After much discussion the TD team has decided that Grand Slam XI will feature 6 Opens (Ubers, UU, RU, NU, PU, and LC) and a Best Finish Limit of 3. This decision will only apply to GS XI and the format will be up for discussion again after the tournament. We believe BFL has potential to address many of the problems with Grand Slam and make it a more competitive tournament overall, but this can only be verified through a trial run.
On: 6 Opens instead of 5
The TD team does not see inclusivity and prestige/competitiveness as concepts that are necessarily at odds with each other. In fact, Grand Slam's stated goal since its inception is "to ensure every Smogon-supported current generation tier is represented in an official tournament", as mentioned in its introduction. It has always been a test of each participant's ability to adapt and be proficient in multiple tiers, a skill that other tournaments do not value as much.
There is no inherent obligation to keep 5 Opens as the standard. It was the original number because that was the number of available tiers at the time, and many editions of GS happened to run 5 Opens due to Ubers's temporary removal (which was due to factors entirely outside of the tier's competitiveness), but there is no reason why this number should be seen as an inflexible "maximum number of possible Opens", as proven by past editions of GS which have ran more than 5 Opens just fine. While there are some logistical advantages regarding player burnout and simplicity of playing Bo5s when only five tiers are involved, they are far from essential.
We believe all six tiers that will be included in GS XI have strong communities and are highly competitive. As such, we see no good enough reason to remove any of them currently.
On: Best Finish Limit of 3
A Best Finish Limit of 3 means that only the points from your 3 deepest runs will be counted towards your total.
The purpose of this ruling is to reduce how demanding the qualification phase will be. Players that wish to maximize their chances of qualification still have an incentive to join all Opens, but busier players will also be able to not join their worst tiers and focus on the ones they are most likely to do well in, while still having good chances of making playoffs.
BFL 3 is even more drastic than BFL 5, which was also suggested. We opted for 3 because we believe it does a better job of fighting the problems that a BFL is meant to fight. While it is still theoretically optimal to join every tournament to maximize your chances of qualification, a BFL of 3 allows players to drop their worst metagames relatively safely and only focus on their best ones, as opposed to BFL 5 which would still realistically force you to join every Open. This helps combat the increased burnout that 6 Opens would bring. For the players that do elect to join all Opens anyway, a strict BFL allows them to not worry so much about the inherent high variance of Single Elimination tournaments (both in-game and with regards to random pairings) and carry on even if they get unlucky early on in some of the Opens.
We acknowledge these benefits on paper, but it is unclear whether or not they will translate to a better player experience in practice. Still, we believe they are worth a chance - the format for GS XII will be up for discussion again in the event that they do not turn out as hoped.
On: 6 Opens instead of 5
The TD team does not see inclusivity and prestige/competitiveness as concepts that are necessarily at odds with each other. In fact, Grand Slam's stated goal since its inception is "to ensure every Smogon-supported current generation tier is represented in an official tournament", as mentioned in its introduction. It has always been a test of each participant's ability to adapt and be proficient in multiple tiers, a skill that other tournaments do not value as much.
There is no inherent obligation to keep 5 Opens as the standard. It was the original number because that was the number of available tiers at the time, and many editions of GS happened to run 5 Opens due to Ubers's temporary removal (which was due to factors entirely outside of the tier's competitiveness), but there is no reason why this number should be seen as an inflexible "maximum number of possible Opens", as proven by past editions of GS which have ran more than 5 Opens just fine. While there are some logistical advantages regarding player burnout and simplicity of playing Bo5s when only five tiers are involved, they are far from essential.
We believe all six tiers that will be included in GS XI have strong communities and are highly competitive. As such, we see no good enough reason to remove any of them currently.
On: Best Finish Limit of 3
A Best Finish Limit of 3 means that only the points from your 3 deepest runs will be counted towards your total.
The purpose of this ruling is to reduce how demanding the qualification phase will be. Players that wish to maximize their chances of qualification still have an incentive to join all Opens, but busier players will also be able to not join their worst tiers and focus on the ones they are most likely to do well in, while still having good chances of making playoffs.
BFL 3 is even more drastic than BFL 5, which was also suggested. We opted for 3 because we believe it does a better job of fighting the problems that a BFL is meant to fight. While it is still theoretically optimal to join every tournament to maximize your chances of qualification, a BFL of 3 allows players to drop their worst metagames relatively safely and only focus on their best ones, as opposed to BFL 5 which would still realistically force you to join every Open. This helps combat the increased burnout that 6 Opens would bring. For the players that do elect to join all Opens anyway, a strict BFL allows them to not worry so much about the inherent high variance of Single Elimination tournaments (both in-game and with regards to random pairings) and carry on even if they get unlucky early on in some of the Opens.
We acknowledge these benefits on paper, but it is unclear whether or not they will translate to a better player experience in practice. Still, we believe they are worth a chance - the format for GS XII will be up for discussion again in the event that they do not turn out as hoped.
If there is a tie that involves the 16th and 17th spots, all players involved in the tie will play a tiebreaker series, as is already the case.
For all other ties, the player with the higher win% will be seeded higher. Should win% also be tied, the player with the better 4th run will be seeded higher. Should that also be tied, we would look at further best runs (5th and 6th), and only if all of these are also tied we will look at deepest runs as we currently do.
The purpose of these tiebreaker rules is to reward players who got the most points by joining less Opens (via higher win%). Should that not be sufficient to break the tie, we will reward players who 'lost' the most points to the strictness of the BFL.
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In playoffs, players will have 24 hours after the announcement of pairings to rank their tier preferences from most preferred to least preferred. Then, we will pick the higher seed's two highest tiers, followed by the lower seed's two highest unpicked tiers, followed by the higher seed's higher pick amongst the remaining two tiers.
The purpose of this is to (1) decide all tiers quickly, allowing players to prep 5 teams instead of 6, and (2) try to balance tier selection so that the advantage of either seed is as small as possible, and leans towards the high seed. We believe this selection system achieves that by letting the high seed have the ultimate call over which tier to strike out, but giving lower seeds the ability to lock their preferred tiers before that happens (as opposed to past tier selection systems that simply gave high seed the ability to strike out a tier, resulting in a fairly big advantage).
For all other ties, the player with the higher win% will be seeded higher. Should win% also be tied, the player with the better 4th run will be seeded higher. Should that also be tied, we would look at further best runs (5th and 6th), and only if all of these are also tied we will look at deepest runs as we currently do.
The purpose of these tiebreaker rules is to reward players who got the most points by joining less Opens (via higher win%). Should that not be sufficient to break the tie, we will reward players who 'lost' the most points to the strictness of the BFL.
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In playoffs, players will have 24 hours after the announcement of pairings to rank their tier preferences from most preferred to least preferred. Then, we will pick the higher seed's two highest tiers, followed by the lower seed's two highest unpicked tiers, followed by the higher seed's higher pick amongst the remaining two tiers.
The purpose of this is to (1) decide all tiers quickly, allowing players to prep 5 teams instead of 6, and (2) try to balance tier selection so that the advantage of either seed is as small as possible, and leans towards the high seed. We believe this selection system achieves that by letting the high seed have the ultimate call over which tier to strike out, but giving lower seeds the ability to lock their preferred tiers before that happens (as opposed to past tier selection systems that simply gave high seed the ability to strike out a tier, resulting in a fairly big advantage).