Tournament ZU Circuit 2024 Discussion Thread

[Tuthur]

Hi ZU tournament players,
We, the ZU mod team is working on 2024 Circuit, and would love to hear your opinion. So don't hesitate to voice out things you want to say, especially regarding the following points.

• Feedback on 2023 ZU Circuit;
  • ZU Majors was replaced with ZU Swiss, would you like to see Majors come back? Do you like ZU Swiss, can we improve it?
  • One seasonal was cut, do you agree with this change, or would you like to have two seasonal per year, like prior?
  • Classic has been revamped into two tournaments: Classic (rby-bw) and Triathlon (oras-ss), how did you find it?
  • Points system has been reworked, Old Gen tournaments are type C, single elimination tournaments type B, and mulitiple eliminations tournaments type A. Did you like this change?
• Expected 2024 Tournament schedule (including signups);
  • Spreasheet
  • Trying to avoid having overlap between team tournaments.
  • Trying to avoid having overlap between old gen tournaments.
  • Trying to avoid having overlap between current gen individuals.
  • Triathlon before ZUPL VI and Classic before Olympiad III.
  • Timings for Olympiad ZULT, Open, Swiss, and ZUPL are the same as last year.
  • Open and Seasonal can't be moved much, because they are part of UM circuit.
• Team tournaments formats;
  • With SV ZU now being a thing, a discussion is needed on Olympiad format. Some options include; 1 SV-GSC, 1 SS-RBY, 2 SV + 1 SS-RBY.
  • Do you want suspect slots in ZU Olympiad? Last year SM tested Throh and Type:Null, and it received mixed feedback. Reminder that we would only test things that would follow tiering policy, so no Dynamax in SS or Delibird in GSC.
  • There has been many discussions about having a ZUWC. Do you think it is feasible? How should the tournament be designed (pools? slots? teams?)?
  • ZUPL is undoubtly keeping the same format, but feedback is appreciated.

 

[Monai]

ZUWC is a must imo, and if we ever hope to be legit we should follow the formats of other lower tiers. As much as I love RBY, gens 1-2 are fraudulent metagames and should not be included. If GSC must be included though, then sticking with 1 of 1-8 seems like an obvious choice. The circuit point system worked well, although ZU swiss had the vibes of a RoA tour (awful and janky). DO NOT BRING BACK MAJORS.

 

[skrimps]

ZUWC will be fun, and it should be full SV. I actually favor the weeks format over pools because it's less chaotic, though I do like that pools avoid bye weeks and allow for more flexibility in scheduling with timezone incompatibilities.

Olympiad should be eight slots to feature RBY through SS. It's a fraudulent Old Gen tournament if it doesn't fully represent ZU Old Gens. RBY players will show up, and it will make BeatsBlack even more expensive than last year. I was pleased with GSC's inclusion last year as well. We should not do a suspect slot -- survey data showed that a majority of respondents do not favor another suspect slot, and my whole team hated it by Week 3. We also should not do retains, especially if the format is being altered.

I think that Triathlon should precede Olympiad and Classic should precede ZUPL so that less of the respective team tournaments' playerbases feel burned out leading up to them. The idea of it alone makes me want to drop out of Classic again. This change would mean 3 tiers overlap between Triathlon and Olympiad and only 2 tiers overlap between Classic and ZUPL as opposed to the current 5 tiers and 3 tiers. Alternatively, we combine Classic and Triathlon into one tour called Clathlon that never stops.

ZUPL should consider adding ADV.

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

Bring back a second seasonal and replace Swiss with ZU last chance.

 

[sleid]

(anything i do not comment on means i would prefer no change to it)

I agree with ho3n, drop Swiss for Last Chance. Swiss felt like a bad format and not having extensions during a busier time of year isn't ideal.

I also agree with skrimps point about when Triathlon and Classic should take place, the other current tournament times are fine.

Olympiad should be SS-RBY, giving GSC and RBY a chance to develop more. The suspect testing in Olympiad did not feel fun last year, I think reintroducing Pokemon or trying to remove a Pokemon should be tested through individual tournaments like the Cups.

ZUWC would be neat and could see a lot of interest from people outside the community. I think it would be worth looking at and most people seem to be wanting it. It should also be all cg, this would help make up for Olympiad being all old gens.

 

[Tuthur]

ZUWC is a must imo

ZUWC will be fun

ZUWC would be neat and could see a lot of interest from people outside the community.

Bring back a second seasonal

Bringing back a second seasonal would make it overlap with ZUWC and the end of ZU Olympiad. Do you think that's feasible and won't cause too much burnout / lead some people to only signup for one? I've added the timing for it on the spreadsheet if you want to check.

replace Swiss with ZU last chance.

