WCoP Administrative Decisions

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Luigi

Luigi

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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
Here you can find rulings pertaining to the World Cup of Pokémon, general tournament rules here

In this post i'll link past and future rulings for ease of access.

Eligibility Requirements

Eligibility requirements are listed below. If you have any specific questions about eligibility, please contact the hosts.

Players who participated in the last WCOP

If a player participated in the last WCOP, they will be locked onto their team from the previous year, barring the following exceptions:
  • If the team they most recently played for no longer exists, they will be treated as a player eligible for a new team (see below).
  • If a player's region has changed since last WCOP, they may choose to instead play for the region currently associated with their forum IPs. This is a one-time choice; doing so forfeits their previous eligibility. They will not be able to be grandfathered back onto their previous team in the future, and even if they return to their old region in the future, this eligibility will remain forfeited.
Players who did not participate in the last WCOP/ players eligible for new teams

Players that are not locked on a team and are not eligible for grandfathering (new players or players whose previous teams no longer exist) may only play for the regions associated with their forum IPs. Tournament directors will not consider any other means of identification for regional eligibility. Please do not submit real-world identifying documents such as passports or birth certificates.

If a player has IPs to prove that they spend extended periods of time in multiple regions within the past 12 months (e.g. students who attend university in one region and live in another), they can apply to join the team associated with either region. TDs will review this on a case-by-case basis. Eligibility for the rejected team will be forfeited.

Players with significant periods of provable residency prior to the past 12 months may apply to join the team associated with their old IPs. The TD team will consider these applications on a case-by-case basis, but as a general rule, the minimum amount of time we will consider is one year of residency in the old region. As referenced above, you MUST be able to verify said residency via forum IPs; if your IPs do not reflect this prior residency, your application will not be accepted. Eligibility for the rejected team will be forfeited.


As a reminder, hosts and TDs reserve the right to reject any player they deem to be insufficiently eligible. An example of this would be a player whose IP drastically changes shortly before the start of the tournament.
Team selection:
- Multiple incumbent teams given the option to select opponents will do so from highest to lowest seed
- Any incumbent team given the option to select an opponent may yield it to a lower seed as long as they haven't already been given a pick
- e.g. Seed 14 yields their pick; it goes to Seed 16, and Seed 15 can no longer give up their pick
- Depending on the number of new teams, the format will be different in the following way:

1 team:
  • Seed 16 plays the challenging team for qualification

2 teams:
  • Seeds 15 and 16 play the two challenging teams, with Seed 15 given choice of team

3 teams:
  • Seeds 14, 15, and 16 play the three challenging teams, with Seeds 14 and 15 given choices of teams

4 teams:
  • Seeds 14 and 15 pick challenging teams to play for qualification
  • The remaining two challenging teams play each other, and Seed 16 plays the winner for qualification

5 teams:
  • Seed 14 picks a challenging team to play for qualification
  • The remaining four challenging teams are randomly paired to play each other
  • Seeds 15 and 16 play the winners for qualification, with Seed 15 given choice of team

6 teams:
  • The six challenging teams are randomly paired to play each other
  • Seeds 14, 15, and 16 play the winners for qualification, with Seeds 14 and 15 given choice of team

7 teams:
  • Round 1:
    • Seed 16 picks a challenging team to play
    • The remaining six challenging teams are randomly paired to play each other
  • Round 2:
    • Seeds 14 and 15 pick challenging teams to play for qualification, excluding Seed 16 if still present
    • The remaining two teams fight for qualification

Endless Battles being counted as ties
Faking IP's for eligibility

Games played by an alt

Letting an alt join your team

New pokémon being released in the playoffs
Moving a player to another group in case of a disqualification
Player being banned does not entitle team to a replacement

Relegation

Player abandoning a team
 
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RE: Bdlc

Situation: Bdlc demanded that one of his players receive ghosting for his qualifier matches.

Result: Bdlc will be tournament banned for 1 year, and not allowed to manage in a team tournament again, as per the SPL VIII precedent.
Lucix will become the team Africa captain, and name a player from the roster to become his co-captain.
A team having a player banned is not cause for getting a replacement.
 
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RE: Aquafinity

Situation: Aquafinity leaked one of the sets that Serene Grace intended to use versus High Impulse to team UK. The leak was immediately reported to the TD team and Team India was informed prior to the game taking place.

Result: Aquafinity will have his tournament ban extended by six months since it's his second offense.
 
