LC in Official Tournaments

[Luthier]

bd smogon tournaments, i am currently taking time from studying to bring to you a matter very important to me. i believe little cup no longer has a place as a mainstay in the tournament community. this is not meant to be an attack on the lc community; primarily, i believe other things are more deserving of its place in tournaments, but the negatives surrounding lc in tournaments cannot be overlooked, so they will be touched upon.

1. the lc meta is at an all time low. many players hated the tier continuously during scl. many times, within team chats and on smogtours, you see lc mainers talking about how the metagame sucks and is worse than ever before. i do not have statistics to back up this statement, but i believe if you were to send out a poll to the pair of managers + every player to play a game of lc during scl for their thoughts on the metagame, over half would speak negatively of it. from experience, this metagame is simply bad. the jokes about "lol mienfoo speed tie" are historically overdone and not entirely accurate, but here they are. mienfoo speed ties happened so incredibly frequently during scl and many of the players believe the games came down to this. this is completely unhealthy and the opposite of what a good metagame looks like. many big lc players skipped out on scl as well. freezai (formerly serene grace), ninjadog, tko, levi, and myself all did not want to play lc in this past scl. obviously some had other reasons, but none signed up with intention to play it. i did end up playing it, but expressed i did not want to.

2. metagame isolation. compared to other metagames in both slam and scl, lc is by far the most different from any bar maybe doubles. level 5 pokemon leads to a drastically different metagame and requires specific knowledge, unlike any other lower tier where people have a fine shot at being able to learn the tier without any niche knowledge. in team tournaments, lc players typically will be left on their own, which is problematic. truthfully, lc is moreso an om than a tier, but has been accepted by the community for a long time, and thus treated in high regards. i do not believe that lc deserves the automatic acceptance into tournaments that it has been receiving for many years.

3. scl was a crapshoot. of the three individuals that started every game in lc and went positive, two were under 5k, and the third was dcae. it is also worth mentioning that dcae completely robbed my good friend teal6, thus adding an extra, undeserved win. meanwhile, two of the most expensive players, lilyac and kythr, both went 3-6. obviously, people can underperform, and new players can have their breakout tournament, but the prices are indicative of what players are expected to be reliable, and lc proved to be anything but. by far the most impressive player (10-1 boulicrok) went for a measly 3k, while the four players to go for over 5k combined for a record of 17-20. in every other tier, there are multiple top spots held by players who were relatively pricy, with the one exception being byronthewellwell at the top of ubers, followed by multiple expensive players who went positive. point is, if you compare prices and records, it's obvious there's nothing reliable to lc. it's not like this tier is new or anything as well; it's been a mainstay for a long time.

4. ubers is more deserving in grand slam. ubers was removed years ago when cheating was far more rampant within the tier than it is now, and things have calmed down now, and i believe ubers is fully deserving of taking its spot back. the tier is very competitive, does not require a high level of knowledge to pick the tier up, is more balanced than lc is, and, despite being ubers, is tiered more actively than lc, thus leading to further potential improvements. ubers is far more similar to uu-pu than lc is; lc is way too niche of a tier and simply the odd one out in slam. we've already removed ubers open, so i don't see any reason that lc open can't be considered to be removed, as ubers is simply more deserving of the spot.

5. vgc deserves a chance in scl. it was shot down pretty quick to be included in this past scl, however, i believe this thread is plenty in advance for vgc to get taken seriously again. first of all, the smogon vgc community is expanding greatly; i see no reason that scl could be taken very seriously by the vgc community. secondly, this metagame is already 10 times closer to the dynamics of the tiers in scl than lc is. in fact, there's its very own smogon mirror in the tournament. thirdly, said mirror would be perfect to combat the isolation doubles players currently face. doubles in scl and spl (historically) have been left on their own; they always need to enlist either outside support, adding a person to the chat to help and play test games with, or even drafting a sub that only specializes in doubles to support them. with vgc and dou both being in the tournament, there will be a lot of overlap between the players of the two tiers and will help circumvent a lot of the issues that surround them. getting a sub that helps with both also becomes way more valuable and less of a stretch. simply, these two tiers are similar, and there's nothing similar to lc. lc is far too niche and left on its own, and doesn't have a place in team tournaments.

to reiterate, i believe that ubers should take lc's place in grand slam and vgc should take lc's place in scl.

lastly, i would like to officially ban the discussion of monotype from this thread. if the tournament directors decide to entertain the scl tier more in the future and don't want to give it to vgc, they can make a new scl tiers thread. i don't want to see discourse about vgc vs lc vs monotype in this thread.

 

[daunt vs]

Want to address the points against LC because I feel like they are exaggerated / or not true:
1-This one while kinda true that most lc mains didnt like the tier during scl that was more a timing fault than a tier fault , LC has been enjoyed by most of it's playerbase during most of the gen and only after a big change like banning a 90% usage mon we got an unstable 'bad' meta which wasnt enjoyed sadly we got this meta during scl and we cant do a lot about it , this is a temporary issue we have , and it makes no sense to remove a tier because one bad meta (which it wasnt even that bad mienfoo tie metagame was only week 1-3). When tiers have had one or two bad metas not liked (like early this gen in multiple of the usage based tiers) nobody argues for their removal because it makes no sense to remove something due to something is going to change .

2- LC is still mons and singles , the special things about lvl 5 vs lvl 100 can be learned in one or two weeks max , I'd argue there is a bigger difference between old generations vs current gen than lvl 5 vs lvl 100, also the fact we have a tier thats different to others should be considered a good thing due to the fact of bringing more variety to the tour especially in a tour like SCL thats all the same gen (and you arguing for including vgc which is even more different than lc to others tiers bar dou).

3-You ignore the fact that lc pool was cheap in general with only 3 players over 10k which means that cheap players had to do good due to playing each other , only three players had played official tours before dcae,Wail Wailord and LilyAC (2/3 went neutral or better) , and only three were over 10k kythr,lilyac and dcae(only dcae went positive) , this means that if just one/two of them underperformed like it happened cheap players would be the ones with the best records .

 

[Coconut]

I am so sick of these.

I constantly preach to people that we should be raising each other up, not attacking other tiers, so seeing these threads just gets me so upset in regards to the state of the community as a whole.

In regards to: "the lc meta is at an all time low."
The LC meta was not at an all-time low. I suppose if you have a goldfish brain the meta clearly wasn't as good as it has been over the past few years. But that's a testament to how good LC has been over the past few years. If this meta is an "all-time low", we've done a damn good job working things out over the past five. Yes, this was a bad metagame. Yes, it sucked and the players were not happy with it. I didn't like it either. But we're not coming at the throats of OU post-DLC1, we're not attacking RU during Regimola, no one bothers to look at the oldgens. My point is that bad metagames are bound to happen, it's an integral part of tiering. We went from banning one of the most controversial and metagame warping Pokemon in our tier's history. For the people who don't follow LC, it's like if we banned Lando-T in SM OU levels of big. Regardless of the metagame, that's a humongous change that will take time to adapt to. And we did! The metagame changed halfway through SCL and the game-deciding speed-ties were all but marginalized. Additionally, the people who "skipped out" on SCL all had their own reasons to do so. freezai has wanted to be a mainstay OU player for a while now and frankly, he should, he's talented at it and I encouraged it to the point of drafting him for OU last SPL. ninjadog and tko managed this tournament so I'd hardly consider that skipping the tour. And I'd like one person that does not play LC to tell me the last time Levi played in a trophy tour. He doesn't want to do them regardless of the meta. All-in-all, yes it wasn't a great metagame but that shouldn't take away from the extremely solid ones over the past years, every LC player will tell you that.

