Smogon Grand Slam XI Tier Discussion

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Vulpix03

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This should probably be its own thread, however I want to put it our there. 6+ tier slam is apparently off the table, so here is another idea.

Nuke Slam, Nuke DOST, Nuke Classic. Now, what should we do instead of these tours? Revamp the current circuit system and make circuit playoffs for each individual Official Tier a trophy tournament, doing away with individual ribbons. This does a few things:
  • It promotes forum activity for individual tiers, hopefully growing the community as a whole.
  • It ends the ORAS vs RBY shitstorm before that even starts.
  • It allows you to pick and choose what you want to play so you don't suffer from burnout playing 5 bo3s a week.

The main argument against this would be "but our trophies and their prestige!". This argument is nothing more than an elitist way of trying to glorify 10x10 pixels in an attempt to justify time spent on this site. In the end, no matter how hard we try, smogon and Pokemon is ultimately for fun, and will never be anything more than a hobby. We are not League of Legends, we are not CS:GO. We do not have sponsors nor do we get paid. We do this for fun. All people want is to be able to compete in their tier at the highest level possible, and with how smogon is conditioned to think trophies are all that matters, then trophies will be the highest level possible.

Edit: the new system doesn't Have to be all trophies, however I think most people can agree that the current tour system is a shit show. You can make every non current gen ou / team tour a ribbon tour. Discussed here https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...i-tier-discussion.3694630/page-2#post-9052469
 
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kumiko

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Piggybacking on Tony's post a tad.

For the three tiers in question, I have not actively played Ubers or LC in a long time, so I don't want to try to offer any substantive opinion as to how the tiers are currently. However, I think it's pretty clear that LC is way less like the metagames currently secured in Grand Slam than Ubers is. Ubers, plainly put, fits the tournament better. LC is so wildly different of a metagame than the tiers in slam; there's no other tier where a player is going to have a spreadsheet open during the game to deduce what kind of EVs the opponent has based off of Stealth Rock damage. In fact, it's so different of a metagame, Coconut kinda proves the point of how niche of a metagame it is whilst hyping up the LC playerbase:

A Little Cup player has won the Little Cup open every single year for a long time. A PU main has not won the PU Open since its inception.
Like... surely this isn't a good thing, right? The tournament is not designed to be just about LC; it's the best player(s) of all the tiers within the tournament. Every tier has its own ribbon to reward its best player of said individual tier. The fact that only those with niche metagame knowledge are capable of winning it is quite a big red flag to me, proving the point of how drastically different is is compared to the other metagames. Non-mainers are more than capable of winning the other tiers within slam, but apparently not in LC?

For PU, I think it's a bit more of a gray area. In a hypothetical world where ZU or whatever gains traction and wants inclusion in the tournament circuit, how are we going to determine where the cutoff for where the usage based tiers are or aren't included? I don't think we should just include them because they exist, nor do I really think we should keep making official usage based tiers until we've covered every Pokemon down to Grovyle. Determining if PU qualifies under this is honestly just going to be subjective. However, PU is in the circuit now, and has improved a lot since it was first added; I think the playerbase is very competent and the metagame is enjoyable. The SCL display was solid in terms of players and competency, but wow the tier was boring to watch as a spectator. It feels like more than half the teams that tournament ended up being Gigalith, Ferroseed, Quagsire, Weezing, Ribombee, and Scrafty.

Overall, I would favor Ubers and PU to be in slam rather than LC. Removing LC would be pretty harsh towards the LC community; 10 years of being in Slam into being axed is a big deal. Even so, there's really no counterpoint to the fact it's just a vastly different metagame compared to the other tiers in Slam, and I think that's more substantive than any other argument.

---

If people value inclusivity so highly and want to expand Slam, I strongly recommend the TD team does not try this again, as it very clearly failed last time. In fact, as Tony mentioned in his initial post, which went pretty unnoticed, player burnout is already an issue with five tiers. As someone who competes in Grand Slam, it is a very tedious task to be solid at all the metagames within, and no matter what kind of restrictions you put into place for qualification, you need to know all the tiers, or you're gonna be fucked in one of them. Player burnout aside, I think expecting players to gain competency in every tier is a very unnecessary task and not something we should be doing for the sake of inclusivity. We should not be ruining one tournament for the sake of satisfying as many people as possible, especially when there's no solution to satisfy everyone.

Perhaps a bit radical, but if everyone really values inclusivity as much as this thread implies, I think we should add another tournament to the circuit; The Kumbaya Tournament. Grand Slam will continue to exist, either keeping its current format of five tiers with five cups, or even potentially adopting a SmogTour like format, featuring only three tiers (probably UU RU NU). The Kumbaya Tournament can be used to give representation and inclusivity, which is what is seemingly being desired, and also be expanded to include other tiers; possibly even removing the need for Doubles OST or allowing something like Monotype to be added into the mix. If this solution doesn't satisfy people, then I would like to ask; why is inclusivity a priority? Grand Slam is one tournament, and players should not be given an unreasonable task for the sake of catering to a fraction of the Smogon population at the expense of those who are actually going to compete in this tournament. A new tournament allows inclusivity to be a priority, and even potentially creating a lower tier version of SmogTour, which seems very cool to me, personally. If the Kumbaya Tournament were to flop, I believe that proves the point that inclusivity should not be a priority. If it works, then I believe it's a good solution to avoid discussions like these where we have to pick what tier gets axed every so often. And there's no real harm in trying.
 
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Berks

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Piggybacking on Tony's post a tad.

For the three tiers in question, I have not actively played Ubers or LC in a long time, so I don't want to try to offer any substantive opinion as to how the tiers are currently. However, I think it's pretty clear that LC is way less like the metagames than Ubers. Ubers, plainly put, fits the tournament better. LC is so wildly different of a metagame than the tiers in slam; there's no other tier where a player is going to have a spreadsheet open during the game to deduce what kind of EVs the opponent has based off of Stealth Rock damage. In fact, it's so different of a metagame, Coconut kinda proves the point of how niche of a metagame it is whilst hyping up the LC playerbase:



Like... surely this isn't a good thing, right? The tournament is not designed to be just about LC; it's the best player(s) of all the tiers within the tournament. Every tier has its own ribbon to reward its best player of said individual tier. The fact that only those with niche metagame knowledge are capable of winning it is quite a big red flag to me, proving the point of how drastically different is is compared to the other metagames. Non-mainers are more than capable of winning the other tiers within slam, but apparently not in LC?

For PU, I think it's a bit more of a gray area. In a hypothetical world where ZU or whatever gains traction and wants inclusion in the tournament circuit, how are we going to determine where the cutoff for where the usage based tiers are or aren't included? I don't think we should just include them because they exist, nor do I really think we should keep making official usage based tiers until we've covered every Pokemon down to Grovyle. Determining if PU qualifies under this is honestly just going to be subjective. However, PU is in the circuit now, and has improved a lot since it was first added; I think the playerbase is very competent and the metagame is enjoyable. The SCL display was solid in terms of players and competency, but wow the tier was boring to watch as a spectator. It feels like more than half the teams that tournament ended up being Gigalith, Ferroseed, Quagsire, Weezing, Ribombee, and Scrafty.

Overall, I would favor Ubers and PU to be in slam rather than LC. Removing LC would be pretty harsh towards the LC community; 10 years of being in Slam into being axed is a big deal. Even so, there's really no counterpoint to the fact it's just a vastly different metagame compared to the other tiers in Slam, and I think that's more substantive than any other argument.

---

If people value inclusivity so highly and expand slam, I strongly recommend the td team does not try this again, as it very clearly failed last time. In fact, as Tony mentioned in his initial post, which went pretty unnoticed, player burnout is already an issue with five tiers. As someone who competes in Grand Slam, it is a very tedious task to be solid at all the metagames within, and no matter what kind of restrictions you put into place for qualification, you need to know all the tiers, or you're gonna be fucked in one of them. Player burnout aside, I think expecting players to gain competency in every tier is a very unnecessary task and no something we should be doing for the sake of inclusivity. We should not be ruining one tournament for the sake of satisfying as many people as possible, especially when there's no solution to satisfy everyone.

Perhaps a bit radical, but if everyone really values inclusivity as much as this thread implies, I think we should add another tournament to the circuit; The Kumbaya Tournament. Grand Slam will continue to exist, either keeping its current format of five tiers with five cups, or even potentially adopting a SmogTour like format, featuring only three tiers (probably UU RU NU). The Kumbaya Tournament can be used to give representation and inclusivity, which is what is seemingly being desired, and also be expanded to include other tiers; possibly even removing the need for Doubles OST or allowing something like Monotype to be added into the mix. If this solution doesn't satisfy people, then I would like to ask; why is inclusivity a priority? Grand Slam is one tournament, and players should not be given an unreasonable task for the sake of catering to a fraction of the Smogon population at the expense of those who are actually going to compete in this tournament. A new tournament allows inclusivity to be a priority, and even potentially creating a lower tier version of SmogTour, which seems very cool to me, personally. If the Kumbaya Tournament were to flop, I believe that proves the point that inclusivity should not be a priority. If it works, then I believe it's a good solution to avoid discussions like these where we have to pick what tier gets axed every so often. And there's no real harm in trying.
This proposal could even follow the new SPL/SCL divide where there is an official usage-based Slam and an official metagame slam. Right now, you’d have four tiers in the first (UU, RU, NU, PU) and maybe three metas in the second (Ubers, LC, Doubles?, Monotype?). The first tournament would be consistent in mechanics, where they’re all functionally the same meta but with different mons, and the latter tournament would be more stable than the first because its metas would be very different but they would not shift with usage.

This could potentially satisfy everyone; the people who don’t like learning new mechanics avoid the metagame slam, the people who run the metagames still have an official slam, and the people who would grind through one large slam will probably still grind through two smaller slams. It could be fun, too!
 

Coconut

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The tournament is not designed to be just about LC; it's the best player(s) of all the tiers within the tournament. Every tier has its own ribbon to reward its best player of said individual tier. The fact that only those with niche metagame knowledge are capable of winning it is quite a big red flag to me, proving the point of how drastically different is is compared to the other metagames. Non-mainers are more than capable of winning the other tiers within slam, but apparently not in LC?
I'm very glad you brought this up. The Little Cup open, is yes, designed to be just about LC. It says so in the title.
Grand Slam is the collective of the five opens. This would be where I would expect people who are "non-mainers" or people who play multiple Slam tiers to thrive. And from quickly taking a look at the past winners of these tournaments, I would say both of these tournaments are functioning as intended.

But just for you, we'll dive a little deeper. I'm going to use the Quarterfinals of the LC Open(s) as a litmus test. These are people who I would say did very well in the tournament and likely had very strong odds to make Grand Slam playoffs, provided they did fairly well in other tiers.

ss (2021-12-09 at 11.22.44).png
ss (2021-12-09 at 11.23.09).png

ss (2021-12-09 at 11.23.49).png

Just from looking at these, I see quite a few very familiar faces to the LC community, but I also see plenty of people who are not involved in LC in the slightest. To borrow from what PU said in regards to their Open, a non-mainer hasn't won LC Open but man "they have come damn close." The skill gap is not a matter of the tier being distinct, it's a matter of, as I said before, our top players being really good.

Yes, Little Cup being played at level 5 makes it different. Who cares? Since when did the tournaments community ever give a shit about making things easier for new people to win? The questions we are asking, as stated by the first post in this thread:
- Remember that the primary goal is to have a competitive tournament, not necessary an inclusive one.
By making all the tiers look the same instead of picking the strongest tiers, we are doing the precise opposite of what the intended goal of the thread is. We are adding a weaker metagame to the tournament. There's no justifiable reason to pigeonhole all the tiers into one metric, it's completely ridiculous.
 
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kumiko

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I'm very glad you brought this up. The Little Cup open, is yes, designed to be just about LC. It says so in the title.
Thanks, as you very well know, I can't read.

LC Open is a qualifier for Grand Slam. That is its functionality. Obviously, it will be favored to people who actively play the tier, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, the fact that only people who main the tier have won does not act as a point towards anything beyond the tier's playerbase being competent; it directly supports the notion it is a foreign tier compared to the rest of the tournament.

Yes, Little Cup being played at level 5 makes it different. Who cares? Since when did the tournaments community ever give a shit about making things easier for new people to win? The questions we are asking, as stated by the first post in this thread:
Why does this thread decide to be pro inclusivity only when convenient? There is just as much justification to cater to people who don't actively play any tier within slam as there is to cater to one tiers community. My argument is not even entirely for new people; casual tournament players will have to learn tiers to an extent to play them in tours. Every tier, even LC, changes every gen, even if it's not an "actively tiered" tier.

I understand that the only thing that you have left is that LC looks different, but please understand that when you write a post to delete my tier, then suggest a Kumbayah Tournament, you are actively hurting the integrity of the tournaments community. Do better.
I don't know if you read my post or not, but the only thing I said about LC is that it's different from the other tiers, so I'm not really sure where this aggressive approach saying "it's all I have left" is coming from when it's the only thing I've mentioned in the first place.

The other tournament is not a joke suggestion. If you want to argue in support of LC being included in Slam, that is fine, but this portion of my post is entirely in response to how this thread has derailed into the Kumbaya mindset of every tier should be included and everyone should be happy. It is not a shot at any tier, and in fact, I like PU, and suggested it potentially being added there. It is not a shot, it's not a joke. If being inclusive is the priority; what's wrong with this proposal? How is this hurting the tournament community?

Your attitude is terrible. Please do not parade yourself as a higher, impartial person when the only thing you are doing is being extremely condescending at every corner whilst grasping at straws. If anyone needs to do better, it's you.
 

MANNAT

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Vulpix03 actually had the best solution to a myriad of issues in the entire thread. It solves what is probably the biggest concern for classic by making it future proof. There's currently a concern with the official circuit because ORAS OU may get deleted with the release of generation 9 and this protects against that problem before it happens. I really couldn't care less about "trophy inflation" considering the fact that we have 2 copies of the same tournament each year and the poetically named "green stain" that is SCL.

The second reason why I like the idea of making the official circuit playoffs into trophy tours is that it encourages mastery of individual tiers rather than just being a "jack of all trades" so to speak. Currently, there's no way for the best player on the site in any tier outside of SS OU to win a trophy, and we encourage people who are just "pretty good" at every tier to win tournaments. People can ignore tiers entirely and win these tournaments, which defeats the purpose of having them in the first place. By having circuit tournaments over the year and having the top 16 of those circuits compete for a trophy, you'll truly have the best players in those tiers competing for a trophy, which is something that I think we should strive to reward.
 
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Coconut

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Grand Slam will continue to exist, either keeping its current format of five tiers with five cups, or even potentially adopting a SmogTour like format, featuring only three tiers (probably UU RU NU). The Kumbaya Tournament can be used to give representation and inclusivity, which is what is seemingly being desired, and also be expanded to include other tiers; possibly even removing the need for Doubles OST or allowing something like Monotype to be added into the mix. If this solution doesn't satisfy people, then I would like to ask; why is inclusivity a priority? Grand Slam is one tournament, and players should not be given an unreasonable task for the sake of catering to a fraction of the Smogon population at the expense of those who are actually going to compete in this tournament. A new tournament allows inclusivity to be a priority, and even potentially creating a lower tier version of SmogTour, which seems very cool to me, personally. If the Kumbaya Tournament were to flop, I believe that proves the point that inclusivity should not be a priority. If it works, then I believe it's a good solution to avoid discussions like these where we have to pick what tier gets axed every so often. And there's no real harm in trying.
It's come to my attention that this isn't a joke, so I'll briefly explain why this isn't ideal. Like you said in response to my post, inclusively cannot simply be a priority when it's convenient. Having an option like this will once again create an SPL/SCL divide where one is going to be significantly shitter than the other and then it's going to be used as a justification for why these tiers shouldn't be a priority—when in reality there's a myriad of other factors that could all come into play. The harm in trying is that if it doesn't work, we aren't going to just go back to normal, we're going to remove everyone who got put into Slam2.
 

ninjadog

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If the Slam format is kept I don't see any actual arguments against all 6 tiers being included, burnout has been addressed pretty well by Adaam amongst others, and the playoff format is very simple. Though if this is unacceptable for whatever reason Vulpix's idea of every tier just giving its own trophy works given it also solves upcoming issues with Classic.

Completely insane btw that participation pretty much everywhere on Smogon is falling yet people think things like attempting to kill off an entire playerbase (whether it be PU/LC/Ubers) or completely cutting off the only growing region (Asia / more specifically India + China) from playing Smogon Tour are good ideas. This isn't some Esport with dedicated fans, the vast majority of people will not care about tournaments if there is no chance they can play in them.
 
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MANNAT

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Completely insane btw that participation pretty much everywhere on Smogon is falling yet people think things like attempting to kill off an entire playerbase (whether it be PU/LC/Ubers) or completely cutting off the only growing region (Asia / more specifically India + China) from playing Smogon Tour are good ideas. This isn't some Esport with dedicated fans, the vast majority of people will not care about tournaments if there is no chance they can play in them.
I actually think the circuit tour playoff suggestion aleviates these issues, as you have a trophy tournament specifically for active playerbases, and people that are from said growing region won't have to deal with the logistical issues that come with a live tour format.
 

Expulso

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If you want to argue in support of LC being included in Slam, that is fine, but this portion of my post is entirely in response to how this thread has derailed into the Kumbaya mindset of every tier should be included and everyone should be happy.
in my personal opinion this is a mischaracterization of the thread. cant speak to other people's arguments but at least personally, i dont want LC to be included solely for the sake of including everyone -- i just think all five tiers that have been in the tour before are proven to work fine and for that reason shouldn't be removed. if i thought the tour would significantly benefit from not having LC, i'd support its removal, but it brings plenty of good players in and isnt particularly difficult to pick up (especially compared to, say, RBY in classic). the only real benefits of excluding LC would be letting people play 5 games rather than 6 in the first week or two and saving people the added effort of picking LC up. even then, isnt the tour supposed to reward the ability to pick up multiple tiers? that seems like the whole point of a combined tour. plus i think LC is barely harder than the usage tiers to pick up since there's much less risk of metagame-changing shifts happening right before the tour, which fucked up all the other tiers in slam IX.

====

i think Vulpix03's suggestion is genuinely great & interesting, great post. slam does reward a weird skillset right now and doesn't effectively encourage mastery of any one tier, which seems like the best way to make these tiers as competitive as possible. it would certainly be nice to provide circuit playoffs with a greater incentive
 

Kipkluif

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I wonder why LC being mechanically different is a problem after 10 years of it being fine. I think the spreadsheet pointfalls flat because if anything, this gives the player using it an in-game knowledge advantage regardless of whether they play the tier or not. I think an extra tour doesnt magically solve burnout, if people aren't willing to play this amount of tiers then you're just dealing all the tiers you're cutting from slam a significantly shittier hand.
 
Respectfully, what is the obsession with changing things that clearly aren't broken. LC has been in Slam for like the past decade, and you guys suddenly wanna nuke it? Like what's drastically changed to the point that LC suddenly has to go. People wanna talk about "oh it's different", but literally look at smogon classic, no one complains about that. Because if you wanna complain about LC being "bad" for the tournament because it's different, what does that make classic as a whole? The differences between Gen 1 and Gen 5 are a lot more substantial than between say LC and UU. LC rarely has metagame changes, if you can put in the effort of learning the EVs or whatever, you're set. Other lower tiers, barring Ubers, you could be playing a completely different tier to the one at the start of the tournament, because of metagame shifts. They're all "different" in different ways.

The argument that "it's different" and that Ubers is more similar to the rest is perhaps true, but the reality is, when both LC and Ubers were in slam, the slam qualifiers averaged higher LC points than they did for Ubers. This isn't me bashing on Ubers, but highlighting the exaggeration of how different LC actually is in comparison. I get these stats are from a while back, but they're also across different metagames, so it's something that's been carried across generations.

stats:

2018 slam qualifiers average Ubers points: 3.75
2018 slam qualifiers average LC points: 4

2017 slam qualifiers average Ubers points: 3.75
2017 slam qualifiers average LC points: 5.875

2016 slam qualifiers average Ubers points: 3.4166667
2016 slam qualifiers average LC points: 2.4

2015 slam qualifiers average Ubers: 4.3
2015 slam qualifiers average LC: 4.3

2014 slam qualifiers average Ubers: 2.714
2014 slam qualifiers average LC: 5.25

Average Ubers Points: 3.58613334
Average LC Points: 4.365


With that being said I think it's stupid how the first thought is to having to omit a tier. Every tier has justification to be in, and I don't really fair to say X tier is better than X. What's the point of excluding at least one relatively big player base from one of Smogon's biggest tournaments?

As mentioned in this thread, just make it best finish. You can join 6, but only your best 5 finishes go through. For playoffs, both players lock a tier, and higher seed nukes one. Incentivses players to try get a higher finish too. Like literally, this hurts absolutely no one. If you can wanna talk about burnout, look at tournaments like OLT. If you still wanna talk about burnout, just spread out the tournament a bit more, I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world to overlap tournaments (especially when it's just the latter stages, meaning very few people actually suffer from the overlap).
 
Thanks, as you very well know, I can't read.

LC Open is a qualifier for Grand Slam. That is its functionality.
This sole functionality was not the original intention of Grand Slam as a tournament, nor is it a realistic description of how it has ever been treated. Let's look at the original justification in the first slam thread:

The Smogon Grand Slam is a new tournament designed to ensure every Smogon-supported Gen V tier is represented in an official tournament. While the decision to return the Smogon Tour back to its multi-generation origins caused quite the stir, the Smogon Grand Slam will allow players of the UU, Ubers, RU, NU, and LC metagames to test their skills in a high-level tournament setting with a trophy on the line.
Slam does combine these individual tournaments into a bo5 playoffs, but the Opens were never merely qualifiers: each Open is just as much an opportunity for lower tier players to prove their skills in the most competitive tournament of that tier on site. This other function is important for the lower tier circuit as a whole, as Open results are likely the most consistent way to get drafted into the team tournament for lower tiers. Obviously as a community we can decide to break from the original language and start prioritizing playoffs, but if this thread is any indication that position is highly controversial, and your attempt to act as if it is (rather than should be) the primary consideration is not correct.

Obviously, it will be favored to people who actively play the tier, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, the fact that only people who main the tier have won does not act as a point towards anything beyond the tier's playerbase being competent; it directly supports the notion it is a foreign tier compared to the rest of the tournament.
I won't comment on why we do well in our tournaments, but I would like to point out that it has not always been true: the first three opens were won by complete outsiders. We have been happened to take most since then, but clearly winning LC open does not inherently require specialization (FLCL got second last year, after all, and he almost certainly made little attempt to learn the intricacies of LC). What changed is that our best players have improved over the last couple years. Shouldn't that be the hope of making our non OU tiers official?

There is just as much justification to cater to people who don't actively play any tier within slam as there is to cater to one tiers community. My argument is not even entirely for new people; casual tournament players will have to learn tiers to an extent to play them in tours. Every tier, even LC, changes every gen, even if it's not an "actively tiered" tier.
This does not follow from your earlier statement that the opens are only qualifiers for Slam: from the way that you and ABR have been trying to steer the conversation, your primary focus has been catering to casual tournament players rather than giving equal consideration to both that base and each tier's individual playerbase. If anything, I would interpret the original vision of Slam to be biased in the tier's direction, and I believe we should still have similar priorities.

Overall, there are two visions of GS in this thread: one that, for the most part, only considers the Opens insofar as they are lead ups to the playoffs, and another that recognizes the Opens as serving their own important function to each respective tier's playerbase. The original GS is, in my opinion, far more in line with the latter, and I believe we should continue with that original goal into the future.
 
This should probably be its own thread, however I want to put it our there. 6+ tier slam is apparently off the table, so here is another idea.

Nuke Slam, Nuke DOST, Nuke Classic. Now, what should we do instead of these tours? Revamp the current circuit system and make circuit playoffs for each individual Official Tier a trophy tournament, doing away with individual ribbons. This does a few things:
  • It promotes forum activity for individual tiers, hopefully growing the community as a whole.
  • It ends the ORAS vs RBY shitstorm before that even starts.
  • It allows you to pick and choose what you want to play so you don't suffer from burnout playing 5 bo3s a week.

The main argument against this would be "but our trophies and their prestige!". This argument is nothing more than an elitist way of trying to glorify 10x10 pixels in an attempt to justify time spent on this site. In the end, no matter how hard we try, smogon and Pokemon is ultimately for fun, and will never be anything more than a hobby. We are not League of Legends, we are not CS:GO. We do not have sponsors nor do we get paid. We do this for fun. All people want is to be able to compete in their tier at the highest level possible, and with how smogon is conditioned to think trophies are all that matters, then trophies will be the highest level possible.

Edit: the new system doesn't Have to be all trophies, however I think most people can agree that the current tour system is a shit show. You can make every non current gen ou / team tour a ribbon tour.
Going to support this post here too. We really shouldn't just settle on having bad tours in the circuit because they've existed for awhile now. This alleviates so many issues with the current circuit and places importance on individual tier skill rather than multi tier skill. Keeps people active throughout the year, decreases the concentrated time sink that tours like this bring and it keeps everyone happy to a much larger degree than any other solution proposed.

If for some ungodly reason people actually enjoy the format of the Grand Slam and don't like the idea of their individual tiers each having equal representation throughout the year then I'm in the camp that you need to establish what exactly we want from tournaments going forward. If its inclusivity, is it for each tier or the individuals playing? If its for the people grand slam as a format shouldn't exist and we should be moving on to new ideas, if its for each tier then just make it 6 and we can continue to scale it every time a problem like this comes up again! (Not tenable) or we get rid of slam and create the "kumbaya" tournament which can operate whatever way is deemed most fair to all tiers involved. Also going to say please do not actually brand it the kumbaya tournament is incredibly demeaning, but a seperation of slam is not the worst thing in the world. Basing it on competitiveness or uniformity (I feel uninformity is the actual argument people made thats relevant not really competitiveness but its being heralded as that because the larger smogon population do not like lc and competitiveness is a nicer buzzword relating to tournaments) you always just get rid of LC. Like a lot of things in life, even if you like playing with level 5's you shouldn't. Its just a different tier to all others involved and no amount of historical significance or player base sizes or anything of the sort should matter.

What is obviously best is striking a balance and its why I like Vulpix's suggestion the most, followed by TDK's. Both combine elements of each ethos into an evenly represented, easily accessible, competitive tournament circuit change and are better at combining this than any other suggestion on the board so far. Similar actions should be taken for classic also. See the future of old gens thread marcop posted for reference.

 

dcae

plaza athénée
is a defending SCL Championis a Past SCL Champion
Perhaps a bit radical, but if everyone really values inclusivity as much as this thread implies, I think we should add another tournament to the circuit; The Kumbaya Tournament.
It's incredible that after a day of posts, this patronising garbage is the type of response presented as a general counter. Kumbaya tournament? Come on now, at least try to hide the fact that this isn't a joke of an idea, like you hid your original anti-LC hitpiece under Luthier's name.

Once again your arguments amount to nothing more than "mechanical differences!!" and "fuck inclusivity/player burnout." Numerous posts in this thread have already established why mechanical difference is a red herring - at no point has this been considered a relevant point to consider with respect to Slam or frankly any other tour on this site. Continuing to parrot this point is bad faith argumentation. Maybe these differences are too difficult for you to grasp, given your consistent failure to win games in any LC tour you participate in, but tons of players who traditionally play LV100 tiers have easily adapted and succeeded in LC across every tour. Either way, never has been a concern and should not start being one now.

Regarding "inclusivity"/player burnout, ninjadog makes a great point about how player participation is falling precipitously as a whole. The solution to this is obviously not to cut out an entire tier from a tour it has been in for the entirety of its existence, particularly when said tier quantifiably gets some of the most signups for individual tournaments as well as open, despite a disadvantageous signup timeslot. If player burnout was already an issue with 5 cups, then perhaps an idea more akin to what Vulpix03 proposed is something to look into. You cannot simply pick and choose when to use player burnout as an argument simply to deny a tier you don't like.

And if you respond, do not disrespect the intelligence of everybody reading this thread and try to double down on the idea that this "Kumbaya" tournament is a serious proposition.
 

kumiko

formerly TDK
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[12:27 PM] TDK: it's not at all a joke proposal ftr
[12:27 PM] TDK: if the goal is inclusivity and people want a six tier slam
[12:27 PM] TDK: i think it's better than six tier slam
[12:27 PM] TDK: however the tiers are split up is w/e
[12:27 PM] TDK: five tiers is already a lot
[12:27 PM] TDK: and i dont think expanding is at all good for the sake of the tournament
[12:28 PM] coconu t: if that wasn't a joke proposal
[12:28 PM] coconu t: it sure as shit did not come off that way
[12:28 PM] coconu t: you even took the phrasing from the joke thread
[12:28 PM] sparks: having a 6 tier slam by just having 2 3 tier slams is :wesmart~11:
[12:28 PM] coconu t: I don't want to post without the understanding that I read that as a complete joke
[12:29 PM] coconu t: TDK
[12:29 PM] TDK: i understand people can read it that way
[12:29 PM] coconu t: if you genuinely believe this is a good idea, then we just disagree
[12:29 PM] TDK: espc after abr's
[12:29 PM] TDK: but it's not a joke
[12:29 PM] TDK: calling it that was a joke tho ill admit, i just think it's a funny word, no harm meant
 

S1nn0hC0nfirm3d

aka Ho3nConfirm3d
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a defending SCL Champion
This should probably be its own thread, however I want to put it our there. 6+ tier slam is apparently off the table, so here is another idea.

Nuke Slam, Nuke DOST, Nuke Classic. Now, what should we do instead of these tours? Revamp the current circuit system and make circuit playoffs for each individual Official Tier a trophy tournament, doing away with individual ribbons. This does a few things:
  • It promotes forum activity for individual tiers, hopefully growing the community as a whole.
  • It ends the ORAS vs RBY shitstorm before that even starts.
  • It allows you to pick and choose what you want to play so you don't suffer from burnout playing 5 bo3s a week.

The main argument against this would be "but our trophies and their prestige!". This argument is nothing more than an elitist way of trying to glorify 10x10 pixels in an attempt to justify time spent on this site. In the end, no matter how hard we try, smogon and Pokemon is ultimately for fun, and will never be anything more than a hobby. We are not League of Legends, we are not CS:GO. We do not have sponsors nor do we get paid. We do this for fun. All people want is to be able to compete in their tier at the highest level possible, and with how smogon is conditioned to think trophies are all that matters, then trophies will be the highest level possible.

Edit: the new system doesn't Have to be all trophies, however I think most people can agree that the current tour system is a shit show. You can make every non current gen ou / team tour a ribbon tour.
Couldn't agree with this more!

Slam has been the least enjoyable experience on this site for me as far as stress vs fun goes in a tournament. The biggest flaw of slam––imo––is that it rewards players that have their own discords / sub-communities / friends that support them in the tiers that they're unfamiliar with. It is unreasonable to assume one player can build + play at this level without having others build for them or help cram course the metas. This is supposed to be a single tour, not a team tour, yet I'm assuming most players that made it past r1 last year all had what was essentially a PL's worth of "teammates" helping them build and test.

This is coming from the guy who made poffs without even playing in all 5 tours; why would I? I'm an NU main, I have no interest in UU, and I basically signed up for PU and RU for the novelty (not LC though I love LC <3). NU is as official as any other tier, yet realistically my only shot of a trophy is if I 1.) live in my mom's basement and try to grind enough experience 24 7 for the rest of the tiers, or 2.) build an army to support me. I really don't like 2.) because it already took a long while to gain the support and trust of a handful of NUers that help me test during slam and, again, this is a singles tourne, not a PL.

I could be over-exaggerating and I completely acknowledge that slam is a lot of fun for some players and how it does cater to those that are able to pick up multiple tiers in a single generation. Yet surely I'm not the only one that lacks full interest in all 5 low tiers, and I imagine I'm with the majority of players here.

Just let each official tier have a trophy and let each low tier player like myself stay in their lane! It's that simple.
 

Vulpix03

is a Tiering Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
RUPL Champion
The problem is not trophies, nor ribbons. The problem is perception.

The tournament community has created the perception that the be all end for smogon tournaments are pixel trophies. Winning a trophy, whether an individual or team trophy, is the absolute pinnacle of the format you won the trophy in. Why is this the perception? Because smogon's greatest and oldest tournaments have trophies (SPL, OST, Stour), and of course every tier and format wants to replicate the "prestige" around those tournaments. Ribbons are viewed as a joke by a majority of the tournament community simply because they are not trophies. Does making every circuit a trophy tour fix this? Probably not! Trophies will be handed out like candy to the winners of every tiers circuit championship, and circuit tournament trophies will, for a while at least, be viewed as second hand.

1639091907298.png

But, as Hipmonlee said in this post, you don't just flip some magical switch and expect the prestige fairy to swoop in and sprinkle some pixie dust on your tournament. You actually have to lay the groundwork and build a tournament worth getting involved in. The way things are looking, there are three options:
  1. Start nuking tiers as time goes on and piss off playerbases in a tournament scene that is already dying.
  2. Split the tours up to accommodate everyone. This comes at the cost of cohesion and still creates an influx of trophies into the scene.
  3. Nuke Slam, Classic and all non team tour / non current gen ou tournaments, making the circuits the pinnacle of individual tiers.
#1 and #2 are flawed in multiple ways, and in the end both are bandages being applied to a beast that is already dying. Option 3 is by far the best long term option. Circuit tours do not have to be trophy tours. Instead, we limit trophies to team tours (SPL, SCL, and potentially WCOP) and to current gen ou tours (OST, OLT, Stour) This means that trophies are reserved for the most important tier on smogon, current gen ou, and for team tournaments, which promote community growth and competition.

Why should this be done? Because in the end you can't please everyone. Not everyone can have a trophy, because if they do than trophies become meaningless. So if you can't please everyone, than why even try and please anyone? In the end it just leads to arguments over who's tier is better and all that bull shit. Current gen OU has always been smogon's focal point, so let's make it the true pinnacle of individual success by limiting trophies to tours that are solely focused on it.

This then brings up the question, so what about every non current gen ou tier? This is where the circuit tours will take over. In my opinion, keep ribbons! Will everyone be happy that they are stuck with a ribbon? Not right away, however with time people in their respective tiers will come to appreciate ribbons as the pinnacle of their tier's individual success.
 
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I'd argue uniformity does indeed matter when selecting tiers for Slam. It is weird to me that the other tiers are defined by which Pokemon are legal, while LC is defined by restrictions on the level of the Pokemon. Mons isn't meant to be played at lv. 5. It's more akin to Monotype or even an OM such as AAA, where the appeal of the format is the novelty of the ruleset rather than the mons that are allowed. I wouldn't be surprised if LC's popularity is due to its novelty + inclusion in slam rather than the other way around. If Monotype was included in slam for instance its signups would probably dwarf any other cup's.

tldr nuke classic, dost, and slam
This idea has merit in that it future proofs the tour circuit but as mentioned earlier causes trophy inflation. Trophies should have roughly the same value but a PU circuit trophy isn't going to be regarded anywhere near as highly as an OST trophy. Not to mention OU also has a circuit that currently awards a ribbon, as do the other stour gens. How will those be dealt with? What about when Monotype will inevitably want a trophy as well since their ribbon is the same one given to the other official tiers? Trophies also reward skill more than ribbons, which primarily reward dedication. If burnout is a worry I fail to see how requiring playing an entire year's worth of circuit tours to make playoffs solves the problem. Yes it rewards mastery but you also want the best players competing even if they might not main the tier.

The criticism of slam in particular is overblown. It's more futureproof than classic since the addition of new tiers can be controlled much easier than the creation of new gens, and it makes sense for a lower tier to carry less weight than CG OU, thus requiring competence in every or most tiers to earn a trophy. You also don't need an army of builders to do well in slam at all, there are plenty of resources on the forums like sample teams, bazaars, teambuilding competition threads etc. I used samples up until semis in PU open and did fine using samples in the other opens as well.

There are a couple solutions that have been suggested that hold merit. Abolishing slam and classic should theoretically increase the value of ribbons while still separating them from trophies. Make each ribbon unique as was suggested in another thread. Or keep slam and classic, but instead of qualifying based on cups, qualify based on the player's best major circuit tour run in their best 5 tiers. This gives a slight advantage to consistent players while still rewarding skill, and players aren't necessarily punished for not joining every tour. the downside of this is it places slam/classic at the same time as each other and with the lower tier championships. Holding them at their current times would require modifying when the "year" starts. Last option is just go with the "hold all cups, limit to joining 5" approach. The argument behind this is it doesn't make sense for a tier to be in SPL/SCL but be the odd one out for classic/slam. For competitiveness it doesn't really matter if less players join one cup, you still have the best players in that tier competing against each other which is what matters.
 

Merritt

no comment
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Head TD
The following is a personal stance, and not reflective of the TD team as a whole.

I'm hopefully going to keep this somewhat short. I believe that a 6 open slam is a good option, and would suggest that we utilize the best finish limit as discussed earlier in the thread. The earlier posts mostly seemed to have an assumption of a BFL of 5, I would guess purely because the current slam format is 5 opens. In my eyes, a more ideal BFL would instead be 3, due to already existing player complaints about the workload that goes into a serious preparation for slam playoff qualification.

A BFL of 3 means that players can enter the three opens they're most well versed in, a fourth for safety, and still have a lighter burden in terms of prep and scheduling load than the current 5 open slam format. Players could enter all 6 if they choose, but at that point you've willingly put yourself in the hole. Players are able to choose what the appropriate balance of safety and competency is for their specific situation - while it may give you a statistically stronger chance to always enter more opens, there is a tangible cost in the form of splitting focus and increasing the risk of burnout.

In addition, regardless of whether or not Grand Slam does increase to being 6 opens, I believe that we should shift to the release model used for the most recent Classic of 1 open/cup a week, in order to allow players to have fewer opens they're competing in simultaneously.

I believe that all the tiers in question have solid and dedicated playerbases, are strongly competitive, and none have the flaws that necessitated Ubers' removal 3 years ago. A solution that does not negatively impact the competitiveness of Grand Slam as a whole but still allows for all of these competitive tiers to be showcased is very appealing to me.
 
smogon dot com is a time capsule, I swear. It’s been ten years and yet these are the exact same threads. This isn’t a “blara defends LC” post. All these threads are are people shifting the definitions of what makes a competitive tournament so that their preferred tier makes the cut. It’s just tournament gerrymandering. Of course I’ve done this too—I might be the poster child of the game.

If there are easy solutions that encourage inclusivity, do that. Make the tournaments exclusive that have to be exclusive, draw whatever lines in the sand are necessary such that tournaments are structurally possible, and then stop pretending your tier is better than other tiers. It doesn’t matter, and it’s been the most ridiculous turf war on Smogon since I’ve been a member of these forums.

BFL 5 with 6 opens sounds good. When ZU or FU or whatever becomes official, BFL 5 with 7 opens sounds good. I really don’t understand why we keep pretending our precise definitions of what makes a competitive tournament or format is objective fact, and then repeating the same reskinned discussion every six months.
 
I think that individual trophy tours are at their best if they represent a certain skill set. Currently you are really good at old OU tiers if you do well in classic. You are really good at recent OU tiers if you do well in smogon tour. You are really good at current OU if you do well in OST or OLT. And lastly, you are really good at lower tiers if you do well in Slam. This gives the tournaments, and especially the trophies their desirability and prestige.

That being said I believe that LC is out of place in the Grand Slam tournament. It is the OM among the lower tiers of Slam, and requires its unique set of knowledge and skills to do well in. Now, this doesn't take away from its competitiveness, and I am not making an argument based on that. It simply doesn't allow for Grand Slam participants to fully showcase their ability in piloting lesser used Pokemon to victory because the ruleset under which the game operates is entirely different.
 

64 Squares

Mayonnaise colored Benz, I push miracle whips
is a Tiering Contributor
I’ve seen a lot of posts in this thread saying something along the lines of “LC is functionally different than other lower tiers, and because of that it is harder to pick up the tier for slam”. While it’s true that LC being played at level 5 makes it unique to the other tiers, I’d argue that it's easier to pick up*. There are two main reasons for this:

1: LC mons are consistent generation to generation and there is no rotating usage-based ruleset of which mons are allowed, that is a component of other lower tiers. The mons also tend to run the same sets across generations; meaning that once you learn the tier, you do not have to do much work to get up to date with the meta after a long break. I will say while it might be easier to pick up PU than LC if you’re a NU mainer, since there’s some overlap with mons, my point of view is coming from a player that is new to lower tiers altogether.

2: There is a small assortment of items used. With items like berry juice and eviolite being so common, you are less likely to get caught off guard by a rare boosting item or resist berry. This makes it easier for me to figure out what items my opponent is likely running during preview and make informed decisions each turn. This is fundamentally different from other lower tiers, where there is much more item and sequentially set variety, which I find more difficult as a player new to those tiers.

With this being said, this shouldn’t be a discussion about which tier is harder to pick up, this should be a discussion about what is a format that most people agree on and are happy with. All 6 of these communities we are discussing are well developed with lots of resources and teams on forums to pick from, are represented in SCL (the lower tier premier league), and have a large, passionate player base. As a member of the Ubers community, I certainly would be happy to be apart of this tournament and share it with all 5 of these tiers, instead of feeling the need to kick one out. Thus, I would like to support the format change to a Best Finish Limit 5 with 6 opens.

As this screenshot below sums up perfectly, members of the LC, PU, and Ubers community would rather exist in this tournament harmoniously than need to bash the other tiers and explain why there tier is better to be included in slam.

1639163366547.png


*: This is coming from a player that is not an LC mainer and barely a part of the community, so I’d say I have less bias than other people in this thread.
 
disclaimer: this will probably be a long post and some of it will pertain to tournaments generally moreso than slam but idk where else to post and dont wanna make ANOTHER thread given the influx this week...

On Grand Slam's format and "Prestige vs. Inclusivity":
I believe prestige is more important for the quality of tournaments than inclusivity but I don't think inclusivity is something that can entirely be ignored. Furthermore, perception of prestige is entirely subjective and biased. On that note, I think expanding Slam to 6 tiers is a good idea only if the best finish limit is implemented (I think 3 is better than 5). While I do believe LC to be a glorified OM (it IS very mechanically different from other slam tiers; that cannot be disputed), I think LC has enough of a historical basis in tournaments for subjective arguments like "LC is bad" "the playerbase sucks" etc to be discarded.

However, I do believe Slam should be restricted to usage based tiers (UU, RU, NU, PU) and Ubers and LC. Ubers / LC while being different from the other tiers (Ubers is just an OU banlist and LC is mechanically different enough to be distinguished) they've both historically had enough of a place in our official tournaments to be considered "lower tiers" even if, by definition, they are not. Anyone who claims otherwise cares too much about arbitrary semantics.

On that note, I do not believe DOU has a place in slam (and by extension, nor should other formats like Monotype).

edit: I wanted to add that TDK's idea of another tournament that includes the "Slam rejects" is an excellent idea that caters to both the prestigious and inclusivity crowds. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of his post, if Slam is not expanded beyond 5 tiers and believe it is a better solution than expanding the tournament.

On DOU and ODST:
I like the idea of DOU having a trophy, especially because it has an enormous and active playerbase, and it's excluded from Slam. I don't think ODST is a good tournament and the reception to ABR's thread leads me to believe that the playerbase generally agrees. In my limited knowledge, I believe the Doubles community considers their circuit to have been much more prestigious than ODST and on that note, I think there should be new proposals for an individual Doubles tournament made by the Doubles community in conjunction with TDs. I believe the implementation of ODST was lazy and rushed and done just for the sake of giving Doubles another tournament. To quote Coconut: "Do better."

I don't have specific ideas regarding this but some sort of months-long tournament that is also accessible to singles players would be best. I'm not sure what that looks like exactly and I don't think something like Stour's format is a good idea since it'll inevitably see low sign ups. But I do think we can come up with something much much better and the TDs and community should be willing to experiment boldly.

On SCL:
There has been some discussion recently on SCL's lack of hype and prestige and the blame immediately went to "lower tiers being bad" or less prestigious than old gens. This is subjective. I have my own qualms with SCL, namely, I think it's implementation was extremely lazy, poor, and inefficient.

The primary issue in the thread preceding the creation of SCL was that it would just become a "worse, lower tier SPL" and to handle this issue we... copy the SPL format exactly thus literally making it into a lower tier SPL? There were tons of interesting suggestions in the thread: a unique draft style (blind auction), formats, etc.

It's clear that Snake's format didn't work, evidenced by the format change every iteration, but surely the TDs shouldn't be afraid to try new things and see what works. Trying a new format, doing player and spectator surveys after the tour's conclusion to gauge the reception of the tour are important, I think.

On Classic:
Only touching on this briefly because it's been mentioned in this thread. I don't think Classic should be touched at all. It's an incredible tournament and I believe some years ago, Teal, as TD, locked the tournament's format so it will remain 1-5 always. If this should be revisited, that should be decided by the TDs but I don't think now is the time to worry about Gen 9 and ORAS disappearing from STour. When the time comes, it can be dealt with perhaps with a new tournament but I genuinely believe Classic's format is near perfect.
 
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TPP

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Head TD
While we appreciate the suggestions, a massive overhaul of the tournament scene requires a significant amount of preparation, and we will be looking into it in the future. For now, this thread should only be focused on grand slam. Anything not related to slam specifically will be deleted.
 
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