Even if it doesn't benefit me or my team, I've wanted full current gen in World Cup ever since I started playing in this tournament. I've also said before that 8 is the golden number if we were to make the change. I can see the benefits of 10 slots, but I think the quality will drop drastically, and we will have similar issues to the previous setup, with certain teams struggling to find RBY and GSC slots. 8 is the way to go for sure.
ABR said 10 was the only alternative, but a lot of people supported 8, so I made a strawpoll for fun yesterday about the amount of slots.
Vote here.
I wanna echo z0mOG's post as it pretty much sums up my thoughts and wishes, but I also wanna add that this change would line up better with the team tournament circuit and its goals, allowing us to divide SPL into an old gen tour and Snake (assuming it still exists by this fall) into a lower tier tour. Simplifying SPL saves a lot of discussion over which of RBY / GSC / UU / RU / NU / LC / Doubles / PU / Ubers(?) we have to include each year.
Going back to CG OU slots; a reason I support 8 slots over 10 is because teams haven't had the chance to adapt. If teams want to build a player base for CG OU, you're gonna have to start small. It's better to go from 5 to 8, and then eventually expand to 10 slots maybe by 2021 when teams have built a core, instead of going straight from 5 to 10. A lot of players that would be in old gen slots in a full gen format would probably want some time to pick up CG OU, and some players may be returning just to play World Cup too. This isn't a strong argument, but I think a lot of teams would benefit from it, especially when you have to fill 5 sub slots as well. I personally had a hard time finding 10 guaranteed players for each team, and I'd say only North-East had a lineup of 10 familiar faces. Of course 8 is a lot too, but it is the most logical number, as 6 is probably too low again. I think this solution also helps teams that struggle to find players overall, whether it's current gen or old gen, as current gen is far easier to get involved with.
Tournament/community growth and metagame development remain the biggest reasons to go for a full CG OU World Cup. I will get backlash for this, but I strongly believe there is way too much focus on old gens compared to current gen, and it's showing. For having 30+ players playing CG OU in SPL each season, a surprising amount of the games are of poor quality. Very few of the individual tournaments are growing in the rate it could, especially Smogon Tour. On the other hand, a full CG OU World Cup would feel very inviting for all the new faces that Showdown/Smogon will eventually get, and it allows them to get involved more quickly. CG OU has also lost out on a lot of top dogs not being fully invested in the tier. SS OU is off to a decent start with older players like Jayde, Astamatitos and Triangles seemingly playing the tier actively, but imagine if all time greats like BKC and McMeghan put the same effort into SS OU as they do into old gens. Of course there are reason why they wouldn't/couldn't, but with a CG OU World Cup they'd be forced to if they want to play, and that to me is a good thing. There are more than enough old gen tournaments for them to play their favorites during the rest of the year regardless. I don't really have any objective proof to show this, but I am very certain this will help Smogon's overall growth longterm, as well as SS OU as a metagame.
However, if we go the other route, I'll briefly mention why I think 5+5 is a better option than 4+6. As Genesis7 touched on, several World Cup teams have had big issues filling the GSC slot for several years now. It has a significantly smaller playerbase than RBY, and far less [relevant] signups. Whatever subjective advantages GSC has as a tier shouldn't keep it in over RBY, especially not when RBY is on its last leg in terms of representation in SPL too. You either cut both, or you cut neither. I'd support 5+7 before I'd support 4+6, even if that isn't a viable option. Comparing them to the gens after them, they both have significantly less signups both in team tournaments and in Classic, which is why chopping tiers from ADV and onward shouldn't be an option. When it comes to SS, 5 slots is obviously better than 4 regarding the points above about growth and metagame development. We should aim to have as many slots as possible eventually, but at the same time not rushing it so teams can't keep up.
There were some other fringe alternatives thrown around, but I think the four mention here (10+0, 8+0, 5+5 and 4+6) are the only realistic ones.
In terms of preference for the 2020 I would probably go with:
- 8+0
- 5+5
- 4+6
- 10+0
I really think 10 slots is stretching it, considering the current player base, especially when you have subs to fill. I'd wager several teams would fill their 5 sub slots with old gen staples who have no intention of seriously playing just to make the 15 cut. 13 is a more reasonable number, but I think the possibility of going from 5 subs to 4 should be considered if we do choose CG OU with 8 slots. I believe this is what it used to be back when we last had 8 starting slots instead of 10 as well. Again, I'd like to say that I think we should expand to 10 slots in the near future, but not this year. There have been discussions of shrinking the amount of World Cup teams and merging some of the current regions, potentially to 12 or even 8, which means 10 slots would probably be fine, but I'm certain this won't happen this year, so I wouldn't worry about it yet.
my ulterior motive with making wcop full cg is so mcmeghan wont play this year and is eventually forced onto europe if he wants to play again :val: