Smogon Premier League XV - Commencement Thread

[z0mOG]

I want tournament directors involved in this decision making process to step down.
I want the TDs to issue an apology to mind gaming.
I want leru to step down as SPL manager.
I want Dave to pick a new assman because I like Dave.
I want Quite Quiet reinstated as TD then immediately stripped of it again.
I want Vileman to be banned from the website.
I want "tiers not played" to be put in a museum or something to honor such a genius system of sign ups.

Thanks.

 

[Sylvi]

In my experience watching over mind more or less closely over the last year in smogon he had his clear prefrences which managerpair he prefers and which less. I assume if you are guarenteed to be picked in the auction that it could apply to those people aswell.
mind always played his games and did his part even on teams he didn't think he would get on at the beginning of the tour. I agree with ruft's post, that there is is a misundestanding which ruft explained.
Of course I am bias as a friend but it makes me upset to see mind get a tourban for smth which probably could be solved by having a discussion with all parties and the TD Team that it was just a preference but not about cancering.
I am ready to be proven wrong but mind would have played for any team he would have been picked up, just maybe not that much excited but there was not even any danger from him to refusing to play his games after he decided to sign up eventually.

 

[mkizzy]

hopefully like the last terrible decision, ill wake up in the morning and its reversed.

 

[velvet]

holy moly

 

[zioziotrip]

what’s the point of the question “do you want to play for us” if the result of answering “no” is a tourban

 

[Finchinator]

The current rule is insufficient. It leaves things too vague for cases like this. It also makes certain questions from managers "tourban traps" in a sense.

I understand why it was applied like it did, but a lot of the community feels this ruling goes against (what they perceive to be) the spirit of the rule. Suddenly there is a ton of extra value assigned to manager selection as if someone morally objects to a manager, then it could trigger a ban, making TDs arbiters of more than previously imagined. I think this was applied in good faith, but I also think that the rule itself is misguided and incomplete.

An explanation on the intention behind the rule and perhaps some example applications could help players understand what is ok and what is not moving forward. I also think that there is potential to "pricefix" behind telling someone you would not play for them, which is not allowed, but also behind saying you do not prefer playing for someone, which is allowed, as well as other things. I worry we may be splitting hairs rather than accomplishing much genuine good.

In the interim, I do think that it would be best to default to allowing mind to play this SPL. I am not saying he handled the situation optimally, but I also do not think he was being malicious either.

 

[devin]

Unban my Tutee!

 

[njnp]

The TDs took their interpretation of what Mind said, didn't reach out to him to get clarity, and framed a narrative that people accepted. Once logs came out and opinion swayed (no surprise there), returning TD teal6 has now told us we're playing semantical games. The fact of the matter is this is a poor decision and is not a good follow-up after the RBY decision just recently, it's not a good look on this reform that has been pushed. There is no clear-cut refusal by Mind. Mind was baited by Leru as this was reported very swiftly to attempt to remove him from the tournament. Teal6 also stated "I think the rule needs to be incredibly clarified", with that being the case this same rule shouldn't be used to make such an unjust ruling. I hope the TDs reverse this decision and we don't start SPL off with a bad taste in our mouths.

 

[BigFatMantis]

No rule was technically broken here. The rule states that you must be "aware" that any team could buy you, and that you are expected to play for any one of them. Surely Mind is "aware" that any team could buy them, and if bought by Leru's team there's no indication they would refuse to play (the logs read more of a preference type of thing). It's possible sure, but it's so unclear and the rule itself is so unclear that there's just no way you can actually punish it with a straight face. I've actually thought about this rule for a while in other tours and I was meaning to bring it up to someone since I think this whole concept should be clarified and added to the Tournament Rules and Guidelines thread, as it's a general rule that should apply to all team tournaments and nothing in the rules thread expressly relates to this. As this leaves a lot of vagueness to the rule, it's hard to appropriately follow it, and it's going to have an extremely suboptimal effect of making every single player wary of what they say considering nobody is certain what is allowable in these situations at the moment, given the current ban that occurred.

I don't know Mind Gaming at all btw, I just wanted to bring this up because I've been wanting this exact situation clarified and added to the official tournament rules for a while now and hope this situation now stirs up enough of an alarm to do so.

 

[Rewer]

Luigi os cara so faz bosta sem tu mano oia esses maluco kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk abre um serviço consultoria ai cara

 

[lydian]

ill just repost a suggestion i said on discord to remove ambiguity from the rule: if the manager contacts you it's not pricefixing (unless you literally say something like "i will not play/cancer if you buy me" or threaten them not to buy you), if you go out of your way to contact a manager and say you don't want them to buy you, then it is

i dont see how a situation like this could count as pricefixing when the user isnt going out of their way to message managers. they were just asked a question and replied sincerely

 

[cyberacc]

Can the TDs sincerely quit being bad at their job? Just unban mind gaming. This is stupid. You already tried to make RBY OU awful and failed, no need to further ruin the credibility of your shaky positions.

 

[Shitrock enjoyer]

Shoutout to one of the greatest players of all time Dababy2 aka Mr. Big aka "The Best To Ever Do It". This guy is truly in a masterclass of his own and really needs no introduction to his level of expertise. Draft this man immediately View attachment 588681

How is Dababy so wise for knowing that Jus is indeed very wise

 

[aesf]

me:View attachment 588935
leru: "the boy has trolled. i had nothing to do with that. he just scapegoated me
View attachment 588936

Hi, it seems I have been implicated in drama so I just want to clarify my perspective.
This screenshot is half true. I was indeed scapegoating Leru--while he did send the MAL to our team chat, it was my full decision to use the nicknames I chose.

But to troll? No. In the heat of an intense finals match I believed it is necessary to take any means possible (short of cheating of course!) to win, including psychological warfare. Mind gaming, if you will. I would like to erase any idea that this was done with humorous intent rather than out of competitive spirit.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

If TDs banned everyone that historically has said they wouldnt play for tigers, we would not have enough active users to play for SPL. Just saying!

 

[1LDK]

This would not be happening with Vileman + Teal6 as SPL managers

 

[Buhrito]

So basically, out of the 600+ SPL signups, every one of them is expected to be on fantastic terms with all 20 managers (some of which arent exactly saints btw) - sorry but this is just isn't realistic whatsoever. Personal issues between people will naturally arise when dealing with the sheer amount of possible relationships in a competitive environment, and in my opinion its extremely dumb to TOURBAN somebody for expressing personal disinterest in working with a manager AFTER being approached and asked by them. I understand the current ruling is in place to avoid pricefixing, but to me its quite obvious that after this incident, this rule needs reworking. If Smogon was about abusing the rules instead of playing Pokemon, then Leru would have 7 rings!

 

[Raptor]

I refuse to share a team with MANNAT again

 

[London Beats]

I don’t usually make an echo of my voice when such a matter happens but, tonight I will make an exception.

Any player is entitled to speak their truth if they are asked by a manager, and so did Mind gaming. The very thing he said was that he had no interest in playing for a person that hasn’t his same values. That 's it. No threats, no impoliteness, just an opinion of a player with a manager that was interested in drafting him ,and sadly for him it was not mutual. Now the big question: How do you understand that being not interested means cancering? I personally think you need to either be malicious or very illiterate to grasp such a nuance.

I had no idea that being honest about your interest in being with X or Y team was such a threatening act that could jeopardize the experience of the player in the most important tour of the whole forum. There is no justification to make a move of this caliber, not only the rule is poorly applied, even worse redacted, and vaguely interpreted by the td team but, also absurdly unfair for the player. I can understand that rules are not written in stone and there is margin for their application, and it’s the labor of the TD team to do their best in order to not make such a chicanery. I personally cannot fathom how the td team ended up with this decision, It really escapes my understanding. You can try to sugar-coat this as you want but, this is just one of the bajillion of groundless decision the TD team had taken so far, 2023 ,and now 2024, was just an example of how flimsy their decision are; having to back up multiple times by the pressure of the community.

In a nutshell, Let Mind Gaming play, the fella literally didn’t do anything wrong in that conversation. If you dislike someone and you don’t wanna team with ‘em you should be able to say such a thing without punishment. The TD team should really look for a reform of their staff, new people taking the reins and people stepping down. We as players are tored of these balderdash.

Give us a break and reevaluate what you are doing and who you are trying to protect with all these ruling, and decisions you made so far. I think I can speak for a big portion of the community that we are completely disgusted by your work.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Welli0u]

I agree with most people here, mind gaming can't be banned for not being interested in teaming with someone, especially when it's the manager in question who contacts him.

It's normal to find some duos not hype or not competent enough, for many reasons. It should not be forgotten that the players have no control over the choice of the 10 manager pairs (and that's a good thing). And let's not forget that SPL is a long tournament lasting a minimum of 9 weeks (we could consider shortening it). It's really annoying and frustrating to find yourself in a team where you're not having a good time, because that's the very essence of the tournaments we play.

I'm not saying that we should blame the TDs as some do, because this kind of decision is difficult to make and they should do everything they can to avoid an Ojama v2.

Tldr: Due to the short time left before the draft and reactions to this decision, mind gaming should be unbanned from SPL XV.

 

[yone]

"I'm not interested" ≠ "I won't play if you draft me"

 

[Niko]

Kekk the rule literally tells you that you cant 1)cancer if someone you dont want to team with buys you 2)threaten to do so if asked whether you would be interested in teaming up with the manager in question.
Please when you apply rules and decide for serious punishments double check that your action is both coherent with the rules and necessary to achieve a purpose. And don't rush it, thanks.

 

[mncmt]

Luigi os cara so faz bosta sem tu mano oia esses maluco kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk abre um serviço consultoria ai cara

Desde que o Luigi saiu nao teve uma decisão certa nesse site kkkkkkk

 

[Breezy]

I hope someone confuses me for Adam and drafts me

 

[TyCarter]

> TD team
> piss off RBY playerbase and a good portion of the playerbase with multiple shitty decisions in the span of about 2 days during the Holidays
> expand the TD team in hopes of not fucking making dogass decisions and to ease up the workload on overworked TDs
> not even 3 weeks after the RBY Bo1 fiasco and somehow make another headscratching decision the day before the SPL Auction
> said ruling is suppose to be for actual cancering and not over displaying lack of interest for playing for a potential team.
> unsurprisingly receives major backlash

Can we go back to when the biggest outrage on the site was over a tour host unjustifiably calling a competitor a "twat" over an act call.