Smogon Premier League XV - Commencement Thread

Quarante8

RoAPL Champion
This seems like the season of bad decisions. I think other posts got ahead stating it was bad, but exactly why is it bad?

Firstly, because of the timing :
Once again, a decision impacting the tour is taken A DAY before it is effectively starting (cuz yeah, once the auction is done the tour has effectively started). This is unacceptable. The RBY situation was not much better in relation to time (3days before signups), but this is even worse. With this decision, you are effectively creating a precedent, that can and will be used in the future to justify taking decisions so close to the actual tour start. I don't think I need to develop on how bad this is, as it virtually allows anything to be decided ON BEHALF OF NOBODY BUT THE TD TEAM. As proved by the fact neither mindgaming nor the other managers seem to be aware of the situation.

Secondly, because it is a wild interpretation of the rules :
Quoting from ken's post : "The TD team FEELS that mind gaming's continued denial of interest in playing for this team violates the following rule from the signup thread."
Rules are meant to be enforced WHEN THEY ARE BROKEN, or when there is sufficient evidence that leads to CERTAINTY they will be broken. There is neither in this case, mindgaming stating he has "no interest" in playing for whichever manager, does not mean he will not comply and played if pick. It is mostly a one-liner to say "Im not too interested in playing for you", a simple thing that should be useful to a manager, as one of the goal of a team is cohesion. I will not cite teams, but cohesion being very important and having consequences can be seen in last year's SPL, in multiple teams. Either way, no rules was broken, the only thing that matters is the TD teams FELT they were. Once again, this creates a precedent for the TD team to use their authority if they so feel that the rules are broken, when they are clearly not (and yeah, once again I dont think I need to develop on how that is bad and unwanted).

Finally, because it is unfair to all the other managers and deteriotates the tour :
As (afaik) none of the other managers were informed of the decision beforehand, this last minute, completely horrendous decision, has a major impact on the draft. Quoting ken again : "It is clear that this continued denial will have a material impact on the SPL auction".
Now what you should have been thinking about is not whether or not mindgaming and leru's interaction would have an impact on the auction. What you should have DEFINITELY thought about was the consequences of your own decision. As you are banning one of the to-be most expensive player, that most of the teams (Id assume) want to buy, you are doing much worse for the auction than allowing him to be in it. Once again, this is due to a complete lack of communication between the TD team and other parties. By the way, other than the TD team, this allows the managers a precedent to JUSTIFY doing this stuff (framing players to get them out). I don't think I need to explain why this is bad.

I will add, as a personal note that's outside of my reasoning, that banning one the best competitors in your best teamtour is a really overall bad decision, regardless of all the factual arguments I stated as to how it's bad.

The reasonable decision to take would be to completely remove the ban, and to discuss among the TD teams and Senior Staff about this decision and how it came to be (including who in the TD team allowed this to go through). I hope it's been made clear with this and the previous rby fiasco that this is unacceptable and has to stop. Now. Im not one for dogpiling though, so I hope something good can come out of an internal decision between the TD and SS teams. Lastly, I just wanted to add that I have no connection with any involved parties, but communication from the TD team with players and managers regarding important decisions such as this one or the rby one would be more than welcomed, but would be NECESSARY. No one is asking you to share your TD chat, but a little clarity about decisions would help re-unite the community with you. Because I don't feel like the bond is very close right now.

Thank you for reading me :D
 

Drifting

in my glo stance smokin' dope
is a Tiering Contributor
This seems like the season of bad decisions. I think other posts got ahead stating it was bad, but exactly why is it bad?

Firstly, because of the timing :
Once again, a decision impacting the tour is taken A DAY before it is effectively starting (cuz yeah, once the auction is done the tour has effectively started). This is unacceptable. The RBY situation was not much better in relation to time (3days before signups), but this is even worse. With this decision, you are effectively creating a precedent, that can and will be used in the future to justify taking decisions so close to the actual tour start. I don't think I need to develop on how bad this is, as it virtually allows anything to be decided ON BEHALF OF NOBODY BUT THE TD TEAM. As proved by the fact neither mindgaming nor the other managers seem to be aware of the situation.

Secondly, because it is a wild interpretation of the rules :
Quoting from ken's post : "The TD team FEELS that mind gaming's continued denial of interest in playing for this team violates the following rule from the signup thread."
Rules are meant to be enforced WHEN THEY ARE BROKEN, or when there is sufficient evidence that leads to CERTAINTY they will be broken. There is neither in this case, mindgaming stating he has "no interest" in playing for whichever manager, does not mean he will not comply and played if pick. It is mostly a one-liner to say "Im not too interested in playing for you", a simple thing that should be useful to a manager, as one of the goal of a team is cohesion. I will not cite teams, but cohesion being very important and having consequences can be seen in last year's SPL, in multiple teams. Either way, no rules was broken, the only thing that matters is the TD teams FELT they were. Once again, this creates a precedent for the TD team to use their authority if they so feel that the rules are broken, when they are clearly not (and yeah, once again I dont think I need to develop on how that is bad and unwanted).

Finally, because it is unfair to all the other managers and deteriotates the tour :
As (afaik) none of the other managers were informed of the decision beforehand, this last minute, completely horrendous decision, has a major impact on the draft. Quoting ken again : "It is clear that this continued denial will have a material impact on the SPL auction".
Now what you should have been thinking about is not whether or not mindgaming and leru's interaction would have an impact on the auction. What you should have DEFINITELY thought about was the consequences of your own decision. As you are banning one of the to-be most expensive player, that most of the teams (Id assume) want to buy, you are doing much worse for the auction than allowing him to be in it. Once again, this is due to a complete lack of communication between the TD team and other parties. By the way, other than the TD team, this allows the managers a precedent to JUSTIFY doing this stuff (framing players to get them out). I don't think I need to explain why this is bad.

I will add, as a personal note that's outside of my reasoning, that banning one the best competitors in your best teamtour is a really overall bad decision, regardless of all the factual arguments I stated as to how it's bad.

The reasonable decision to take would be to completely remove the ban, and to discuss among the TD teams and Senior Staff about this decision and how it came to be (including who in the TD team allowed this to go through). I hope it's been made clear with this and the previous rby fiasco that this is unacceptable and has to stop. Now. Im not one for dogpiling though, so I hope something good can come out of an internal decision between the TD and SS teams. Lastly, I just wanted to add that I have no connection with any involved parties, but communication from the TD team with players and managers regarding important decisions such as this one or the rby one would be more than welcomed, but would be NECESSARY. No one is asking you to share your TD chat, but a little clarity about decisions would help re-unite the community with you. Because I don't feel like the bond is very close right now.

Thank you for reading me :D
why do u write like diary of a wimpy kid
 

Amaranth

is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
UPL Champion
I just want to say it is inexcusable to take a decision like this without consulting both sides. You are supposed to ask for both sides of any such story before acting.
You always check that the person making the claim isn't lying to you or misconstruing the situation in some way, always. You are supposed to consult both sides for everything, even fucking act claims in GSC PU RoA Spotlight Tournaments.
Let alone SPL.
Let alone the probably highest profile player coming into the tournament.
Let alone one day before the draft.

Even if you absolve yourself completely of all judgement on the human dynamics at play, this decision is absurd; it completely neglected basic due process. This lack of thoroughness would be bad in a situation with no stakes, it is downright shocking when the stakes are about as high as they can possibly get.
It speaks to a complete ineptitude of the current team (and I'm sorry to the people there who I, individually, quite like and have no issues with, but this is what your actions are demonstrating).

RBY incident, into promoting the Man of Some People, into this shit now - are you guys, like, deliberately trying to have the community lose all faith in you? Are you just not interested in having things go well? If you don't think you're paid enough for this, fair enough - then do like I did, step down and piss off.

In any case, free mind gaming while you think about these questions. I hate pricefixing as much as the next guy, I might even ultimately be on team "mind gaming is in the wrong", but it doesn't matter - you failed to apply due process and blindsided him with a ban one day before auction, it's absurd. You cannot do this, even if we assume you are right.
 
Like most others here, I agree that the ban on mind gaming is drastically exaggerated.
Logically, managers will look at their potential picks to see what the chemistry is like, but as zio has already said, that would be completely pointless as soon as a "no" leads to a tourban.
mind remained completely objective throughout the chatlog and never became abusive towards Leru at any point, as any other German user will be able to confirm.
He also never refused to play his games if he was picked by Leru.
If you don't like someone (for whatever reason), then there is no interest in teaming up with them. What would have been mind's alternative here? Lying?
It is simply inconclusive why factual honesty can lead to a tourban.
I think the decision should definitely be reconsidered.
 

CrashinBoomBang

außerirdisch, anunnaki
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a defending SPL Champion
As a heads up, this post is not completely relevant to the situation regarding mind gaming at hand. However, I do think it's very indicative of larger problems that have been plaguing SPL, even team tours in general, for a while. I was told that mind was grinding DPP (EDIT: according to new information, he has actually never played a game of DPP OU, so this totally applies), actually wanted to play it in SPL, and thus signed up for it, all of which are absolutely legitimate, but it did remind me of something I've seen around a few times in the past few years now... Not really any better time to post than now, really.

I think that team tournaments are definitely haunted by something I call, for lack of better vocabulary, "good player entitlement". That is, the thought that you are special, "worth more", or deserve special rights because you are a good player. This has honestly been an issue for a long time, and I definitely used to be guilty of it as well. Signing up for SPL is like signing an agreement to me: You are part of the drafting pool, but at the same time, you contractually agree to give 100% of your effort to everyone who drafts you. Obviously, everyone still has their preferences and what they like and dislike, and it'd be dishonest claiming that I don't have my own. However, I think it's absolutely inexcusable, even straight up disrespectful, to tell managers that you don't want to play for them. As someone who put probably hundreds of hours into SPL 8 as a manager overall, I think that being a good manager is a LOT more work than being a good player. Having some people just outright not wanting to play for you is absolutely preposterous, even if most of them probably wouldn't cancer when it comes down to it. Think about it this way: If a new, aspiring player tried to get into SPL, got PMd by manager X (literally, regardless of who it is) asking if he wants to play for them, they're always going to say yes. Always. That's because they signed up to play at the highest level, to play Pokemon, and want to prove themselves on the big stage. They just want to play Pokemon, which is what SPL should ultimately be about.
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.
That's why I take issue with stances like this. None of this should matter. There are no values here. You are playing Pokemon with people to win the tour. You signed up to play Pokemon in this tournament, and that is it. You are signing up a) to play and b) to win, as a team. Everything else is a byproduct. The fact that SPL usually turns into friend groups doing tons of other activities other than Pokemon is definitely something to be cherished, but I don't know when people got the idea that "this is how it's supposed to be" when it most definitely is a byproduct. I love jerking as much as the next one, but this is a tournament about playing, first and foremost, like all of them. I also take issue with people signing up to bench for the same reason (again, not connected to mind gaming, I heard he was grinding DPP and actually wanted to play it in SPL!! But, well, this issue is very adjacent to that considering mind isn't known for his DPP per se), but I've seen countless signups asking for people to get bought to bench until playoffs. Respectfully, if that's how you view SPL, please don't sign up again. All you are doing is potentially take away a slot from someone who actually wants to play Pokemon. The last thing SPL needs is people benchriding for 9 weeks and then getting a trophy off playing for 0-2 weeks. The fact that some people even consider this is absolutely disgusting. Stop acting like your record entitles you to special treatment in a sea of other Pokemon players, please. If you really care about the experience instead of having an ulterior motive like the trophy then nothing is stopping you from supporting a team for free and getting the entire experience! I've done it myself twice, and it was literally the same thing except for me not playing any games. That said, free helpers in SPL are their own issue I won't get into for now, both because it's very deeply ingrained in our circuit and because this is not what my post is about. Point being, if you want to play in SPL, sign up for it. If you don't, don't. The fact that some people genuinely want to get bought off clout alone is one of the ickiest things I've seen on this website. Have some shame.

However, I also agree that this whole situation in general is just stupid, and a lot of it stems from the fact that Leru asked the question in the first place. Why is this even a thing? zioziotrip posted about this briefly, and he's totally right. The only reason for this question to exist is to literally back people into a corner and/or get them banned. By signing up you should already contractually agree to play for every team. There is no reason for questions like these to even exist or be asked because they're pointless and serve literally no purpose except actually incriminating people.

I thought about this whole situation for a while, both yesterday and today, and honestly, I think the big issue stems from the fact that this is even allowed to be asked when all signups should just inherently agree to play for every team. Everyone has their preferences, but preferences should not matter here, as I alluded to further up. I don't think it's unreasonable to unban mind gaming, absolutely purge people going around asking "would you play for me", and just punish everyone who actually follows through with being a dick after the auction. Harshly. SPL has no room for special snowflakes that can play 11 games for reyscarface/Tony, but face severe mental anguish just thinking about playing for other managers. I implore everyone who thinks this way to do some introspection and hopefully come to the realization that it's an absolutely abhorrent way of thinking. These are the real problems SPL has.

I hope that we, as a community, can take something away from this whole situation, learn from it, and hopefully improve SPL for the future. For what it's worth, I don't think anyone here is "to blame" (I think both asking this question when legit nothing can result from it as well as not just saying "yeah sure" or whatever bring some issues with it), but I do think it's shown us some inherent issues with how the rules are laid out at the moment. Also, can people stop with the TD witch hunts? Not gonna get into the RBY drama, but as someone who has looked at both sides, I can definitely see how you could look at it either way in this situation. At the end of the day, I agree that people being babies about who they want to play for is a huge issue with SPL.
 
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Answering a question from a manager should not lead to a tour ban.
Feeling a certain way should not lead to such a harsh decision 1 day before the draft.
Please consult the other managers and both sides before deciding on such a case.
If mind gaming is banned like this, it sets a dangerous precedent. Tour managers could now fish for tour bans against certain players if they think they won't play for their team. Banning a good player on an opposing team = raising odds to win.
This would lead to the player base avoiding communication with managers.
So to avoid this, just unban mind gaming.
 
It's almost like if you want to come down on this, you should make a policy clarification beforehand and make it public.

This has become part of the SPL culture and has been the norm for a long time. It is against the rules, but the precident is essentially that it's allowed due to a lack of punishment. If you want to change the culture, address it and make the narrative clear, rather than just banning one player a day before auction.

Zacpz for TD as I'm tired of your shit.
 
hey guys,
just wanted to give my side of the matter concerning me getting banned from SPL

I simply stated the idea of playing for Leru was not appealing to me based on how I’ve seen him as a member of this community carry himself. I didn’t realized I needed to watch my words so carefully when I simply am not high on the individual who is requesting me to play for his team. I of course look forward to playing for any manager that decides to draft me but just like Lax made in a post in commencement (now deleted) and other players have made clear in the past….I would prefer to play for a team that holds the same playing values that I do, and Leru as we’ve seen just recently does not seem to hold upstanding values towards his peers in the community, and him attempting to remove me from this tournament as a whole just only confirms that.
View attachment 588933
View attachment 588934
tl:
leru: "yo are you interested to scoot this spl?"
me: "no"
leru: "why not? we were thinking you could do well in dpp"
me: "due to experiences i've made with you till now i'm really not all that interested in teaming with you"
leru: "which experiences do you mean? we dont know each other all that well after all"
me: "all the act fishing in europe vs. germany triggered the hell out of me when our player wasn't there for just 2 minutes than the gibles vs islanders series where you started harassing me for my mal and oh look what funny nicks we have on our mons into all of the pedo accusations after my win"
leru:"that has nothing to do with me. the last one at least. concerning the first one i obv. act according to the interest of my own players, 30 minutes is more than enough waiting time, tagging after 2 minutes has the main reason that my player doesnt need to wait needlessly long it has nothing to do with act fishing. i even told my player he shouldnt use the names btw."
me:View attachment 588935
leru: "the boy has trolled. i had nothing to do with that. he just scapegoated me
View attachment 588936
leru: would you play for us now or not?"
a deleted reply of myself: "not interested"
reply of mine after thinking it over again: "i realize that i also scapegoated you concerning the nicknames matter than for which i want to apologize. however i'm still not particularly interested in scooting this year in spl. i'm sry."

I really hope the TD's reconsider their decision in time for the draft, thank you for your time

that ban is nonsense. its completly diffrent to the Ojama situation. I hope TD's or whoever was in charge of this awful decision rethinks their action.


Also i think Leru should be ashamed and punished for that snaky attempt to get some1 else banned. That kinda reminds me of the sneak in school who noone wants to be seen with.
 

kumiko

formerly TDK
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
i implore the tds to reconsider this ban before the draft.

while it is undoubtedly lame to not want to play for someone, responding to "would you play for us" with "not interested" is absolutely not a definitive "no i would not". you absolutely can read it that way, but you cannot say there is no universe it is always read that way, especially considering this was translated from german and the majority of people reading this and making the decision do not speak german.

if the tds want to punish this behavior, there is absolutely a debate to be had, clearly there is disagreement with this decision already, but i do not think the current rules should be interpreted in the way they are currently. please have a dialogue to establish better rules for this kind of behavior for the future, not applying something that does not exist to punish someone now. make a rule that explicitly disallows this kind of behavior if you want, make more clear cut rules and guidelines, or something else idk. use this case as a precedent for these rules, not applying this to rules that do not currently exist. there have been countless cases of people not wanting to play for someone and expressing that, and just now picking out someone like this is very unfair. there will never be a universe where everyone is as equally motivated for every managerial pair, regardless of how lame that may be.

it would be extremely bad looks to keep this ban regardless of whether you believe this behavior is fine, make a rule against it in the future, don't punish it now.
 
if the difference between a ban and no ban is "not interested" and "not interested but id play" then i question the flimsy foundations of this rule and how its being applied here.

if the reasoning is that minds response has a material impact on the auction, surely the second response has the same impact but keeps him safe from a ban. it just doesnt make sense and this rule is shit. other players, have gotten pms from managers and skirted the rules by giving similar "polite responses" or just straight up ignoring managers to indicate a lack of interest which obviously have a material impact on the auction. its ambiguous as to whether mind straight up refused to play for a team nor meet the threshold for team cancering.

reverse this decision and allow mind to participate in spl and then reexamine this rule given the discussion in the thread
 
There isn't really much more to add, given multiple people directly involved in this incident have already pointed out the most relevant facts related to the whole situation.

Not getting into personal opinion because I consider mind gaming a close friend of mine and thus, you could definitely argue I am biased. However, opinions aside, I definitely do think some of the facts we've read in this thread, were not (or appear to have not) been taken into consideration when deliberating this decision. Namely what Amaranth said about the lack of communication between Mind (who has tried his best) and the people in charge of dealing with these situation; what Gefährlicher Random said about the absence of a clear negation in those logs, as well as basically the entire post from obii

Now I'm obviously here to support a friend whom I think has done nothing SO WRONG to deserve a ban from SPL (Meanwhile I was writing this, looks like the manager agreed with that too), but I also think those are extremely relevant facts and they objectively cannot be ignored regardless of what's your personal position. They shouldn't be. In this situation, which appears to be already solved, but also in any future situation of this kind.
 

Kenix

World Defender
Gm guys, I want to be in a winner team with amazing people all around. That's why I decided as a player to hold tryouts for other players? Why? Once I'm drafted I hopefully get an invite to the server immediately (appeal to the managers who draft me) and then I can convince them to pick you up. All of this just works if managers agree with my approach obviously.

I'm looking forward to the tryouts
You can either just DM me if you see me online on PS (Skypenguin) or you shoot me a Discord DM (Piyush25)
 
I'm happy that mind gaming got unbanned but i dont see what changed.

What mind gaming did either was or wasn't price fixing, whether or not he made up with the manager afterwards doesn't change things.

Regardless of whether or you think he was saying he will cancer if bought or not, after being banned he will always say he wont to get unbanned. Consideration for his ban should be based solely on the initial conversation.

With every backtrack people get more and more incentive to mindlessly whine after every decision by the TDs until they get the outcome they want. Especially since negative community feedback is always mentioned instead of an actual change to the TDs reasoning/understanding of the issue.
 

Javi

Que no respiren, que no respiren!
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a defending World Cup of Pokemon Champion
Gm guys, I want to be in a winner team with amazing people all around. That's why I decided as a player to hold tryouts for other players? Why? Once I'm drafted I hopefully get an invite to the server immediately (appeal to the managers who draft me) and then I can convince them to pick you up. All of this just works if managers agree with my approach obviously.

I'm looking forward to the tryouts
You can either just DM me if you see me online on PS (Skypenguin) or you shoot me a Discord DM (Piyush25)
Padre
 

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