A Possible Alternative to Smogon Tiers

[TheFightingPikachu]

It'd be easier just to breed the Beldum, so I'll just do that. I was thinking maybe a Custap berry (since Metagross gets Explosion).

That sounds cool! I've been needing to raise one of those, so that should provide some incentive for me to win the tournament. Victory, here I come! (Hopefully.)

I don't suppose you could ask competitors with Pt, HG, or SS to record their battles on their VS recorder, upload them to the internet, and post the number of the video (possibly doing the last part after they've been elimated or won so no one gets the chance to scout their next opponent) so other people could watch the battles to get a feel for the variety of the new system?

A battle video would also provide proof in case of a dispute about who won the match. I doubt we'd see anything like that, but anyway....

 

[Dragoon952]

Ok, one final question for the peanut gallery before I get the tournament started. Should we allow Garchomp and, now, Latios and Salamence to be options for the tournament, or should we exclude them? Personally, I think they add flavor, but I wasn't sure what others thought. I vote allowing them.

 

[Super Nerd 7997]

I'd say allow them. Their point cost most likely offsets any advantage one would have using them. Then again, I'm not competing, so I might not be the best person to ask.

 

[Zowayix]

Dragoon, I think you meant Latias. Latios has always been Uber.

EDIT: Allowing Deoxys-S might also be considered, since it was also at one time OU.

I'm not sure what to vote for though.

 

[ShinYanmega]

this idea sounds pretty good. but i'm not sure if this would catch on, and when black and white comes in, i can see that you would have lots of work to be done, considering all the new moves, pokemon and other things to take into account for.

 

[Indragon]

I say disallow them. Salamence and Latias are fine, really, but I just think it'd be better to have a tournament without seeing these Pokemon :/

 

[Dragoon952]

Yeah, I meant Latias. My fault. Brain fart.

Part of my reasoning for wanting to allow them (all of the recent OU to Ubers) is that I want to test their usage in an open environment. I want to see if people opt for these guys over a more balanced team. Although, I do understand the fear that most people are going to try and go the route of using a big bad wolf.

Still, I guess we won't know if that's effective or not. Perhaps a lot of people will do that, but the balanced teams will win out in the end? I think the high point values will make it too pricey for some. But, that's just me.

And also, I understand 5th gen will add more work, but hopefully not too much. Existing pokemon will need a little tweaking, but adding a few moves to the movepool won't change values too much, if at all. And that won't stop people from continuing to play 4th gen until new numbers are up. I hope anyway.

 

[Indragon]

I think it's just the mentality of using something tried and tested (and very powerful) despite the cost, that'll compel many people to use them. Since this is the first tournament/official thing, maybe we should stray away from them to actually get a better overall look at the metagame. Their cost would probably not be outweighed by their usefulness in many people's minds, so for the sake of increasing the intended diversity, they should be left out this time. Just my take on the matter, though ^^;

Oh, and will the tournament be single elimination, or something more interesting (though longer) like Round Robbin or group-based? Speaking of which, some unproductive results of my idle time:

And don't worry, I'm sure people will still be playing 4th gen. Like me

 

[Steelix211]

Personally, I'd vote for disallowing Latias and co, just to get more of a feel for the metagame much like Indragon said. As much as I'd love to participate I'm not sure if I'll be able to - my internet has been unreliable, to say the least.

By the way, how many entrants would you be thinking of aiming for before starting the tournament?

 

[Dragoon952]

Ok, how about this for a tournament format. Sort of like the World Cup.

Four groups of four participants each (16 total). In each group, every person plays the other three people in their group. Top two in each group moves on, which will be single elimintation at that point. Tie breakre would be based on total number of pokemon left in the wins.

So that would be three matches in the qualification round, and then after that there will be three more rounds of single elimination (quarters, semis, championship).

And how about this to get some perspective on the system: don't allow the recent OU to Ubers in the qualification rounds, but then allow their usage once the quarterfinals begin.

How does that sound?

EDIT: And I like the banners, Indragon ;365;

 

[Indragon]

Sounds great, but a few issues:

What if (just assuming) the number of applicants exceeds 16? I know it'll have to be restricted, but do you think we should/any way to avoid it?

A tiebreaker depending on the winning score doesn't seem right to me. The score very often doesn't relay how close a match was. There's also the concept of sacrificing a bunch of Pokemon to get the win - high risk, high reward and all that good stuff.

I still think the latest Ubers should be banned throughout. It'd make the tournament more even if it's disallowed in all rounds, and more fun IMO.

 

[Dragoon952]

Sounds great, but a few issues:

What if (just assuming) the number of applicants exceeds 16? I know it'll have to be restricted, but do you think we should/any way to avoid it?

A tiebreaker depending on the winning score doesn't seem right to me. The score very often doesn't relay how close a match was. There's also the concept of sacrificing a bunch of Pokemon to get the win - high risk, high reward and all that good stuff.

I still think the latest Ubers should be banned throughout. It'd make the tournament more even if it's disallowed in all rounds, and more fun IMO.

Fair enough.

I was just trying to think of a tie breaker. It is theoretically possible to get three people in a group tied with an initial record of 2-1 (with the fourth person being 0-3). Have to have some way to break a tie. Thought maybe a tie breaker match, but then I realized a three way tie was possible.

As for the number of people, I'm not sure how it usually works. I figured it would be jsut the first 16 people to sign up. We could expand it to four groups of 5 for 20 total and still take the top 2 of each group, although the qualify round would be longer (and each round someone wouldn't have a match). Maybe four groups of six. Not sure what a reasonable number of participants is.

 

[TheFightingPikachu]

To answer the questions on the table right now:

First, I vote for a simple, single-elimination style tournament. The World Cup-style idea would be my second choice. Longer choices don't appeal to me as much, but even if we decide on one of those I would probably still participate.

Second, we should probably disallow Ubers for this tournament. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, many people would unbalance their teams to put Garchomp in. Since we are trying to advertise, we should expect some newcomers to try our system. Having them scared off by seeing every (or even most) teams have Garchomp would be the last thing we want. My suggestion is that we allow those in our next tournament.

I also think we should plan for more than 16 battlers. I suspect there are at least 16 regular/semi-regular posters in this thread alone. Since we should expect some newcomers to try the tournament, we should be ready for more battlers. But I think being sure we have 16 to start is a good idea.

 

[Dragoon952]

Well, this is hard :/

If we're going to go above 16 participants, single elimination would be best. That probably would be the least complicated route.

Also, I understand your arguments, so we'll can the recent OU to Ubers for this run.

So, I guess the only questions are these:

1.) How many participants?
2.) How can we know how many we have before the tournament thread is opened?

 

[Zowayix]

I personally think double elimination would work just as well and would reduce complaining about losing the tournament because of 'hax'.

 

[Steelix211]

For finding all the participants, how about getting everyone to post in this thread or leave a post in the Playtesters Group? We could have a deadline to leave the post by, that way we'll also have a date for tournament preperations.

I'll get in touch with the PE2K folk and spread the word there if need be.

Also, should we decide on a Team Value now or after getting the participants rounded up?

 

[TheFightingPikachu]

Tournament Prep

I personally think double elimination would work just as well and would reduce complaining about losing the tournament because of 'hax'.

A good point. How does double elimination work precisely?

1.) How many participants?
2.) How can we know how many we have before the tournament thread is opened?

We can't fully know how many battlers we have before we start the thread especially when we consider the fact that we want newcomers to try this system. We could make an absolute cutoff number of 64 battlers or something like that. I bet we could get 32. I'll even go around and let people know about the tournament.

 

[Dragoon952]

For finding all the participants, how about getting everyone to post in this thread or leave a post in the Playtesters Group? We could have a deadline to leave the post by, that way we'll also have a date for tournament preperations.

I'll get in touch with the PE2K folk and spread the word there if need be.

Also, should we decide on a Team Value now or after getting the participants rounded up?

I'd say 70 seems to be working. Might as well start with that.

You know what, do we even have to do this "officially" through Serebii's tournament section, or could we just do it in the Playtesters group? Tell them to join like Steelix suggested and just do it in a thread there. Then we wouldn't have to wait for our thread to come up.

I'm trying to think about how double elimination will work too. Not sure how that goes.

 

[Indragon]

As for the number of people, I'm not sure how it usually works. I figured it would be jsut the first 16 people to sign up. We could expand it to four groups of 5 for 20 total and still take the top 2 of each group, although the qualify round would be longer (and each round someone wouldn't have a match). Maybe four groups of six. Not sure what a reasonable number of participants is.

Yes, if you declare it as "this'll be a 16-person tournament", then it'll be the first 16 to sign up who'll be accepted. But I think 16 is a bit limiting, since the more people who try out the tournament, the better.

If we're going to go above 16 participants, single elimination would be best. That probably would be the least complicated route.

That's true, however, a few alternatives exist if we modify the World Cup-esque system.

One way would be to keep tournament sign-ups open for a set amount of time (I guess declaring an arbitrary maximum limit could also work), and then accepting all the entries closest to a multiple of four (so if there are 29 people signing up, then the last guy's excluded).

The next step would be to either have a Single Elimination round to halve the number of contestants or to have a group-style round to achieve the same thing (14 people, in this case). Then, the next round would have two groups of 7 people each, and the four with the highest number of points advance to the Quarterfinals. If you don't want to exclude anyone, then we'll have to go with a "bye" where 1 to 3 random people will get to the next round without battling. But that's not too fair =|

This method's more flexible, fun and shouldn't take all that longer if done properly, but I don't know if it's worth it to increase the complexity :S

2.) How can we know how many we have before the tournament thread is opened?

Yeah, you can't tell that. We'll need to let people sign up for the tournament and then take it from there.

For finding all the participants, how about getting everyone to post in this thread or leave a post in the Playtesters Group? We could have a deadline to leave the post by, that way we'll also have a date for tournament preperations.

This isn't really a good idea because it'd exclude a lot of people. Apart from the fact that we'd miss out on the many people who frequent the Wi-Fi/tournament forums, we'll just be confining the thing to ourselves and that's no good as we're looking to spread it around a bit, y'know? =P

So yeah, this'd be best done in the Tournament section.

I'm trying to think about how double elimination will work too. Not sure how that goes.

I think Double Elimination would be quite a decent idea. And it'd be definitely fairer. Speaking of which, I guess parings would be random, or will it be done differently to make things more even?

A good point. How does double elimination work precisely?

This might sound jumbled, but I'll try to summarize the best I can:

Assume you start off with 16 people. The first round goes as normal, with 8 people "advancing" and with 8 defeated. However, the losers aren't eliminated yet and at this point, the players are separated into two brackets - a Winner's one and a Losers one. Then each Bracket proceeds with Single Elimination matches - the people losing in the WB fall into the LB, while those losing from the LB are permanently eliminated; hence giving everyone two shots of making it further. Eventually, there'll be one person left in both brackets. That'll be whom the finals are between, of course =P

So...

16 players --> WB = 8, LB = 8 --> WB = 4, LB = 8 --> WB = 2, LB = 6 --> WB = 1, LB = 4 --> LB = 2 --> LB = 1 --> Finals!

I think it goes summat like that ^_^;

Oh, and do we have values for all Pokemon yet? (At least fully evolved ones)

 

[Dragoon952]

Unfortunately not all of the fully evolved pokes are done yet. All OU and UU (at the time) are done, and I'm mostly done with NU. I'm just going alphabetically, and I'm down to Manectric. I've done a few random ones after that from before, so I'm guessing I have about 30 or so NU left. If I get the time to work on it I might be able to get that doen in about a week.

We can try and wait until I get NU finished to have a complete game. Might be best.