Doubles Premier League 3: Tier and Format Discussion

Pocket

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i agree with hiking up the price for managers to play. I like check's idea of coming up with individual costs for each manager (maybe categorize them into 10k, 15k, or 20k), but that sounds a bit too subjective
 

Platinum God n1n1

the real n1n1
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Second off: DUU in DPL

Stuff
Check, I don't get why you are worked up about DUU. If it was excluded would your experience in DPL be different? No.
But there are absolutely enough people who want to play DUU, and it would be a huge bummer for them if you get your way.

And about managers starting worst players in DUU is not true, at least for me.
Yoda was a 14k pick. Matame and Blueskiddo were 3 and 4k respectively with 0 notable tour results. The outcome was winning records for all of them. Who knows what would have happened to the hippos if I didn't have Yoda going 4-1 in DUU. He may have lost in DOU and matame may have lost in DUU.

Good managers will start the player who is most passionate about DUU in that slot. And if they are relatively bad a good team will work with them.

DUU was unexplored last year. In hindsight it was exciting to watch and sparked major interest in the meta. I see no downside to including it.

What your post says is why DUU won't develop in DPL.
You didn't not make an argument that explains how DUU has a negative impact on the tour and the participants.
 

Platinum God n1n1

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As for managers pricing discussion I see a lot of theory talk.
Go back to last year or the year before and point out examples on how the 10k price had negative impact on the tour. I'll wait for some evidence before you convince me that there is a problem that requires a change.

Also I have doubts that managers will forgo drafting themselves unless you push the price to over 20k in which case I would expect no manager to buy themselves.
If anything higher manager costs leads to lower budget going into the draft and consequently less competitive bidding
 

marilli

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As for managers pricing discussion I see a lot of theory talk.
Go back to last year or the year before and point out examples on how the 10k price had negative impact on the tour. I'll wait for some evidence before you convince me that there is a problem that requires a change.

Also I have doubts that managers will forgo drafting themselves unless you push the price to over 20k in which case I would expect no manager to buy themselves.
If anything higher manager costs leads to lower budget going into the draft and consequently less competitive bidding
People aren't saying that paying to have the managers play should be removed. They are instead saying it's not as fair because some of the managers are a huge bargain at 10K price, while others might not be. Increasing the manager price makes the draft more fair to weaker player managers.

The point is to find a balance between 10K and "over 20k in which case I would expect no manager to buy themselves," where there is a real decision to be made between playing yourself and not. Check said this already in his post, and it's a valid argument. Ignoring someones argument with "its what we did last time and unless it had serious negative impact we shouldn't changing anything ever" instead of actually addressing his argument is pretty useless.

He doesn't need to "prove negative impact on tour" to suggest an improvement - especially when he has already explained how he thinks this is an improvement. If you disagree, point out how his reasoning is flawed.

Also, if "less competitive bidding" is your argument against how making managers pay more is going to make draft worse, remember that the budget is just an arbitrary number for the most part - lowering the budget will do very little aside from having some players go for .5 less than what they would with a higher budget cap. Maybe some teams will have 1 less bench player than they might like, but that's about it.

if anything i think the tougher choice of whether to play yourself or not might create a conflict of interest where managers will willingly overpay and gimp their team overall so they can play. that could be a valid argument against (unless we do tiered pricing)
 
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kamikaze

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Check, I don't get why you are worked up about DUU. If it was excluded would your experience in DPL be different? No.
But there are absolutely enough people who want to play DUU, and it would be a huge bummer for them if you get your way.

And about managers starting worst players in DUU is not true, at least for me.
Yoda was a 14k pick. Matame and Blueskiddo were 3 and 4k respectively with 0 notable tour results. The outcome was winning records for all of them. Who knows what would have happened to the hippos if I didn't have Yoda going 4-1 in DUU. He may have lost in DOU and matame may have lost in DUU.

Good managers will start the player who is most passionate about DUU in that slot. And if they are relatively bad a good team will work with them.

DUU was unexplored last year. In hindsight it was exciting to watch and sparked major interest in the meta. I see no downside to including it.

What your post says is why DUU won't develop in DPL.
You didn't not make an argument that explains how DUU has a negative impact on the tour and the participants.
You using Yoda as your example is exactly what checkmater was getting at. Like dont get me wrong, he performed well but in a relatively weaker field than what would be possible outside of DPL. In clius's tour directly after DPL, much stronger players like Stax and Memoric had dominating runs over the supposed DUU mains playing in DPL. These guys were unable to play in DUU during DPL because they were valued in other areas. Like he stated having stronger players significantly helped develop the meta when they were actually a part of it, so he doesnt believe DPL will help DUU as much as its own separate tour

I am relatively neutral on the inclusion/exclusion of DUU in DPL. It comes down to if including it is causing harm by excluding another metagame slot which can be developed more or if its just ok to just leave as is. Its probably getting a tour after DPL anyway where everyone can play, regardless of whether its in DPL or not.

As for managers pricing discussion I see a lot of theory talk.
Go back to last year or the year before and point out examples on how the 10k price had negative impact on the tour. I'll wait for some evidence before you convince me that there is a problem that requires a change.

Also I have doubts that managers will forgo drafting themselves unless you push the price to over 20k in which case I would expect no manager to buy themselves.
If anything higher manager costs leads to lower budget going into the draft and consequently less competitive bidding
There was a pretty big negative impact with the 10k pricepoint(positive for me and my team but negative for the most of you). The Shitposters and Ancients were pretty much living in a separate world during DPL and a lot of people realized that Week 0 right after the draft.

The Shitposters got Stratos for 10k which enabled him to dump a ton of money on Totem and I. Beyond just that he was able to fill the slots well with moderately expensive players like Stax, Checkmater, and Vinc. Then we had remaining money for shots in the dark or just for fun to get people we knew would be a good presence and work well with us. This is all coming from the guy who helped advise him during the draft. None of that would have been possible if Stratos had been at a more realistic 20k pricepoint and maybe the shitposters would not have won.

Then lets look at the Ancients which is probably way easier to see. KyleCole got himself for 10k which otherwise probably also may have been worth 20k. He then spent fortunes on Dawg, SamVGC, and MajorBowman not budging at all to miss out on any one in that core because they would help each other out. He had barely any funds after and managed to get a few small purchases to fill out the rest of team slots. This would not have been possible if KyleCole actually had to spend more on the offset.

I also did a survey of people from each of the DPL teams. Notably the two teams that actually succeeded were the only ones with people actually actively talking and chatting each week whether it be about DPL or other random things (The Ancients didnt talk much in their own chat but their trio of dawg, sam, and bowman did). Everyone else just simply just posted their teams for checks or just posted when they played their games and not much else. The fact that KyleCole and Stratos had the extra funds and were able to go diehard for specific picks to guarantee themselves that specific cooperative team environment led to their success in DPL.
 

Checkmater

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gonna stress this:

[21:18] +Checkmater: for what it's worth
[21:18] +Checkmater: there's literally no harm
[21:18] +Checkmater: in making the price for managers 20k
[21:18] +Checkmater: and giving every team 10k more
[21:18] +Checkmater: like
[21:18] +Checkmater: nothing bad will happen
[21:18] +Checkmater: it can only possibly even the playing field
[21:18] +Checkmater: like there's no harm in making the price higher
and making total funds higher by the same amount
 

kamikaze

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Also for those who dont know how much funds work in DPL. Average player price is 10k credits. Each Team must at least have a full starting lineup and 2 subs. Most people seem to be suggesting 6 starting slots.

This means we would have (6+2) * 10k = 80 credits allocated to every team

Check is then proposing we bump the manager price by 10k to 20k and also allocate 10k more to total credits to be 90k.

Before:
Average Price: 10k
Total Team Funds: 80k
Manager Price: 10k

After
Average Price: 11.25k
Total Team Funds: 90k
Manager Price: 20k

I will post again when I have time to think about the scenarios more and see if this actually solves much
 
I like the 20k manager price and extra 10k draft monies idea. Sounds like a winner to me.

Edit: For the record, I'm fine with 10/15/17k managers and 5 / 7 extra credits as well, that was just the proposed amount at the time.
 
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Platinum God n1n1

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as a manager if you buy yourself then there is an incentive for the managers to play themselves every week.
Alternatively, do not buy yourself and head to the draft with 20k extra
no good manager should drop 20k on themselves and start 3 games; thats a waste.

I like the fact that most managers only started themselves 3 games, I expect the same would happen this time around if unchanged.

The proposed change forces what I see as an 'all or nothing' ultimatum that managers are faced with:
Get your moneys worth by playing 5 games or dont at all.
and only 1 player went for 20k+ last year. 20k is way too much.

secondly dont assume all the "best" players will have the best records.
kamikaze, memoric, totem, kylecole, qsns had a combined record of 3-15 with a total cost of 60.5k
clius, tricking, matame, derivations, yellow paint had a combined record of 17-4 with a total cost of 24.5
we severely over estimate top players and under estimate the not top players in DPL; the level of competition across the meta is higher than it is given credit

you only know what a player is truly worth in hindsight. increasing the stakes like this forces managers into an ultimatum and over estimates performance of top managers.
 

kamikaze

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(Leaving for an MSS in a few minutes, so I will keep it short)

I think 3 is enough for SM DOU. If anything were to be bumped up a slot if DUU is dropped, I really think it should be XY DOU. There were a minute number of people who actually used S Toss Kang last generation because at least I believe a lot of people either just didnt try it or didnt know how to effectively use it. A lot more realize how strong it is now, thanks it to being put on the spotlight as most viable kang set in gen 7. Personally I would find it interesting to see how that may develop XY DOU's metagame now that players have more knowledge and experience with that set. I have seen some people like qsns try it out in roomtours but the more effective way for it to have more visibility and data to go off from is by making it 2 slots instead of 1.
 

Platinum God n1n1

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I want to clarify my stance on the manager purchases since what I wrote was late at night and I have thought more

aside from samvgc all of the potential managers would cost between 6k and 13k; in my estimation.
thats a 7k swing, from 'worst' to 'best' manager
if evenly distributed the average price of a manager would be 9.5k
if you want to assume samvgc is a manager and worth 17k then push that average up to 10.75. and that gives you a 11k swing from best to worst


so you can see the average is around ~10k plus-or-minus 4k to 7k

a 20k incentive to not buy yourself is an extreme amount when you put it this way.

also I have stated previously that the level of competition is under appreciated by our community.
SPL player prices did not reflect performance. Last years the 'best' managers under achieved significantly.
I think it speaks a lot to the strength of the field that our best players record-wise had 6 wins each, nobody truly dominated the field or set themselves apart and shows that our tier is ripe with a ton of talent
Even not on the 'level of SPL', in seasonals no one consistently ends up in top 4 (except stax)
Last DPL many of the drafted players who went for 10k+ had worst records than many guys who went for less than 10k
All this boils down to - we are cannot consistently rely on subjectivity

we should absolutely be conservative. the 10k price is that conversation number.

buying yourself for 20k is insane.
It over values the best players and forces(essentially) otherwise worthy DPL player-managers to not play at all
I do not like the all-or-nothing this creates

so many people are pushing for some sort of incentive for managers to consider no buying themselves or adding in subjectivity
I am sticking by the tried-and-test method of being conservative.

you still want to make best mangers pay more? I have an idea that you may like

rank managers best to worst
worst =7.5k
8.5
9.5
10.5
11.5​
best = 12.5k to buy yourself

now the problem comes on how to rank them. I am sure it could be done though.
This is much more conservative and safer. although this is a compromise and not my ideal solution
 

Fran

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DPL Champion
i feel like if you disallow managers from playing you will loose 6 good (or 5 if you let n1n1 manage) sm / oras ou players and that will seriously decrease the level of play. its just going to be less fun for menagers too, obviously, and if we set good pricepoints it will be good for everyone. in my oppinion we should be discussing what is the fair price to buy yourself for rather than 'shut up you cant play', theres clearly a better solution to the issue we just need to find the right balance.
 

kamikaze

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thought about it more and talked with some people regarding manager pricings last night. I looked at the list of people we have signing up as manager and am comparing with those that signed up as manager last year. Honestly valuation wise I would definitely rate the managers last year much more highly if they went for auction so 15k would have been good for them for the most part. However this year Stratos and KyleCole arent here. Memoric is no longer the guy coming hot off a 4-0 in SPL and in general aside from samvgc I think most of the managers would likely go for 10k or less just like n1n1 pointed up above.

Also n1n1 brought it up above apparently and I am actually agreeing with that point. I think we should wait until manager positions are confirmed and form a valuation on the average price of managers which im expecting to be fine as 10k this time, but should wait regardless. I wish we were a little more involved and thought more about that decision last year regarding making managing prices 15k instead of 10k since pretty much everyone besides n1n1 and xzern would have gone for more. jk I dont because in hindsight it helped us win but good for us to keep in mind for future decisions, and yes I am literally looping back to where we started but last year's valuation was just wrong.
 
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4 SM DOU / 2 ORAS DOU
Dont add BW, its an old school.
What no. I don't play DOU anymore but I don't agree with not including BW. I believe BW was when doubles became an official tier (throwback to when it was an om xd) and taking it away from the lineup just isn't right. Using your logic, should tours like SPL also exclude old gens because they're "old school"? There's plenty of players that would sign up to play BW DOU, and either 3 / 2 / 1 or 4 / 1 / 1 works. Now, there's still time for discussion on that but I think that the majority of the current playerbase would agree to keep BW DOU in the lineup.
 
4 SM DOU / 2 ORAS DOU
Dont add BW, its an old school.
Even though a lot of players from the BW era are done, there are lots of players I know who still love the tier. I, for one, never participated in the BW era, but I would jump at the chance to play it in this DPL. BW is loved by by many, including those who never got to play it in their prime. Also, it is very possible for players not active in the BW era to build for and play the meta, even without a teammate who was. I am sure users like Stratos would enjoy helping out DPL players in testing and building for it, despite the fact that they cannot or do not participate anymore.

TL/DR: BW was the best meta, bitch don't ruin this for me.
 

DragonWhale

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3SM, 2ORAS, 1BW

15k manager price, keep the budget at 80

Sorry but it is really strange if the valuation of the managers is equivalent to the expected average price of the entire playing pool. Even with the unpredictable price:result ratio seen in dpl2.

I see no point in increasing the budget to make up for this. If you buy yourself as manager, you start at 65k unlike the 70k in dpl2. The whole point of increasing the manager price is that you won't have an average of 10k max to spend per player. Increasing the budget to 85 makes this pointless.

EDIT: on second thought increasing manager cost doesn't really serve the purpose of nerfing sam, as it'll equally drain other managers who buy themselves and teams that don't will have only 5k extra. On the other hand it makes less managers play, which leads to lower quality of games, because let's be honest even if managers aren't the best players in the community they'll still most likely be one of the top 6 players on their teams.
 
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Braverius

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1. Should captains be allowed to play?
Ya sure why not

2. If so what restriction or in what manner should this be done?
No idea tbh

3. What Doubles formats should be used this year?
- 3-4 SM DOU, 1-2 XY DOU, 1 BW DOU
UU is barely touched in general and even moreso this early in a generation and shouldn't be in this year.
 

talkingtree

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Managers will be allowed to play and the 10k price tag will continue to be in effect if they choose to buy themselves. I'm happy to discuss this ad nauseam in PMs but I don't want to clog up this thread with what I perceive to be a fairly non-controversial decision.

As for tiers, I think everyone is in agreement that there should be six slots, five of which are occupied by 3 SM / 1 XY / 1 BW. For the last slot, there are a few different options; additional SM, additional XY, and DUU are the three I considered. DUbers is unexplored, underplayed, and unbalanced and including it would be a mistake.

Despite my personal affinity for Doubles UU, in its current state I don't believe it has a place in this iteration of the tour. The metagame is very new, has many potentially broken or at the least problematic elements including Z-TR and Snorlax/Belly Drum, and is not ready for inclusion in a tour that I'm hoping will be regarded as official and meaningful. I recognize that the issues could be worked out during the tour but that's not a risk I'm willing to take.

That leaves XY or SM. There have been a fair number of good points about the potential development of XY DOU, which was a meta that until the end continued to have subtle shifts and I believe could continue to grow in this tour. On the other hand, SM DOU is the current generation, and including more of it could foster growth post-Jirachi ban and after the Kangaskhan suspect; however, my guess is the difference between growth with 3 slots and 4 won't be very large. For that reason, and to include more variety in tiers included in the tour, each week will have 3 SM DOU / 2 XY DOU / 1 BW DOU.

Player signups coming as soon as I draft the OP, thanks to everyone for participating in this discussion. I did my best to weigh everyone's opinions while considering what would make for the best, smoothest, and most enjoyable format, and getting extra input really helped me solidify my choice.
 

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