In regards to: "metagame isolation"
Bullshit. LC has traditionally been very easy to learn and pick up. There's very little metagame-specific knowledge other than some of the quirks of EVing. I remember a time quite a while ago where good players were able to pick up LC on a whim and clean house with all of the budding LC players. There's no significant gap in knowledge. Not only that, the post completely folds on this point talking about Doubles, which actually has incredibly skilled players and a high skill floor compared to singles. Mad respect to them because that shit is hard. Nobody goes after doubles though. Additionally, there are some teams where the LC players get lots of love from multiple people. Several LC players have made great friends with people who have just tried to learn LC. I think the idea of LC being on an island is dated, because just about every team realizes than an LC win is worth the same as every other win.

I also don't particularly like the mention of the OMs community either. It's bullshit to compare anyone to them because I'm certain the people who wrote this don't give a fuck about their communities. Well, I do, and those fuckers are dedicated to their craft. You would be lucky to have the dedicated OM communities in your tier. Comparing anybody to the OMs community isn't fair to them. This entire paragraph was written by a couple of people who don't fucking care. They don't care to know anything about LC and they don't care to know anything about the OMs community and you should be ashamed.

In regards to: "scl was a crapshoot"
I want to make this point very clear. Do not disrespect my player base. You are not at the liberty to talk about these people like they are assets. These are people. And you've lost touch with reality if you can't remember a person's name from week to week, or think that grabbing a "random mainer" is like buying a lottery ticket.

If people asked me at the beginning of the season who they should draft for SCL, I would have told them freezai, Toadow, and boulicrok. These guys over the course of the time that I've known them have done tremendously well in new and experimental metagames. I can't really speak to the pricing of players because generally, the LC pool has a pretty dominant top side, meaning the best players are seen as better than the rest. But the collection of players also has a very strong bottom, where the 6th-7th through 13th-15th best players all have their strengths and are generally top-level ready. As for players who underperformed, anyone who knows how Lily plays knows she has structure. She's incredibly strong when the metagame is more solved, where she almost immediately becomes the single-best LC player of the meta. I think she herself would even admit that this was not her metagame to shine and I have full confidence that she'll bounce back and continue to be the conditioner. As for newer drafts like KSG and kythr, that's exactly what they are—new. There's always been a learning curve to getting into SPL/SCL and buying new players is always a risk. I implore anyone that actually read this point to take a quick look at LC over the past few years, you'll be very surprised to see how consistent we are as a whole.

In regards to: "ubers is more deserving in grand slam" "vgc deserves a chance in scl"
Ubers is no more deserving than NU or UU. Why does LC need to be removed? I refuse to bring down Ubers as a community because they've worked so fucking hard to repair their reputation. But that doesn't mean they should replace us. There are more solutions.

I absolutely love VGC. zeefable and I are homies and the people I've met in VGC are so considerate and nice. I would absolutely be willing to support VGC every step of the way to being in official tours. Why does it need to replace LC? I've talked about overlap in the previous paragraphs in regards to LC but if you think VGC is just a carbon copy of the Doubles community I think the VGC community would surprise the hell out of you. Why do we feel the need to bring down LC to bring up VGC? There's frankly no good reason to.

———

Posts like this just make me upset. I understand that there are quite a few people here that exclusively care about the tournaments scene, but behind there is a multitude of people who care about more than that. One bad tournament should not be the end-all for any tier. There are plenty of tiers in SCL who also flopped this tournament. There are no significant negatives to Little Cup compared to literally any other tier or metagame and the fact that we're talking like there is just shows that there's an issue beyond LC and the community as a whole. Do better.

 

[Dave]

Goat ass boulicrok so dominating they wanna take him out of scl all together.

I stand by coconut. Keep LC. #dobetter

 

[ABR]

I don’t have many metagame specific comments but I care about tournaments so I’d like to say something regardless.

The tournaments community and its leadership should be concerned with improving tournaments. This is the primary goal or agenda of people like myself. Secondarily, the question then becomes which tiers benefit the tours community. I and many others don’t care what tours do for different tiers, just the reverse. If that’s LC, cool. If that’s not LC, also cool. There is nothing inherently wrong with “tier bashing” or pitting tiers against each other. If someone like the author of this thread believes that removing LC improves tours then it’s their prerogative to make such a thread. There is no need for an all inclusive kumbaya where every little sub-community gets unconditional open arms. We have limited slots (no we aren’t making SCL 12 slots or slam 7 slots) so yea competition between tiers is gonna exist.

LC does suck btw and level 5 babymons is a glorified OM. That said, VGC also sucks and is redundant with DOU. The takeaway: SCL and Grand Slam both suck, but Ubers sucks the least.

Breezy

 

[Gilbert arenas]

I think Luth raises an interesting point; The inclusion of the VGC format in SPL.
Perhaps we could survey some of the Smogon doubles community, or the Smogon VGC players.
Smogon loves gatekeeping old gens and OU and after having spoken with many mainers across the years I've come to the conclusion that they feel ostracized by the rest of the community.
We must celebrate Pokemon together and shitting on Little Cup won't get us anywhere because all metagames are ass if you look thru a big enuf magnifying glass.

 

[Star]

As someone who’s number 1 in the lc hof (by far) and also been on the council for over half a decade, I endorse this proposal.

Imo LC in slam makes absolutely no sense and the only reason it’s really there over Ubers is bc it was somehow decided that LC should be included a decade ago and Ubers had a mazar/stag problem a few years ago. No matter how much people try to spin it, level 5 is certainly fundamentally different from the other slam tiers and ubers is a much more coherent fit, with a far easier learning curve for those who play normal metagames.

As for SCL, that point is much more debatable but I think it’s pretty much stating the obvious to say LC’s display this year was a shitshow and last year was hardly better (you should check out dcae’s usage stats and that marvelous finals game between the two best players). While VGC isn’t necessarily more approachable, I do think it should be given a shot for the reasons mentioned in the OP (similarity to doubles and having dou/vgc players able to support each other rather than the current state of them being pretty isolated from the rest of team)

 

[Aberforth]

I believe I speak for most of the Ubers playerbase here when I say that we have no desire to shit on LC as a tier for the sake of us going in Grand Slam, nor any other tournament. Admittedly, I havent done a poll of them or anything but we've had our tier bashed for ages and it sucks, its incredibly draining and demotivating, and its almost always based on petty subjectivity that is impossible to argue with, because people have made their mind up already.

If the TD's want us in more tournaments, that's fantastic and we'll be excited for the occasion. If not, we'll continue going on the way we have for the last few years until the TDs decide we should be in more.

 

[z0mOG]

I don’t have many metagame specific comments but I care about tournaments so I’d like to say something regardless.

The tournaments community and its leadership should be concerned with improving tournaments. This is the primary goal or agenda of people like myself. Secondarily, the question then becomes which tiers benefit the tours community. I and many others don’t care what tours do for different tiers, just the reverse. If that’s LC, cool. If that’s not LC, also cool. There is nothing inherently wrong with “tier bashing” or pitting tiers against each other. If someone like the author of this thread believes that removing LC improves tours then it’s their prerogative to make such a thread. There is no need for an all inclusive kumbaya where every little sub-community gets unconditional open arms. We have limited slots (no we aren’t making SCL 12 slots or slam 7 slots) so yea competition between tiers is gonna exist.

LC does suck btw and level 5 babymons is a glorified OM. That said, VGC also sucks and is redundant with DOU. The takeaway: SCL and Grand Slam both suck, but Ubers sucks the least.

Breezy

I agreed with the bit about tier bashing and competition until the part about VGC and doubles, which is an extreme outside-looking-in take. The two formats are more akin to a comparison of, say, Gen 6 and Gen 7 rather than NU/PU. This is due to the massive shifts in rules and restrictions, on top of the singular team formula and 4v4 rather than 6v6 dynamic. The VGC playerbase is also, frankly, a country compared to the city of Smogon. For a point of reference, the first iteration of an official vgc major on this website saw 600+ signups, whereas smogon's FLAGSHIP official, OST, didn't even double that in its' 17th iteration. Slam cup signups, the biggest platform for lower tier players to compete in, don't even halve the vgc major. Smogon could obviously attract the top of the vgc chain to its' team tournaments, people are always looking for new tournaments. Some of the best doubles ou performances from the past few years have just been bored vgc players who want to sandbox with a weaker pool of competition (edu, emforbes, spurrific, biosci). There's no argument to be made for redundancy between dou and vgc when vgc's own ruleset changes every 3 months. Vgc can't even be redundant with ITSELF.

Jumping back to the debate about LC, and frankly lower tiers as a whole, the only competitive advantage smogon even has to vgc is a playerbase passionate about old gens + consistency of annual tournaments. Smogon tournament signups are dead. Grand Slam is the April Fools Day of tournaments. Just nuke lower tiers already and keep pandering to old gens, ou, and vgc. Save the sandbox formats for simulators like frost or the tournaments room tours.

 

[cityscapes]

criticizing an entire tier for "the meta being bad" especially in just one tour iteration is just silly. even ignoring the situation of scl being directly after the ban of an incredibly important mon, from my experience tiers tend to do an extremely good job regulating themselves over time. problematic elements will get suspected. players that underperformed will reflect on themselves to hopefully have a better experience next time, or just quit the game altogether if they don't have the dedication anymore. new guys will come in and prove themselves. so overall, future iterations of the tour are very consistently more competitive.

the "tours community" on this site has shown consistent interest in ignoring the wealth of awesome metagames & communities on this site in favor of appealing to the lowest common denominator. this funnily enough fixes none of the problems with pokemon. good players will still get lucked, ou/vgc/etc will be bad sometimes, cash prizes if you win will be mediocre at best unless you play tours not hosted by smogon (vgc/callous invitational), smogon youtube/twitch is still struggling, no one has any idea of how to actually get better at the game, the barrier to entry is so big that if you didn't grow up with pokemon you probably shouldn't bother. don't get me wrong, i would love to see more vgc players on this site, but why exactly are we using that to justify alienating the communities we do have?

this site is big and weird! it's a mess! we use arbitrary gamefreak mechanics with player intervention to create chimeric metagames, each more unholy than the last! i understand the desire to make it all neat, but even if you do that, pokemon will still be a mess compared to every other competitive game out there. at the very least maybe you guys can psychologically engineer how to make ou more fun and accessible or something? cause despite having a 0% chance to get a trophy i just outplayed and owned 4 people in om world cup and i'm chilling in an awesome community. i doubt all the lc players will just move to ou if they get kicked out of tours; that stems from an incorrect assumption that people value prestige over their friends.

There is no need for an all inclusive kumbaya where every little sub-community gets unconditional open arms.

this sounds awesome bro. we have all the sub communities on the site, it seems like a waste not to use all of them if we want to do something big. why the hell would we not put finchinator in the same massive team tour discord as a battle-by-post warrior or pet mods legend? this place is as much a social place for pokemon fans as it is an actual competitive game. even if it's just once a year (or even less), i think we need something like this to make each subforum stop feeling like its own distinct website.

yes, this is a ridiculous idea, but i'm posting on a ridiculous website, playing a ridiculous competitive game, and i want to have some fun while i'm here. chess players are all extremely boring and i am confident that we can Do Better

 

[Boat]

We're gonna lock this and post a Grand Slam tier discussion thread in a day or two. the tiers comprising our tournaments should obviously be open to change, but the thesis of this thread is hostile and doesn't contribute towards having a good discussion.