Tournament UU Classic - Format Discussion [Unchanged for 2024]

Estarossa

Estarossa

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UU Classic is coming back again shortly this year for its 2024 run-through. If you are interested in hosting any of the cups then shoot me a message about it as we are still organising this.

The purpose of this thread is to get community opinions on a topic the forum mod team have been discussing relating to the format of UU classic this year. As you may be aware from the Circuit for this year, Homefield advantage will be starting in August and is a tour that features SM, SS, and SV UU in it. UU Classic last year due to the increasing amount of tiers contained within it took a Best finish route to only count the top 5 runs someone achieved in the various cups, to limit the amount of work needed to qualify. Nonetheless people would still need to be aware of 7 different tiers for playoffs and this could also result in certain less popular tiers seeing far less exposure in playoff games, and not rewarding holistic performance as much.

The proposal we would like to gauge community opinion on is to remove SM and SS from UU classic to bring it back down to 5 tiers, with the format of the August time tours therefore being,
  • UU Classic - GSC, ADV, DPP, BW, ORAS (Oldgens tour)​
  • Homefield Advantage - SM, SS, SV (Modern gens tour)​
This has some key advantages from my point of view,
  • No overlap between the tours like there would be otherwise.
  • 5 tiers in Classic matches the bo5 nature of playoffs, all tiers will therefore see plenty of exposure and ignoring 1 or 2 tiers will be less rewarded.
  • Less cups to run and less commitment in both playing the cups to qualify and to prep for playoff games.
  • No need for a BFL - players qualify through holistic ability across all tiers more than their ability in their strongest gens.

The main disadvantage however that may be present here is that SM and SS no longer have individual cups for those who are interested in them, as homefield advantage is a bo3 style tournament with all 3 involved.

We're making this thread right now to see if this would be an popular change, this is something we could potentially re-visit for 2025's Classic if people aren't sure or feel it is to close to the star.
 
I very much don't like the proposal here - for one, if you're going to cut SM/SS from UU Classic, at least add RBY to it. Last year's Homefield Advantage had RBY after all, so you are now removing RBY entirely from the two tours. I think it's a very bad idea and I think what we had last year was perfect and there's no need to change it.

There's no real non-arbitrary reason to split it like this either - UU Classic has historically been about all of the past gen UUs, including "modern" gens. Homefield Advantage last year was also the greatest format we could have hoped for - the idea of picking anything from RBY to SV was exciting af and I have no clue why we want to suddenly change that. So, do not do this proposal please. It's not a good idea at all - keep UU Classic SS through GSC, keep Homefield SV through RBY. If you're going to make a change, you need to include RBY in there, otherwise you are unfairly cutting RBY. Please reconsider.

*edit* also if you really want to change formats like this, wait for Gen 10 to figure out something out more permanently. The format already worked fine last year.
 
Gonna echo that RBY getting shafted sucks when we’ve been doing work to try to integrate the community with the UU community and pushing forward tiering action.

If I had to pick between the formats I would suggest RBY be in Classic over Homefield Advantage personally, but it should be somewhere, and either of those are good places to have it. More UU mainers have been trying it and even enjoying it and more RBYers are trying out other UU tiers as well, it’s been good progress. Classic inclusion would be a good motivator for non RBYers to learn some RBY and vice versa.
 
Broadly agree with bfm here, homefield and classic formats worked fine last year and cutting more recent gens further makes this tournament unappealing to "newer" uuers who's participation is apparently a big part in this tournament existing and giving circuit points. Sucks that some gens get shafted in playoffs but kind of revealing as to what tiers are drawing people to playing this and sm is a pretty big draw. Just seems like there's little benefit in changing the format like this.
 
I think if you split the old gens realistically the best way would be something similar to the classic / masters split. I get that would be finding a spot for an entire new tour which I don't have the answer to, but glancing over them with home field advantage feels like such a disservice to them. I also want to echo from above the RBY guys have been doing a really good job making the tier more accessible while cleaning it up to make it more and more balanced. Would be quite sad to see it get cut
 
the idea is to run two competitive tours featuring all gens of underused...why not have overlap in bw? BW UU has a playerbase that spans older gens and more modern ones
Proposition:
UU Classic - RBY, GSC, ADV, DPP, BW UU
Homefield Advantage - BW, ORAS, SM, SS, SV UU
Cutting RBY from classic would suck
Not having any ORAS representation is also ridiculous
Double bo5 with BW in the middle just kinda makes a lot of sense?
 
I will just quickly add that I agree very much with the idea that cutting RBY is an awful idea, though I won't bother repeating the reasons people have mentioned above other than not even mentioning that you are cutting RBY in the post just feels incredibly inconsiderate to the effort that has been put in to improve the tier and improve the communities relationship with the greater UU one.
 
Last edited:
BigFatMantis said:
I very much don't like the proposal here - for one, if you're going to cut SM/SS from UU Classic, at least add RBY to it. Last year's Homefield Advantage had RBY after all, so you are now removing RBY entirely from the two tours. I think it's a very bad idea and I think what we had last year was perfect and there's no need to change it.
Click to expand...

This thread was more to discuss the optics of a split, RBY was not brought up here merely because I was using the format of classic from last year to explore the split concept first. RBY was a separate conversation to be had to this one. Saying all of this, we would definitely be happy adding RBY to Classic if a split takes place, so preferably conversation can focus more on whether the split is something that would be desired in first place instead in this thread please and not so much on RBY's inclusion.

