Tournament NUPL X Format Discussion

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NUPL is almost here again, and its about time for another thread on everyone's favourite discussion, NUPL format.

Similar to last year, 7 of the tiers are relatively locked in as follows:
Code:
SS NU
SS NU
SM NU
ORAS NU
BW NU
DPP NU
ADV NU
From previous discussion, our main consideration is for the 8th slot, being either SS NU or Bo3 NU. As far as I'm aware, there's a lot more people that want SS NU over Bo3 NU than last year, so its worth bringing up again.

Although 10 slots is an option that we can entertain again, this is largely an option that hasn't seemed popular when it comes to NUPL. The 10 slot proposal passed manager voting 4-3 in NUSD, and a lot of the reasoning was because it was a team tournament that was able to be experimented with more. If we do 10 slots, then the extra slots would either go to SS NU/Bo3 NU (whichever isn't in), GSC NU, and/or RBY NU. I personally have been a bit wary about including RBY NU in this iteration of the tournament due to the lack of tiering changes since NUSD, but its worth bringing up as a possibility.

We would like to gauge the community's opinion on SS NU vs Bo3 NU, and also whether 10 slots is worth pursuing for our premier team tournament. Also, just to mention this in the OP, any excessively negative posts towards a community mentioned will be deleted. Please keep your comments civil and don't overstep, thank you.
 
Too busy to write a large post right now but RBY and GSC should not be lumped together. I would be happy to see GSC NU but RBY did not have great reception from NU Snake and the tier needs a lot of work done atm. I know stuff is being done but its not soon enough for this tournament imo.
 
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Oathkeeper

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Finally! Some NUPL content right etern? I went over this with a few people now and here's my thoughts.....

Format 1
2 SS
SM
ORAS
BW
DPP
ADV
Bo3 (SS, SM, ORAS)

This is probably going to be the most likely format like last year. It's one that we can all agree on at least and has a good amount of variety. The Bo3 slot is what would probably be the most debatable imo. Why have 1 person prep way more than the others with 3 teams from 3 different metas while the others just need 1 team from their respective meta? I mean, obviously the manager(s) could AND should help in that department to reduce the workload, but there's the nagging feeling like it could possibly be too much. Which brings me to my next best format......

Format 2
2 SS
SM
ORAS
BW
DPP
ADV
GSC

With the amount of support that GSC got in NU Snake earlier, fitting GSC into this tour wouldn't be the worst thing. I certainly support it, as does Holly, Earthworm, Siatam, and FNH among others. It's a great meta contrary to what some people believe. As I mentioned above with the Bo3 slot, it's not as high maintenance. The player for the slot need only worry about building 1 team for their matchup and only gets better if the manager(s) know the meta. While this may not be the format selected, I'm all for it! Now, onto the last format I'd support........

Format 3
3 SS
SM
ORAS
BW
DPP
ADV

This format is not exactly "out there" but it could happen. This gets the most SS development with the end of the gen drawing near given SV (Gen 9) comes out later this year. Nothing more to explain lol.


My preferred pick: Format 2 (2 SS, SM, ORAS, BW, DPP, ADV, GSC)
Most likely pick: Format 1 (2 SS, SM, ORAS, BW, DPP, ADV, Bo3)
 

Expulso

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100% do not put only 2 SS NU slots into NUPL, it’s the premier NU team tournament and should have 3 or 4 SS NU slots to encourage current gen metagame development and provide the easiest avenue for new talent to participate.

GSC NU is a good tier with an active community and should probably be in the tour.

SS X3
Sm
Oras
Bw
Dpp
Adv
Gsc
[SS 4 / RBY / Bo3]

Gsc would commit us to 10 slots, though. 2 10-slot tours doesnt make a ton of sense so i honestly think nupl and nusd should switch slot formats — make NUPL (the premier tour) 10 slots and NUSD 8

If u rly dont want to do 10 slots just do above format without bottom 2 rows

for a prospective 10th slot rby community is worthy of inclusion but i also know they had a lot of issues with the tier during NUSD. If the tier is fixed they could be included, if not we could either do ss4 or a bo3 slot (probably SS/SM/ORAS, though it would be fun to have the tiers potentially come from any gen)

====
tldr i’d propose nupl be the 10-slot tour and nusd the 8-slot tour. if that switch is too complicated (retain prices etc) or not desired (since most premier should be more exclusive?) i’d slightly favor ss>bo3 for reason at start of post
 

etern

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Not a fan of 10 slots, often times the bigger the tour is, the lower the quality of the pools are, especially in this gen which has seen a decline in players overall. I'd go with Bo3 last, it's a fun tradition of NUPL and usually gets some high quality matchups + the gens included in it are all easily accessible for players that you'd slot into it. 3 SS wouldn't be an awful option either, simply because it's the last real teamtour of the gen, and I'd be very surprised to see SS be particularly popular in post-SS tournaments, so this would be it's final send off in a way. Bo3 still covers a third SS though, while adding a bit more excitement and variety. Definitely don't add 10 slots just to include extra tiers, we have the other tour for that.
 
If we absolutely have to stick to either 8 or 10 slots, I think my ideal line-ups for each would be something like this:

(8 slots)
3 SS
1 SM
1 ORAS
1 BW
1 DPP
1 ADV

(10 slots)
3 SS
1 SM
1 ORAS
1 BW
1 DPP
1 ADV
1 GSC
1 Bo3 (SS, SM, ORAS)

Would prefer 8 slots overall. GSC and Bo3 inclusion would be nice, but if it's an and/or type deal I'd rather just stick with that 8 slot lineup. 3 SS feels absolutely mandatory considering it's the current gen, and the rest of the old gens (sans GSC and ig RBY) fit nicely there.
 

phoopes

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RBY guy coming in hot, get your haha reacts ready.

I'm definitely supporting 10 slots for this tour under the following format:

3 SS
1 SM
1 ORAS
1 BW
1 DPP
1 ADV
1 GSC
1 RBY

RBY is always played as a best of three format, so I don't think it would necessarily "count" as a best of three slots, you could make the third Sword/Shield slot best of three and I don't think anyone would mind. Now as for why I want this format specifically, I'll try to give some reasons while also trying to address some concerns...

All Gen Inclusion:
To me, this is one of the most important things you can do for any tournament. Including as many gens/as many formats as possible is great for the whole community. It bridges gaps and gets people more involved as a whole. We've seen this in RBY UU already, where once RBY was "given a chance" in UUFPL I, it was shown to be a success and has now been included in UUSD and UUFPL II. Some newer gen UU players have taken a liking to RBY UU, and I know a few RBY players have hopped in the UU Discord server to see what the newer gens are all about. I'm not saying that this is going to change anyone's tier that they main, but at the very least it gives people opportunities to see what other tiers are all about and spread connectivity across the site. I see what's been done for RBY UU and I would like to see the same opportunity for RBY NU, ya feel me? And I know I've been talking about RBY this whole time but I want to make it clear that I absolutely want GSC in for the same reason of all gen inclusion being better for both the GSC community and the NU community. It's a symbiotic relationship people! (I think I used that word correctly haha)

The player pool doesn't get "watered down by adding RBY and GSC:"
I know this is a concern for some people with adding more slots to a tournament, but realistically I don't think you need to worry about that with GSC/RBY inclusion in this tour. For better or for worse, GSC and RBY are still more of their own communities than being connected to NU as a whole. This kind of seclusion means there's not a lot of player overlap (again, for better or for worse). But what this does mean is that you're not adding lesser players into a pool, you're adding more top players, just of different generations. So even though the tour would be going up to 10 slots with GSC/RBY inclusion you're not going to get a decrease in the quality of games. Also maybe it's because I'm not a tours player by trade but I really don't get the argument of "we can't have two 10-slot tours!" Because to me... who really cares? The format of the tours are already different enough with one being Snake Draft and the other being Auction so I don't really see the point of making one 8 slots while the other has 10. If it means all gens get to be included in both tours, by all means make them both 10 slots.

---

That's it for stuff that pertains to both RBY and GSC. Though the next points are only about RBY (because I know it better), I absolutely 100% stand behind GSC being included as well.

While not "official" old gen low tiers, these tiers aren't brand new:
I get the argument of a tier being too new for a team tournament like this, I really do. For example, there's no way I'd be campaigning for RBY PU to be in a PU team tour because the tier in its current state was just established a few days ago. But RBY NU and GSC NU have at least been around for a little while and have had time for a true, stable meta to develop. RBY NU has been played for about two years (the first games predate this thread), first in "pre-alpha," which was a very popular and balanced metagame, and then in "alpha," starting when Venusaur and Aerodactyl rose in a UU Viability Rankings update last summer. Since then, the meta has had time to develop and just received its first official Viability Rankings update a few days ago, which cemented certain Pokemon at the top of the metagame officially and set a cutoff line for NU/PU. It's seen tournament play in its current state to what'd I argue is great success (more on that in a bit) and GSC NU is even older and more established from what I understand. By adding these metas, you're not adding some nascent, unstable tiers. You're adding established metagames with clear-cut top players, as said in the previous paragraph.

RBY NU is competitive (i.e. the top players win consistently):
I think one of the best arguments for whether a tier is competitive is if there's a clear distinction between top-cut players and those who are not. While upsets can happen, if you're a top player you should be winning most of your games. If you're not, there's either too much variance in the tier or you're just simply not a top player. And taking a look at RBY NU, I think you can clearly see that there is a collection of top players just from tournament results. The players I'd like to take a look at specifically are the ones on the RBY NU Council (yes we have one of those lol). When coming up with who should be on the council, I had the final say as the lower tiers leader, but I can assure you that it was an effort by the community to seat the best players with the most knowledge on the council. These players are Serpi, Khaetis, Enigami, Ika Ika Musume, and S1nn0hC0nfirm3d. Five top players for the council. But what are their tournament records? Let's look at the three tournaments NU has had in its current state: RBYPL II, NUSD II, and NU Spotlight II.

Serpi: 17-4 (losses coming to shiloh, Khaetis, Khaetis, and Mikon)
Khaetis: 9-4 (losses coming to Serpi, Ika Ika Musume, Enigami, and Serpi)
Enigami: 9-7 (losses coming to Serpi, Serpi, Oiseau Bleu, Ika Ika Musume, Thor, Serpi, and BT89)
Ika Ika Musume: 7-2 (losses coming to Serpi and juoean)
S1nn0hC0nfirm3d: 0-1 (loss coming to Serpi)

That's a combined record of 42-18, for a winning percentage of 70%. That's really damn good, especially when you consider that 12 of those 18 losses were against other top-cut players. If you take out the games where the top players played each other, you get a record of 30-6 against non-top players, for a winning percentage of 83%. And even then, look at the "non-top" players that they lost to. Mikon and juoean both went 4-0 in the Spotlight tour while BT89 went 3-1 (this tour was admittedly less stacked than the team tours, but I'll vouch for these three players, especially Mikon AKA nessa AKA delphi riddle who's a hidden boss in every RBY tier). shiloh is a former RBY SPL player. Oiseau Bleu and Thor just qualified for RBY Circuit Championships. Even the non-top cut players they lost to are still pretty damn good. The point I'm trying to make is that with RBY at least, you can have a good idea of how well your drafted player is going to do because this tier is competitive and consistent, something that I know is always a concern due to RBY being "the hax gen" (it's party of why we almost always do best of three).

I just went on a big rant about RBY so if someone from GSC could come in and prove the same point that I did for your tier that would be great lmao.

There haven't been any suspect tests in RBY NU yet, but that's not a bad thing:
Multiple people in this thread have said that they don't want RBY NU in due to "a lack of tiering changes since NUSD," or saying that "the tier needs a lot of work done atm," or saying that the tier could be included if it was "fixed." My response is this, however: does a tier really need to have "action" for it to be considered legitimate? And does RBY NU really need to be fixed? Everyone would agree that RBY OU is a legitimate tier and it hasn't seen any tiering action since Mewtwo and Mew were banned like 20+ years ago lol, there hasn't been anything to "fix" since then (except for the Counter-desync clause vote). The point I'm trying to make is that just because there hasn't been any suspect tests yet does not mean the tier needs to be "fixed." What's great about RBY Lower Tiers is that, as mentioned before, we have Councils. If the Council thinks that something needs to be done with the tier in order to fix something broken or uncompetitive, they'll do it. They have not reached this conclusion as of yet, so nothing has been done. I'll give you this: if you don't like RBY NU, that's fine. Maybe it's not your cup of tea. But the NU Council and the broader RBY Community haven't deemed anything broken or uncompetitive enough to suspect yet, and it's not going to happen just to get the tier into NUPL. There have been theorized suspect tests for this or that, but they have been kind of few and far between.

---

I hope I've addressed all of your concerns about RBY (and to a lesser extent, GSC, which as I said I also support). Thanks for reading and (hopefully) responding so we can have a discussion!
 

Plague von Karma

Banned deucer.
Yes yes, feed my reaction score with hahas and wows or something, whatever.
If we do 10 slots, then the extra slots would either go to SS NU/Bo3 NU (whichever isn't in), GSC NU, and/or RBY NU. I personally have been a bit wary about including RBY NU in this iteration of the tournament due to the lack of tiering changes since NUSD, but its worth bringing up as a possibility.
Ayo?

I strongly believe that RBY NU is a fine candidate for the tournament and, by extension, I would love to see GSC NU put in as well.

I think RBY NU has had a bit of an unfair rap since NUSD - I'd chalk this up to culture shock - and much of the people who actually play the tier regularly see it as fine. It recently had its first official quantified viability rankings published, signifying that the metagame has now stablised. The tier is not "broken" and has boundless potential for optimisation, as was stated when people first criticised it during NUSD by notable community members like (posts hereto) spies, phoopes, Ika (see general thoughts), and so on. Serpi and Enigami have also been ok with the tier who are, again, great players, the best of the bunch actually. You could go for an ad hominem and say "well they win so of course they don't want change", but this just isn't how our community works, nor is it a fair accusation to make. The people who actually play the tier saying it's fine is nothing more than a sign that the metagame is progressing well. The recent Spotlight Tour had 32 participants, compared to the Venusaur-included NU before, which had 24, despite some people praising that old metagame as the second coming of christ. Participation is increasing over time. NUSD had 29 sign-ups for RBY, which is about average for this tournament's old gens from what I can tell, but still less than what the spotlight tour from 2 months ago had. If RBY NU is failing and needs fixing, why are sign-ups remaining consistent? This is purely empirical evidence, but I can state from me being "the RBY girl" that the reception from NUSD in the community, while we were initially receptive, has been something we're quite disheartened about, because we realised that it was just...wrong, as phoopes outlines. In fact, the high-level playerbase has increased with Mikon, juoean, and more entering the fray and succeeding. This tier is beloved and progressing, and I can see tiering action eventually being taken if only to verify community opinion.

So given this, my conclusion is the tier does not need "fixing", and the "work that needs to be done" is either significantly less than people state, or nonexistent. I do agree that Charizard is very powerful - I wrote the book on it - but there are numerous counterarguments against it, such as its lack of defensive utility, occasional reliance on setup to sweep in a very fast tier, and being OHKOed by paralysis; Tauros is balanced similarly in OU without the need for setup and has niche (read: extremely, like, wow, never actually do it) defensive utility, for scale. Sleep exists yet few games see themselves actually being won as a direct result of it; this is typical for RBY games. Fire Spin continues to drop in usage too, christ, I could rant forever about how these "broken" elements are far more complex than they seem. RBY is a punishing generation if you play poorly, and NU is just another spice. It was simply not being played optimally yet. The players who defended NU seem to be correct, but that can always change, and that requires tournament play!

I loved playing in NUSD and, frankly, the games I had with Serpi were some of the best I have played in my life. You can see my reactions on my YouTube channel here and here, they were fucking amazing and I loved every second of it. I played at my best, and while I lost, I did not feel sour about it at all. You'll also see that every single turn was good, like, wow. I believe the level of play here is indisputable: this tier is competitive and can very much be spectator-friendly. I believe that RBY NU's diversity was demonstrated quite well and it's only been improving as time goes on, with the discovery of niche Pokemon like Primeape, Sandslash, and more. The top-tiers are also seeing more sets tried out, which is normally a sign the metagame is getting to that zen state too. NUSD was the second major team tournament for RBY NU and it's still in its infancy.

There haven't been any suspect tests in RBY NU yet, but that's not a bad thing:
Multiple people in this thread have said that they don't want RBY NU in due to "a lack of tiering changes since NUSD," or saying that "the tier needs a lot of work done atm," or saying that the tier could be included if it was "fixed." My response is this, however: does a tier really need to have "action" for it to be considered legitimate? And does RBY NU really need to be fixed? Everyone would agree that RBY OU is a legitimate tier and it hasn't seen any tiering action since Mewtwo and Mew were banned like 20+ years ago lol, there hasn't been anything to "fix" since then (except for the Counter-desync clause vote). The point I'm trying to make is that just because there hasn't been any suspect tests yet does not mean the tier needs to be "fixed." What's great about RBY Lower Tiers is that, as mentioned before, we have Councils. If the Council thinks that something needs to be done with the tier in order to fix something broken or uncompetitive, they'll do it. They have not reached this conclusion as of yet, so nothing has been done. I'll give you this: if you don't like RBY NU, that's fine. Maybe it's not your cup of tea. But the NU Council and the broader RBY Community haven't deemed anything broken or uncompetitive enough to suspect yet, and it's not going to happen just to get the tier into NUPL. There have been theorized suspect tests for this or that, but they have been kind of few and far between.
I want to add to this by saying RBYers don't kneejerk ban things; we like to do it after multiple tournaments and a VR phase has concluded, and now would be a great time to see how it's actually changed. Players have gotten better, discoveries have been made, and this tournament would be an excellent time to put it all to the test. Culturally, we are used to playing around powerful Pokemon, and we enjoy seeing and using them; this comes from our OU roots. Notice how we have had very few suspect tests up until UU began being optimised: we work extremely hard to ensure that when we do something, we do it right. Has that always worked? No, I believe the UU Dragonite Suspect Test was a failure, and that's because we had quite literally never done this before. Do I believe it's the right approach? Yes, it's still by the book. If trying to do things scientifically to make the best metagame possible means getting shot down, that's fine. As with any rational group of tiering policy lovers, we care about our players first and foremost: we want something great that actually sees play.

The player pool doesn't get "watered down by adding RBY and GSC:"
I know this is a concern for some people with adding more slots to a tournament, but realistically I don't think you need to worry about that with GSC/RBY inclusion in this tour. For better or for worse, GSC and RBY are still more of their own communities than being connected to NU as a whole. This kind of seclusion means there's not a lot of player overlap (again, for better or for worse). But what this does mean is that you're not adding lesser players into a pool, you're adding more top players, just of different generations. So even though the tour would be going up to 10 slots with GSC/RBY inclusion you're not going to get a decrease in the quality of games. Also maybe it's because I'm not a tours player by trade but I really don't get the argument of "we can't have two 10-slot tours!" Because to me... who really cares? The format of the tours are already different enough with one being Snake Draft and the other being Auction so I don't really see the point of making one 8 slots while the other has 10. If it means all gens get to be included in both tours, by all means make them both 10 slots.
I also want to add to this in that the RBY NU playerbase is very stacked. As phoopes points out later in the post, you have top-level players here who have over a 70% win rate - literal apex predators - and the games between them are extremely competitive. I think saying it waters down the player pool does a bit of a disservice to those players: RBY requires a very unique skill-set, something you can't replicate in generations past GSC. There is a significant emphasis on play-lines and probability management rather than textbook teambuilding; this is why you rarely see RBYers play anything other than RBY, as they simply prefer this generation as it caters to them better than anything else. This does not make the game less skillful, it just makes it different, and that's ok. I think that's a benefit, if anything! You get a different take on the game that you can't get anywhere else.

What we have here is a devoted, high-level playerbase for a perfectly good tier that unfortunately did not have the best of first impressions. Nothing more, nothing less. Notice how the Smogon RBY Discord is the largest of the old gen ones despite literally being reset, and it's actually outpacing the old one that's being held by an unscrupulous, permabanned user.

Here's the new one...
1649940805983.png


And here's the old one.
1649940702731.png


THAT is how dedicated we are. We fought through our server being fucking reset after one of the biggest tragedies this community has ever faced, one that made me step down. We fucking care about this generation, we love it, we want to see RBY NU succeed. Numerous amazing players are in this new one, it's extremely active with SPL-level competitors regularly conversing, and we sometimes see big promotions. Isn't that amazing? It's surpassing its old numbers, the playerbase is growing and improving, this generation just keeps on winning in the face of the unfair stereotypes that keep getting forced upon it. We don't care if a tier is imperfect, we will polish it until it gleams.

RBY is a difficult generation to grasp, I get it. I also know all the regular groans - sleep, speed-based crits, freeze, el wrappo del dragón - I've heard them a million times. But notice how the players who win are the ones who have played the game for years. They have seen, heard, and most of all, actually experienced these critiques as much as I have and see past them. If you "just don't like RBY", that's fine! I get it, it's the Marmite generation. But if you do, just say it. We'll understand and give you a hug, just as we have with many a critic.

--------------------------------

Anyway...I have given the suggestion, let's come up with a solution. From what I know, many CG players dislike BO3, but I may be wrong in respect to the general NU community. It's just a common opinion I've heard and, as such, I'm making this a part of my pitch. If I'm right but you want a BO3 format anyway, why not go with RBY, eh? Eh? How's that sound? nudge nudge

10 slots, 3 SWSH / 1 of each old gen. That's the SPL format right there!

RBYers adore BO3 and we have a tradition of always playing it that way. Since its introduction, it has greatly improved the generation's competitiveness and become a massive cornerstone of the community's tournament culture. I'd wager that we're a perfect fit for your tournament! Everyone wins, right? You even get all-gen inclusion prior to Gen 9!
 
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S1nn0hC0nfirm3d

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Third SS NU. It’s the current gen meta. The priority should be to develop and reprsent the current gen. Also note we had backlash during NUSD for the lack of SS NU. In the future, we should really check out retiring some oldgens to their own PL or something for practicality. For now, it’s simple enough to say we should focus on the current gen.
 

poh

<?>
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Yeah we should def stick to 8 slots. As much as GSC made very good strides towards being a solid meta, NUPL has always been 8 slots and we should focus on more CG slots than oldgens. GSC should 100% get more inclusion in NU Classic or a different teamtour from NUPL tho. I'm not gonna consider RBY cause 1. still quite undeveloped compared to the rest 2. RBY players themselves not enjoying it lmao. Like i'm not gonna act like nothing happened where one of our players was so demotivated to play lol, one of the most uncomfortable experiences i've had on this site. We gave RBY a chance in a teamtour and it wasn't a great experience, i'm sure it can get included in NU Classic.

This should be the ideal format

3 SS
1 SM
1 ORAS
1 BW
1 DPP
1 ADV

I'm not opposed to a BO3 slot cause those can often offer some really cool matchups since the more experienced players tend to play that slot.
 

roxie

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Also note we had backlash during NUSD for the lack of SS NU. In the future, we should really check out retiring some oldgens to their own PL or something for practicality. For now, it’s simple enough to say we should focus on the current gen.
I don't think everyone is going to 100% agree with whatever format for any premier league quite frankly. Look at NU+PU not being involved in PSPL and Monotype being excluded in a lower-tier tournament. If anything, I am glad that RBY+GSC got involved in one of our team tournaments, however, the lack of SS in our tournaments is truly concerning. There should never be just two SS slots as the current generation has the largest community, making it the most actively developing and played tier.

I've been wanting our Bo3 slot to be considered as all SS. The Bo3 slot in general feels like the most competitive slot (and where the highest performed player goes). If representation is poor in our old generations Bo3 slot, as expressed by mainers like 1 & 2, then making the slot all SS also supports the issue of poor SS representation. I also wanna compliment all of the old generation players for updating essential resources, notably the Viability Rankings to help players understand the metagame better. This plays a humongous role for our old generations in pretty much everything. Keeping NUPL 8 slots or even less will undeniably provide the best for our most competitive tournament. Here is the format I've had in mind:

Format:
2 SS
1 SS Bo3
1 SM
1 ORAS
1 BW
1 DPP
1 ADV
 

Estarossa

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Phoophes invited commentary from the GSC side and I've talked a little about it already both with meri and in NU disc, but as a GSC addict and GSC NU player in NUSD I personally don't think its in a state for addition to NUPL right now and would not support its inclusion in the tour myself, although I would still play it if it was included.

Prepared for the haha reacts from Holly but I think Dugtrio is a real issue in the tier right now that adds a huge uncompetitive element to the games its included in, both through its standard SubScreech set, and also the SubSwagger set that saw use in NUSD from Earthworm in particular. Swagger sets in particular are extremely unhealthy with how much they turn matchups down to massive coinflips, and Dugtrio has plenty of chances to fish those confusions versus its checks through Substitute and abusing Sleep Talk rolls.

I still view SubScreech as a noticeable problem even if Swagger were to be banned for the tour however, its ability to shut down anything but the hardest of counterplay (see. ice beam octillery) is ridiculous through pure fishing with Screech on Sleep Talk rolls and Rock Slide flinches often turns matchups against would be solid checks like HP Elec Octillery, HP Ice Xatu, RestTalk Dugtrio, Fearow, etc into complete RNG-fests that come down to whether you can pull good-sleep talk moves and not end up rest looping / clicking hp elec into it or being flinched by rock slide at the opportune moments and being forced to sack / severely weaken a teammate pokemon to repeat the process again.

To me this goes way beyond typical rng-fishing and rewarding of good positioning / punishing of bad positioning (eg. letting your octillery be asleep for instance) that you would normally associate with some other things in GSC tiers, such as Nidoqueen potentially critting or para'ing through its checks in GSC UU, and goes comfortably into the realm of unhealthy levels of rng-fishing and bsing through stuff that takes far too much control out of players hands in favour of RNG elements, not least because of the much higher percentages involved with duggy compared to things like crits and thunderpara->fullparas (20% on rock slide / 33% or 66% on sleep talk depending on the sets in question) and the multitude of chances dugtrio gets by virtue of its solid speed tier, ability to check key defensive pokemon such as chinchou, ninetales, magnemite etc, and already noticeable offensive presence and value before even considering RNG.

This is personally just my opinion, but I've seen quite a bit of support both from some other GSC players and a lot of spectators for looking at Dugtrio, and think this is a discussion that should be taken amongst GSC NU players before its next big tour. Classic in particular would be a good time to potentially explore a Duggy-less tier, as would Snake, but I don't think the tier right now is in the perfect place to be included in the most important tour of the year and its certainly not the tour for trying out potential bans either.
 
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Rabia

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not sure if this is within the scope of this thread, but I'd really like to entertain a Bright Powder ban in ADV NU for this tournament

from what I can tell, the ADV playerbase is pretty content with the state of the tier otherwise---there are some anti-BP chain sentiments still---but I think this is still a pretty notable outlier. the only real abuser of the item is lead Glalie because it's genuinely just the best option beyond like, Lum Berry and Soft Sand, which are notable downgrades in many matchups. I think it'd be an overall low impact decision that could serve as a way to see if formally banning it down the line would be good
 

quziel

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Seconding/Thirding/Fourthing poh's / roxiee's suggestions of 3 SS Slots, and then one of each old gen back to ADV.

Also if we're getting rid of Brightpowder, we should also port in ADVOU's Baton Pass Clause because fullpass really only adds a sorta mediocre fish to the tier, and has little benefit beyond that. The style is likely to be brought 1-5 times throughout NUPL, and will inevitably win or lose heavily based on matchup (yes, there is definitely skill on the BP and opponent, w.r.t. managing boom turns and denying Delcatty/etc, but a lot of winning/losing vs it is lead choice vs venom, and then whether your team simply has the tools to deal with the style). To share the clause, this is its current form in ADVOU:

One Boost Passer Clause: Limit one Baton Passer that has a way to boost its stats

This preserves SD Pass Maw, Agili Pass Plusle, and others, and has few side effects that would be meaningfully felt for normal teams.
 
I have no real horse in this race and care not whether RBY NU is in NUPL or not, if anything I think a tier's premier team tournament should prioritise the current generation, but my name was mentioned a few times and I can probably give some more insight into RBY NU at least and experience playing within NUSD. I'll keep it short and mention this more for in general as a future of RBY NU in the overall NU landscape.

I think there is some validity to saying that RBY NU was a rough around the edges tier coming into NUSD. RBY NU was and still is extremely punishing and when it punishes mistakes it does it in the most cruel and often comical ways which is what was happening in NUSD. A sizeable amount of the variance complained about in NUSD was as a result of suboptimal play, teambuilding or the player in question was so far in the back that they had to go for a high risk play that backfired. Players were losing to Poliwhirl/Charizard in particular in ways that were entirely preventable and made these Pokemon look far stronger than they are which isn't as present nowadays.

Personally, I never found issues with consistency in friendlies, ladder or tournament in RBY NU. If I play better than my opponent, I feel like it's the same as any other tier. I think the consistency and RNG element as players have gotten better at the tier has gone significantly down since NUSD as well due to the utter trouncing Fire Spin got and the more consistent sleep strategies used towards the end of NUSD and in the ladder tournament. High amounts of variance on a turn by turn basis over a big enough sample size evens out anyways.

Overall I guess this is something to be mentioned in general for a theoretical discussion in the long term rather than now but I thought it should be said.
 
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Ren-chon

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3x SS + SM~Adv if 8 slots, and GSC + Bo3 if we go on with 10. Honestly not that much of a bo3 fan mostly due to

1) 3 ss allows, in theory, for newer players to have a shot at getting drafted and playing the tier, and

2) makes it so most slots have the time and chance to support each other, like ORAS and SM (since most ORAS players also played SM) or the SS ones. Usually the bo3 slot gets a bit "isolated" in how they interact with the team since they already have their hands full dealing with 3 tiers at once, and lets be honest theres like one user (garay, and maybe etern) who would actually rather play bo3 than one of their other main NU gens, instead of playing it because they just dont really care what tier theyre in.

A bit subjective here but I also dislike the unfortunate interaction that happens between bo3 and ORAS in special, where the playerbase becomes kinda diluted and potential gen 6 players end up in bo3 reusing teams (who tf is gonna build 3 different old gen teams per week) from back when it was current gen, just about killing any chances for tier development there. That said, I dont really dislike the idea of ss/sm/oras bo3, just prefer a 3rd ss over it

I also wouldnt be opposed to roxiee idea of old gens bo3 instead becoming SS bo3 (as the 3rd SS slot sort of) for this tournament if we do 8 slots, since its the last NUPL with SS NU as cg as etern highlighted and the tier rn is the most active its been all gen, so pretty sure most ss players wouldnt at all mind helping with the ss bo3 slot alongside their own. Would also be a pretty nice push to get through the somewhat stale state in regard to new builds that we've been for a bit now.
 

Kiyo

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without looking at any numbers at all...

it seems like more ss slots gets more new players involved, but im not convinced it accelerates metagame development in a noticeable way. if everyone who played each week built their own teams this might be the case, but its often a small set of players cranking out a lot of teams using their favorite cores/brokens. for every team that goes out on a limb to draft a new ss player, theres also a tour player who gets picked up and often needs to be passed a team. the biggest thing i notice with increased ss slots is more recyclying of hyper offense structures and more susceptability to being counterteamed once you figure out who is doing the building/feeding. i saw a lot of wash games in ss this past nusd from matchup alone and i attribute that at least partially to the increased strain on building.

i prefer more old gen inclusion and giving more players from ruins of alph a chance to compete/ be included in the pool. (edit: I also do not think 10 slots dillutes the competitiveness of the tournament. to the best of my knowledge theres little to no overlap in the player pools of gsc/rby and the other represented tiers. its not like you are pulling good players from ss to main gsc for the tour. you are essentially adding players to the pool when you add those tiers) i also think rby is the most competitive nu. the games are sharp, mistakes are punishing, and advantages get reliably converted into wins. i thoroughly enjoyed watching the games every week despite my teammates going 0-9.
 
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it seems like more ss slots gets more new players involved, but im not convinced it accelerates metagame development in a noticeable way. if everyone who played each week built their own teams this might be the case, but its often a small set of players cranking out a lot of teams using their favorite cores/brokens. for every team that goes out on a limb to draft a new ss player, theres also a tour player who gets picked up and often needs to be passed a team. the biggest thing i notice with increased ss slots is more recyclying of hyper offense structures and more susceptability to being counterteamed once you figure out who is doing the building/feeding. i saw a lot of wash games in ss this past nusd from matchup alone and i attribute that at least partially to the increased strain on building.
Gotta disagree with this, mostly b/c of the assertions made regarding how 3 SS slots would impact the tour.

Yes, some teams are going to draft tour players and have someone else do the building; this isn't a problem exclusive to a 3 SS format, and fewer SS slots wouldn't really make a difference there. In fact, more SS slots would incentivize buying players that can both play and build competently (potentially including new talent!!!), rather than relying on one workhorse to constantly churn out teams.

As for the cteaming thing, that's... also just a natural part of tours. If you spam the same thing over and over again, of course you'll eventually get cteamed. At that point it's on the builders and players to make sure they don't fall into exploitable trends, and again, relying on one player to make 3 teams per week probably isn't a viable strategy long-term.

My overall point here is that while none of these statements are necessarily wrong, they're not indicative of a problem with the format; they're just things that can happen regardless of tier or gen.

No comment on the rest of the post, I'm fine with 8 or 10 slots as long as it's 3 SS somewhere in there.
 

Finchinator

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After lots of discussion, the format for NUPL X will be the following:
  • SS NU
  • SS NU
  • SS NU
  • SM NU
  • ORAS NU
  • BW NU
  • DPP NU
  • ADV NU
In addition, we will be adding GSC NU and RBY NU cups to the NU Classic later on this year (and, of course, they will be in discussion for inclusion in the second NU team tournament as they previously were).
 
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