Implemented The Future of the WCoP Format

Status
Not open for further replies.

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
BKC said it was fine to post, lots of people have discussed/requested this

Given discussion in the tournaments discord and other chats, many people have stated dissatisfaction with the WCoP format we adopted last year. I strongly believe we should consider making WCoP 4/6 SS OU + 2 SM OU + 2 ORAS OU with the tournament being redefined as updating alongside the Smogon Tournament generations. I am making this thread to discuss what may be wrong with the status quo and why we should consider this (or other) change(s). I realize that only certain ideas are realistic given the consequences any changes may have on this year's circuit and the balancing of the overall official circuit, so nothing in this post will be taken lightly and every idea will be explained to the best of my abilities.

Recent Backstory

The WCoP last year was moved to a format with all SS OU while dropping down to 8 slots instead of including old generations and having 10 slots. This idea received overwhelming support here, thus leading to TDs shifting the format prior to the tournament. Since then, the official tournament circuit has continued to work towards finding a balance, including the restructuring of SPL led by SoulWind's thread and revamping of SCL (formerly known as SSD) led by Hogg's thread.

Many people believed that all SS OU WCoP was best for bringing teams together as well as progressing the metagame; they cited prior editions of the tournament from years back as well as the potential for community growth being increased, which made sense as it was easiest to get into CG OU. In addition, it was stated that many teams struggled to fill a full line-up in the old format, which included many old generations that were hard for newer players to get up to speed in, especially against top competition.

The tournament itself had some new teams finding themselves at the top and even in playoff contention, which I view as a positive seeing as WCoP absolutely had an issue with the community growing restless with repeatedly seeing similar results. However, many players cited issues with the tournament being only one tier, causing disinterest. I do not have raw numerical data to back these claims and absolutely advocate for anyone who feels differently (or the same!!!) to post their thoughts in the thread, but the main issues as I understood them were:
  • Too many games of the same metagame caused for a less enjoyable experience
    • During round 1 especially, many involved parties were burnt out of the tier by the end of the third week -- 384 SS OU games over 21 days is a Lot.
      • By the end of the third week, rumor has it that many players had nightmares dreams about Magearna-Cinderace VoltTurn loops.
    • This leads to people being burnt out by the playoffs, which they may be a part of or would otherwise enjoy as spectators.
    • There is little time for the metagame to adapt with potential bans mid-tournament given the structure of WCoP (more on this in the next point), which causes this undesirable dynamic to grow more prevalent over time.
  • Potentially undesirable metagame states compromising the enjoyability of the WCoP experience
    • While not directly tied to the tournament, the OU Council had a survey for tiering purposes of everyone involved. Over 150 parties responded and many stated that multiple Pokemon should be banned, which led to multiple bans happening in the following weeks.
      • Specifics on this can be found here and it is worth noting that not all feedback was negative.
    • Having the same potentially problematic Pokemon lingering in every single game over the course of a tournament is exhausting and did not resonate well with the playerbase.
    • The tiering process has become quicker since then, integrating community feedback more than ever before. However, this does not come as a foolproof solution to this problem and it is not likely quickbans can happen for the sake of salvaging a single tournament.
      • Look: I absolutely love SS OU, I am personally excited to play it, and I think we have improved our tiering process greatly with time, but given the brief turnaround of WCoP, having any official team tournament be only one tier seems like setting both the tier and the tournament up for failure.
      • It is no surprise that people have been calling for 2 SS in SPL, 3 SS in Snake, etc. recently instead of the prior status quo of 3 or 4. It seems people enjoy seeing a greater variety of formats in general and the larger a sample size of a specific format, the greater chance there is for opposition to rise up after experiencing something deemed undesirable about the format.
  • Comparisons to prior all CG OU WCoPs turned out to be greatly inapplicable to modern tournament culture
    • These were at the core of most arguments in favor of all CG OU, but quickly the circumstantial differences became clear.
      • Old WCoPs happened when there was a lot less access to old generation play, less developed old generation communities, and/or a greater focus on the CG OU metagame throughout the community.
        • Side-note: Anyone remember when we had to load up PO for specific old generation SPL games? Shit makes me feel like a boomer.
      • The community as a whole was more closely-knit during the early 2010s when compared to now. In the modern day, we specialize a lot of what we do on Smogon and it splinters the community inadvertently. This is not necessarily a bad thing either, but it absolutely makes tournaments with multiple formats a greater fit.
      • Arguably an extension of the prior point, but I do not think this shift in format brought teams together as closely as many imagined. Perhaps the European teams could speak highly of this given their success and if so, they absolutely should, but it did not seem particularly different, especially with a lot of people being less invested due to having tiers they played in prior editions cut out. One could argue this hurt the format before it was even given a chance, too.
The Proposal

The current strongest alternative is 4 or 6 SS OU + 2 SM OU + 2 ORAS OU (redefining the tournament to be consistently updating alongside the Smogon Tour generations). Specifics can be tinkered with if necessary of course (i.e: if people prefer 6+1+1 or something else, I am not attached to the specific numbers as much as I am the underlying concept).

This is essentially the "midground" solution to the tournament's format that is able to cater to the concerns of most people, specifically the ones addressed above that have been voiced since last WCoP. There will still be plenty of CG OU representation, finding itself in WCoP more than any other tournament and likely still with 6 of the previous 8 slots if we are ok expanding slightly from 8 to 10 total slots. I would argue this is more than enough for the demands of the community and to assure that teammates are able to work together in the most modern generation of OU, which is Smogon's flagship metagame.

With regards to the worries about having less experienced rosters cater to old generation slots, every roster should be able to accommodate to generations like ORAS and SM, which are both recent and still constantly evolving. Even if some of the fresh teams in qualifiers do not have people from back in ORAS (which I doubt will be an issue), the metagame is constantly evolving and there are plenty of resources present to get into the metagame. I will also happily work with RoA and ORAS contributors to make sure their resources such as the VR, Samples, etc. are updated to reflect the current metagame given the offensive renaissance it has experienced over the course of SPL thus far if this is truly a concern. I am aware that this proposal is coming from me, so if it is entertained, I will gladly go out of my way to make sure it is perceived as well as possible. The WCoP has a long history of being one of Smogon's best tournaments and I realize the weight of these potential changes.

To address some potential complaints:
  • Normally a proposal with some old generations, but not all old generations, can be construed as arbitrary. Aligning with the Smogon Tour tiers is able to avoid that, in my opinion.
  • This does create some imbalance between old generation representation. However, I do not believe this is a bad thing and there is still nowhere saying that every old generation needs the exact same representation. In fact, this will become an impossibility once ORAS ages out of Smogon Tour as it will no longer be represented in an individual unless Smogon Classic adopts it or another tournament is created.
    • Giving some emphasis to more recent old generations makes some sense to me as they are more likely to still be evolving as tiers and still have active, engaged playerbases, especially given that some people prefer not playing SS OU.
    • This is also very easy to justify and maintain as it simply moves with Smogon Tour, having the oldest generation age out as a new one is released.
  • .I understand that WCoP's rough definition as being a CG OU tournament, which was complimented by SPL being old generation centric and SSD (now SCL) being current generation tier centric, is going to have to be abandoned. Altering this to "recent generation OU tournament" does not change much at all though as this grouping already exists.
I feel that a WCoP with this format would help improve the appeal of the tournament to players and spectators throughout the community. I feel this would lead to a higher quality WCoP and it would only marginally decrease the emphasis on CG OU while also integrating two other promising metagames with active playerbases while all being fully justified.

If this is not possible to currently entertain, I strongly recommend the TDs or hosts put out a survey to the players of WCoP 2021 as to their feelings about the all CG OU format in order to obtain formal feedback and data on this topic that they can use moving forward. If that feedback is largely positive, great -- I am happy to be incorrect if people are having fun and the status quo is working. If not, then this proposal or the prior format with old generations should absolutely be circled back to as a future consideration. Tournaments are only successful if the players enjoy them. Our community is comprised of the players and we need to keep their thoughts as the first and foremost priority. As such, I strongly recommend people to share their thoughts in this thread, even if they disagree with my points. Thanks so much for reading!

TL;DR: We should consider reformatting WCoP to be 4/6 SS OU + 2 SM OU + 2 ORAS OU and redefining it to update alongside the Smogon Tour generations.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

IPF

sundown
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Although I personally enjoyed the 8 SS OU format, if there is a deviation from the format I would strongly consider having it be 6 SS OU + 1 SM OU + 1 ORAS OU.

I will mention the points that have been mentioned countless times already in favour of the all SS format, being much healthier and stronger team environments, more metagame development and more variance in the dominance of teams. It forces teams to be more creative, and also managed to expose teams that relied very heavily on their experienced old gens department, something that has consistently held back 'upcoming' teams. This format is ideal in my opinion, and I would advise sticking with it.

As for my reasoning as to why a deviation should only have 1 SM and 1 ORAS slot, from my observation I believe that the SM and SS playerbases overlap quite heavily, in addition to the ORAS player pool being quite limited as well. Having 2 slots in those tiers would make it more difficult for teams to field competitive lineups, being forced to spread their players across these formats as opposed to having all their strongest players in one tier and providing better quality games in the tournament. Perhaps the balance with this format would be a little off, but I think this is a better compromise.

While I do understand the grievances of there being too much SS in the format used last year, my personal experience was the tour being much more enjoyable as compared to my experience on team Asia in 2019, and I made connections with my teammates that I do not believe would've been possible prior. I also believe that the hate towards the format was unjustified, we were working with a limited pool of Pokemon so it was bound to get stale. In this more varied meta, I think it would be great. I'm interested in seeing the results of the survey, because from my experience, I would say don't mess with a winning formula.

TL;DR: Keep the old format, if change is decided upon, consider 6 SS OU + 1 SM OU + 1 ORAS OU
 
WCoP 2020 witnessed the format change from an old gen centric tour to one which focussed on the growth & development of the current gen & it's playerbase. This automatically benefitted a lot of regions that were held back previously due to the lack of players in old gens & subsequent inability to field a competitive team. Personally I don't believe we should backtrack from this approach that forces regions to scout & nurture new talent to ensure staying ahead of the competition.

I won't be quoting the pros of a 8 slot cg ou WCoP which were discussed in the previous thread but I'll share my thoughts on why we shouldn't deviate from this progressive path

  1. Bringing back old gens which are already represented in multiple trophy tours doesn't contribute to it's metagame growth significantly.
  2. In tours like SPL / SCL which are some of the tours that include current gen ou representation some of the overall successful players & original builders of this website may opt for old gens / slam tiers whereas everyone is forced into playing cg in WCoP greatly contributing to it's growth.
  3. Affects team dynamics as the support for old gens greatly varies from team to team & lesser options to practice unlike the cg ladder that's both active & readily available.
TL;DR: Don't change format, give it some time to adapt to change.
 

Hipmonlee

Have a nice day
is a Community Contributoris a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
Comparisons to prior all CG OU WCoPs turned out to be greatly inapplicable to modern tournament culture
  • These were at the core of most arguments in favor of all CG OU, but quickly the circumstantial differences became clear.
    • Old WCoPs happened when there was a lot less access to old generation play, less developed old generation communities, and/or a greater focus on the CG OU metagame throughout the community.
      • Side-note: Anyone remember when we had to load up PO for specific old generation SPL games? Shit makes me feel like a boomer.
I dont see how relevant this is. Like, sure there were pockets of times when old gens were not particularly accessible, but we could have just as easily had ubers and uu in the wcop. There were always multiple metagames with their own specialists...
  • The community as a whole was more closely-knit during the early 2010s when compared to now. In the modern day, we specialize a lot of what we do on Smogon and it splinters the community inadvertently. This is not necessarily a bad thing either, but it absolutely makes tournaments with multiple formats a greater fit.
Again I don't understand why this is relevant. There are plenty of tournaments with multiple formats.

All of this seems to be arguing past the point. Which is that jamming splintered communities into teams together just leaves you with splintered teams.
  • Arguably an extension of the prior point, but I do not think this shift in format brought teams together as closely as many imagined. Perhaps the European teams could speak highly of this given their success and if so, they absolutely should, but it did not seem particularly different, especially with a lot of people being less invested due to having tiers they played in prior editions cut out. One could argue this hurt the format before it was even given a chance, too.
There was, from my perspective, a hell of a lot more collaboration in the OCN team than there had been in the previous couple of wcops. Like, previous wcops the extent of my interaction with teammates was to cheer them on, to stomp them in a few rby test games, get stomped by them in adv and dpp test games. And I had to briefly explain that I thought Kabutops was legitimately good and I wasnt just flexing. Last year I did way more testing and building and I wasnt even on the team. I really had a blast.

The question of being burnt out on CGOU might suggest that the initial pool round is just too many games for a solely CGOU tournament. Maybe a better idea is just to reduce the number of games in r1. Like, maybe every player just plays one game or something?
 
