This thread will be translated into the following languages and posted as replies below: Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese. More will be added as they are available.
The Draft League subforum is launching its next tournament, SV National Dex (NatDex)! Each tournament ran this year will be a part of the 2024 Draft League Circuit and will provide points toward this year's Draft League Championship. This tournament is a Type C tournament and will be hosted by TRowePrice667 and ultraplayer. This tournament will take place in the [Gen 9] NatDex Draft tier on Pokémon Showdown! and battles will take place in pools followed by a single elimination bracket.
The following spoilers will cover signup information and rules for the tournament.
Tournament sizes are dependent on number of total valid signups (individuals who signup, join the Discord server, and are verified in the Discord #verification channel). The first 62.5% of competitors that signup are guaranteed entry, while the remaining 37.5% are randomly chosen from the remaining player pool.
Example: 350 players signup, leading to a 320 person tour. The first 219 signups are guaranteed to be in the tour and the remaining 101 spots are randomly picked from the 131 remaining signups. Substitutes are picked on a first come first serve basis from the remaining signups. Once signups are sorted, the tour will follow the structure.
1. Players will be placed in draft pools sorted by their time zones. They will be tagged in announcements when the draft begins, along with the sheet for their draft pool. It's advised to read the pinned message in your pool chat to further understand rules specific to the draft (as well as the Draft Rules section of this post for bans).
2. Once the draft ends, the hosts will release the round 1 matchups via Smogon. These will be posted to the Discord in announcements. Each round, with the exception of battle pools, will always last one week. Battle pools (if applicable) will last two.
Example: 350 players signup, leading to a 320 person tour. The first 219 signups are guaranteed to be in the tour and the remaining 101 spots are randomly picked from the 131 remaining signups. Substitutes are picked on a first come first serve basis from the remaining signups. Once signups are sorted, the tour will follow the structure.
1. Players will be placed in draft pools sorted by their time zones. They will be tagged in announcements when the draft begins, along with the sheet for their draft pool. It's advised to read the pinned message in your pool chat to further understand rules specific to the draft (as well as the Draft Rules section of this post for bans).
2. Once the draft ends, the hosts will release the round 1 matchups via Smogon. These will be posted to the Discord in announcements. Each round, with the exception of battle pools, will always last one week. Battle pools (if applicable) will last two.
- You have up to 90 points with which to draft 8 Pokémon. Costs are listed on your pool’s tab on the drafting spreadsheet.
- You may only draft 1 Mega Evolution and the non-Mega variants of Pokémon may not Mega Evolve.
- You are not required to draft a Mega Evolution.
- If a Pokémon is picked by someone else, you may not pick it.
- For the first round, there is a 12 hour timer. After the first round ends, there will be a continuous 6 hour timer within which you must pick, or you will be skipped, and will be required to make-up your pick when you are next online. All timers are off between 10pm-7am local time (check your pools pinned message for local time).
- In order to help speed up the first few rounds of the draft for everybody, tournament staff will impose a 24 hour check in. What that means is this:
- From the commencement of the draft until 24 hours after, every single competitor will need to reach out to their pool mod (either in drafting channel discussion thread, or Discord DM)
- This message can be simple "I'm here for pool X and ready to draft", no need to be elaborate
- Any competitor who has already made a pick does not need to check in.
- Any competitor who has not checked in with their pool mod by the time check-in is over in 24 hours will be replaced.
- Your timer will halve every time you are skipped. It is recommended to leave picks (with backups) with your pool moderator to avoid this.
- It is the responsibility of the player to inform the other members of the pool if they have left a pick with the pool mod so the players can properly notify the pool mod it is your turn to pick. The pool mods are not responsible for watching every pick at every hour of the day waiting to input your pick.
- If you are skipped by the other players when you left a pick but did not inform them that you did, the skip is justified.
- If the pool mod does not respond in a timely manner, notify 1 online Moderator for further assistance.
- The following complex bans are in place:
- No Pokémon may use the move Last Respects
- No Pokémon may use the move Shed Tail
- No Pokémon may use the move Hidden Power
- No Pokémon may have the ability Power Construct
- The following Pokémon have access to all of their forms (although you may only bring up to 1 to each battle):
- Basculin 
- Oricorio 
- Toxtricity 
- Indeedee 
- Basculegion 
- Oinkologne 
- Maushold 
- Squawkabilly 
- Tatsugiri 
- Dudunsparce 
- Smogon’s Species Clause applies to your draft.
- If a Pokémon that is available in NatDex is untiered, please ask a host.
- All games must be played in the [Gen 9] NatDex Draft tier on smogtours.psim.us or psim.us. Be aware that each game on smogtours starts a timer automatically and cannot be turned off.
- General tournament rules and regulations can be found here.
- SV cartridge win conditions are in place; there are no ties.
- Z-Moves, Dynamax, Gigantamax and Terastallisation are all banned.
- Each set is a best-of-one set.
- The following clauses apply:
- Species Clause: A player cannot have two Pokémon with the same National Pokédex number on a team.
- Sleep Clause: If a player has already put a Pokémon on their opponent's side to sleep and it is still sleeping, another one can't be put to sleep.
- Evasion Clause: A Pokémon may not hold an item, use a move or possess an ability that can increase their evasion stat
- OHKO Clause: A Pokémon may not have the moves Fissure, Guillotine, Horn Drill, or Sheer Cold in its moveset.
- Moody Clause: A team cannot have a Pokémon with the ability Moody.
- Endless Battle Clause: Players cannot intentionally prevent an opponent from being able to end the game without forfeiting.
- Baton Pass Clause: A Pokémon may not have Baton Pass in its moveset.
- Berserk Gene, Quick Claw, King's Rock, Razor Fang and all gems (with the exception of Normal Gem) are banned.
- Rankings within pools may not be 100% accurate as the spreadsheet does not track head-to-head results. Players will advance based on scoring, where a 3-0 and 2-1 record will advance.
- Replays must be posted to the pool/round thread, please mention the result, your opponent's name and your pool number.
About Activity Decisions
Activity Decisions / Coin Flips: In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, and an extension has not been requested, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, you must open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold.
For example, if you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.
Please note that all extension requests and activity claims must be posted to the thread, and that all of these will be judged on a case by case basis.
[Credit to the Official Smogon Tournament hosting team for the base form of this rule.]
Activity Decisions / Coin Flips: In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, and an extension has not been requested, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, you must open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold.
For example, if you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.
Please note that all extension requests and activity claims must be posted to the thread, and that all of these will be judged on a case by case basis.
[Credit to the Official Smogon Tournament hosting team for the base form of this rule.]
Contact your opponent as soon as possible upon the round going up. Activity cases are going to be handled in a very strict manner.
When scheduling, offer as wide a swathe of time when you are available to play. 1 hour of activity on one or two weeknights is unlikely to be considered acceptable.
Schedule specifically - do not schedule for "Friday afternoon" or "Sunday morning", pick a date, a time and note the time zone, ideally as GMT offset.
If either host catches news of ghosting or some other sort of nefarious play, we reserve the right to investigate to the full limits of our ability.
When scheduling, offer as wide a swathe of time when you are available to play. 1 hour of activity on one or two weeknights is unlikely to be considered acceptable.
Schedule specifically - do not schedule for "Friday afternoon" or "Sunday morning", pick a date, a time and note the time zone, ideally as GMT offset.
If either host catches news of ghosting or some other sort of nefarious play, we reserve the right to investigate to the full limits of our ability.
A preliminary draft board (subject to change until signups close) can be found at: https://spo.ink/natdex_i_draft_pools_1_16
SIGNUP HERE: https://www.smogon.com/forums/draft-league-signup-form/
DISCORD SERVER: https://discord.gg/TcNr8jgpnR
Signups will end 11:59PM GMT+/-0 on Saturday, April 6th.
SIGNUP HERE: https://www.smogon.com/forums/draft-league-signup-form/
DISCORD SERVER: https://discord.gg/TcNr8jgpnR
Signups will end 11:59PM GMT+/-0 on Saturday, April 6th.
This thread and all future NatDex Cup I threads should be considered the final ruling in case of discrepancy between threads, Discord announcements, and Google spreadsheets. Contact a host if you have any questions or spot an error. We are human, after all.
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