Tournament UUPL IX Format Discussion Thread

[atomicllamas]

Hi, it has come to my attention that there is some interest in reevaluating the inclusion of the Bo3 slot in this tournament. I am creating this thread specifically so that this can be discussed. As a reminder here are the current planned tiers (the UUPL VIII format):

SS UU
SS UU
SS UU
SM UU
ORAS UU
BW UU*+
DPP UU*
ADV UU*
GSC UU
Best of 3 (SS UU/SM UU/ORAS UU)

*Baton Pass is banned from ADV UU, DPP UU, and BW UU in this tournament.
+No Liepard or Riolu in BW UU

I personally do not believe that lowering the number of slots is a great option so please include what you believe the Bo3 slot should be replaced with if you think it should be replaced. Also please post if you are think that Bo3 should stay, just so I have an adequate understanding of what the players want the tournament to look like. I will make my decision on the format change, if there is one, prior to closing manager sign ups. The poll is for me to understand the overall sentiment towards the Bo3 slot, just because one option is winning does not necessarily mean that the winning option will be chosen, especially if the results of the poll are close.

Other proposed format changes can go in this thread as well.

 

[Bouff]

Thanks for making this thread llamas, it's always good to have these types of discussions :D

Personally I think the BO3 slot, on principle, is awful in these team tours, especially with how it is now. In that vein, I'd like it to be replaced by another SS slot. Main reason for this being that, as someone who's played in BO3 in this sort of format before (CG and two newest old gens before that), and as someone who's been in tours with this format, it is a complete slog in preparation. There's an argument to be made for it to having more old gen representation...but let's be real, SM is recycling: the tier: the movie and if you're building a team as opposed to using a team that was made in the LTPL 2019 meta at the latest, you're doing it wrong and more often than not I've seen teams built from scratch just get owned. If you can find me more than two people who would enjoy doing SM in a BO3 setting I will be seriously surprised. I mean, I'll be surprised if there are more than four people who are even anywhere close to passionate about SM as a whole right now. As for ORAS, there's more of an argument to be made for that, as there have been definitely been some metagame advancements due to UU Snake as opposed to SM, but I still think you'll find yourself an issue with recycling and that's something I'd like to avoid as much as possible.

I'm not opposed to using the format that UUWC / UU Snake did in having 8 slots with cutting out an SS slot and GSC, but a) GSC seems to have a bit of a passionate playerbase, and b) I think that, while UUPL is one of the, if not the most prestigious subforum tour on the entire website, these tours are also a great chance for newer players to get their start and make a name for themselves, but I understand from a perspective of competition if people would want it to be more exclusive.

 

[r0ady]

BO3 is for sure the way to go. Adding a second slot for literally any of the old gens would leave you with pretty horrendous quality of play no matter the tier, with SM being the only one that might be ok since its the most recent generation, but, given the negative stigma around the tier that's doubtful. I've personally always liked BO3 because its almost always filled with teams star players and gives us great a great series to watch most of the time, whereas say, if we doubled BW slots we would see rain spammed 5x a week, or in ORAS we'd end up seeing the same builds over and over because like 3 players build in that tier. Also obvious hard no to the horseshit that would be 5 SS slots.


EDIT: although I still enjoy BO3, speaking with those who actually slotted into it among others, making it a 4th SS slot is probably the way to go.

 

[SOMALIA]

RBY UU

 

[Adaam]

I voted to keep BO3 because I enjoy both watching and playing it. If we were to remove it, I propose a flex slot as discussed over discord. My biggest gripe with 4 static SS slots is exhaustion. It gets boring watching the same thing over and over again, which is why BO3 is enjoyable for me.
The flex slot would be restriced to the BO3 tiers (SS, SM, ORAS), and every week, it would move on to the next tier in the cycle. For competitiveness' sake we can also restrict it to solely SS in the playoffs.

This reduces staleness by reducing the proportion of SS games relative to the rest of the tiers in the tournament. It also keeps the value of multi-gen players high as it did with BO3 and rewards drafting such players. Some weeks might be more challenging, for example, if your second ORAS is weaker than theirs, but I don't think the advantage is ever going to be that big a deal, especially if the previous slot would have required you to play the BO3 trifecta.

 

[fatty]

I think the best option is a mid ground revised bo3 slot, our lord and savior Donny P brought up the idea of ss + 2 players choice. only issue would be ironing out who chooses first or if we care that 2 of the same gens can be chosen.

 

[Lily]

Echoing Adaam's sentiment and just wanted to address a few concerns people brought up:

Wouldn't this add more slot volatility and result in some teams having better matchups than others?
Yes, but this is always the case regardless. If your team is struggling in SM and you happen to go up against a team who is doing okay in that tier in a week where there is 2 SM slots, it sucks, I get that, but you were disadvantaged that week anyway between 1 SM slot being there regardless and 1 of your Bo3 games being SM too.

Won't you need to get a player who can play all three generations?
You had to do that anyway for Bo3 so nothing changes there, but this actually allows teams a new creative avenue; do you invest in one player who can play all three tiers to a high level, or maybe three players who each specialise in that tier and can act as both a substitute for the regular weeks that also plays the 3 weeks their tier is included? It's another way to reward clever drafting while not sacrificing much of anything.

I think this option strikes the best balance. It keeps the spirit of Bo3 (keeping oldgens in high level tournament plays and giving multiple games of these old-but-still-recent tiers per week) while removing the crappy elements (building 33!! teams over the course of a tournament for a single slot, being forced to most likely spend big on a slot that knows all 3 gens because the pool of good players who can do it is so limited). It doesn't really have many flaws that I can see - I guess we see less of the super heat matchups like Sacri vs robjr or whatever but the tour is going to have plenty of those regardless, so this is the option I'm most in favour of.

Also please don't cut GSC. As much as I don't enjoy it, it's an official UU tier that deserves its own shot at representation and should not be removed from the premier UU tournament on the site.

 

[Indigo Plateau]

I would prefer if Bo3 was kept out and I think the most interesting solution I’ve heard so far is the idea of a flex slot. In a way it retains the value of having to get someone that can play all 3 tiers chosen (SS SM ORAS most likely) while taking away the factor of having to prep 3 teams every week, which is my biggest issue with it. I like the little bit of extra shuffle diversity it can add to lineups too. The competitiveness of the pool is the only reason I wouldn’t be heartbroken if Bo3 stayed, but seeing recycled teams every year (which let’s all be honest is impossible to avoid) or having to feed someone on your team who doesn’t want to prep 3 different teams every single week (can’t blame them) can get tiresome reallyyy quickly. I do also want to mention that having Bo3 > 4 static SS slots is the same number of SS slots every week (@ Adam & others I’ve seen mention this on UU discord). I do think 4 SS is a lot & that’s why I’d want it to be either 3 SS + flex (randomized SS SM ORAS) OR 2 SS + old gens (unprobable bc UUPL is based on trying to “advance” current meta).

tl;dr - flex > 2 SS no Bo3 > Bo3

 

[Expulso]

disclaimer i havent been in uupl before and only distantly followed the last one so take all of this with a grain of salt.

flex slot (randomly choosing one of ss/sm/oras) > bo3 sounds worse to me because of the element of randomness added.

if my team has really good ORAS building/support and we play against a team with really good SM building/support, our series' outcome might depend on which of those two tiers is randomly picked. i feel like in a team tour the better team should win a series as often as possible. it's p much impossible to control for hax in individual games, but inserting another element of luck - which tiers are chosen - moves us even further from the goal of 'better team should win'.

also, no guarantee that the flex slot game (effectively one game of the ss/sm/oras Bo3) will be of any higher quality than the whole bo3

 

[BigFatMantis]

I think the best option is a mid ground revised bo3 slot, our lord and savior Donny P brought up the idea of ss + 2 players choice. only issue would be ironing out who chooses first or if we care that 2 of the same gens can be chosen.

Just wanted to comment on this very quickly, as I think it makes a lot of sense, and the metas chosen can just be chosen by each manager prior to the week starting so I don't see it beeing that hard to execute. It would alleviate Expulso's concerns over a "randomly" chosen meta, since the managers are typically choosing to their strength, and it allows a team to utilize a specific oldgen for one extra fight (or 1/3 of a fight sort of) if their team happens to be built better towards that meta. Overall, it seems easy to do, and it keeps the Bo3, prevents it from being too stale, eliminates 4 SS Exhaustion, and avoids too much randomness in chosen. Seems to me like everybody wins.

 

[ramolost]

i'll do a one line post because i suck but please keep bo3
edit so this is none a one line post : please dont include rby uu. i see that being mentionned and it would be awful for this tour.

 

[Plague von Karma]

RBY UU

Gonna come in and unironically say to do this because I'm a bias little bitch. Every other UU tier seems to be slated for being featured, and since RBY is typically BO3, why not slot it in? Seems like an easy switch to make. I know for a fact that there's a playerbase that would sign up, hell, I would signal boost the shit out of it.