In my opinion nothing needs to change; I really like this format and how it makes everyone work together. Atleast in the case of Europe, the reason we were so burned out is because the meta we were playing was dead as fuck; Cinderace and Magearna got banned after endless complaints, yet we still had to play a couple weeks of that meta. I am sure this is true for other teams too. Not having ladder available sucked really badly as well.

The idea to tie WCoP to Smogon Tour tiers is also very much so arbitrary. Why should they be tied together? This midground between all CG and old gens seems really awkward.

I believe that we should give this format atleast one more year. The circumstances definitely affected the WCoP experience in 2020, and I don't believe that it's representative of the format (all CG) as a whole. It needs more time.
 
Last edited:
The tournament itself had some new teams finding themselves at the top and even in playoff contention, which I view as a positive seeing as WCoP absolutely had an issue with the community growing restless with repeatedly seeing similar results. However, many players cited issues with the tournament being only one tier, causing disinterest. I do not have raw numerical data to back these claims and absolutely advocate for anyone who feels differently (or the same!!!) to post their thoughts in the thread, but the main issues as I understood them were:
  • Too many games of the same metagame caused for a less enjoyable experience
    • During round 1 especially, many involved parties were burnt out of the tier by the end of the third week -- 384 SS OU games over 21 days is a Lot.
      • By the end of the third week, rumor has it that many players had nightmares dreams about Magearna-Cinderace VoltTurn loops.
    • This leads to people being burnt out by the playoffs, which they may be a part of or would otherwise enjoy as spectators.
    • There is little time for the metagame to adapt with potential bans mid-tournament given the structure of WCoP (more on this in the next point), which causes this undesirable dynamic to grow more prevalent over time.
  • Potentially undesirable metagame states compromising the enjoyability of the WCoP experience
    • While not directly tied to the tournament, the OU Council had a survey for tiering purposes of everyone involved. Over 150 parties responded and many stated that multiple Pokemon should be banned, which led to multiple bans happening in the following weeks.
      • Specifics on this can be found here and it is worth noting that not all feedback was negative.
    • Having the same potentially problematic Pokemon lingering in every single game over the course of a tournament is exhausting and did not resonate well with the playerbase.
    • The tiering process has become quicker since then, integrating community feedback more than ever before. However, this does not come as a foolproof solution to this problem and it is not likely quickbans can happen for the sake of salvaging a single tournament.
      • Look: I absolutely love SS OU, I am personally excited to play it, and I think we have improved our tiering process greatly with time, but given the brief turnaround of WCoP, having any official team tournament be only one tier seems like setting both the tier and the tournament up for failure.
      • It is no surprise that people have been calling for 2 SS in SPL, 3 SS in Snake, etc. recently instead of the prior status quo of 3 or 4. It seems people enjoy seeing a greater variety of formats in general and the larger a sample size of a specific format, the greater chance there is for opposition to rise up after experiencing something deemed undesirable about the format.
  • Comparisons to prior all CG OU WCoPs turned out to be greatly inapplicable to modern tournament culture
    • These were at the core of most arguments in favor of all CG OU, but quickly the circumstantial differences became clear.
      • Old WCoPs happened when there was a lot less access to old generation play, less developed old generation communities, and/or a greater focus on the CG OU metagame throughout the community.
        • Side-note: Anyone remember when we had to load up PO for specific old generation SPL games? Shit makes me feel like a boomer.
      • The community as a whole was more closely-knit during the early 2010s when compared to now. In the modern day, we specialize a lot of what we do on Smogon and it splinters the community inadvertently. This is not necessarily a bad thing either, but it absolutely makes tournaments with multiple formats a greater fit.
      • Arguably an extension of the prior point, but I do not think this shift in format brought teams together as closely as many imagined. Perhaps the European teams could speak highly of this given their success and if so, they absolutely should, but it did not seem particularly different, especially with a lot of people being less invested due to having tiers they played in prior editions cut out. One could argue this hurt the format before it was even given a chance, too.
The Proposal

The current strongest alternative is 4 or 6 SS OU + 2 SM OU + 2 ORAS OU (redefining the tournament to be consistently updating alongside the Smogon Tour generations). Specifics can be tinkered with if necessary of course (i.e: if people prefer 6+1+1 or something else, I am not attached to the specific numbers as much as I am the underlying concept).

This is essentially the "midground" solution to the tournament's format that is able to cater to the concerns of most people, specifically the ones addressed above that have been voiced since last WCoP. There will still be plenty of CG OU representation, finding itself in WCoP more than any other tournament and likely still with 6 of the previous 8 slots if we are ok expanding slightly from 8 to 10 total slots. I would argue this is more than enough for the demands of the community and to assure that teammates are able to work together in the most modern generation of OU, which is Smogon's flagship metagame.

With regards to the worries about having less experienced rosters cater to old generation slots, every roster should be able to accommodate to generations like ORAS and SM, which are both recent and still constantly evolving. Even if some of the fresh teams in qualifiers do not have people from back in ORAS (which I doubt will be an issue), the metagame is constantly evolving and there are plenty of resources present to get into the metagame. I will also happily work with RoA and ORAS contributors to make sure their resources such as the VR, Samples, etc. are updated to reflect the current metagame given the offensive renaissance it has experienced over the course of SPL thus far if this is truly a concern. I am aware that this proposal is coming from me, so if it is entertained, I will gladly go out of my way to make sure it is perceived as well as possible. The WCoP has a long history of being one of Smogon's best tournaments and I realize the weight of these potential changes.

To address some potential complaints:
  • Normally a proposal with some old generations, but not all old generations, can be construed as arbitrary. Aligning with the Smogon Tour tiers is able to avoid that, in my opinion.
  • This does create some imbalance between old generation representation. However, I do not believe this is a bad thing and there is still nowhere saying that every old generation needs the exact same representation. In fact, this will become an impossibility once ORAS ages out of Smogon Tour as it will no longer be represented in an individual unless Smogon Classic adopts it or another tournament is created.
    • Giving some emphasis to more recent old generations makes some sense to me as they are more likely to still be evolving as tiers and still have active, engaged playerbases, especially given that some people prefer not playing SS OU.
    • This is also very easy to justify and maintain as it simply moves with Smogon Tour, having the oldest generation age out as a new one is released.
  • .I understand that WCoP's rough definition as being a CG OU tournament, which was complimented by SPL being old generation centric and SSD (now SCL) being current generation tier centric, is going to have to be abandoned. Altering this to "recent generation OU tournament" does not change much at all though as this grouping already exists.
I feel that a WCoP with this format would help improve the appeal of the tournament to players and spectators throughout the community. I feel this would lead to a higher quality WCoP and it would only marginally decrease the emphasis on CG OU while also integrating two other promising metagames with active playerbases while all being fully justified.

