Amazing artwork done by IMakeNoSense
This thread will be translated into the following languages and posted as replies below: French, Portuguese, and Chinese. More will be added as they are available.
The Draft League subforum is launching it's next tournament, USUM Cup II! Each tournament ran this year will be a part of the 2024 Draft League Circuit and will provide points toward this year's Draft League Championship. This tournament is a Type B tournament and will be hosted by vmnunes and Dr. Geo. This tournament will take place in the [Gen 7] Draft tier on Pokémon Showdown! and battles will take place in pools followed by a single elimination bracket.
The following spoilers will cover signup information and rules for the tournament.
Tournament sizes are dependent on number of total valid signups (individuals who signup, join the Discord server and are verified in the Discord #verification channel). The first 62.5% of competitors that signup are guaranteed entry, while the remaining 37.5% are randomly chosen from the remaining player pool.
Example: 350 players signup, leading to a 320 person tour. The first 219 signups are guaranteed to be in the tour and the remaining 101 spots are randomly picked from the 131 remaining signups. Substitutes are picked on a first come first serve basis from the remaining signups. Once signups are sorted, the tour will follow the structure.
Example: 350 players signup, leading to a 320 person tour. The first 219 signups are guaranteed to be in the tour and the remaining 101 spots are randomly picked from the 131 remaining signups. Substitutes are picked on a first come first serve basis from the remaining signups. Once signups are sorted, the tour will follow the structure.
- Players will be placed in draft pools sorted by their time zones. They will be tagged in announcements when the draft begins, along with the sheet for their draft pool. It's advised to read the pinned message in your pool chat to further understand rules specific to the draft (as well as the Draft Rules section of this post for bans).
- Once the draft ends, the hosts will release the round 1 matchups via Smogon. These will be posted to the Discord in announcements. Each round, with the exception of battle pools, will always last one week. Battle pools (if applicable) will last two.
- You have up to 90 points with which to draft 8 Pokémon. Costs are listed on your pool’s tab on the drafting spreadsheet.
- You may only draft 1 Mega Evolution and the non-Mega variants of Pokémon may not Mega Evolve.
- If a Pokémon is picked by someone else, you may not pick it.
- For the first round, there is a 12 hour timer. After the first round ends, there will be a continuous 6 hour timer within which you must pick, or you will be skipped, and will be required to make-up your pick when you are next online. All timers are off between 10pm-7am local time (check your pool's pinned message for local time).
- Your timer will halve every time you are skipped. It is recommended to leave picks (with backups) with your pool moderator to avoid this.
- At the end of the draft you must declare 2 Z-Captains, these are the only Pokémon that will be able to use Z-Moves on your draft.
- The following complex bans are in place:
- Blaziken may not have the ability Speed Boost.
- Greninja may not have the ability Protean nor Battle Bond.
- Zygarde-50% and Zygarde-10% may not have the ability Power Construct. - The following Pokémon have access to all of their forms (although you may only bring up to 1 to each battle):
- Pikachu
- Wormadam
- Basculin
- Meowstic
- Pumpkaboo
- Gourgeist
- Oricorio
- Silvally - Smogon’s Species Clause applies to your draft.
- All games must be played in the [Gen 7] Draft tier on smogtours.psim.us or psim.us. Be aware that each game on smogtours starts a timer automatically and cannot be turned off.
- General tournament rules and regulations can be found here.
- USUM cartridge win conditions are in place; there are no ties.
- Each set is a best-of-one set.
- The following clauses apply:
- Species Clause: A player cannot have two Pokémon with the same National Pokédex number on a team.
- Sleep Clause: If a player has already put a Pokémon on their opponent's side to sleep and it is still sleeping, another one can't be put to sleep.
- Evasion Clause: A Pokémon may not hold an item, use a move or possess an ability that can increase their evasion stat. This includes the move Acupressure.
- OHKO Clause: A Pokémon may not have the moves Fissure, Guillotine, Horn Drill, or Sheer Cold in its moveset.
- Moody Clause: A team cannot have a Pokémon with the ability Moody.
- Endless Battle Clause: Players cannot intentionally prevent an opponent from being able to end the game without forfeiting.
- Baton Pass Clause: A Pokémon may not have Baton Pass in its moveset. - Quick Claw, King's Rock and Razor Claw are banned.
- Any items unreleased in USUM are banned.
- All omniboosting Z-moves are banned. This includes the Kommonium Z and subsequently, Clangorous Soulblaze.
- Rankings within pools may not be 100% accurate as the spreadsheet does not track head-to-head results. Players will advance based on scoring, where a 3-0 and 2-1 record will advance.
- Replays must be posted to the pool/round thread, please mention the result, your opponent's name and your pool number.
About Activity Decisions
Activity Decisions / Coin Flips: In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, and an extension has not been requested, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, you must open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold.
For example, if you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.
Please note that all extension requests and activity claims must be posted to the thread, and that all of these will be judged on a case by case basis.
[Credit to the Official Smogon Tournament hosting team for the base form of this rule.]
Activity Decisions / Coin Flips: In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, and an extension has not been requested, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, you must open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold.
For example, if you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.
Please note that all extension requests and activity claims must be posted to the thread, and that all of these will be judged on a case by case basis.
[Credit to the Official Smogon Tournament hosting team for the base form of this rule.]
Contact your opponent as soon as possible upon the round going up. Activity cases are going to be handled in a very strict manner.
When scheduling, offer as wide a swathe of time when you are available to play. 1 hour of activity on one or two weeknights is unlikely to be considered acceptable.
Schedule specifically - do not schedule for "Friday afternoon" or "Sunday morning", pick a date, a time and note the time zone, ideally as GMT offset.
If either host catches news of ghosting or some other sort of nefarious play, we reserve the right to investigate to the full limits of our ability.
When scheduling, offer as wide a swathe of time when you are available to play. 1 hour of activity on one or two weeknights is unlikely to be considered acceptable.
Schedule specifically - do not schedule for "Friday afternoon" or "Sunday morning", pick a date, a time and note the time zone, ideally as GMT offset.
If either host catches news of ghosting or some other sort of nefarious play, we reserve the right to investigate to the full limits of our ability.
SIGNUP HERE: https://www.smogon.com/forums/draft-league-signup-form/
DISCORD HERE: https://discord.gg/TcNr8jgpnR
DISCORD HERE: https://discord.gg/TcNr8jgpnR
Signups will end 11:59PM GMT+/-0 on Saturday, June 1st.
This thread and all future USUM Cup II threads should be considered the final ruling in case of discrepancy between threads, Discord announcements, and Google spreadsheets. Contact a host if you have any questions or spot an error. We are human, after all.
Last edited:
