-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Tournament Winter Team Tour Format Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Fc
- Start date
Free UWC with only pools instead of that godawful pools + weeks mixed format.
As for slots, last UWC’s ones were fine but I’d replace 1 SV with something else. I’d personally like to see Farceus representation in this tour as someone who enjoys that meta but I understand if we end up not including it given the playerbase is quite small. In that case just a standard modern Bo3 slot is probably fine.
Regardless of whether or not we include Farceus however, 4 SV slots is definitely overkill and idt enough people will be motivated to play SV this late into the gen for 4 SV slots to have any chance of working out. I also think that one of the SV slots should be a forced Bo3 slot, since that’s a much more skill-conducive environment than Bo1 ESPECIALLY given the volatile nature of SV.
My suggestion for a 10 slot UWC is this:
- 1x Modern Gens Bo3 (SV/SS/USM)
- 1x SV Bo3
- 2x SV Bo1
- 1x SS
- 1x USM
- 1x ORAS
- 1x BW
- 1x DPP
- 1x ADV
As for slots, last UWC’s ones were fine but I’d replace 1 SV with something else. I’d personally like to see Farceus representation in this tour as someone who enjoys that meta but I understand if we end up not including it given the playerbase is quite small. In that case just a standard modern Bo3 slot is probably fine.
Regardless of whether or not we include Farceus however, 4 SV slots is definitely overkill and idt enough people will be motivated to play SV this late into the gen for 4 SV slots to have any chance of working out. I also think that one of the SV slots should be a forced Bo3 slot, since that’s a much more skill-conducive environment than Bo1 ESPECIALLY given the volatile nature of SV.
My suggestion for a 10 slot UWC is this:
- 1x Modern Gens Bo3 (SV/SS/USM)
- 1x SV Bo3
- 2x SV Bo1
- 1x SS
- 1x USM
- 1x ORAS
- 1x BW
- 1x DPP
- 1x ADV
Last edited:
Free UWC with 12 slots
Modern Bo3
SV*3
SS
USM
ORAS
BW
DPP
ADV
GSC
RBY
It was at the 2024 UWC, when Team China was eliminated after finishing third in their group. I witnessed our captain, LouisIX, crumbling in his chair, overwhelmed with tears—a scene forever etched in my memory. In that moment, a resolve ignited within me: if I were to become an Ubers player, I would fight to win every bit of glory.
Reclaiming the glory of CN Ubers is our sworn obligation.
Modern Bo3
SV*3
SS
USM
ORAS
BW
DPP
ADV
GSC
RBY
It was at the 2024 UWC, when Team China was eliminated after finishing third in their group. I witnessed our captain, LouisIX, crumbling in his chair, overwhelmed with tears—a scene forever etched in my memory. In that moment, a resolve ignited within me: if I were to become an Ubers player, I would fight to win every bit of glory.
Reclaiming the glory of CN Ubers is our sworn obligation.
Last edited:
I am also in favour of uwc and have been for basically every edition of the winter team tour. When we still ran it uwc was our most popular tournament, having more signups than the UPL in the same year it was cut. I think the weeks format was mid we either go back to pools like the first 2 editions or we can do something aberforth suggested to me based on this post which is do it more similar to the soccer world cup where you have the top 4 teams from last edition leading pools to slightly avoid imbalance then make pools randomly after that similar to how actual world cup draws pools up. Format should be the same as last time with sv-adv, don't think gsc and rby have the representation for each country to keep up with them reliably. I feel like we'll probably be going in circles if we keep trying to make our second team tournament super unique, with the format always having flaws and being difficult on players or managers to participate in. Having played in all of the formats between most wanted, boosting, super teams, and uwc, I think uwc has been so much better as a player and manager it's not even particularly close. Free uwc
free uwc in any format
but please don't do cg×3, or specifically sv×3. this tier is just a curse
if we do bo3 please do not do pools otherwise it will just burning out players or significantly decreasing games quality.
I suggest we can spread over the bo3 slot. ie sv*2 ss*2 usm*2 then the game amount is ideally equivalent to bo3 + sv+ss+usm and I believe the amount of ss/usm playerbase support such arrangement
but please don't do cg×3, or specifically sv×3. this tier is just a curse
if we do bo3 please do not do pools otherwise it will just burning out players or significantly decreasing games quality.
I suggest we can spread over the bo3 slot. ie sv*2 ss*2 usm*2 then the game amount is ideally equivalent to bo3 + sv+ss+usm and I believe the amount of ss/usm playerbase support such arrangement
As Fc has already mentioned, I think that if we're going back to UWC, we should implement drifting's suggested change to the world cup format to more effectively mimic the actual world cup. The biggest hindrance to this is that effectively, we would be required to have a specific number of teams (ideally 16), which might mean we need to break up one or two teams into smaller versions to fit the tour itself. The other downside that existed a few world cups ago is that this might mean the tour is quite short for some people, with most games taking place within 3 weeks.
Generally I'm pretty neutral on what we're wanting to do as a section. Reading through the discord, its seemed like more people would prefer the world cup format to any other though, so that has my vote for now.
Generally I'm pretty neutral on what we're wanting to do as a section. Reading through the discord, its seemed like more people would prefer the world cup format to any other though, so that has my vote for now.
first off i also support UWC and would prefer it over the last few variants of the team tour we've seen so far. UWTT acting as second UPL / Sparks tour is not something I really enjoyed (though i've only been playing mons long enough to experience the latter), but I would be open to seeing discussion regarding a potential CL format, similar to the other NUCL/UUCL/RUCL etc where you draft tiers each week into your opponent.
however, with regards to just UWC, I would support a 10 slot tour. ubers does have a large community, but I agree that fielding GSC/RBY for a majority of teams will be difficult especially due to how concentrated the regions are for the playerbases of each respective tier.
I like fc + aber's idea for teams manually spread up to lead pools, would end up with a more reasonable format if we do a series of pools
this may just be me, but for a UWC pools format I would really not want to have any sort of BO3 slot.
my suggestion is SV-ADV, with either 2x SV or 4x SV to have even slots. 4x might be hard to field for, but I know some regions are more heavily concentrated SV wise, so I think going less would be harder. but I heavily disagree with BO3 slots for pools format WC. its incredibly time consuming to have to do 4 sets of that and almost mandates weeks.
IMO if we want to have a reasonable format, my vote is to do one of the following:
2x SV - SM, 1x ORAS - ADV 10 slots -> i think there are a lot of SV, SS, and SM players in general. this seems like the closest compromise to having a lot of modern gen slots, while still having 10 slots and not a ton of SV.
4x SV, 1x SS - ADV 10 slots -> i think there are enough SV players to set this up, it's just a matter of how people are feeling about SV as a whole. 4 slots of SV is a ton to play and build, though it is what we are used to, so it is not so bad.
2x SV, 1x SS - ADV 8 slots -> i would not prefer to do this, just because I think we would lose a lot of motivated players by doing 8 slots and 2x SV only.
however, with regards to just UWC, I would support a 10 slot tour. ubers does have a large community, but I agree that fielding GSC/RBY for a majority of teams will be difficult especially due to how concentrated the regions are for the playerbases of each respective tier.
I like fc + aber's idea for teams manually spread up to lead pools, would end up with a more reasonable format if we do a series of pools
this may just be me, but for a UWC pools format I would really not want to have any sort of BO3 slot.
my suggestion is SV-ADV, with either 2x SV or 4x SV to have even slots. 4x might be hard to field for, but I know some regions are more heavily concentrated SV wise, so I think going less would be harder. but I heavily disagree with BO3 slots for pools format WC. its incredibly time consuming to have to do 4 sets of that and almost mandates weeks.
IMO if we want to have a reasonable format, my vote is to do one of the following:
2x SV - SM, 1x ORAS - ADV 10 slots -> i think there are a lot of SV, SS, and SM players in general. this seems like the closest compromise to having a lot of modern gen slots, while still having 10 slots and not a ton of SV.
4x SV, 1x SS - ADV 10 slots -> i think there are enough SV players to set this up, it's just a matter of how people are feeling about SV as a whole. 4 slots of SV is a ton to play and build, though it is what we are used to, so it is not so bad.
2x SV, 1x SS - ADV 8 slots -> i would not prefer to do this, just because I think we would lose a lot of motivated players by doing 8 slots and 2x SV only.
How about selecting tiers weekly, like the CL does?
- 1x Modern Gens Bo3 (SV/SS/USM)
- 1x SV Bo3
- 1x SV Bo1
Then each team will select three non-repeating generations between Gen 3 and 8.All is 9 slot.
- 1x Modern Gens Bo3 (SV/SS/USM)
- 1x SV Bo3
- 1x SV Bo1
Then each team will select three non-repeating generations between Gen 3 and 8.All is 9 slot.
3am phone rant so forgive the grammar being poor
world cups are horrendous and UWC is the peak of this stupidity. there’s 6 real teams — oceania, canada, india and (depending on their signups) europe, us south, china. need i point to the hilariously lopsided standings from last UWC to prove that. i’ve proposed an alternative to this previously in uberscord being jerkpl. jerk = circlejerk = friend group; let people signup with their friends rather than geopolitical borders. if the indian jerk still wants to sign up as india, they can. nothing stops current countries in uwc signing up as teams under this format while instead allowing for friend groups to play as friends.
that aside, i do think the NUCL format is still a better overall tour. i think the following format is ideal:
2x SV Ubers
4x Team A pick
4x Team B pick
with the picked/flex slots being any of SS, USUM, ORAS, BW, DPP (this is a call out to DPP mains to get a farc suspect in or stop bitching that it’s banned), and ADV
standard auction tour otherwise, the flex formula’s proven to work across numerous tiers atp and it’s just a more meritocratic kind of tour compared to world cup where you find more non-mainers playing because their country needs players and can often find mainers sidelined because they’re only the 11th best player in their region even if they’d normally be a strong pick in an auction format
tldr cl format > jerkpl > no tour > wc
world cups are horrendous and UWC is the peak of this stupidity. there’s 6 real teams — oceania, canada, india and (depending on their signups) europe, us south, china. need i point to the hilariously lopsided standings from last UWC to prove that. i’ve proposed an alternative to this previously in uberscord being jerkpl. jerk = circlejerk = friend group; let people signup with their friends rather than geopolitical borders. if the indian jerk still wants to sign up as india, they can. nothing stops current countries in uwc signing up as teams under this format while instead allowing for friend groups to play as friends.
that aside, i do think the NUCL format is still a better overall tour. i think the following format is ideal:
2x SV Ubers
4x Team A pick
4x Team B pick
with the picked/flex slots being any of SS, USUM, ORAS, BW, DPP (this is a call out to DPP mains to get a farc suspect in or stop bitching that it’s banned), and ADV
standard auction tour otherwise, the flex formula’s proven to work across numerous tiers atp and it’s just a more meritocratic kind of tour compared to world cup where you find more non-mainers playing because their country needs players and can often find mainers sidelined because they’re only the 11th best player in their region even if they’d normally be a strong pick in an auction format
tldr cl format > jerkpl > no tour > wc
world cup with pools, 2*SV or 4*SV, SS, SM, ORAS, BW, DPP, ADV
i think 16 teams might be too much, consider merging some regions if it is acceptable to them, or if they have trouble making a team. and have a RoW team to accommodate left out players. the groups thing also sounds good if you find a way to seed teams properly, 4 top teams in the same group would be pretty lame.
cl and other standard winter tours are too gimmicky and feel pretty bland to play in / format-wise in my experience.
i think 16 teams might be too much, consider merging some regions if it is acceptable to them, or if they have trouble making a team. and have a RoW team to accommodate left out players. the groups thing also sounds good if you find a way to seed teams properly, 4 top teams in the same group would be pretty lame.
cl and other standard winter tours are too gimmicky and feel pretty bland to play in / format-wise in my experience.
Last edited:
I'm not going to go out of my way to support either of RBY or GSC for inclusion, I'm just curious about this so I'm going to point it out. Is RBY's player playerbase really that region concentrated? As I go over the player list of people who play this tier there's players from all over the world; Asia, various countries in Europe, South America, and many players spread across the US.
Needless to say, UWC over any other tour format.
Last edited:
I don’t really have a preference to uwc/ucl as stated above. I think for wc shouldn’t have a bo3 slot though as I think that’s just a bit of headache to completely field out. I think whichever format gives a healthy amount of slots and variety should be considered above anything else.