WCoP Qualifying Format

In the last few editions the qualifying format was decided by the tournament directors on the spot, which meant that teams did not know how many rounds they needed to play before signing up as a new team. To make this phase of WCoP more transparent, the future WCoP relegation rules will be the following:

Team selection:
- Multiple incumbent teams given the option to select opponents will do so from highest to lowest seed
- Any incumbent team given the option to select an opponent may yield it to a lower seed as long as they haven't already been given a pick
- e.g. Seed 14 yields their pick; it goes to Seed 16, and Seed 15 can no longer give up their pick
- Depending on the number of new teams, the format will be different in the following way:

1 team:
  • Seed 16 plays the challenging team for qualification

2 teams:
  • Seeds 15 and 16 play the two challenging teams, with Seed 15 given choice of team

3 teams:
  • Seeds 14, 15, and 16 play the three challenging teams, with Seeds 14 and 15 given choices of teams

4 teams:
  • Seeds 14 and 15 pick challenging teams to play for qualification
  • The remaining two challenging teams play each other, and Seed 16 plays the winner for qualification

5 teams:
  • Seed 14 picks a challenging team to play for qualification
  • The remaining four challenging teams are randomly paired to play each other
  • Seeds 15 and 16 play the winners for qualification, with Seed 15 given choice of team

6 teams:
  • The six challenging teams are randomly paired to play each other
  • Seeds 14, 15, and 16 play the winners for qualification, with Seeds 14 and 15 given choice of team

7 teams:
  • Round 1:
    • Seed 16 picks a challenging team to play
    • The remaining six challenging teams are randomly paired to play each other
  • Round 2:
    • Seeds 14 and 15 pick challenging teams to play for qualification, excluding Seed 16 if still present
    • The remaining two teams fight for qualification
In case of ties between any of the teams seeded between 13 and 16, a tiebreaker will be played in order to determine which team will take which seed. This tiebreaker will consist of three SS games (Bo3) and will be played directly after the conclusion of Round 1.
 
RE: talah

Talah left the Team Greece discord during qualifiers and showed no intention to play or participate at all afterwards, which is not acceptable. He'll be removed from WCoP 2020, banned from participating in WCoP 2021 and infracted for poor sportsmanship.
 
Re: Astamatitos v Kickasser

After multiple reschedulings, Astamatitos and Kickasser agreed to play on Saturday, July 11 at 4 PM GMT +1. However, Kickasser was unable to make that time due to a personal emergency. Astamatitos informed Team France that he would be unable to play on July 12, but agreed to be on for the following hour if Kickasser was able to make it or if France was able to provide a substitute. However, France was unable to provide a substitute for the game.

Decision: Team Greece will be awarded the activity win for the match.
 
Re: talah

talah was reported by his team's captain for leaving Team Greece's discord, "liking" the posts of Team Europe and Greece's opponents, and allegedly helping team Europe both in general and in their matches against Greece. He has since appealed this ban; he alleges he was still willing to help despite not being in the team chat and in his appeal supplied evidence that he reached out to a teammate expressing this, as well as requesting that his message be conveyed to the other team's captain.

We reassessed the report and failed to find any indication that Talah helped Team Europe against Greece; furthermore, no evidence was provided to us of this beyond speculation that talah built the team Twixtry used against CBU, which was also used much earlier by Quaze against West. Helping another team or player beyond that isn't against the rules, and obviously, what posts someone "likes" is completely irrelevant.

As for leaving the discord, this isn't sufficient grounds for a report. Frequently in team tournaments, a player will leave the discord following a difficult argument or loss. In such cases, managers tend to exercise responsibility and initiate the reconciliation necessary to bring the player back. We found in this case the team captain made no such effort and instead went straight for a ban report during the middle of the tournament, for no seeming benefit to their team. Enabling managers to drop players with no effort made on their part to (re)integrate them into the team is behavior we do not want to encourage.

Given all of this, we are undoing talah's WCOP ban.

We want to make the following points clear:

1. Except in cases where explicitly allowed (SPL sellbacks), replacing members of a team mid-tournament has not been allowed in the past decade, nor will it ever be in the foreseeable future.

2. Except in the cases of sellbacks, cheating, or team leaking/sabotage, we will not be evaluating reports made on team quitters until the conclusion of the tournament, even if they are submitted before that point.

3. We will be speaking anyone accused of quitting on a team before closing a report. If the accused intends to defend their behavior with a reason such as a toxic environment, they will be expected to provide evidence to substantiate their claims.
 
RE: Qualifying Format WCoP 2021

In this post, we came up with qualifying formats for up to 7 new team, so that each team was aware how many rounds they needed to win to qualify for the main event. However, we did not expect to reach 8 new teams for this edition, and we thus needed to come up with a new format. After careful consideration, we found an extension of the 7 team format to be the most intuitive, fair, and consistent with all the other formats. Therefore, the qualifying format for this WCoP will be:

8 teams:
  • Round 1:
    • Seed 15 and 16 pick a challenging team to play.
    • The remaining six challenging teams are randomly paired to play each other.
  • Round 2:
    • Seeds 14 picks a challenging team to play for qualification, excluding Seed 15 and 16 if still present.
    • The remaining four teams fight for qualification, with Seed 15 and 16 not being paired together if still present.
 