If this is not possible to currently entertain, I strongly recommend the TDs or hosts put out a survey to the players of WCoP 2021 as to their feelings about the all CG OU format in order to obtain formal feedback and data on this topic that they can use moving forward. If that feedback is largely positive, great -- I am happy to be incorrect if people are having fun and the status quo is working. If not, then this proposal or the prior format with old generations should absolutely be circled back to as a future consideration. Tournaments are only successful if the players enjoy them. Our community is comprised of the players and we need to keep their thoughts as the first and foremost priority. As such, I strongly recommend people to share their thoughts in this thread, even if they disagree with my points. Thanks so much for reading!

TL;DR: We should consider reformatting WCoP to be 4/6 SS OU + 2 SM OU + 2 ORAS OU and redefining it to update alongside the Smogon Tour generations.
The list of main and followup issues itp (undesirable metagame states / burnout / tiering burdens / unmotivated teams / references to historical WCoPs) is inflated and not all presented with the proper context that the post-qualifer stages of the tour started just 4 days after the DLC drop. In light of that, it's disingenuous to conflate the gripes of a fresh DLC as long lasting fundamental issues with the core format of the tour itself (when it was known months beforehand that the DLC was most likely an issue unique to that wcop only), and then espouse an opinion that mono cg ou "seems like setting both the tier and the tournament up for failure."

Even burnout could be attributable to the DLC as its timing demanded much higher activity and collaboration out of WCoP teams than usual, even for the given format.

Arguably an extension of the prior point, but I do not think this shift in format brought teams together as closely as many imagined. Perhaps the European teams could speak highly of this given their success and if so, they absolutely should, but it did not seem particularly different, especially with a lot of people being less invested due to having tiers they played in prior editions cut out. One could argue this hurt the format before it was even given a chance, too.
Some members of Team Asia already shared their experiences itt, but on Team Italy this year we easily had at least several thousand or more messages a day in SS OU General once the tour started picking up. It was a bit of a work of art seeing the investment of the team in working together, which definitely could not have happened at all in more splintered tier formats. With this in mind, I definitely think it would be a mistake to limit the SS OU to 4 slots when even peripherally I saw/heard of positive things going on other teams (even those in the qualifiers) as a result of the new format. It was only natural that some friends would feel left out of the WCoP experience in a mono gen focus tour, but the positive changes that came out of this were much befitting of not only the spirit of WCoP, but opportunities afforded to players to branch out into mainstream Smogon team tournaments.
 
Last edited:
Changing the WCOP format again based off of such a small sample of experience with the new format seems incredibly short sighted and more than a little heavy handed. New tour formats take time to grow and have players and teams adapt through the growing pains they might experience. Changing it already after only one iteration despite it not being heralded as a catastrophic failure would be a strange decision.

As mentioned in the OP, SS OU tiering has improved since the past WCOP and as such I'd personally like to think that overwhelmingly problematic metagame states will not be an issue going into these tours. Especially considering the as of now currently blank DLC slate for the current generation providing ample time to address any problems with the tier without have the burden of dealing with problematic pokemon suddenly being dropped on the tier a la Libero Cinderace, Magearna, Urshifu. At this point in time quickbans should not have to be the solution for "Saving tournaments" as the op states when no external factors are changing the tier. I also want to note regarding the surveys considering they were brought up. Fantastic idea and currently being implemented very well by the council but if timing is an issue can't they just be made a more regular occurrence and take a more proactive stance on defining the metagame rather than being on the backfoot gauging community feedback when the result is already likely to be overwhelming meaning a quickban has to happen to fix a problematic metagame of our own making. Not necessarily saying this happens currently but just an example of how proactive rather than reactive stances can help here. The burden is on the council to change, not the tour as far as this point is concerned. I'd also echo Jordy and say locking the tiers was very much problematic for the tour post cinder quickban and our thought processes on tier locking should be amended to reflect this.

Removing 25% of the SS OU games would appear to make a difference regarding potential burnout at first glance but looking at the raw numbers its kind of only a drop in the water. 48 out of the 192 round 1 games played being removed still leaves 144 games of a single metagame to be played. I really do not see how those 48 games being removed makes any notable difference.

Tie ins with Smogon tour is incredibly lazy formatting that should be avoided. We already two Smogon Tours per year clogging up the tour calendar and now we're suggesting populating a team tour with its format? This does not even begin to address the current state of the ORAS OU playerbase and metagame. The past two SPL's have seen players reuse the exact same teams throughout the tour while consistently trying to abuse the flavor of the month and ask to ban it rather than adapt to it i.e. Sticky Webs and Serp Screens. The metagame is stale and the majority of the players seemingly forced to play it have no interest in teambuilding to improve its state. Adding not one but two slots as suggested would decrease the already basement level quality of the ORAS tier and playerbase. Obviously none of this is aided by the fact the overlapping of the player base in these tiers inherently reduces the quality across the tour landscape. Most recent SPL example is Xray faltering in CG OU before being tasked with saving and excelling in his best tier despite not originally even wanting to play it.

I think you should leave the tour as is for the above reasons and all the previously mentioned positive reasons. With regards to the 6-1-1 format it seems like a compromise that noone so far in this thread actually wants to make but is willing to offer. I'd personally rather go back to the old format than have an arbitrary tie in to Smogon tour tiers with probably the strangest breakdown of tiers on the site with 75% of games being one tier and the remaining being split at 12.5% per tier.
 

Diophantine

Banned deucer.
Unironically change the format every year to keep things fresh. It's perhaps the most fun tournament, but it's also the most unbalanced/uncompetitive of the 3 official team tours (though it does retain a good level of competitiveness). Honestly, I like it the most because I get to team with my/meet irl friends, even though my country isn't exactly the strongest. No one ever seems to agree on WCoP's format. I like Finchinator's proposed format, but I also like the sound of WCoP as it was before. I despise the idea of it being all one tier, especially when that tier's balance is a work in progress. I think cycling through formats possibly gives different teams much different odds to win each year and keeps older players still involved with their country's team.

For example:
Year 2020: all CG OU
Year 2021: Finchinator's proposed "Smogon Tour WCoP" (4 SS 2 USUM 2 ORAS)
Year 2022: Like it was in 2019 and before (all old gens + enough CG OU to make it an even number, 3 or 4)
Cycle through these

Could add a lower tier format if necessary.
 
Last edited:
If you’re talking in terms of like consistent / sound structures, team cohesion and all then the current all SS format is ideal. Personally (and I know some share this opinion) it’s just boring and repetitive and makes me not wanna play. It’s not even about the SS meta itself I just think 8 of one tier is so fucking much. Older gens like 1-3 are super imbalanced by region so I think 4 2 2 stour tiers is a good middle ground.

If most people like the current format nothing should change but the reasons for a charge aren’t more complex than boredom.

edit: all oldgens sounds great too
 
Last edited:
Too many games of the same metagame caused for a less enjoyable experience
Can you empirically prove this? It is way too subjective for this to be of any relevance in this discussion. Just as many people enjoyed the format.

During round 1 especially, many involved parties were burnt out of the tier by the end of the third week -- 384 SS OU games over 21 days is a Lot.
That happens in every metagame, especially since most people don't bother playing until mid of week 2, effectively playing 3 matches in about 10 days. And how is that the generation's fault? If anything having everyone playing the same generation means it's easier to prepare teams, since players can easily help each other out.

By the end of the third week, rumor has it that many players had nightmares dreams about Magearna-Cinderace VoltTurn loops.
Rumors. Yeah. Regardless, the issue is the tournament's timing. Starting a tournament 4 days after a game-changing DLC drops is going to cause problems.

This leads to people being burnt out by the playoffs, which they may be a part of or would otherwise enjoy as spectators.
Who are these "people" you are referring to? Why did some teams not burn out? Burn out happens in every long team tournament. WCoP is even shorter for most teams than other tours.

There is little time for the metagame to adapt with potential bans mid-tournament given the structure of WCoP (more on this in the next point), which causes this undesirable dynamic to grow more prevalent over time.

Potentially undesirable metagame states compromising the enjoyability of the WCoP experience

While not directly tied to the tournament, the OU Council had a survey for tiering purposes of everyone involved. Over 150 parties responded and many stated that multiple Pokemon should be banned, which led to multiple bans happening in the following weeks.

Specifics on this can be found here and it is worth noting that not all feedback was negative.

Having the same potentially problematic Pokemon lingering in every single game over the course of a tournament is exhausting and did not resonate well with the playerbase.
You are confusing the symptom with the cause. WCoP's tier being unbalanced isn't because full CG OU is inherently balanced, it's because there was a massive tier shift forced by Gamefreak a few days before the tournament started. And yeah, the metagame had multiple silly Pokémon (so silly that they got quickbanned again or recived >75% pro-ban votes in their suspect test), but again, it's the byproduct of holding a big tour right after a huge shift like the one we've had.

It is an unprecedented and unfortunate event, but should Gamefreak embrace the current release schedule for its games, you could play around with the tournament schedule to try and fix the issue.

I can guarantee you that being unable to ladder for the finals week because of the metagame changes was extremely annoying for Italy, and I assume for Europe too. Where else do you test teams in a fresh gen?

The tiering process has become quicker since then, integrating community feedback more than ever before. However, this does not come as a foolproof solution to this problem and it is not likely quickbans can happen for the sake of salvaging a single tournament.
Foolproof solutions to this issue don't exist. And quickbans don't happen for the sake of salvaging a single tournament, they happen to salvage the entire tier. Time is a limited resource and quickbans ensure that time is spent optimally by removing the obviously broken issues while allowing more breathing room to test less broken stuff.

Look: I absolutely love SS OU, I am personally excited to play it, and I think we have improved our tiering process greatly with time, but given the brief turnaround of WCoP, having any official team tournament be only one tier seems like setting both the tier and the tournament up for failure.

It is no surprise that people have been calling for 2 SS in SPL, 3 SS in Snake, etc. recently instead of the prior status quo of 3 or 4. It seems people enjoy seeing a greater variety of formats in general and the larger a sample size of a specific format, the greater chance there is for opposition to rise up after experiencing something deemed undesirable about the format.
Yes, it is no surprise that people don't want to see a billion more SS OU games since SS is already strongly represented in every tournament. Variety is great, but I don't understand why we should strive to have every single tournament as diversified as possible. Different tournaments should appeal to different people, which is what the current system (that's already being reworked with the Champions League) is trying to accomplish.

Comparisons to prior all CG OU WCoPs turned out to be greatly inapplicable to modern tournament culture

These were at the core of most arguments in favor of all CG OU, but quickly the circumstantial differences became clear.

Old WCoPs happened when there was a lot less access to old generation play, less developed old generation communities, and/or a greater focus on the CG OU metagame throughout the community.
I don't understand how this is relevant to the discussion. "Tournament culture" is a vague term that doesn't mean anything. Can you explain current tournament culture to me and what changed over the past 10 years? Because I sure as hell couldn't. At best I could tell you that there's a lot less ghosting / cheating for which I'm thankful.

The community as a whole was more closely-knit during the early 2010s when compared to now. In the modern day, we specialize a lot of what we do on Smogon and it splinters the community inadvertently. This is not necessarily a bad thing either, but it absolutely makes tournaments with multiple formats a greater fit.

Arguably an extension of the prior point, but I do not think this shift in format brought teams together as closely as many imagined. Perhaps the European teams could speak highly of this given their success and if so, they absolutely should, but it did not seem particularly different, especially with a lot of people being less invested due to having tiers they played in prior editions cut out. One could argue this hurt the format before it was even given a chance, too.
I can only speak for Italy. The format was very helpful. When you have generation specialists in the various slots they will hardly participate or help other people. Read Hipmonlee's post for a first-hand experience of another team.


The current strongest alternative is 4 or 6 SS OU + 2 SM OU + 2 ORAS OU (redefining the tournament to be consistently updating alongside the Smogon Tour generations). Specifics can be tinkered with if necessary of course (i.e: if people prefer 6+1+1 or something else, I am not attached to the specific numbers as much as I am the underlying concept).

This is essentially the "midground" solution to the tournament's format that is able to cater to the concerns of most people, specifically the ones addressed above that have been voiced since last WCoP. There will still be plenty of CG OU representation, finding itself in WCoP more than any other tournament and likely still with 6 of the previous 8 slots if we are ok expanding slightly from 8 to 10 total slots. I would argue this is more than enough for the demands of the community and to assure that teammates are able to work together in the most modern generation of OU, which is Smogon's flagship metagame.

With regards to the worries about having less experienced rosters cater to old generation slots, every roster should be able to accommodate to generations like ORAS and SM, which are both recent and still constantly evolving. Even if some of the fresh teams in qualifiers do not have people from back in ORAS (which I doubt will be an issue), the metagame is constantly evolving and there are plenty of resources present to get into the metagame. I will also happily work with RoA and ORAS contributors to make sure their resources such as the VR, Samples, etc. are updated to reflect the current metagame given the offensive renaissance it has experienced over the course of SPL thus far if this is truly a concern. I am aware that this proposal is coming from me, so if it is entertained, I will gladly go out of my way to make sure it is perceived as well as possible. The WCoP has a long history of being one of Smogon's best tournaments and I realize the weight of these potential changes.
What a bizarre suggestion. 6 + 1 + 1 doesn't even address the issues you've been laying out for the first half of your post (which are non-issues), since you'll still have hundreds of SS games played in a short timespan. I don't understand the 4 + 2 + 2 either. Not only ORAS is in a miserable state at the moment, but it's also ancient at this point. It's been over 6 years since the gen has come out and it's been years since the last suspect.

I understand that WCoP's rough definition as being a CG OU tournament, which was complimented by SPL being old generation centric and SSD (now SCL) being current generation tier centric, is going to have to be abandoned. Altering this to "recent generation OU tournament" does not change much at all though as this grouping already exists.
Rough definition? We had a thread about this last year. The entire point of the new tournament system was to have a full CG OU team tournament (WCOP) a tournament that focused on old gens (SPL) and a team tournament that focused on the current gen (SCL).

I feel that a WCoP with this format would help improve the appeal of the tournament to players and spectators throughout the community. I feel this would lead to a higher quality WCoP and it would only marginally decrease the emphasis on CG OU while also integrating two other promising metagames with active playerbases while all being fully justified.
Do we need another Smogon Tour-type format? There are already 2 seasons of Smogon Tour happening every year, plus SPL. If you want to play SM or ORAS in an official capacity you can do it all year round. What's the point of adding these tiers to WCOP? Is it just because people think full SS OU is boring? Why is it boring? Can the tier leaders make it less boring? I don't know, I just don't see the point of this suggestion.

If this is not possible to currently entertain, I strongly recommend the TDs or hosts put out a survey to the players of WCoP 2021 as to their feelings about the all CG OU format in order to obtain formal feedback and data on this topic that they can use moving forward. If that feedback is largely positive, great -- I am happy to be incorrect if people are having fun and the status quo is working. If not, then this proposal or the prior format with old generations should absolutely be circled back to as a future consideration. Tournaments are only successful if the players enjoy them. Our community is comprised of the players and we need to keep their thoughts as the first and foremost priority. As such, I strongly recommend people to share their thoughts in this thread, even if they disagree with my points. Thanks so much for reading!
I'm just gonna echo starry's post here. Don't change the format now. If the issues outlined in your post are real, then why weren't they brought up right after the tournament ended? Now it feels like a poor time: are you expecting people to remember everything about WCOP and how they felt during the tournament? Why wasn't this thread made earlier?
 

Ace-11

Banned deucer.
Overall, I agree with Finchinator's arguments, but I disagree with the proposal and I want to share my thoughts. It is true that full CGOU WCoP is not a bad format, as it is fair to most teams in terms of region balance and it forces people to work together which is nice. However, it sure gets repetitive and boring to both the players and the spectators. Additionally, as Finchinator said, a total of 384 SS OU games is simply too much and most players get burned out by the end of Round 1. As the main builder of my team last year, I can confirm I had experienced existential crisis during playoffs and I just wanted the tournament to end, even if we lost.

Before I share my thoughts on what I think is best, I want to get something out of the way and that is region imbalance. It goes without saying that some teams are going to be stronger than other teams regardless of the WCoP format. Some teams have strong oldgen players and some teams don't, and thus prefer a full CGOU format. The proposal of a 4x SS OU+ 2x SM OU+ 2X ORAS OU or a 6x SS OU+ SM OU+ ORAS OU format does not change this fact. For example, forcing me to play SM OU in WCoP is not the same as forcing Empo playing SM OU in WCoP. Therefore, I strongly believe that the final decision should not be based of region imbalance, because there isn't a format that is totally fair for every team.

My own personal opinion is this: Either keep WCoP full CGOU with 8x SS OU slots or return to the old format of ALL OLDGENS+ 3X SS OU slots. Both of these formats have been tested before and are the most fair choices in my eyes. Surely, some teams are going to be buffed/nerfed in either of these 2 formats, but this shouldn't be seen as a problem. If one team has stronger players in some tiers than another team, then this is simply the identity of that team and its strong/weak points. It's impossible to come up with a format that makes WCoP perfectly balanced, so I believe going with one of the 2 formats I mentioned is best, and if some teams are stronger than others, then so be it. It is like that in the real World Cup too, some teams are simply stronger than others.

Regarding the proposal, I understand the concern of ORAS not being featured enough in tournaments, especially when it will have to get cut from Stour, but I don't understand what that has to do with WCoP. In addition, it is much better to include ALL OLDGENS as a whole, instead of selecting 2 of them, and thus unintentionally selecting which WCoP teams will be benefited from these 2 gens. Besides, what were the criteria behind the selection of SM and ORAS in the proposal anyway? Is it because they are the newest gens after SS and people can find them more accessible? This is not good enough justification for me, as I strongly believe that a player can learn SM as fast as he can learn ADV or BW for example.

To conclude, I would like to point out that I understand the points made by the people who have written above me and this is just my own personal take. However, I do believe many people agree with me and I would like to see a potential poll to vote on the format. After all, this is what we did 2 years ago and everyone was happy with this democratic approach in the end.
 
Last edited:

AM

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
LCPL Champion
Agree with everything that Gingy said. All SS is fine for the sake of team balancing which I think is important for WCOP for teams that arent considered super to have a chance, even if subjectively it can be super boring to watch all the time. It was pretty boring to watch this current SPL but thats mostly because the first half had broken Cinderace and Magearnas first half. That's not an issue of the tier at the point thats the issue of the council not liberally applying quickbans where needed. Maybe reducing the amount of slots of SS if there's such a concern of repetitiveness can be considered but again pretty subjective benchmark.

Trying to shimmy in SM/ORAS slots for the sake of representation is probably not addressing the minor elephants in the room that the formats may not be in their best states, seeing as there have been multiple policy threads on the formats with no resolution and just left to dry. There are two Smogon Tours year round already for the ORAS/SM representation why make WCOP a diet version of it. CG OU gets a lot of representation year round already if anything maybe consider the possibility of one of the Smogon Tours being ORAS/SM (and eventually SS) if tier representation is a priority, I forgot exactly why a second one was included.
With regards to the worries about having less experienced rosters cater to old generation slots, every roster should be able to accommodate to generations like ORAS and SM, which are both recent and still constantly evolving. Even if some of the fresh teams in qualifiers do not have people from back in ORAS (which I doubt will be an issue), the metagame is constantly evolving and there are plenty of resources present to get into the metagame. I will also happily work with RoA and ORAS contributors to make sure their resources such as the VR, Samples, etc. are updated to reflect the current metagame given the offensive renaissance it has experienced over the course of SPL thus far if this is truly a concern. I am aware that this proposal is coming from me, so if it is entertained, I will gladly go out of my way to make sure it is perceived as well as possible. The WCoP has a long history of being one of Smogon's best tournaments and I realize the weight of these potential changes.
Finch I and I know many others appreciate all the work you put into these kind of things but even if updating resources is nice it's mostly for very new players not necessarily individuals already acclimated to playing mons. Discord culture has splintered off a lot of things on Smogon making them either not necessary or better to just find people who specialize in the format to discuss in real time (old gen formats, RMT, etc.). I think the grievances of ORAS/SM is a separate issue and needs to be addressed by someone perhaps who's respected in that format at the high level to bring the points up.
 

Eo Ut Mortus

Elodin Smells
is a Programmeris a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
Whenever a new tour format is pitched, we should always ask ourselves not only what problems we are trying to solve, but also whether all the problems we've identified are relevant and best met with the proposed solution. Finchinator has identified three concerns, but of them, I think only one is relevant, as ABR has noted. The second point regarding metagame staleness is completely irrelevant to the format and ironically an even larger factor in one of the tiers being pitched (as Gingy has noted), not to mention that playability changes will always be enacted quicker in CG OU than in old gens. The third point is confusing to me; it's basically arguing that one of the proposed benefits of a format switch (increased team cohesion) did not come to fruition. Even disregarding the amount of contention around that in this thread, reverting the format or adopting this new one doesn't seem to fix this issue, either. If nobody is arguing for a format change that increases team cohesion, then this point is irrelevant.

With that said, I'm going to hone in on the first point regarding "burnout" from playing a single tier. Several people have acknowledged that some sort of burnout exists, but the argument that links it to the mono-OU format hasn't been explicitly laid out. Most people will be playing 3 CG OU pools games in either format, so where is it coming from? Is it from having to help more teammates with the same tier? Is it from having to spectate more games and absorb more of the metagame? Is it not even related to playing but just spectator experience? I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but I think if we can explicitly state the problem, we might find a more direct solution.

Without knowing exactly where the issue lies, I'm going to bring up a suggestion from the Smogtours Discord that was pitched for some other issue: decrease the Round 1 deadline to two weeks. Less time to stew in a metagame = less burnout, maybe?

Few other comments:
Therefore, I strongly believe that the final decision should not be based of region imbalance, because there isn't a format that is totally fair for every team.
I mostly agree with the rest of your post, and I even agree with this insofar that it means not looking at every individual team and making changes based on whether they have a viable roster; however, I do think it's worth factoring the existence of both smaller regions and larger regions into our format. Meaning that without having to examine specific teams, one could make the argument that an all CG OU format (or Finch's proposal) is more likely to produce competitive rosters from small and large regions alike than a format that includes all old gens. At the same time, we should acknowledge that balance is not necessarily a goal we have to prioritize at all other expense, because at the end of the day, the format itself is inherently unbalanced.

Even though I don't think it will gain traction, and I'm not sure about the proposed implementation, I actually like the spirit behind Diophantine's suggestion because it centers the tournament around team experience. I think if there is a tournament we should be open to experimenting with, it's WCOP, but it should be for clear reasons and not just for the sake of compromise.

This brings me to my current stance: I think mono-CG OU and all OU are both sensible formats each with their own drawbacks/tradeoffs. We could and have gone with either format. I believe attempting to find a mid-ground compromises the identity of the tournament without solving the full slate of issues presented with either format. This was my position when an intermediate format was first pitched, and it has not changed since then.
 
This brings me to my current stance: I think mono-CG OU and all OU are both sensible formats each with their own drawbacks/tradeoffs.
this is just not true. from a solely competitive standpoint, all CG OU is much better than CG + all old gens. while there might be different pros and cons to each of these formats, we should be striving for the one that is most competitive, within reason.

these arguments have been done over and over again, but to make things clear: it is much more fair to have the tournament as all CG OU than CG + old gens because the old gen pools vary much more wildly from region to region than the CG pool does. yes, WCoP does have some inherent imbalances, but this is not an excuse to go with a format that exacerbates balancing issues. as the tournament currently exists, with all CG OU, these imbalances are minor and can be worked through for the vast majority of teams. by readding old gens, you once again make issues far worse. speaking as someone who is scouting for this tournament throughout the whole year, i can attest to the fact that it is far, FAR easier to find players for CG OU than it is to find players for old gens. i know this is also the case for a bunch of other teams.

i want to touch on my (now deleted) post: i am not opposed to adding in 1 SM and 1 ORAS slot for the reasons ABR pointed out: it seems there's a good amount of people who are bored of all SS and want to diversify the tournament a bit, and i do think this is the most reasonable compromise if this issue is large enough to entertain. with that said, it is far from perfect, and i strongly prefer the all CG format. we really shouldn't be ditching the format after just 1 year, especially when the tournament started 3 (?) days after the DLC dropped, making it take place in a very volatile and unbalanced and fairly boring metagame. beyond the mere gripes people had with DLC1 SS OU, the tournament was still very competitive. it was a very tight race to playoffs, and while italy did more or less dominate the playoffs from there on out, this clearly was not because of some balancing issue with their team or the tournament. they were just better.

since we are now touching on all sorts of proposals and Finchinator's post mentioned going to 10 slots, i want to also argue against this. like an all old gen WCoP, 10 slots is horrible for balancing. honestly, it is even worse. the cut to 8 slots made it much more feasible for less populated regions to actually have a good shot at playoffs while still being a sensible number of slots. frankly, many top players have even argued for cutting down slots in other tournaments... even when you remove the regional factor, the reality is that it can be difficult to field a full team of competent players.

in short: keep WCoP as it is, at least for another year. it is way too premature to be making any drastic changes to the format of the tour. with that said, i do not think swapping 2 SS slots for 1 SM and 1 ORAS slot is unreasonable, though it is not preferred. i think a survey of last WCoP's playerbase would be a good way to determine if this change is worth going through with. oh and 10 slots is horrible for balance.

also, and holy SHIT i can't stress this enough, stop making these threads so close to the start of a tournament. sure, 2 months isn't /that/ close, but if anything goes against the spirit of the tournament or whatever, it's this. WCoP's format encourages good and active teams to grow and develop during the off season. randomly changing the format on us 2 fucking months before the tournament start basically acts as a giant fuck you to the effort many teams are putting in.
 

z0mOG

is a Top Tiering Contributoris a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 26 Championis a defending SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
DPL Champion
Without picking a side currently, I think some form of a survey should be given out to both teams and players individually. Having the option to voice your opinion without having to articulate your thoughts publicly would be helpful to newer/softer spoken WCOP players, while also preventing people from posting on a "team's behalf" when said players views may not represent the whole team.
 