BigFatMantis said:
There's no real non-arbitrary reason to split it like this either - UU Classic has historically been about all of the past gen UUs, including "modern" gens. Homefield Advantage last year was also the greatest format we could have hoped for - the idea of picking anything from RBY to SV was exciting af and I have no clue why we want to suddenly change that. So, do not do this proposal please. It's not a good idea at all - keep UU Classic SS through GSC, keep Homefield SV through RBY.
Click to expand...

There's some big reasons to do this split in our opinion here, one of the first noteable things is that these tours are set to take place at around the same time as each other, this split would give them a separate identity and less overlap. It also reduces the workload in each tour to undertake.

Another thing to note is that with Classic and Homefield both being RBY/GSC - SS/SV, there is a lot of focus being given to OldGens in the UU Circuit, even with these being Type B tours this gives a lot of potential points towards what is a Current gen circuit and playoffs, where we would like to provide less priority, this is part of the reason Classic is a low-weighted tour in first place to lower the contribution to the overall circuit it provides.

A split like this provides clear direction for each tournament and a more unique identity, while making each tour somewhat easier to access and make it a lot less prep work,

Classic - RBY to BW - Oldgen Tournament
Homefield - ORAS to SV - Fairygen / Modern Gen Tournament

Noteably this provides the advantages of 5 tiers in Classic giving equal representation to each tier and rewarding holistic ability across gens better, while making Homefield less about the matchup of picked tiers and matching the chosen speciality tiers to the SV focus better still.

------

In general if replies could focus more on the format thats being discussed rather than RBY which is not the topic of this thread this would be good going forward. As mentioned RBY is an entirely different discussion but something we would most likely include with a split.
 
I understand the reasoning for the split, I just don’t think now is the time for it considering how well I believe homefield and classic worked out last year in the current format. Most importantly though, by restricting Classic to just gens 1-5, you are turning off a lot of people from it (most notably by not including SM and SS), as SM is one of, if not the, most popular oldgen, and SS is the most accessible for newer players that started during that gen. I believe that this kind of a split does a disservice to the tournament, and I think it would be better to explore and implement it when Gen 10 comes around. Again, considering how well it worked last year, I see no reason to change it this year. It makes far more sense to wait for Gen 10 and then have an even split of 1-5 and 6-10, even if I still disagree with it, it at least would be a better transition.

For those who think that there is “too much oldgen” representation in the circuit with the old format, it doesn’t really make any difference if Homefield is 1-9 or 6-9, it’s still going to be mainly CG focused since everyone has to play Gen 9 first regardless, and the majority of people pick Gen 9 as their home field anyways. Just because there is more ORAS/SM than the other oldgens doesn’t make it any less or more CG focused imo. By splitting this, what you actually end up doing is making both tours slightly less popular and turning some people off to each one.
 
I fail to see how the proposed split changes the focus on old gens in our tournaments, there are ultimately still two tournaments where success is largely dependent upon your ability in oldgens. Seeing as people will often reuse teams for the tiers they're most confident in or just get passed for the tiers they're less confident in, the workload isn't really that significant anyway. If sustaining a competitive version of classic that represents all gens is no longer possible then I'd prefer to remove it entirely from our circuit, otherwise the goal should be to represent all gens.
 
I like the idea of splitting. Especially with rby in the mix, classic stretches on forever and ever with more than five cups. This is a nice balance imo. Also, I very much feel that oldgens should be represented in some way in the circuit. This is how new players are introduced, keeping great, historied metagames alive (ya team tours do this too, but this is way more accessible)
 
homefield is always a fun tour but it will never live up to the hype and overall importance of classic. trimming it down may do what you want, but ultimately cutting two (relatively) large gens from classic doesn't seem like the move. personally, i like the idea of keeping sm + ss in classic, even if theres a little bias in my statement as someone who mainly plays uu sm-sv.


Estarossa said:
5 tiers in Classic matches the bo5 nature of playoffs, all tiers will therefore see plenty of exposure and ignoring 1 or 2 tiers will be less rewarded.
Click to expand...

i know this is listed as an advantage but i really don't see it. you get more overall exposure in the classic cups with 7 tiers, and either way you will "ignore" two tiers by putting them in a worse tournament. just going with a bo5 where each player removes a gen seems best

Estarossa said:
Nonetheless people would still need to be aware of 7 different tiers for playoffs and this could also result in certain less popular tiers seeing far less exposure in playoff games, and not rewarding holistic performance as much.
Click to expand...

i think removing those more recent tiers may just drop signups, especially for a tier as important / played as SM.


also not about classic, but in general i'm not a fan of homefield SM-SV. at least from the homefields i've played, getting a mix of a ton of gens feels a lot more enjoyable, something like GSC/ADV - SS homefield is what I prefer for sure. something like SM SS homefield alienates a lot of the players who want to play old gens at a lower stress level than classic


tl;dr keep classic as is and/or make homefield old gens not just sm-sv
 
After discussions, due to the mixed feedback from this thread we will not be implementing this change this year.

There is a fair amount of support for this idea and this is definitely something that can be revisited going into 2025 if there is a desire to do so, but we do not want to make a decision that isn't unanimously supported at this late stage. One thing that will almost certainly need to happen going into next year is to adjust our circuit schedule so that Classic and Homefield do not run as close to each other if we are not making this change however.

Thank you to everyone who offered feedback on this thread or elsewhere, I'll leave this thread open if anyone wishes to still post any thoughts on ideas for 2025, but for 2024 we will not be making any changes, so Homefield advantage and Classic will follow the same format as last year, although with RBY added to Classic for this year.

----------------------

If you are interested in hosting any Classic cups then we are still looking for some hosts so please hit me up on Discord (@chompbird) if you would be interested.
 
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