RE: Qualifying Format WCoP 2022

The Tournament Directors agreed that immediate knockout brackets are not ideal for determining qualification; this is especially evident after the example of last year's Team Argentina, which would have had to beat eventual champions US South to even qualify.

To reduce the impact of bracket draws, the first Qualifying round will be replaced by another Round Robin, in which all qualifying teams will be entered. Each team will field 8 players and each player will play 2 games. At the end of the RR the highest seed will automatically qualify for the main stage; 7v7 knockout rounds will be played to determine the remaining spots, with seed 2 choosing their preferred opponent between seeds 4 and 5, and seed 3 playing the other.
 
RE: RedEmption, Kazt

RedEmption has been tournament banned and Kazt has been forum banned for reasons unrelated to WCoP. They are removed from the tournament and must be subbed out.

The TD team has decided teams France and Venezuela will not be able to add another player to their roster to replace them in Qualifiers (following this precedent).

However, they will be able to select a replacement should they make it to the main stage of WCoP. (This is consistent with other sections of the ruleset that treat Qualifiers as a separate tournament from main stage WCoP - for example, team locking.)
 
RE: Flex OKLM

Situation: We received reports of Flex OKLM repeatedly berating his teammates throughout the Qualifying stage, on multiple separate occasions. When his team captains attempted to pacify him, Flex OKLM maintained an extremely hostile attitude and eventually left the team chat.
While he did not refuse to play any games at any point, it is clear that his behavior was unacceptable and aggressive beyond the scope of normal team disagreements. We believe Flex OKLM's behavior breaches our rules against team sabotage due to his repeated bashing of his teammates and refusal to admit any guilt or correct course after being confronted by his captain.

Result: Flex OKLM will be Tournament Banned for 3 months and banned from joining team tournaments for 1 year.
France has been allowed to select replacements for him and RedEmption between the Qualifier stage and the Main stage; they selected Quartosa and Cicada.
 
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RE: Mario34 vs mncmt

Situation: The game was originally scheduled for the end of the 2nd week; due to unforeseen circumstances, mncmt had to move the game to week 3 and asked for an exception to the rule that states all players must have a game played by the end of Week 2, which I granted. The game was moved to Thursday, and mncmt later asked for yet another time shift; when the players agreed on a new time however, mncmt misunderstood it, and failed to show up for well over 45 minutes. Team Brazil was unable to provide a substitute.

While we normally try to encourage getting games played over giving activity wins, Mario34 went above and beyond to make the game happen already, and mncmt's behavior disrespected his efforts while he was already on thin ice with scheduling matters due to him ignoring the one-game-before-Week-3 rule. Due to this exceedingly rare combination of factors, we deem it adequate to make a call now.

Result: Mario34 is awarded the activity win.
 
RE: Luigi vs Uxilon, KillaLeston vs Dark Shion

These games were played during heavy server difficulties to regular completion. Replays were unable to be uploaded to the replay client, but I (and many others) viewed the games live, and I downloaded the HTML replay files, which I have uploaded here for anyone to download and view:
Luigi vs Uxilon
KillaLeston vs Dark Shion
The results of the matches are completely valid.
 
RE: denger vs devin

denger timed out on Turn 11 of his battle against devin. denger did not disconnect at any point, and timed out from only 15 seconds.

denger and Team Bangladesh claim that they were experiencing lag due to server issues. This will not change the outcome of the match for two reasons:
1. By the rules, games can be recreated only in the case of a true disconnection. Here, there was no disconnection at all.
2. There is no evidence of technical issues on a larger scale - other games were happening concurrently with no technical issues - and as such, no justification to make exceptions to the rules.
 
RE: Chesnaught, Inteleon

Chesnaught has been released in SV OU. It will not be allowed for the remainder of Qualifying Round 1, and will be legal in the following rounds (including possible tiebreakers).
Players who attempt to use Chesnaught will receive an immediate game loss, as is standard policy in such situations.

Inteleon, released earlier during Qualifying Round 1, is likewise not allowed until the end of the round.
 
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RE: cscl vs Sakis

Sakis was not present at the scheduled time against cscl. I personally reached out to team Greece managers and some players about the issue, but none replied within the 30 minute window. Team China requested the activity win, and has a clear cut case as per the guidelines.

Result: activity win to cscl
 
RE: Pokémon HOME & Tournament Format

The Qualifier stages will be brought to completion entirely in pre-HOME meta.

The Main Stage will be played entirely in post-HOME meta, and the captains of participating teams will vote between June 5th or June 12th as start dates.

This may change depending on the actual date of Pokemon HOME's update.
 
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