I would like to voice my support for the concerns Finchinator raised here. One of the options Finchinator talked about was 4 CG +2+2. I think this is the best option. Currently there are simply an overwhelming number of games in one tier in round 1, and this will surely contribute to burnout.

I don't think decreasing the time of round 1 will change things either. If anything it will exacerbate these issues since you have to spend a large amount of time in a single tier prepping multiple teams while making sure that your teammates are also doing the same thing in exactly the same tier. I can understand how that makes people bored of a metagame no matter how you divide it up.

I think keeping the number of slots at 8 is best because it means teams without a deep pool of players to choose from are less pressured. I think 6+1+1 is worse because I have concerns the 2 other players would just stay in their own cubbyholes for the most part building for their own tiers without feeling like they were part of the more cohesive team.

I recognise that this is an annoying format change for some. However, I think many tour players who play SS are also knowledgable about SM, and I don't think finding ORAS players will be a too tall order for most teams in the tour. This isn't the same thing as suddenly asking teams to find players for decade old metagames with very different mechanics than what they might be used to. I think that 4+2+2 is a fair compromise between solving the problems of burnout without being too demanding of a format change, while also keeping the team feeling like a cohesive unit. I am sure some people, perhaps many, will feel differently, but personally I like Finchinator's 4+2+2 format suggestion.
 
Last edited:

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
I am glad that people spoke up about their enjoyment of the 2020 format and CG OU; it seems that there may not be enough support for any format change at this exact moment, especially the one in the OP and with the tournament coming up in just a few months. I genuinely appreciate everyone who spoke up (even if you disagreed with the OP) and I hope that we have an enjoyable WCoP. My intention when making this thread was to get us the best WCoP for the community as people voiced their displeasure, but it seems that a lot of people also enjoyed the WCoP, even if it meant there was a lot of CG OU. I am happy to be wrong if the it means people are enjoying themselves.

I do ask that we continue to keep our minds open and perhaps have a survey of the players as to what they feel about the format after the next edition of WCoP if this is possible, but regardless it is good to know that a number of teams had good experiences. I hope the same for you this year.
 
Last edited:
I would like to voice support for a potential survey that a few people have mentioned here. Ideally it would have last year's format, all gens, and then this new suggestion (stour tiers). The survey does not need to be a binding decision but I think ideally we would be able to get a good idea of which way most of last year's players are leaning.

For my personal preference, I believe that all gens would be the most interesting with regard to tier diversity and thus the most enjoyable. I do not think any of the three are bad options, but there was never really an issue with burnout with all gens and I am not sure if just stour tiers will fix this.
 

TPP

is a Tournament Directoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Past SPL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
Head TD
Everyone: the state of the SS OU metagame should not be a factor in adjusting the format
Also everyone: GOD PLEASE DON'T ADD ORAS OU THE META SUCKS AND I HATE IT PLEASE NOOOOO

I think the OU tier/community has benefited a lot from holding surveys and I'd like to encourage using one for this tour, as well as for other tournaments with a new or adjusted format. SPL this year and the upcoming SCL could count and while I'm not sure what potential changes one could expect, I think the feedback would be nice for the tournament directors either way.

I think for this world cup it's fair to give all current gen another go. Last year was very chaotic with the new additions to the tier, not to mention the council was given no time to remove problematic elements like Cinderace and Magerna that ended up dominating the metagame too much. This year the metagame is balanced and while some might be enjoying it and others might find it less enjoyable or boring/stale/whatever, 240+ games of SS OU is a good chance to give people an opportunity to reinvent the metagame as well as just give newer players a chance to play on the big stage. The latter is one of the biggest upsides to world cup in general and it's worth preserving the format to promote it.

Also want to echo what starry said and suggest people make these kind of threads way further in advance before the tournament starts. Last second format changes are very annoying and causes a lot of tension and chaos at the worst time possible.
 
Like TPP outlined above, the big issue during WCoP 2020 was that the metagame was as fresh as was possible at the time, with Pokemon like Cinderace and Magearna being hugely unstable and problematic factors to deal with. This year we'd be able to try another full current gen tournament with a balanced and more settled tier that still leaves a lot of room for creativity and metagame development, as WCoP teams are coming together all building and playing the same format.

Please give it another chance and please make a decision soon as well. Qualifiers are about to start and the already qualified teams are going to want to get their rosters in order now, too.
 
2021 WCoP has indeed concluded...

I still think all SS OU is just too boring for an official tournament. It has NOTHING to do with the tier itself, and I quite like SS OU. It's just a lot of games being played in only one format. Mix of variety and region balance / modernity = 4 2 2 stour tiers. If people wanna go the full mile to all oldgens or something inbetween those are cool too. I won't try to make any objective arguments, because it's a subjective question at the end of the day and I know some others share my opinion.

So, how do people feel?
 

z0mOG

is a Top Tiering Contributoris a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 26 Championis a defending SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
DPL Champion
WCoP signups have been on a massive downward trajectory since 2017. 2021 has Less than 1/3rd of the signups as the 2017 edition for a point of reference. SPL and SCL/snake signups have not had the same negative trajectory, with both managing to pull the same or better numbers with future editions, so the issue clearly is not an "all team tours interest" case.

2017 - 986 (granted people still posted team rosters and shitposts at a much higher rate this year than future editions, so the number is a little inflated)
2018 - 634
2019 - 585
2020 - 356
2021 - 300

This edition is gonna be some number starting with 2! Bring back old gens, all SS OU is just not entertaining or enjoyable enough for a tournament in a community like Smogon where spectacle matters as much as it does.
 

avarice

greedy for love
is a Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Past SCL Champion
RoAPL Champion
I’m aware a lot of older players come back purely for WCOP so oldgens is an easier solution for a lot of teams but… is there any chance of the tour being all cg tiers like the older editions of SPL? Lower tiers still have a trophy tour but the number did go from 3 to 2 (counting slam). I think picking up current lower tiers is easier than an oldgen w different mechanics and is a bit more balanced overall see: like every lower tier having its own WCOP tour. Also different current gen lower tiers could be more entertaining with them being not as “solved” with recycled teams. Feel like it should at least be included on a survey (if there is one) with the SM / ORAS option (not having all the oldgens seems weird but w/e).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top