Implemented WCOP Format (tiers)

[Laurel]

Option 4 for me is more preferable thanks to ADV OU having the biggest playerbase for an old gen, It would be much easier to find an ADV player than a ORAS player. Especially if the teams slots do go up to 10 rather than 8.

Great post but this point isn’t necessarily true. Just because there are more Gen 3 players doesn’t mean it’s easier to field someone competent. Fairy gens will be easier since it’s got team preview and more comparable to Gen 9.

Anyways, let’s just have a vote. The same way it used to be done for SPL tiers. I currently support any format besides all CG OU.

 

[RoiDadadou]

https://www.smogon.com/stats/2024-01/ Source

Options
8 SV OU - (Option 1 - 8 Slots)
5 SV OU / Ubers / UU / Doubles OU - (Option 2 - 8 Slots)
4 SV OU / Ubers / UU / Doubles OU / SS OU / SM OU / ORAS OU - (Option 3 - 10 Slots)
4 SV OU / Ubers / UU / Doubles OU / SS OU / SM OU / ADV OU - (Option 4 - 10 Slots)

Do want to say that, if Option 1 is considered as an option, I can't really see why Ubers/UU would have to stay in option 3 and up to 10 slots if we want to slot in Old Gens.

Think a fifth option like 4 SV OU / Doubles OU / SS OU / SM OU / ORAS OU (or ADV you get what I mean) with eight slots would also be on the table, keeping the 'OU' vibe of the tour while bringing new content to the table.

 

[Dorron]

No DOU in the tour pls, it's always the doubles player having little to no support while the rest of the team can efficiently help each other, have been like this in every tour I've been part of. It just feels so out of place. Not opposing to Ubers/UU but I think old gens OUs are way better picks. I'd even support x4 SV OU + ADV-SS (10 slots, hear me out) over Ubers/UU. And ye, all CG OU sucks.

 

[LBN]

I usually stick out of threads like this, primarily because I don't think I'm well versed enough for inputting, but truthfully it's intensely frustrating seeing more discussions of lower tiers getting snubbed for comically bad or just superfluous reasonings. Seeing takes like "I'm hesitant to include lower tiers because of accounting for suspects / quickbans" and then spinning around to support 5 slots on the tier that has (justifiably) banned roughly 16+ things and have discussions of loads more bans on the table is almost flagrantly hypocritical. Other joyous points in this thread like "DOU is the least liked of all of the tiers" and basing this off of people inputting "tiers not played" when it's an entirely different battle format is equally a non point. And that ignores the Ubers addendum of "it was cut before so it feels weird to have it over RU/NU etc" as if the issue that got it cut in the first place hasn't been gone for over 5-6 years by this point. Seeing this kind of thing, especially from the tier leader of Monotype, the tier that deals with unfair criticisms to it all the time to keep it out of officials is a farce all its own. If we want to go by actual "enjoyability" which is a dogshit metric to begin with, Ubers just raked in a pitiful 5.67 in stability and OU hasn't raked in higher than a 7.0/10 in enjoyability since February of last year.

I was hoping that with the advent of SCL we wouldn't be trying to cut lower tiers of out tours for mediocre or outright biased reasonings, and seeing people argue for things like cutting lower tiers out based on player base # reasonings (as if the top % of the players isn't the primary focus anyways) which in turn motivates people to play these tiers less to begin with is one of the most fucking frustrating things to see on this website.

Just decide on a thing, forget the semantics do we want lower tiers in or not. No Ubers/DOU/UU half-measuring, that just makes the tiers who didn't get included because little timmy can't ladder with his blaziken in the school library get curbsided for no reason. If you want all OU because "there's barely any players from x country that play this tier" how about asking why that's the case to begin with.

 

[RoiDadadou]

Anyways, let’s just have a vote. The same way it used to be done for SPL tiers. I currently support any format besides all CG OU.

I think that's what we should aim at right now, defining how a potential poll on this matter will be structured. Very important to avoid missing what the community truly wants to do with this tournament.

No DOU in the tour pls, it's always the doubles player having little to no support while the rest of the team can efficiently help each other

While that is very true, and I've had to help out some of them in the past (yone), I'd say there's no other tour like WCoP to get support no matter the tier, since it's a tournament where you give it your all for your country. If there's a place where Duo can be efficiently integrated with mates that care for you victory, it's imo this one.

