may result in a disqualification.

- Extenuating circumstances may warrant exceptions to these rules.

Individual:

Bob and Cheryl scheduled their game on discord and agreed to play on Sunday 3pm EST. Bob is online at the scheduled time but did not notify Cheryl on discord that he is online on Smogtours under his alt DarkElephant3. If Cheryl claims that she was also online, the game will be coinflipped.

At the same time Hank and Raphael were supposed to play after scheduling the game via vms. At the scheduled time, Raphael posted on Hanks wall that he would be online on smogtours under the alt ESPDragon7. If Hank does not come online or notifies Raphael that he is delayed for a few minutes, Raphael will have a strong case for activity.

Team:

Jimmy (Smog Frogs) has scheduled for Sunday 1pm EST with his opponent Lucia (Firebot Falcons) via discord. After 15mins Jimmy leaves without notifying the opposing team at all and claims activity because he cannot play anymore until the deadline. Because Jimmy did not contact the opposing team of the activity problem in time, the activity win is not granted.

Celia (Smog Frogs) has scheduled her game with Maxy (Firebot Falcons) at 6pm EST. After waiting 5 minutes on Smogtours she tags the opposing team asking where her opponent is. If the opposing team cannot get Maxy online or cannot provide a sub in the next 30 minutes, Celia has a good case for activity.

Thor (Europe) and Lachlan (Oceania) talked about playing their game on Sunday, but never agreed on an exact time. It is already 10pm for Lachlan and he can only stay up for two more hours. Therefore, he should notify the opposing team that he can only play in the next two hours.
 

Boat

fuck nintendo
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
For several years now, it has become common to lock tiers during playoffs phase of some individual or team tournaments. The TD Team has decided to remove this particular practice from our tournaments. The problems with the playoffs lock are most apparent during Grand Slam, but have potential to present themselves during any tournament with a strictly defined playoffs phase. Given an inconveniently enough timed suspect test, quick ban, or tiering cycle, players can find themselves playing a metagame that no longer exists for a month or more. Such an outcome is undesirable enough that the playoffs of Smogon Tour 30 were delayed to allow the OU council enough time to properly take tiering action. Had the playoffs lock not been in place, that would have been unnecessary. This issue is typically more of a concern in tiers affected by the tiering cycle, but in addition to the fact that non-usage based tiers, most notably OU, have seen a tremendous amount of tiering action in SS, it would be unnecessarily confusing to enforce locks on only certain tiers.

Note that this change is only intended to account for the typical tiering process, and large content drops similar to Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
 

Boat

fuck nintendo
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Currently, because rooms and replays on Smogtours are not truly private, players have to make a choice between having genuinely hidden games or having the safety net of a recreation. This is problematic, as we can't encourage people to play on a server without recreations in good conscience, but there are genuine concerns that the public nature of games on Smogtours makes it very easy to counterteam and scout in the early rounds of tournaments such as Classic.

Fortunately, this is no longer the case. We are now able to recreate games played on the main PS server! In the event of a true disconnection, we can retrieve the battle log from main, and recreate the battle on Smogtours.

It goes without saying that this does not change our requirements for recreations; games must still be ruled a true disconnection, and we will only guarantee recreations for official tournament games. In addition, because battle rooms on main expire in 15 minutes, please be prompt about calling for TD assistance. We have asked Zarel to extend the room expiration time for challenges to 30 minutes, which he has agreed to do.

This also does not mean that you should start playing all of your tournament games on main. Matches that are required to be public should still be played on Smogtours. The purpose of this is to enable you to play private rounds with the reassurance that a recreation can be performed if needed, not to allow you to play in private all the time.

If two players prefer different servers, the default is still Smogtours.

Lastly, under no circumstances should you harass global staff for a recreation. Determining if a recreation is appropriate is the TD team's job, and you should always contact us, not global staff.
 
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Merritt

no comment
is a Tournament Directoris a Site Content Manageris a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host
Head TD
We have updated the rules on what is and is not allowed to be sent to players during a battle. This is a replacement for the previous objective timesavers and calculations rule, which was vague and open to abuse.

To quickly summarize the changes, players can only ask questions about mechanics, which includes both cartridge behavior and the simulator implementation. Requesting information about the opposing team or asking another person to do calculations will not be allowed. In addition, all mechanic information must be player requested - sending unsolicited information is not allowed. Violations of this will be considered ghosting.
 
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