I suppose you need a metagame pitch, though. RBY UU is a fairly unique tier with a lot of interplay; once you find your way around how Wrap actually works it becomes kind of chess-like. This is mainly because of Tentacruel's dominance over the tier, and you're gonna see a lot of it. There's been a few meta developments as of late and it can be said that the tier is experiencing some kind of renaissance. Despite its "unnatural" nature, it's well-liked among experienced RBYers for its esoteric nature and has seen some play in tours like RoA Olympics. If you need to know how the tier plays, the RoA Spotlight Tour and RBYPL recently happened and there was some cool stuff being thrown around. Both have replays posted, players like EB0LA, Volk and Sevi 7 are amazing to watch. Hell, I have a massive tour replay log here.

Should you have concerns about AgiliWrap Dragonite shitting up the place (which statistically isn't common but someone's gonna bring it up) it's likely going to be banned soon anyway, so maybe it'll be a done deal by the time the tour happens. There's a big document on the topic that I sent to the RBY Council after a ton of discussion in the Discord. If this ban happens, perhaps UUPL could be a chance to show the meta shifts?

I understand if it's not featured, as I've heard the UU playerbase has issues with it. This is your tournament; if the people don't want it, the people don't want it. As I've said, it's very unique to the point of being esoteric, which can absolutely make it iffy for spectators that don't understand Wrap and the like. Just thought I'd shoot my shot anyway since this is the best chance I'll get. If you're interested in the tier though, join the RBY Discord and give it a chance, you may find something you like.

Also please don't cut GSC. As much as I don't enjoy it, it's an official UU tier that deserves its own shot at representation and should not be removed from the premier UU tournament on the site.

Also, this. GSC UU is sick.

 

[phoopes]

edit so this is none a one line post : please dont include rby uu. i see that being mentionned and it would be awful for this tour.

As someone who loves RBY UU but rarely participates in team tournaments, why would it be "awful for this tour"? I think it'd be really cool to actually have all generations of UU represented. At the very least you'd get some fresh blood with the RBY community wanting to participate/taking an interest in UUPL, and I think the more the merrier as far as people being interested. I think if you give RBY UU a shot it can only be beneficial, I'm really having trouble Wrap-ing (haha) my head around the idea of why it would be awful.

 

[bugzinator]

Fuck it bring back XY UU. I want to spam Megazam and Zygarde again.

 

[Colonel M]

I think I speak for everyone when I say we need to replace Bo3 UU with RBY UU. There are no drawbacks.

It's even Bo3 - Best Of Both Worlds.

(Jokes aside I think the flex slot is best).

 

[Finchinator]

Best of three brings out the best in the community each year. We get to see some of the most impressive players play the most recent generations of UU. As a player of this slot in the past, I enjoyed it quite a bit. As a spectator, I looked forward to it the last couple of years as well. One of the few things I will go out of my way to check for replays of in side PLs after the series are over and I know at least a handful of others feel similarly.

I have no comment on RBY UU and if the support is there then it’s there, but I echo the sentiments of Adaam on Bo3 entirely — hope to see it included.

 

[atomicllamas]

Hey guys, thanks for all the posts and your participation in the poll, I have decided the final format will keep the Bo3 and remain the same as last year:

SS UU
SS UU
SS UU
SM UU
ORAS UU
BW UU*+
DPP UU*
ADV UU*
GSC UU
Best of 3 (SS UU/SM UU/ORAS UU)

*Baton Pass is banned from ADV UU, DPP UU, and BW UU in this tournament.
+No Liepard or Riolu in BW UU

The sentiment in the community seems to be roughly even, but the vast majority of Bo3 players who played any matches last year voted keep, in fact everyone who played more than 2 Bo3's and voted in the poll voted to keep. Additionally, I was not super enthused with the potential replacement ideas proposed in this thread. My goal is to have a tournament that is enjoyable for the most people in the UU community (forums, PS room, discord, etc.), adding RBY does not do anything for this group of people, and replacing Bo3 with any tier except SS / SM / ORAS means that 8+ less SS / SM / ORAS UU players will be picked. Additionally, my issue with the rotating tier is that a team tournament in which the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th weeks are different from the other regular season and playoff weeks doesn't make much sense to me. Sorry to those who wanted to see a change, hopefully it isn't too much of a disappointment to you that this is my decision.

If you wish to sign up for a manager position now that the format is announced, do so quickly, as I will announce managers in roughly 32-34 hours from now (and player sign ups will follow shortly)!