I usually stick out of threads like this, primarily because I don't think I'm well versed enough for inputting, but truthfully it's intensely frustrating seeing more discussions of lower tiers getting snubbed for comically bad or just superfluous reasonings. Seeing takes like "I'm hesitant to include lower tiers because of accounting for suspects / quickbans" and then spinning around to support 5 slots on the tier that has (justifiably) banned roughly 16+ things and have discussions of loads more bans on the table is almost flagrantly hypocritical. Other joyous points in this thread like "DOU is the least liked of all of the tiers" and basing this off of people inputting "tiers not played" when it's an entirely different battle format is equally a non point. And that ignores the Ubers addendum of "it was cut before so it feels weird to have it over RU/NU etc" as if the issue that got it cut in the first place hasn't been gone for over 5-6 years by this point. Seeing this kind of thing, especially from the tier leader of Monotype, the tier that deals with unfair criticisms to it all the time to keep it out of officials is a farce all its own. If we want to go by actual "enjoyability" which is a dogshit metric to begin with, Ubers just raked in a pitiful 5.67 in stability and OU hasn't raked in higher than a 7.0/10 in enjoyability since February of last year.

I was hoping that with the advent of SCL we wouldn't be trying to cut lower tiers of out tours for mediocre or outright biased reasonings, and seeing people argue for things like cutting lower tiers out based on player base # reasonings (as if the top % of the players isn't the primary focus anyways) which in turn motivates people to play these tiers less to begin with is one of the most fucking frustrating things to see on this website.

Just decide on a thing, forget the semantics do we want lower tiers in or not. No Ubers/DOU/UU half-measuring, that just makes the tiers who didn't get included because little timmy can't ladder with his blaziken in the school library get curbsided for no reason. If you want all OU because "there's barely any players from x country that play this tier" how about asking why that's the case to begin with.

I think using ladder/forum participation, or in/not played as a factor is indeed not very relevant. Also, if you took my bit on Shifts/Bans as an argument of its own, my point was not to say that UU/RU/NU had more bans than OU, but that OU's changes are dictated by what happens directly in the format, whereas including format that evolve based on what was potentially stolen by the tier above is, I believe, not the greatest thing in a nation cup like this one. That's my point of view however, but it's this kind of unstable and reactive state that bother me in its inclusion, and not the metagames in themselves, if you get what I mean. If you have any fixes to suggest on those few points, I'd be glad to hear them

 

[Finchinator]

I think a lot of people need to get over themselves with regards to not wanting lower tiers in their tournament or thinking lower tiers are too volatile to be included. The wave of “remove lower tiers” and “lower tiers don’t belong in officials” belong in 2014, not 2024. Every tier has some issues (such as CG OU and other potentially included OUs) and no format is perfect, but some arguments here have been silly.

UU is a model metagame, in my opinion. It has an active tiering group and a playerbase that is second to only OU in terms of quality and depth. I also think Ubers has done a great job ever since it was reintroduced to official tournaments. Speaking as a TD (on behalf of myself — not the team): I would be content including both.

Being realistic, we can only fit so many slots and there are some formats that I have concerns about including over others. These aren’t all formats I am a firsthand player or follower of though, so I am glad threads like this exist to inform us all. Whatever decision is made won’t please everyone, but it will be done with plenty of thought and as much transparency as possible I hope.

 

[Astoria]

As a captain of a smaller team I would love to see oldgens. But why not vote on the tiers played and essentially customize tiers to the communities wishes? - 4x CG OU - 6x custom.

ADV, DPP, ORAS, SM along with some lower gens are all insanely popular. We are here to have fun playing our favorite gens so why not use WCop as the tournament to fill its slots with the most popular metagames year in year out. This would also give incentive for tier leaders and communities to promote and improve their respective tier. This seems to be the most logical step to not only create the best format for Smogon Wcop but to also create a spirit of growth and healthy competition between tiers.

Only questions is how do we vote - I suppose it should be a mix of a community vote and one of Team Captains.

Cannot think of any argument speaking against playing our favorite tiers/gens - isn't this why we are on this site in the first place?

edit: would likely boil down to: ADV, DPP, ORAS, SM + two most popular lower tiers. might inspire BWers, RBYers etc. to try to replicate the Boom ADV got on Youtube.

 

[kumiko]

part of me is glad this was revisited, as i do not really like the current tiering split between spl / wcop/ scl. but it feels like we're circling the same arguments every year or so and really just picking based off of vibes, which change a lot.

a lot of people hate sv which is entirely subjective. disliking the tier is fine, but we should not switch the format solely because people are like "hurr durr me want tera banned waah boots me no like sv". if there's an issue with the tier, that is a problem with the tiering of it and not the tournament format. if people only want this change because they don't like the tier, simply grow up. you are not obligated to sign up for every tournament. if it is because an all cg format is boring to spectate, that is a perfectly reasonable stance, but also far from unanimous. if we want to change the format back again to full cg (permanently, not just on release year of a gen) in the future if we have some marvelous metagame, then it's ridiculous to change it now. the format should be consistent and we should stop wanting to change it every single generation.

i made a post on this subject two years ago and my stance is largely the same. i'm not going to repeat myself here but we really should not be considering adding just old gens. old gen superiority that a ton of people feel over lower tier players is so unfounded; lower tier playerbases nowadays are as good, if not better, than the majority of old gens. including numerous old gens and not lower tiers is genuinely outrageous.

however, moving forward, i do think a discussion should be held on whether or not wcop is the ideal tournament for this purpose, because one major flaw it has compared to other team tournaments is that teams are most likely gonna be very similar regardless of what tiers are played. therefore, i can also see it not working at all at intersecting these groups, but i do think it's worth the shot for this edition anyway.

this post and gb's original has me thinking that we should seriously consider changing our approach to these three tournaments. to me, there are only three options.

1. we stick with the current format
2. we make wcop a split between lower tiers and old gens, keeping spl and scl the same.
3. we revert back to the old format, where spl is a mix of lower tiers and old gens, wcop is for old gens only, and scl is for lower tiers.

i only bring up the idea of 3 because i agree with the sentiment of many people that adding lower tiers to wcop is quite random. there's no history there, while there is plenty of history in spl. i do not like the idea of having lower tiers in both of the auction formats and adding lower tiers back to spl practically enforces a nuke of retains during the transition year which is a bit silly. i also am not a proponent of ~history~ being a determining factor. what matters more is what's best for the community, not what some old farts that don't login anymore decided over a decade ago.

if we change the wcop format, it absolutely needs to be the most recent old gens. quite frankly, it's disingenuous to pretend there's equal resources and playerbases available to each region because of a more active ladder. a large majority of people who play in wcop have played the most recent generations. they are also available in both smogtour and masters, whereas adv is only available in classic. there's also an insanely big difference in mechanics that it's really as random as adding doubles to an all ou tournament.

as for lower tiers, i don't have a strong opinion on which tiers should be included, but using ladder stat comparisons with ubers is frankly insane. if you've ever loaded an ubers game in your life, you'd know a large number of people that ladder in that format are doing it because ou banned their favorite pokemon or they used palafin on their in game team or something. i do not want to entirely neglect it, but giving ubers a locked spot simply because of ladder stats is unreasonable. however, they have a lot of signups for stuff like their most recent ubers world cup in comparison to uupl, 349 vs. 232. albeit some of the posts were rosters, but still, easily 100 more. uu had a close to as many more signups for slam compared to ubers (438 vs. 355), though.

one thing that has confused me with this discussion is... why is vgc excluded? vgc ladder absolutely dwarfs every metagame discussed; in fact it only barely has less games than cg ou does (reg f bo3 ladder 1,648,080 vs gen 9 ou 1,880,968). vgc is absolutely easy to get into and, considering how big it is worldwide, i highly doubt any team would not be able to field a player. if we are to include doubles, i think vgc should also be included, so the two formats aren't entirely isolated. we also should add vgc to scl btw!

if we want to change the format, i believe it needs to be a 10 slot tournament featuring 5-6 current gen slots, the two most recent old gens, and at least two non-ous. ie:

6 sv / ss / sm / ubers / uu
5 sv / ss / sm / ubers / uu / dou or vgc
5 sv / ss / sm / dou / vgc / uu or ubers
5 sv / ss / sm / uu / ru / nu

or keep it as is.

 

[ABR]

I literally love ADV but please stop assuming that ladder stats mean a tier should be added. If oldgens are included, it should be the most recent ones (however many).

I mean it.

 

[SoulWind]

If the current format being boring and repetitive is the main reason for a change..

Why would we be adding tiers like SS and SM to the mix? For the past 3 years, watching or playing these tiers in any tournament that featured them has been a guaranteed snoozefest, with a few exceptions of people that actually build new teams and put the effort there. Every week in the current SPL has just been people reusing shit that has been spammed in past tournaments to boredom. Doesn't look like it would fix the main issue. Not to even mention the oversaturation these tiers already hold being played in SPL, Smogon Tour and Masters.

The only possibility for them being remotely compelling for the players and also the spectators is that this tournament was used as a testing ground to apply (possible) changes that could possibly make them more entertaining (like a few unbans for example). I know there are some players that actually want to fix this issue but can't due to lack of support or activity in their respective councils, and it is quite a shame. Tournaments are rotting and the quality of play keeps decreasing. I personally don't mind a change of format, but if the solution is to slice a putrid cake in more parts to have more people around happy, I can only look at it as a sign of regression.

If there is a change, it should be for the better. Whatever the final format ends up being, I hope it is one that makes people genuinely excited for the next game to come and not to click a battle warning to spectate something they have already watched a dozen times.

 

[MANNAT]

one thing that has confused me with this discussion is... why is vgc excluded? vgc ladder absolutely dwarfs every metagame discussed; in fact it only barely has less games than cg ou does (reg f bo3 ladder 1,648,080 vs gen 9 ou 1,880,968). vgc is absolutely easy to get into and, considering how big it is worldwide, i highly doubt any team would not be able to field a player. if we are to include doubles, i think vgc should also be included, so the two formats aren't entirely isolated. we also should add vgc to scl btw!

The big issue that is (somewhat) unique to VGC is that the people who would be playing it in this tour would likely care about irl tournaments more than WCOP. There’s an official circuit that players fly out to and play in person that they’ll care about a hell of a lot more than a smogon tournament that happens to feature VGC. DOU is smogon’s flagship doubles format and should be included if we’re going that route. With regards to the format as a whole, none of the masters tiers should be excluded (and if one is it sure as shit shouldn’t be oras), and some of the non-ou cg tiers should be in.

 

[z0mOG]

WCoP also directly intersects with NAIC (biggest tour, June 7th-9th) and worlds (most important tour, August 16th-18th) prep time. The 3 games of pools and a trophy does not justify enough of a reason for any players to take WCoP seriously over real VGC tournaments happening at the same time. DOU doesn't run into these problems. Include it with some low tier representation and some old gen representation.

 

[blank]

midwest wants the luigi format but we are also ok with vgc instead of doubles (mannat doesn’t speak on behalf of midwest)

 

[Tuthur]

I appreciate the current format and believe the boring aspect is exacerbated. It is true that some teams were reused a lot, and there were common cores. However, it felt to me that the team who did well were the ones which were the most able to diverge from these structures and take advantage of metagame trends with out of the scope metagame picks. The teams that kept reusing the same things over and over usually tend to lose to the ones who kept innovating. WCoP is the tournament where teams have the strongest identity and where team work is the easiest, meaning working as a team on ideas isnt as hard as when you have different timezone from your teammates and you all communicate in your mother tongue (not necessarily true for every team, especially continentals, but accurate for most teams).

Nonetheless, I do understand that some players would like more variety in the tournament. However, it is hypocritical to suggest Old Gens or even just Master Gens to replace them. I feel like Soulwind made a great post explaining why Old Gens wont make the tournament less boring (if not more).

If boredom is to combat in WCoP, then the obvious solution should be lower tiers. Lower tiers are easy to learn because they are not super optimized due to tier shifts basically reseting them every couple months, which means that the knowledge gap between a newcomer to the tier and a mainer isnt as significant as with old gens that have been roughly the same for years. Lower tiers are closer to CG OU than Old Gens, even Fairy gens. This is very obvious with SV and might continue with future generations; there isnt much in common between Master Gens and SV beside the same type chart and a couple of pokemon like Clefable and Landorus being in the tier, while the introduction and removal of mechanics, Pokemon, moves, and items make them very different tiers. On the other hand, lower tiers play very similarly from ou, with the only difference being the available Pokémon which is already a difference present between CG OU and Old Gens. I do also believe lower tiers would keep this particular teamwork atmosphere that is very unique to WCoP, as recreating / reusing teams isnt as efficient in lower tiers, and keeping being creative in the builder is rewarded.

As for the choice of lower tiers featured in WCoP, I do believe we should only keep the most accessible ones. DOU is completely isolated from the rest of the lower tier community, due to be fundamentally different from single tiers. While it is acceptable for auction tournaments to have an isolated slot, featuring it goes imo against the spirit of WCoP. This is especially true with WCoP overlapping with important VGC tournaments, something which has been an issue for the other DOU trophy tournament. This would leave the 6 Slam tiers that should be able to fit with 4 SV OU slots. If there needs to be less lower tiers (either because we want 5 SV OU or 8 slots), then it should be LC next due to being the least alike the other tiers format (level 5 + not being usage based). If we need to cut it to 4 slots, I'd say to remove Ubers as it is the least alike to UU, RU, NU, and PU due to it not being usage based and using a different tiering policy allowing them for more hypercentralization.

Thus the formats I suggest are:
4 OU + 1 Ubers, UU, RU, NU, PU, LC
5 OU + 1 Ubers, UU, RU, NU, PU
4 / 6 OU + 1 UU, RU, NU, PU

tldr: 8 CG OU is fine. Adding Old Gens is hypocritical and making the "problem" worse. Lower tiers should be included to add more variety, with UU, RU, NU, PU > Ubers > LC > DOU

 

[Clas]

As someone on the supporting end of WCOP 22/23, I don't get this suggested change at all. I come from the OMs background and we have a lot of played tiers at once, but the one thing that WCOP did well these past two years is show off the potential CGOU has as not only a staple format but its flexibility. If this is about enjoyment, that's not going to change by changing the tiers present and instead just do the opposite now that your players are fragmented into different tiers instead of working together to create good teams. This isn't even that difficult, as you are able to quite comfortably look at your opponent, look at what Pokemon could be abused, and then go from there without much issue especially since you aren't worrying about repeating the same Pokemon as much unlike in other tiers because so much is viable right now.

Maybe in time I could be more open to introducing tiers like UU, LC, and Ubers. Maybe I'll be wrong and it would only be a generally positive change. But at least for the time being I can't see it doing great compared to just what it is now, which already works great as is and the biggest issue I can see people having is CGOU not being the best tier ever currently and the lack of upcoming tournaments to help iron out issues prior to WCOP. As for oldgens, just go play RoAWC or something, that exists for a reason.

TL;DR keep same, maybe Ubers/UU/etc could be a fine addition but it's not worth doing right now. Oldgens are a big no.

 

[Eoward]

As captain of the Belgian team, I'd like to give my opinion on the matter.
We've discussed it with the guys (@kharma, Wanony, AxCypher...), and our opinion is pretty unanimous.
We're in favor of integrating old OU gens, insofar as it might bring a bit of variety and motivate new players to get involved with the national team.
You might say "lower tiers too", but we're not in favor of adding slots for lower tiers (UU, Ubers,...).
In my opinion, this distorts the format. It's a format in which teams have been investing for years, and we've all been through OU gens, through world cups.
Reducing OU slots for lower tiers will undermine existing team members. Some will find themselves sidelined (or will sideline themselves) as the format changes significantly. The worldcup is also a teamtour where families clash, that's how I see my guys. We've built something together, and I don't want to lose that spirit and see the guys demotivated (knowing that I can see that all my boys are up against it).
If you want to play lower tiers, all you have to do is take part in other teamtours.
We can adapt the format, but let's keep this Wcup spirit, where OU dominates.

 

[RoiDadadou]

I appreciate the current format and believe the boring aspect is exacerbated. It is true that some teams were reused a lot, and there were common cores. However, it felt to me that the team who did well were the ones which were the most able to diverge from these structures and take advantage of metagame trends with out of the scope metagame picks. The teams that kept reusing the same things over and over usually tend to lose to the ones who kept innovating. WCoP is the tournament where teams have the strongest identity and where team work is the easiest, meaning working as a team on ideas isnt as hard as when you have different timezone from your teammates and you all communicate in your mother tongue (not necessarily true for every team, especially continentals, but accurate for most teams).

Nonetheless, I do understand that some players would like more variety in the tournament. However, it is hypocritical to suggest Old Gens or even just Master Gens to replace them. I feel like Soulwind made a great post explaining why Old Gens wont make the tournament less boring (if not more).

If boredom is to combat in WCoP, then the obvious solution should be lower tiers. Lower tiers are easy to learn because they are not super optimized due to tier shifts basically reseting them every couple months, which means that the knowledge gap between a newcomer to the tier and a mainer isnt as significant as with old gens that have been roughly the same for years. Lower tiers are closer to CG OU than Old Gens, even Fairy gens. This is very obvious with SV and might continue with future generations; there isnt much in common between Master Gens and SV beside the same type chart and a couple of pokemon like Clefable and Landorus being in the tier, while the introduction and removal of mechanics, Pokemon, moves, and items make them very different tiers. On the other hand, lower tiers play very similarly from ou, with the only difference being the available Pokémon which is already a difference present between CG OU and Old Gens. I do also believe lower tiers would keep this particular teamwork atmosphere that is very unique to WCoP, as recreating / reusing teams isnt as efficient in lower tiers, and keeping being creative in the builder is rewarded.

As for the choice of lower tiers featured in WCoP, I do believe we should only keep the most accessible ones. DOU is completely isolated from the rest of the lower tier community, due to be fundamentally different from single tiers. While it is acceptable for auction tournaments to have an isolated slot, featuring it goes imo against the spirit of WCoP. This is especially true with WCoP overlapping with important VGC tournaments, something which has been an issue for the other DOU trophy tournament. This would leave the 6 Slam tiers that should be able to fit with 4 SV OU slots. If there needs to be less lower tiers (either because we want 5 SV OU or 8 slots), then it should be LC next due to being the least alike the other tiers format (level 5 + not being usage based). If we need to cut it to 4 slots, I'd say to remove Ubers as it is the least alike to UU, RU, NU, and PU due to it not being usage based and using a different tiering policy allowing them for more hypercentralization.

Thus the formats I suggest are:
4 OU + 1 Ubers, UU, RU, NU, PU, LC
5 OU + 1 Ubers, UU, RU, NU, PU
4 / 6 OU + 1 UU, RU, NU, PU

tldr: 8 CG OU is fine. Adding Old Gens is hypocritical and making the "problem" worse. Lower tiers should be included to add more variety, with UU, RU, NU, PU > Ubers > LC > DOU

As captain of the Belgian team, I'd like to give my opinion on the matter.
We've discussed it with the guys (@kharma, Wanony, AxCypher...), and our opinion is pretty unanimous.
We're in favor of integrating old OU gens, insofar as it might bring a bit of variety and motivate new players to get involved with the national team.
You might say "lower tiers too", but we're not in favor of adding slots for lower tiers (UU, Ubers,...).
In my opinion, this distorts the format. It's a format in which teams have been investing for years, and we've all been through OU gens, through world cups.
Reducing OU slots for lower tiers will undermine existing team members. Some will find themselves sidelined (or will sideline themselves) as the format changes significantly. The worldcup is also a teamtour where families clash, that's how I see my guys. We've built something together, and I don't want to lose that spirit and see the guys demotivated (knowing that I can see that all my boys are up against it).
If you want to play lower tiers, all you have to do is take part in other teamtours.
We can adapt the format, but let's keep this Wcup spirit, where OU dominates.

Want to bounce on that and say that Eoward's post is if anything has to change. Currently on Belgian team, we're in favor of staying in full CG OU, in the same vein as Tuthur, who stated multiple arguments in favor of this proposal.

Yes, it has been a boredom in SS OU, but this Gen 9 keeps evolving, and I've never had the thought during last WCoP that we were always playing and loading the same six, because we actually went out of our ways to imagine and reimagine comps while the meta progressed, even during instable times like HOME releae. If that felt like that for some teams, then we did not have the same experience or mentality and I'm sorry for that, but I think applying past cases (like SS WC) to SV has proven to be wrong in many scenarios since the Gen came out.

I get the case some people will make about wanting diversity, but each time a comp was spammed last edition, it was a huge part of the game and experience to find its weaknesses, and help develop the meta around such 'optimized teams', to create new weaknesses for them and advance the Generation.

Again, specific take from a team that gave its all to qualify last season, and personal take from someone who's never seen a tournament format bringing people closer in their prep and cohesion than full CG OU WCoP, but I feel like both were important to state.

 

[MANNAT]

Most people seem to disagree with each other in this thread, I think a survey before wcop would be nice.

I implore the TDs to stop using surveys/polls as a problem-solving method for contentious topics like these. Any poll involving the participants of a tour is going to be rife with bias and every team/player is just going to vote for their best-interest. Let's say as an example that team Bangladesh has the best UU and DOU players in the world, Europe has the best ADV player in the world, and Oceania has the best RU player in the world. These teams will vote for completely different formats solely because of what they believe gives their team the best chance to win the tournament independent of what they believe will be best for the tournament as a whole. This will result in a splintered playerbase vote where everyone votes for different formats and the status quo is ultimately upheld due to a lack of ability to come to a decision.

It's clear that the community is dissatisfied wants something to change but having them vote on what to change it to is not the right way to decide. The "best" (albeit imperfect) way to decide this would definitely be for TDs and/or the WCOP hosts to decide on the format based on the opinions that they've formed from reading the thread, rather than polling the playerbase about what they think is best. Obviously, this puts decisions that impact many people in the hands of a few, but it's a less biased and more fair way to settle this issue than a poll.

edit: To expand on the TD decision making part of this, they should be held to a higher “moral” standard than the rest of the community. Part of the TD role/job description is being able to put your biases aside and reach the best conclusion for a tournament. On the flip side, non-TD captains and players are typically in the mindset of doing whatever they can to get their team to win the tour.

 

[Drifting]

I appreciate the current format and believe the boring aspect is exacerbated. It is true that some teams were reused a lot, and there were common cores. However, it felt to me that the team who did well were the ones which were the most able to diverge from these structures and take advantage of metagame trends with out of the scope metagame picks. The teams that kept reusing the same things over and over usually tend to lose to the ones who kept innovating. WCoP is the tournament where teams have the strongest identity and where team work is the easiest, meaning working as a team on ideas isnt as hard as when you have different timezone from your teammates and you all communicate in your mother tongue (not necessarily true for every team, especially continentals, but accurate for most teams).

the successful innovation in question

To make this post more than just a one liner making fun of tuthur I wanted to add a little of my opinion (which for the record does not represent Oceania as a whole)

I don’t think it takes a nostradamus to predict that another year of all cg ou would maybe not produce the best tournament. We’ve tried this format in years with a balanced meta (2022 SS) and years with an imo fun and fresh meta (2023 SV). We are now going into a year where CG OU is (subjectively but I’m sure many would agree) neither balanced nor particularly fun, stale even if SPL is anything to go by. That being said, I’m not quite as pessimistic as NJNP’s suggestion of 2 SV OU slots. A big part of wcop's fun for me is that brainstorming aspect with your friends and countrymen focused on one tier, and furthermore a lot of wcop darlings like Bangladesh rely on CG OU to build rosters and stay competitive; CG OU should probably stay as the central point of the tournament.

Luigi's suggested tiers aren't bad, and the symmetry-addicted freak in my head loves how it makes WCOP a balance between SPL's OU + Oldgen focus and SCL's OU + Lower Tier focus, similar to a 2015 SPL. It's almost an everyday occurrence for me talking to my irl friends about my hobbies or on ladder, where a more casual player will see one of my Custom Avatars and ask where I got it from. SPL and SCL having those simple mirrored premises of focusing on Oldgens or Lower Tiers makes them a lot easier for these people to understand, which is great, because in my opinion having our official team tournaments be logically constructed and simple to understand makes it easier and more attractive for casual players and spectators to get involved. World Cup though has a unique benefit of being immediately intuitive to understand the premise of (countries fighting each other) due to countless real world equivalents, and therefore is a perfect fit for a less obvious, hybrid tier format like this.

That being said, due to the cumulative facts that

1. I think having both SM and ORAS is probably unnecessary
2. The timing for DOU with VGC events as well as Doubles odd-one-out status in a teamcord full of Singles players
3. The fact that CG OU should again, be the focus

I'd like to suggest a format of 6 SV OU / SS OU / SM OU / SV Ubers / SV UU

This format keeps SV OU as the majority focus of the tournament, but also represents our very popular and commonly played Smogtour tiers, as well as our most popular lower tiers one step above and below our main format (again, with the symmetry).

I think this format strikes the perfect balance of variety, while still being easy to scout for less populated regions, making what I hope would be everyone happy. I'd love to see ADV included for the record, but it seems frankly out of place for a tournament like this. I'd also like to see the actual format have a group stage similar to the actual FIFA World Cup or currently underway Capcom Cup, but that's a topic for another thread. Thank you for your consideration.

 

[Pheo]

SS is a boring tier since no one tries to innovate, its representation in SPL, smogon tour AND masters is more than enough imo and I don't think it would be an interesting tier in wcup. Seeing the same teams every time is rly boring, lower tiers / other old gens would be nicer for spectators and players in my opinion, if u want to change the format.

 

[peng]

Alternate between SPL and SCL formats. Even years are CG OU + old gens, odd years are CG OU + lower tiers

 

[Astoria]

Team Austria supports the return of gens 3-7 to WCop.

We think that too many lower tiers are not an optimal option since they are constantly shifting and are thus harder to pick up for smaller teams whereas gens 3-7 are timeless classics. Its way easier to pick up those gens and build a team like this for the years coming. In all honesty the shift to all CG killed our team in the first place. Now our team doesn't have any active gen 3-6 players but as I said we believe that those gens are easy to get into with enough dedication to play year in year out which is not really possible with lower tiers.

 

[Finchinator]

The barrier of entry for old generations is higher than lower tiers. I don’t think this is up for debate. In fact, this barrier has been commonly cited as reason to not reintroduce certain older generations during prior editions (that’s not me saying I agree or not so much as me paraphrasing a slew of posts previously made in threads like these). Some smaller regions have struggled to fill out a lineup with competitive old generation slots.

Lower tiers have much more active ladders (specifically looking at UU and Ubers, which we are discussing here) and more recent resources. They are easy to get into within weeks or months, even if you account for shifts and bans. Old generations are challenging for new players to play at the highest level relatively speaking.

Obviously anything is possible (we see some new players do great things regardless of the format) and everyone is entitled to their preferences, but saying it is “way easier to pick up” old generations is simply false.

 

[Rigas]

Having read through the comments of this thread, my thoughts on the matter have been influenced by some of the points other commenters have made. I'll write my thoughts without directly referencing those comments.

- I believe that a format of only current gen OU isn't ideal, but I also don't think it's particularly bad. I prefer it over adding non-OU tiers. My #1 choice would be a format in which current gen OU takes up at least half of the slots, with the rest being assigned to the most recent non-current gen OU tiers. For example, the 2024 WCoP could be: 4x SV OU + 1x SS/SM/ORAS/BW OU.

- I like the combination of current gen OU + old gen OU mainly for three reasons. 1, getting to see multiple gens in action offers more variety 2, it allows national teams to have higher stability over the years, which is especially important for smaller teams 3, it makes it easier for older players, whose life circumstances might be preventing them from having the time + energy to properly learn the current gen, to still represent their country and compete.

- I believe that history should play a role. The "World Cup of Pokemon" isn't just a name; it carries a certain legacy with it. As far as I know (first got involved with the WCoP in 2015), the WCoP has only ever been either exclusively current generation OU or a combination of current gen OU + old gen OU. Primarily for that reason, I I would like it if the WCoP stayed as a OU-only tournament. However, sometimes things do need to change. In case the WCoP does end up moving away from OU-only, I believe it should do so by using slots for current gen tiers that are "close" to OU; the biggest candidates being UU and Ubers.

- I support a return to 10 starting slots over the current 8 starting slots. I don't see any particularly compelling reason for why WCoP lineups should be kept so small. Is it because the average level of play would drop a bit? Perhaps there are teams that have trouble getting together 10 players? If you are involved with a team and believe the WCoP should stay at 8 slots, please write to me with why that is so I can understand your perspective.

 

[ABR]

There is a common trope of “it’s harder for xyz teams to find oldgen players” when

1) lots of these teams seem to prefer oldgens if you actually ask them

2) the main proposal right now features doubles which is certainly stretched more thin than some oldgens, but also is extremely different from every other tier so it’s way harder to flex into

I think the desire to incorporate get back-cup is well intentioned but will just turn wcop into more of a low prestige joke. Almost anyone who played old (gen) wcops will tell you that it was far more hype and just a format that worked. We do not need to necessarily include all oldgens but doubles and ubers are not the solution.