I agree with ho3n, drop Swiss for Last Chance. Swiss felt like a bad format and not having extensions during a busier time of year isn't ideal.

Why is Swiss bad? Last chance just feels like a duplicate Open unless you make it no John which is both worse than no extension and less competitive. Swiss format is honestly one of the most favorite for tournaments (see people arguing for this format for Masters recently) and Last Chance just feels liek a downgrade to it. Also sleid could you elaborate on why october-november is one of the busier time of year? Only thing I can think of is Thanksgiving, but as far as I know, next year it will on the 28th which is after the tournament and this year it only affected american semi-finalists.

I think that Triathlon should precede Olympiad and Classic should precede ZUPL so that less of the respective team tournaments' playerbases feel burned out leading up to them. The idea of it alone makes me want to drop out of Classic again. This change would mean 3 tiers overlap between Triathlon and Olympiad and only 2 tiers overlap between Classic and ZUPL as opposed to the current 5 tiers and 3 tiers. Alternatively, we combine Classic and Triathlon into one tour called Clathlon that never stops.

I also agree with skrimps point about when Triathlon and Classic should take place, the other current tournament times are fine.

I doubt burnout is a serious concern for Old Gens. The way it was designed was to let players prove themselves in Cups right before the team tournaments and keep the dynamic they induce.

I think reintroducing Pokemon or trying to remove a Pokemon should be tested through individual tournaments like the Cups.

That's a terrible design. Cups won't give you enough good games to make a good idea. I know it can sound paradoxal as Cups have a higher amount of games, however the quality is usually very low until finals with some semi-finals series being interesting. Letting the metagame evolve through 5 weeks + playoff, while having only quality games that let the best players figure out new strategies and what's good and what's not. If you look at other tiers, you'll see suspect slots only exist in teamtours. As for what should be suspect tested, I think SM could try to ban Swanna and ADV to unfreeze / reintroduce some of the newly ZUBL Pokemon that were never given a chance. SS and BW are fine with how they are and nothing looks like they could be reintroduced, as their tiering is much more recent, while ORAS is currently still getting used to the ban of Purugly. I can't coment on DPP, GSC, and RBY as those are not metagames I'm comfortable enough to talk about.

On teamtour formats, I agree with RBY-SS for Olympiad and full SV for ZUWC. I prefer pools to weeks in ZUWC, as it makes the tournament more unique. ADV has no place on ZUPL, both cutting a SV slot and moving to 10 slots seem unfeasible. Even if it were the case, ADV is still a meme format compared to the ones already in ZUPL, being closer to GSC and RBY than the nicher formats in ZUPL like ORAS and DPP.

 

[TomatoZause]

I think the main reason swiss was unpopular was the janky RoA spotlight formatting that Monai mentioned in addition to no extensions. To be honest I'd likely find zu majors or even zu last chance (a second zu open) more enjoyable than swiss. I am partially biased because I suffered from no extensions and it was a busier time of year for me, but I did enjoy other tournaments significantly more. A second seasonal would be nice but if it doesn't fit with ZUWC that's fine. I'd prefer ZUWC feature some old gens, but I believe I'm outnumbered in this regard. I liked classic and triathlon. One change I would like is for old gen tours to be worth at least slightly more points. It feels unfair to have to put in 3x-5x the prep for an insignificant amount of points. However I do understand if this can't be done.

Olympiad should be full old gens in my opinion, though I'd rather have a mix with ZUWC containing some old gens and Olympiad containing 1-2 cg slots (again outnumbered). I agree that testing/suspecting should only be done in ZU olympiad. While cups provides lots of games, they aren't taken very seriously and would likely discourage participation significantly. However, with the recent conversation on Delcatty, I would not support an unfreeze in ZU olympiad unless Delcatty is not banned. This is because if Delcatty does get banned, ADV would likely need sufficient time to develop in their new metagame. I'd also support a Delcatty removal suspect in olympiad for ADV. ZUWC would be cool but tbh I'm mostly indifferent to it, full current gen tour feels like crazy burnout, especially when it is a SV meta.

 

[Tuthur]

We, ZU mod team, discussed and took the following decisions.

• We are keeping the schedule from the OP. That means, we are not going to have neither Last Chance Qualification nor a 2nd Seasonal. The former isn't different enough from Open, while being a quite bad format as a single elimination tournament, while the second is too long and we fear burnout.
• Swiss will be reworked so it is more similar to Smogon Masters and OSDT. It includes not adding additional byes to match 64 players, allowing some 4-2 players to reach playoff. It also includes removing players who can't reach playoff anymore and only providing points to top 8 players.
• We are keeping Triathlon before ZUPL and Classic before ZU Olympiad. The reasons were detailed in my previous post.
• ZUWC will be pools with SV only.
• ZUOL will be RBY-SS.