Tournament Doubles Premier League 6: Format discussion

[n10siT]

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FAQ:

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How does DPL work?

There will be 6 teams, each with their own captain. Captains will do a snake draft on Pokemon Showdown, where they will take turns nominating and bidding in an auction for players who signed up to assemble their teams with limited credits available. The teams will then play one another for 5 weeks, with a new opponent each week. This will culminate with a Playoffs week consisting of the Top 2 teams overall from the 5-week main season.

How does one signup as a player?

Player signups will begin later, and will run until the draft. Watch the forum for the thread to sign up.

How does one apply to be a captain?

To apply to be a captain, read and post in this thread:

If I am selected as a captain, can I still play for my team?

Yes, captains will be given the option to draft themselves for a set price point, usually somewhere between 12-15k credits. The exact price will be settled at a later date.

When is the DPL Auction?

The auction date will be decided after managers are chosen and they agree to a time. Follow this thread for that information.

When does DPL Week 1 start?

The projected start date is Sunday, April 19th.

In this thread, feel free to discuss anything regarding DPL before it begins. This is meant to be a place for players to voice their opinions and help us decide some key things regarding DPL. Some points of discussion are:

1. Captains WILL be allowed to play this year, but how much should their draft price be?
- Last year, captains could draft themselves for 15k. Should this price be changed?

2. What Doubles formats should be used this year?
- Last year, there were 8 playing slots for each team: 4 SM DOU, 1 SM DUU, 1 ORAS DOU, 1 BW DOU, and 1 Best of 3 slot consisting of SM, XY, and BW DOU.
- We are unsure about the potential viability of eight slots this year due to recent seasonal sign up numbers, so please post on whether you think there should be six or eight playing slots in DPL this year. Remember, each team is required to draft 2 subs, so we are discussing between having 8 players on each team or 10 players on each team.
- If you would like to have the best of 3 slot this year, what formats should it consist of? There are now 4 official DOU metagames (SS, SM, ORAS, BW) so one would logically have to be removed for the other three.

3. Dependent on whether or not you want to have 6 or 8 playing slots, what exact format would you prefer? I will provide some examples, but please feel free to suggest your own!

Format ideas

6 Players	8 Players
A. SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DOU/SM DOU/ORAS DOU/BW DOU	A. SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DUU/SM DOU/ORAS DOU/BW DOU
B. SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DUU/SM DOU/ORAS DOU	B. SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DUU/SM DOU/SM DOU/ORAS DOU/BW DOU
C. SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DUU/SM DOU/ORAS DOU/BW DOU	C. SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DOU/SS DUU/SM DOU/ORAS DOU/BW DOU/Bo3 DOU
D. SS DOU/SS DOU/SM DOU/ORAS DOU/BW DOU/Bo3 DOU

Feel free to bring up anything else you find relevant and worth discussing regarding DPL.

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

1.) Captains - Last years price paid + 3k if they want to draft themselves. So if they managed last year they would cost 18k, if they cost 3k it would be 6k, if they were 25k they would be 28k.

2.) Formats - SS is very unpopular, and still undergoing a lot of debate on things to ban. So I would like to see it less prominent than current metas have been in past DPLs and give an extra slot to SM which is very popular.
Bo3 is too much to build for a single slot and seems mostly unpopular. Lets get rid of it.
Given the lack of growth I feel 6 starting slots is ideal. With 8 slots the teams get too stretched in terms of quality players.

2 SS, 2 SM, 1 XY, 1BW for 6 slots

3 SS, 2 SM, 1XY, 1BW, 1 DUU for 8 slots

 

[KyleCole]

Format
I think a 6 player format with 2 SWSH DOU, 1 SM DOU, 1 ORAS DOU, 1 BW DOU, and 1 SWSH DUU (so option c for 6 players) gives DPL a well rounded format where players from every "era" have the opportunity to join up. I think that an argument could be made for an additional swsh or bo3 > the duu slot here but as things stand, I don't think the community is pining for extra current gen and I think we can get 6-8 DUU players without much trouble. It was also my understanding that the people who played bo3 didnt' like it at all, but if they want to speak up that would be great to hear more about.

Why 6>8
Having six slots keeps the competition for player slots tight and allows managers more freedom in their draft strategy. Teams can be built around tighter groups of friends, paying a lot for a small number of players, getting a large number of players for cheap, etc. I don't think this is a super important thing to keep around, but I don't see any reason to pass up on having more options.

Also, player numbers. Remember that having 6 slots means a likely 7-8 man squad minimum, which means 42-48 players for 6 teams min. That's a large number but definitely achievable. An 8 slot DPL likely demands 10 players per team minimal and I think asking for 60+ high level players is a lot to ask for, especially with a large number of oldgens.

Captains
15K seems fine.

 

[Hashtag]

I think for a format to be included it needs

• a decent sized playerbase
• players who would rather play this than another format
• an established metagame

I'm not convinced that ss duu has this. Let me know if i'm wrong, but it seems it is being included just to be included, with the caveat that one of your players will just have to pick it up, and I don't think that's a great idea. I think people would probably have more fun with an all-dou lineup.

2 SS, 2 SM, 1 XY, 1BW.

I think SM is recent enough that it is still fresh in a lot of people's minds, and there are a lot of people who prefer it to SS, so I think having 2 slots will give more people the opportunity to play what they want to play most. Also it will help teams develop better SM teams, as the team will be able to dedicate more time to the format, and the two players can help each other build and test.

 

[tennisace]

UUPL used 10k + 1.5x the number of wins in the previous UUPL as the manager cost which is pretty fair if people don't like the flat 15. It helps out people who might want to manage & play but dont think they're worth 15k.

 

[DaWoblefet]

1) Captains - increase to something like 18k, maybe even higher. I think captains should have to pay a significant cost for themselves to dissuade self-purchase so they have more time for organizing their team. In addition, a lot of our captains are actually good DOU players - last year, MajorBowman, stax, talkingtree, and kaori were captains that have been drafted to SPL this year, and I think most people would agree AuraRayquaza is also a very good player (sorry n10sit). When you look at the relative power level of players compared to their draft cost (see last draft), since we tend to have good players managing, I'd say we should not let those people slip by with trivial cost.

2) Formats - Representation from each generation of Pokemon is mandatory, I think. 1 BW / 1 XY / 1 SM / 3 SwSh seems fine to me. Given that SwSH DUU has had no tournament scene and that there have been only 6 independent posters on the SwSh DUU thread in its 2.5 months of existence, I don't think the tier is developed enough for DPL yet. It also would feel super awkward to cut one of the modern gen slots, leaving only 2 players in the modern generation each week. It doesn't seem correct intuitively.

The best-of-three slot was interesting last year, since it did mirror Doubles Grand Prix playoffs. There's good pros to it - typically the top DOU players are slotted in the best-of-three match, so it leads to higher quality games overall. I really think SwSh should be represented in the slot if it's brought back though, which means you either have to drop BW or you have a sort of pick 3 from 4 formats sort of option. I'd hate to lose BW personally, but I also think prepping in 4 tiers each week is too many. You could get around the prepping issue, however, by locking in the 3 tiers you each agree to play at the start of the week. So at the start of the week, each team submits an additional format they wish to play in for the bo3 slot. Every game 1 of the bo3 slot is SwSh. Then, after the SwSh game, the losing team plays their submitted format they counterpicked at the beginning of the week. The third game (if applicable) would be the other format selected. Because this tier decision would be prior to each player knowing who the opposing bo3 slot is, it could lead to interesting decisions in deciding which format would be best, as well as anticipating the expected tier from the opposing side, which seems like a healthy component.

If you include bo3, I would either drop a SwSh or increase to 8 players and add a bo3 and a SwSh. So in order of preference:

3 SS
1 SM
1 XY
1 BW

OR

2 SS
1 SM
1 XY
1 BW
1 bo3 (with the proposed modifications)

OR (eight slots)

4 SS
1 SM
1 XY
1 BW
1 bo3 (with the proposed modifications)

 

[Shadowmonstr7]

Captains: I think captains should cost 10k + 2.5k times the number of regular season wins they had last year. If the captain did not play last year they should cost 14k. Also, I think if teams are 8 players (10 with subs) each team should also have an assistant manager.

Formats (with 6):
3 SS
2 SM
1 ORAS

Formats (with 8)
3 SS
2 SM
1 XY
1 BW
1 SS DUU

 

[talkingtree]

The variable prices for managers is a great idea in theory that doesn't seem to pan out well in practice. People can have uncharacteristically poor or great performances in a tour, and can be drafted for a weirdly high or weirdly low price. I think sticking with a locked-in price is a safer bet even if it too guarantees that some prices may not be reflective of that player's skill. A manager should not be rewarded in the form of a low price for having a poor performance the season before. I'm not sure what that standard price should be, since it's somewhat dependent on how many credits each team will start with (aka how many teamslots need to be filled). 15k out of a total 80k budget is very different from 15k out of a total 100k, which is what it was last year. So even if it felt like those prices were a bit low, the impact would be higher in a 6 slot format.

Suggesting we add assistant managers is something I hadn't considered before and is an interesting proposition. My first instinct is that it locks two good players (presumably) onto the same team and thus makes the draft less interesting, with fewer high-quality players in the drafting pool. Still, if anyone has arguments to the contrary it could be worth discussing further.

I absolutely LOVE DUU, I think playing and building in an underexplored tier is a unique skillset that results in some wildly entertaining games. And even I don't believe it should be included this year. No disrespect at all to you, n10sit, but I don't want to end up with players feeling shoehorned into a tier they've never touched, and that would almost certainly happen if we were to include it. A "Premier League" should be a showcase of some of the best players and builders in their respective metas and making 1/6 (or 1/8, though I'll touch on this later) of the team be novices at their tier isn't in line with that idea.

Having 8 slots last year was the biggest reason that I, as a manager, decided not to draft myself. With so many slots, including one that required multiple teams, the only way I felt I'd be able to help my players succeed was if I could focus entirely on them and not myself. Obviously that didn't turn out *great*, but I think the team atmosphere was made better by the fact that I was able to be there for anyone who wanted to bounce ideas around / finetune teams etc. With decreasing signups in seasonals, attempting to reach 10 players per team would require a large number of unproved players to join in. While that isn't an inherently bad thing, I don't want managers to be forced to gamble on someone they barely know in the hopes that it'll turn out well.

For six slots, I think a lineup of 3 SS / 1 SM / 1 XY / 1 BW is the obvious solution, but 2 SS / 2 SM / 1 XY / 1 BW would work pretty well too. n1n1 made some decent points about why we might want to consider a smaller emphasis on the current generation, and there aren't many who would sign up for / play in DPL that have no SM experience.

 

[fespy]

SS should have more games than SM, and I'm against Bo3 in the form it was in last year.

SS is unstable as n1n1 said, and honestly I enjoy SM a lot more. But by giving more weight to old gens as a coping mechanism we're shooting ourselves in the foot for the future. Current gen is always much more appealing to new players than old gens, and dou already struggles from a lack of new players. Giving more slots to SM caters to those of us who have been here for a while and will be here for a while longer and disincentivizes newer players from joining the community.

Bo3 last year was weird. Weighing a Bo3 set as much as a Bo1 set means that every minute of prep that goes into the Bo3 set is worth less than half as much as a minute of prep in a Bo1 slot. I remember last DPL always telling Tree to prioritize Bo3 last (with respect to prep) and having one slot that is objectively less worthy of investing prep time in is not ideal.

Whether Bo3 should be changed vs removed is another debate. I think I stand on the side of removing it, but the only point I'm trying to make here is that last year had some ugly inconsistencies.

 

[Bless]

Captains: 15k is a good price.
Formats: For 6 slots, I think 2 SS/2 SM/ 1 XY/1 BW is a good lineup. I know a lot of people dislike the current meta for SS and its going to change when DLC drops in June so 2 slots for it feels right. Maybe for DPL next year, we could prioritize SS with 3 slots since we'll have all the mons allowed by then. For 8 slots, i think 2 SS/ 2 SM/ 2 XY/ 2 BW would be interesting. Many players still enjoy playing old gens and having 2 dedicated slots for each gen seems kinda cool. Managers will have to think about what duos and cores of players will be the best for their team. I think we still have enough quality players for 8 slots and I know sign up numbers were low for the winter seasonal but i think its because people either felt burnt out from playing so much last year or because they don't like SS in general. I think picking 6 or 8 slots should be decided a week after signups come out.

 

[Idyll]

I personally think a flat price for managers is fine; 15 has always worked with no problems I believe, don't see the need to change it for now.

For the format, I'd prefer:

3 SS
1 SM
1 XY
1 BW

This is to maximize representation of the current gen tier while still showing love for our lower gens. I am absolutely against the idea of any lower gen having more than 1 game in a week for a 6-slot format, they're gens that have run their course and are there to cater to specific people now; a focus on current gen is important because it's currently the one that has the lowest barrier for entry, and this is also a chance for us to develop SS DOU play further. I prefer not to have DUU because, simply put, it's not a developed meta and would like produce "lower quality games" to put it in simple terms. I'd prefer to watch players play tiers they're actually good at than force them to play a tier that is unexplored; while ideas of developing DUU in DPL are noble, I don't believe that this league is the right venue for that.

I'm honestly not too strong on 6 vs 8; I just prefer 6 because it'd make the league more competitive in the sense that strong players match up with players of more-or-less equal skill more often. I like 8 for being more inclusive though; it's the social aspect of these tours that make it fun personally and I'd love to have more guys around. 8-slot also allows us more chances to develop new talent; I really value DPL in this regard as it's a nice way to integrate more guys to our community, and it also put guys in a competitive environment (that surely has an SPL-level player or two) that can help guys improve even further. This can still be done in 6-man, of course, but 8-man just makes that more likely.

If we do 8-slot, I'd prefer:

4 SS
1 SM
1 XY
1 BW
1 DUU

Same rationale stated above, except DUU is included as the increased space means that the reason I excluded it is moot.

 

[MajorBowman]

Flat 15 for managers is fine and I'd strongly advocate for 3 SS / 1 SM / 1 XY / 1 BW. Super against giving SM 2 of 6 slots for the same reasons Memoric and fespy mentioned in their posts. As much as I love DUU, I don't think it's ready for DPL yet as we haven't had any tournaments or chances for the meta to develop yet.

I think 8 slots and Bo3 were both good ideas that didn't work out as well as we'd hoped last year. Bo3 in particular was really just not fun for me and was way more work than it was worth for what is, at its core, a fun tournament with zero stakes. I feel less strongly about 8 vs 6 slots, would probably prefer going back to 6 but I don't hate 8 and I agree with the points Memoric made about 8 slots giving new players a chance to be involved (provided managers don't pick up p2 and Gama again ). If we do 8 I'd probably go with the 8 formats Memoric listed, possibly with another SM DOU over SS DUU.

 

[Checkmater]

If 6 slots then managers should cost more to reflect that the average price/player is going up. Personally I think you can never go wrong with leaning towards more expensive managers, but it's kind've w/e since managers will want to play themselves. I'm in favor of 6 slots because of reasons stated by others but mainly because it'll lead to smaller teams.

3 SS 1 SM 1 XY 1 BW is optimal

 

[MajorBowman]

If 6 slots then managers should cost more to reflect that the average price/player is going up. Personally I think you can never go wrong with leaning towards more expensive managers, but it's kind've w/e since managers will want to play themselves.

If we drop to 6 playing slots and keep manager prices at 15k, managers are effectively becoming more expensive considering we'd have a lower draft budget and 15k would be a higher proportion of that. I don't strictly disagree with your point Check, but this basically solves that part already I think.

 

[n10siT]

It seems a consensus is starting to form. As of right now, DPL will probably be:

1. Managers can draft themselves for 15k credits.

2. There will be six playing slots, consisting of 3 SS DOU slots along with 1 slot of SM, ORAS, and BW DOU.

Unless there is vehement opposition to this, DPL will progress with this format. For my DUU guys out there, I know it sucks DUU isn't involved but we will have a tournament following DPL, I promise.

If you are interested in managing a team this DPL, please post in this thread: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dpl-6-manager-signups.3661307/

 

[Hashtag]

If 6 slots then managers should cost more to reflect that the average price/player is going up. Personally I think you can never go wrong with leaning towards more expensive managers, but it's kind've w/e since managers will want to play themselves. I'm in favor of 6 slots because of reasons stated by others but mainly because it'll lead to smaller teams.

3 SS 1 SM 1 XY 1 BW is optimal

check your math sir

 

[Stratos]

An interesting consideration for manager prices is that unlike buying any other player, you aren't paying for team support--only play. So like using myself as an example, I went for like 17.5k in the last auction, but how much of that was my play ability (3-4 record) versus my hardcore prepping of multiple teammates? If i buy myself this year, I'm just paying for the record, so naturally my price should be a lot lower.

to be clear: I wish manager prices were 10k