Don't have comments on UWC but why are RBY and GSC being swept under the rug for a CL format? Both posts highlighting a CL format so far have dropped both RBY and GSC but I don't see a reason why? With UWC I get the concerns that some regions just don't have an RBYer or GSCer which is a totally fair argument. But for a CL, this is just an auction-based tour, and every other CL has an RBY and GSC slot. It's managers' responsibility to draft an RBYer and GSCer just like in any other auction-based tour. If we end up doing a CL format for UWTT then RBY and GSC should absolutely be included.
agree that if we do a CL format, there is no real issue for including the relatively filled GSC RBY pools
Lana mentioned to me that this was likely happening again so I feel the need to save this god-awful format and potentially make it more palatable and more fun for everyone rather than for half the community. The way I see it, World Cup has 2 intrinsic flaws as of right now:
1) unbalanced groups
2) unbalanced teams
1) Lets try to tackle issue #1 first since thats probably the easiest one do to so, and I believe the easiest way to resolve that is to follow the way the "real" World Cup does it (part of it is what Aberforth and others have brought up but you should go even further with it and I'll explain how). You start off by dividing the 16 teams into 4 groups of 4 as has already been pointed out. You play your 3 opponents in your pools over a 3 week period and top 2 teams in each group advance, followed by a normal knockout style tournament (the seeding matchups for that will be explained soon). That's all well and good, but that wouldn't necessarily solve the issue of unbalanced groups, and that's where the rankings should come in. In the same way that FIFA seeds their national teams based on their performances in National Team tournaments like the World Cup, Euros, etc, we should seed countries pre tournament based on their finish in the previous Ubers World Cup. The team that finished in 1st place last time will be Seed 1, the team that came in second will be Seed 2, etc. With that, you can easily group teams into "pots" and draw them out for group placement. Pot 1 would be all the seeds from 1-4, Pot 2 would be all the seeds from 5-8, Pot 3 being the 9-12 seeds and the final Pot 4 being the 13th to 16th worst teams in the previous tournament (I know last UWC only had 14 teams so the 2 new teams added would come into that last pot but for future tournaments this would give it continuity and consistency which is important). From there, all you have to do is randomly pull one team from every pot to fill out each group and that would lead to the most balanced groups possible while still giving every team a feasible chance to make a run if they overperform their talent, since every group will have a maximum of 1 "superteam" in it. Using last year's results, these would be an example of possible groups for this year:
Group A:
Group B:
Group C:
Group D:
Now, another important point is how you decide the knockout round matchups and once again we will borrow that from the "real" World Cup format by having the first placed team in Group A facing the second placed team in Group B, and the second placed team in Group A facing the first placed team in Group B, and so forth. From there you just have the normal World Cup consecutive bracket which is a bit much to write all down but if this is the chosen format I can elaborate on how semis and finals matchups would shape up but it's honestly not too complicated at all and leads to the fairest matchups. I think this fixes the unbalanced groups issue to the best of our abilities and leads me to our 2nd issue, the unbalanced teams.
2) It is no secret that I have felt like continental teams have ruined this format for years and continue to be one of our biggest hurdles that we must get through to make this tournament an enjoyable experience for everyone. I think the first step to making this tournament good is just making it so continental teams are only to be employed when literally nothing else is possible and should be avoided for the most part. I think forming 16 teams is absolutely feasible as long as you don't let the same small minority cry about needing to be with their friends from other countries which leads to force combining teams for the sake of pleasing those few in detriment to the majority that gets left out. Asia being a thing is slightly more understandable since India and China and even Pakistan have had teams in this tournament so at least in that sense you're leaving Asia with being a combination of those remaining countries but Europe being a team when only France, Spain and Benelux exist while other Pokemon powerhouse countries such as Germany, Italy, UK don't have a team just makes no sense and is probably what stands in the way of us having 16 quality teams that can all compete. I believe the US can field 4 teams, the rest of the Americas can field 3 more teams, Europe can be split into 5 teams, Oceania can field 1 team and Asia can field 3 teams, leading us to that perfect 16 amount. Now, the teams themselves can be shifted or altered year-to-year based on signups but that structure can lead us to 16 teams that can consistently compete and challenge for a fair tournament that is fun for everyone and more people can participate in. We need to stop putting the interests of the few in front of the interests of the many and allow this tournament to at least be decent for everyone who wants to join it, no matter where they are from.
As far as slots go, I would probably suggest CG-ADV while having slightly smaller starting lineups overall (8 slots) and bigger benches so that more people can participate while not putting a massive strain on the smaller countries/regions to fill out 10 or more slots, but that stuff is secondary and will probably be figured out if the format is actually solid.
1) unbalanced groups
2) unbalanced teams
1) Lets try to tackle issue #1 first since thats probably the easiest one do to so, and I believe the easiest way to resolve that is to follow the way the "real" World Cup does it (part of it is what Aberforth and others have brought up but you should go even further with it and I'll explain how). You start off by dividing the 16 teams into 4 groups of 4 as has already been pointed out. You play your 3 opponents in your pools over a 3 week period and top 2 teams in each group advance, followed by a normal knockout style tournament (the seeding matchups for that will be explained soon). That's all well and good, but that wouldn't necessarily solve the issue of unbalanced groups, and that's where the rankings should come in. In the same way that FIFA seeds their national teams based on their performances in National Team tournaments like the World Cup, Euros, etc, we should seed countries pre tournament based on their finish in the previous Ubers World Cup. The team that finished in 1st place last time will be Seed 1, the team that came in second will be Seed 2, etc. With that, you can easily group teams into "pots" and draw them out for group placement. Pot 1 would be all the seeds from 1-4, Pot 2 would be all the seeds from 5-8, Pot 3 being the 9-12 seeds and the final Pot 4 being the 13th to 16th worst teams in the previous tournament (I know last UWC only had 14 teams so the 2 new teams added would come into that last pot but for future tournaments this would give it continuity and consistency which is important). From there, all you have to do is randomly pull one team from every pot to fill out each group and that would lead to the most balanced groups possible while still giving every team a feasible chance to make a run if they overperform their talent, since every group will have a maximum of 1 "superteam" in it. Using last year's results, these would be an example of possible groups for this year:
Group A:
- Oceania (Pot 1)
- China (Pot 2)
- Latin America (Pot 3)
- US West (Pot 4)
Group B:
- India (Pot 1)
- France (Pot 2)
- Spain (Pot 3)
- Benelux (Pot 4)
Group C:
- Canada (Pot 1)
- US South (Pot 2)
- US Midwest (Pot 3)
- New Team 1 (Pot 4)
Group D:
- Brazil (Pot 1)
- Europe (Pot 2)
- Asia (Pot 3)
- New Team 2 (Pot 4)
Now, another important point is how you decide the knockout round matchups and once again we will borrow that from the "real" World Cup format by having the first placed team in Group A facing the second placed team in Group B, and the second placed team in Group A facing the first placed team in Group B, and so forth. From there you just have the normal World Cup consecutive bracket which is a bit much to write all down but if this is the chosen format I can elaborate on how semis and finals matchups would shape up but it's honestly not too complicated at all and leads to the fairest matchups. I think this fixes the unbalanced groups issue to the best of our abilities and leads me to our 2nd issue, the unbalanced teams.
2) It is no secret that I have felt like continental teams have ruined this format for years and continue to be one of our biggest hurdles that we must get through to make this tournament an enjoyable experience for everyone. I think the first step to making this tournament good is just making it so continental teams are only to be employed when literally nothing else is possible and should be avoided for the most part. I think forming 16 teams is absolutely feasible as long as you don't let the same small minority cry about needing to be with their friends from other countries which leads to force combining teams for the sake of pleasing those few in detriment to the majority that gets left out. Asia being a thing is slightly more understandable since India and China and even Pakistan have had teams in this tournament so at least in that sense you're leaving Asia with being a combination of those remaining countries but Europe being a team when only France, Spain and Benelux exist while other Pokemon powerhouse countries such as Germany, Italy, UK don't have a team just makes no sense and is probably what stands in the way of us having 16 quality teams that can all compete. I believe the US can field 4 teams, the rest of the Americas can field 3 more teams, Europe can be split into 5 teams, Oceania can field 1 team and Asia can field 3 teams, leading us to that perfect 16 amount. Now, the teams themselves can be shifted or altered year-to-year based on signups but that structure can lead us to 16 teams that can consistently compete and challenge for a fair tournament that is fun for everyone and more people can participate in. We need to stop putting the interests of the few in front of the interests of the many and allow this tournament to at least be decent for everyone who wants to join it, no matter where they are from.
As far as slots go, I would probably suggest CG-ADV while having slightly smaller starting lineups overall (8 slots) and bigger benches so that more people can participate while not putting a massive strain on the smaller countries/regions to fill out 10 or more slots, but that stuff is secondary and will probably be figured out if the format is actually solid.
Last edited:
