Why do we even *allow* "best of one" tournaments?

[lilyhollow]

this post will probably remain relatively short because there isn't much i'm about to say that should come off as mysterious or new to anyone. in fact I'd almost go so far as to say that most people here have probably heard exactly what they know i'm about to say, considered it, come to a conclusion about it, and then just decided not to do/say anything about it for whatever reason (maybe to avoid "stirring up trouble" or something, I don't know). maybe this post won't be so short after all.

let me just start this off by saying that, in my mind, Smogon is a community that is (or "should be" for more accurate wording I guess) competitive first, everything else second. so as great as it is to see stuff like The Smog and Pokemon analyses getting as much attention as they do, to me, it's also a little bit disappointing. it's almost as if we're beating around the bush "getting ready" to be competitive instead of actually doing things which automatically result in a more competitive community with hardly any effort, just common sense. the result is a community that apparently feels that all the things surrounding actual competitive gameplay-- the analysis, the balancing, the complaining about the actual competitive gameplay-- are the best reasons to take part in the community in the first place. this mindset that "talking about the game is more fun than the game itself" basically implies that none of us should have wasted our time analyzing, balancing, or complaining to begin with, because this game obviously was never worth taking seriously anyway. and I know some people will argue that this game isn't really worth playing competitively, whether because of the luck-based nature of Pokemon as a whole or DP specific issues ("too many options"), that in-depth analysis is another beast entirely with plenty of its own inherent merits (perhaps in part because of Pokemon's luck-based nature, or the absurd amount of options players are presented with in the team-builder), and that they're perfectly justified in being interested in this community and this game solely because of how interesting it is on paper...


as should be obvious, I have a certain sort of problem with that argument that I'll try my best to elaborate on, but for now I'm going to move away from that and repeat the question I've asked in the title, probably a few times in #stark, and countless times in my head: why are "best of one" tournaments even allowed to exist anymore? As in, why isn't every single tournament in Smogon's "Tournament" section best of 3 by default, no matter what, with the exception of the LNT and Smogon Tour?

Seriously, I'm curious for an actual answer to that question. Is it "Uhm........ because," or is there some actual reason? Because there's definitely a solid handful of other rules that I'd personally make standard for every single tournament, "gimmick" or not, without question, yesterday, but can still understand the relative lack of current support for, such as double elimination, any number of possible counterpicking system variations, prizes, etc.... but not Best of 3. Best of 3 isn't cumbersome, it isn't time consuming, it isn't "intimidating." it's just good. so what's the problem ("excuse"?)? Personally, I have never been able to come up with any even mildly legitimate complaints regarding a Best of 3 format. I have never heard anyone else come up with any even mildly legitimate complaints regarding a Best of 3 format. I have never heard anyone say anything but great things regarding a Best of 3 format, unless they happened to be too busy talking about how great it would be for the other aforementioned changes to become standard as well. So if a Best of 3 format makes tournaments (and therefore the community) more competitive, with no significant downside (unless somebody wants to finally mention one), why the hell hasn't it become essentially mandatory?

The bottom line is that there is simply no good reason for a game as variable as Pokemon to run tournaments which are not only single elimination, but one fucking game. I wouldn't expect Chess to yield entirely accurate results under those rules; it's no wonder that talking about the game is considered more engaging than actually playing it half the time, when the results of almost every community-organized competition are about as meaningful as one's ability to argue their position on Stealth Rock's suspect status. It's not that I feel analysis has no place in a competitive community (and it's probably the most interesting aspect to me personally, at least when it comes to Pokemon). My problem with the "it's more fun to discuss than to actually play" mentality is that it's not difficult to "discuss" actually making the game more fun to play, or more competitive. I can't think of a good reason for months and months and months to have gone by with like one and a half Best of 3 tournaments total, but if there is one, there's no reason that it hasn't been "discussed," with this being, at least in my mind, such an important and beneficial possibility. Pokemon isn't a bad game. We're not dealing with something that just so happens to be supremely interesting on paper but some sort of unmanageable random mess in practice. Most of the problems people complain about, or at least attribute to the game being "uninteresting," are completely solvable, sometimes with a ridiculously minor amount of effort like this one.



tl;dr: All tournaments should be Best of 3 unless there's some sort of really clever issue I've overlooked and for some reason hasn't been mentioned before. We should probably start thinking about other things like Double Elimination, counterpicking/sideboard systems, and hopefully prizes for the future, but for now Best of 3 seems to have no downsides so it's almost humorous that it isn't standard yet. other garbage about things you probably don't care about if you skipped to this part.

 

[Scofield]

Well, I prefer the best of one format, and I'll explain why, it's actually quite simple for me. Team building. When it comes to big tournaments, like the World Cup or Smogon Tournament, I actually spend A LOT of time developing and testing these teams. There is no way I'd use the same team more than once in a best of 3 format, meaning that I would have to test and develop 3 teams. Time wise, that is actually rather not viable. The most teams I have viable and would trust in a tournament at once is actually never more than 2, and even then one is usually clearly better than the other.

Another issue is playing 3 battles in a row can take about an hour including a few min in between, it's much harder to schedule and get done.

 

[Aldaron]

prepost post: I agree with your sentiments blame game: this is a competitive community first, and really should emphasize the competitive above all else.

post:

Well I see the arguments for and against this splitting into 2 areas: "ideal" and "practical." By ideal I mean what we would do as a competitive community assuming perfect match completion, constant activitiy and the like. By practical I mean...what actually happens lol (taking time issues into account especially). However, I feel that we don't need to "separate" ideal and practical; we can come to a nice moderate that isn't single elimination because, as the op implied, single eliminations just have far too many variable in pokemon to be taken seriously. I also am operating on the premise that reducing the overall effect of luck on our results is what a competitive community that tries to emphasize skill should be working towards.

Ideally, there are 2 issues I have with putting such significance in single elimination tournaments: that luck in battle (via ches, secondary effects like thunderbolt paralyzing then getting fully paralyzed 4 times in a row) occurs far too often (with 6.25% for 2 players every turn + all the minimum 10% side effects you can expect some "lucky" to happen almost every 6 turns), and that luck outside of the battle (team matchups) has a tendency to determine far too much. Basically, luck as in "hax" can easily ruin a match, and luck as in matchups can prevent us from discovering who was actually the more skillful player.

To reduce both "luck effects," ideally we would play a best out of infinity and determine the best player. lol. What we can do, however, is play a Best of 3 to give a "second chance" in case a player was at the negative end of "hax" or "bad team matchup." I choose best of 3 over double elimination because double elimination has more "unique" matches to play; by unique I mean pitting different people against each other. I feel like playing the same person in succession (a bo3) is MUCH more practical than playing another opponent after you have lost. That's pretty much my main argument for "why bo3 over double elimination" (beyond my experience with this community's inability to efficiently get double elimination tournaments done, lol)

Bo3 for all tournaments would be my compromise between the ideal and the practical. People say it takes too long to make a team and test it and all that stuff, but I don't agree necessarily. Why can't you simultaneously test teams? I promise you, it isn't THAT much more difficult / time consuming.

Now, there is something to slightly relieve that team building issue, and that is to make the bo3 with the same team + an arbitrary # of sideboard pokemon, which would mean you only make 1 team + side board.

In my opinion, this makes bo3 even more practical, and therefore more appealing. However, on irc hipmonlee brought up the idea that "it changes team building." I can see how enforcing a bo3 + sideboard would change team building, but from my "theorymon," it is only for the better (we actually discussed this on irc which is why I'm not delving more into this)

So in summary, single elimination tournaments tell me very little: they pretty much just tell me what above average player was lucky enough at that time (or lucky enough to not get unlucky).

Bo3 would be a great step towards reducing the 2 "luck effects" I talked about. I also feel it is not that impractical.

Bo3 + sideboard would remove a lot of the time issues with building another team, but as hip said, it might change team building, so we might need to discuss that more in depth.

 

[Tangerine]

I don't feel as if I have anything more to say - I've been saying that Pokemon should have been bo3 for a long time now (and I guess I never did anything about it because I'm not that much of a battler) - and I believe Blame Game and aldaron have pretty much said anything I needed to say. I'm in absolute agreement with them, to the point where I don't think I can add much to it.

@scofield - Team + Sideboard will solve that problem easily.

@Blame Game - it's quite funny you posted this since we were talking about this quite a bit on #stark and #is recently.... are you psychic :(

 

[Hipmonlee]

but not Best of 3. Best of 3 isn't cumbersome, it isn't time consuming, it isn't "intimidating."

Aside from intimidating, which I dont really understand, best of three is all of those things.

I mean, with best of three each round you have to complete two or three matches. It means you have to be able to put aside a longer period of time to do the battle, or you have to schedule battles twice. Long rounds is the biggest killer of tournaments.

And building three teams is a lot of team building. Not only that, there probably is some advantage to building your team after your first battle when you have seen your opponents style first hand.. Also you might find that you get paired with someone who is familiar with one or more of your teams, which may mean even more teambuilding! It is a lot of work..

Sideboards are clearly a big change to teambuilding. And tournaments should really involve battling the way that people battle. So unless we change the ladder to involve 3 matches with sideboards, I dont think we could have sideboards as the default tournament rule.

That being said, I think there is definite room for improvement here.. I do agree that the smogon tour finals format probably should be improved. I like single elimination though, basically it is my experience that people who enter tournaments want to win. And once you've lost your first game, it is a much better option for you to join some other tournament and focus your attention there than to keep battling for the off-chance of winning something you have already got a serious disadvantage in..

Have a nice day.

 

[lilyhollow]

By Best of 3 I meant Best of 3 with no team changes, because in my mind there's no issue of practicality brought up by that format at all. Obviously I'd love to go much farther, and if Bo3 + sideboard became the standard instead, I'd be very happy. My main confusion was with the fact that Best of 3 with no team changes is pretty much just a better version of Best of 1, so even though it's somewhat of a "baby step" in the right direction (the "rock paper scissors" sort of "luck" remains untouched), that's what I'd expect to be made standard almost immediately. I mean, what's stopping us? But yes, Bo3 + Sideboard would definitely be ideal, and if not for practicality issues this thread would have been about Bo3 with team changes (not that anything is out of the question in my book, including double elimination).

 

[Tangerine]

The reason that people dislike best of three with no team changes is because a lot of battlers find team scouting a significant part of the battle. bo3 with no team changes takes that way a bit.

I think it'll promote different ways to play the game, as in you can play in a way to restrict what another user knows about your team and take advantage of that at the 2nd or 3rd match, etc etc. You can throw away your first match to get specific information about your opponent's team while not giving away pieces of yours, etc etc. But this is all theory which is a lot more interesting than actually playing! (hah) But the thing is that such a format doesn't fix the "team matchup" problem aldaron pointed out, not to mention the loser has a huge disadvantage due to the fact that all 6 of his pokemon is revealed versus not all of the winner's pokemon is necessarily revealed, putting in a slippery slope game play that's sort of unnecessary. This is why I support sideboard.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Also team unchanged is hard to enforce, for example if you dont see my 6th pokemon. I have to have told someone beforehand what that 6th was.

It also affects how useful surprises are.

And sideboards are a significant change to battling, essentially you are making tournaments a totally different game to the game played on ladder.. I dont think we can allow that.

Have a nice day.

 

[Tangerine]

And sideboards are a significant change to battling, essentially you are making tournaments a totally different game to the game played on ladder.. I dont think we can allow that.

"Why not"? The only reasoning I can see is that people ladder to test teams - but a sideboard change just means that you have to play with different combinations of your team. I don't see a problem with this.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I have been nothing but supportive of Bo3 + Sideboard for every tournament ever. I'm thinking of attempting to host another Little Cup tournament, and I'll definitely be making it Bo3 + Sideboard.

 

[Hipmonlee]

"Why not"? The only reasoning I can see is that people ladder to test teams - but a sideboard change just means that you have to play with different combinations of your team. I don't see a problem with this.

Basically, a tournament is a way to test your skill at pokemon battling. If you change the rules only for tournaments, then you are testing your skills at something other than what people generally mean when they say pokemon battling.

If sideboards are better than how we currently play pokemon, then we should play that way all the time. And if it isnt feasible that we do that then sideboards shouldnt be the standard way of playing.

I mean, it's entirely plausible that sideboards could have some effect on a pokemon tiering. IE something like a Mew becomes a lot easier to deal with once you know its set..

Have a nice day.

 

[Scofield]

I just don't feel that a "sideboard" is a viable system, which is especially significant as we're trying to be as competitive as possible. I cannot simply just sub out one (or 2 or however many) of my pokemon for another one without completely altering the team. By removing a pokemon, I can significantly make myself more susceptible to be swept by another pokemon. I can switch out another one of my pokemon to make up for this weakness, but then I just continue the domino chain until I need an entirely new team. I can't replace 3 pokemon (picking a random number here) and be expected to have as good a team as I had before. The "better" version was "better" for a reason. But maybe I'm the only one that thinks that way.

Also, agreeing with hip.

 

[Tangerine]

The thing is that Ladder measures long term success, as in the goal of laddering is not to win one match, but to win as many matches as possible, and you can play as many matches to get to whatever you want. Hence, such conditions aren't required for Laddering.

The reason why tournament system needs one is already outlined, so I don't get into it there.

@scofield: yes, that's the thing you must balance. It adds another layer to how we play the game, and it changes the way we think about teams a bit. I think it's a positive step forward into making competitive Pokemon more competitive and interesting. It's a new layer we need to consider, a new skill that players need to learn.

@Hip: I don't think you can really argue that we're no longer playing Pokemon because the format changes a bit. It's not that different skills are being tested in a tournament setting, but more skills are being tested in a tournament setting, which is a very, very, positive thing. Just because laddering and tournaments operate on a different system does not make them different game - laddering is more casual, tournaments are more official - and I already outlined why bo3 on laddering isn't needed.

 

[lilyhollow]

Even though I meant Bo3 without team changes (at least as a baseline), I wouldn't consider the amount of team building involved with Bo3 with team changes much of an issue. Obviously making it the standard for every single tournament might be a bad idea, but for a certain percentage of tournaments I think it would be absolutely worth it-- it's not like we're forcing people to join them, and if they end up a little smaller as a result, I'll just be weighing that against the fact that we're increasing their overall importance by a huge amount.

As for Bo3 without team changes, I have a really, really hard time believing that anybody should be worried about having two or three matches in a row. those people can just not enter tournaments; I frankly don't care about them nearly enough to cripple the rest of the tournament for no reason, and would have no problem making people play all 2 or 3 matches in one go if it came to that.


I'm pretty bothered by the various complaints that "tournaments should emulate 'real' battling," too. Why that should even be the case at all is beyond me, but it just... isn't that way to begin with. At least like half of the tournaments that are active at any given time are what I'd consider "experimental," so for anyone to seriously be bothered by the fact that the actually battling is "nontraditional"... well, they don't have to join in the first place... but they're also pretty finicky lol. In all seriousness though, if it means that tournaments end up mattering a whole lot more than they do right now, and if the changes in strategy are probably just interesting improvements anyway, I don't see why we should be concerned with a little bit of deviation.

 

[Hipmonlee]

I am not arguing that you arent playing pokemon, I am arguing that you are playing a different game to the one that is being played on ladder. And if you have different rules then it is a different game, there's not really any way around that..

You are testing different skills though when you introduce a sideboard. IE the skill of creating an effective team with a sideboard and not the skill of creating an effective team without a sideboard.

The point is that the ladder and official tournaments should use consistent rules. For testing, for tiering, for analysing, for advice, for community harmony, for people who dont want to build different teams for tournaments and for laddering.

I accept that there will always be some difference between ladder matches and tournament matches, but I think we should make every effort to reduce that as much as we can.. (Thinking about it, perhaps people when laddering shouldnt choose their team until they have been told their opponents, this way it would be closer to tournaments)

[edit]

I'm pretty bothered by the various complaints that "tournaments should emulate 'real' battling," too. Why that should even be the case at all is beyond me, but it just... isn't that way to begin with. At least like half of the tournaments that are active at any given time are what I'd consider "experimental," so for anyone to seriously be bothered by the fact that the actually battling is "nontraditional"... well, they don't have to join in the first place... but they're also pretty finicky lol. In all seriousness though, if it means that tournaments end up mattering a whole lot more than they do right now, and if the changes in strategy are probably just interesting improvements anyway, I don't see why we should be concerned with a little bit of deviation.

Uhh, I am talking about official tournaments. Rules for non official tournaments are decided by the hosts and so there is no reason to discuss them here.. If you want to host a non-official tournament and you want to make it best of three then by all means go ahead, I support that completely.

[edit 2] also from your title apparently you were talking about disallowing best of one tournaments completely. Essentially the argument would be "tournaments should at least be allowed to emulate real battling if thats what the host wants to do".

And just to reiterate a point: even best of three battling without team changes is a different climate to single matches. Surprises can be extremely valuable things in pokemon, but not when they arent surprising any more..

Have a nice day.

 

[Scofield]

Again, agreeing with hip, creating a sideboard just makes it a different game, not completely, but it just isn't the same enough but I'm not going to rehash his points.

As for Bo3 without a sideboard, I don't see how this reduces hax and tests skill at all. On ladder, it is very annoying to match up a few times in a row with someone when both of you are using the same team. Usually it just devolves into mind games ("he'll totally go to blissey", etc) until it turns into a crapfest, where I either feel cheated or feel like I cheated to get the win. Knowing your opponents team completely changes the game, and I feel for the worse. Basically what I mean is that the conditions for the 2nd and 3rd games aren't going to be remotely close to those of the first game.

EDIT: Come to think of it, it actually wouldn't be possible to simulate Bo3 + sideboard conditions on the ladder, since every opponent would be using a different team. If you wanted to practice your sideboarding skills, you'd have to ask someone to help you (with them using Bo3 + sideboard as well) instead of just hopping on ladder to test out those skills. That doesn't seem very convenient.

 

[panamaxis]

Got to say I dislike this idea and I completely agree with the points scofield has made, I personally don't think that the benifits of reducing "hax" outweigh the negatives such as the need to not use the same team (scofield summed it up, a lot of these second-time-around matchups end up with one player feeling cheated or disadvantaged). Some people design their teams (read: tournament teams not ladder) to gain the upper hand from a suprising set.

I don't like the idea of having to build multiple teams, sure you might be reducing hax which is good and all, but I don't think the positive of this outweighs the negatives of it.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

silly rabbit trix are for kids


you guys are totally overlooking that most tournaments are GIMMICK tourneys anyways. so can YOU PLEASE not make bo3 a "every tourney shoudl have." there's no reason why creative people have to not get the win due to their outside the box thinking with stuff like 'no switches' or 'no stab' or 'only use poke starting letter x'

i'm apathetic about official tourneys such as world cup/smogon tour/official tourney for now though

 

[Tangerine]

I am not arguing that you arent playing pokemon, I am arguing that you are playing a different game to the one that is being played on ladder. And if you have different rules then it is a different game, there's not really any way around that..

You are testing different skills though when you introduce a sideboard. IE the skill of creating an effective team with a sideboard and not the skill of creating an effective team without a sideboard.

Really? So you're saying the skill of creating an effective team without a sideboard is mutually exclusive to a skill of creating an effective team with a sideboard? Is it really THAT different? The exact same skills are tested.

The point is that the ladder and official tournaments should use consistent rules. For testing, for tiering, for analysing, for advice, for community harmony, for people who dont want to build different teams for tournaments and for laddering.

Why? Can you really argue that you testing something on the ladder will not help you win an official tournament with a bo3? The same for tiering? The same for analyzing, the same for advice? Building different teams? (I already showed that this wasn't the case - you'll just test different variations of the same team on the ladder for the sideboard).

I accept that there will always be some difference between ladder matches and tournament matches, but I think we should make every effort to reduce that as much as we can.. (Thinking about it, perhaps people when laddering shouldnt choose their team until they have been told their opponents, this way it would be closer to tournaments)

There is really no difference - the only difference is that the tournament rules are slightly harder and takes more skill.

As for Bo3 without a sideboard, I don't see how this reduces hax and tests skill at all. On ladder, it is very annoying to match up a few times in a row with someone when both of you are using the same team. Usually it just devolves into mind games ("he'll totally go to blissey", etc) until it turns into a crapfest, where I either feel cheated or feel like I cheated to get the win. Knowing your opponents team completely changes the game, and I feel for the worse. Basically what I mean is that the conditions for the 2nd and 3rd games aren't going to be remotely close to those of the first game.

You don't see how this reduces hax and tests skill at all? Really? The best warstories came from the matches where the users played each other few times. Maybe if the game goes more into mind games, the game might be more interesting. If you want to argue that is all just luck, then Poker must be all luck to you too.

But you can't ever, ever, argue that it doesn't reduce hax -that is an absolutely ridiculous statement.

You guys (Hip, Panamaxis, scofield) are literally thinking of this in a wrong, closed-minded way mostly because all I'm seeing is arguments that does not matter or even relevant to making official tournies bo3 + sideboard.

@MoP - yeah who cares about gimmick tournaments? And maybe you'd win a tournament or two with bo3 + Sideboard instead of getting lucked out so often... I'm pretty sure this thread mostly deals with official tournaments.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

I'd prefer best of 3 with new teams (or same team if one so chooses). Ultimate Cup is best of 3 + sideboard and it just plays far too strangely for my liking. Although I guess this depends on whether or not we're playing with specific sideboard or loose sideboard. By that I mean are the sideboard pokemon's evs and stats and whatnot already set in stone or can they be tailored to metagame your opponent's team?

But I agree with the main sentiments of this thread.

 

[lilyhollow]

This thread does deal with "gimmick tournaments," which is pretty much an oxymoron anyway. The same exact thing happens to "gimmick" tournaments that applies to official ones when some variation of Bo3 rules are introduced: they become significantly more competitive. The entire point of this thread is that tournaments should be more competitive and that that is our #1 priority; that includes tournaments that "require outside the box thinking" so as far as I'm concerned there is no substance to Aeroblacktyl's post at all-- in fact, I'd argue that Bo3 is perhaps even more preferable in a "gimmick" setting, where experimentation with an entirely new metagame is a huge part of the experience in the first place. It's not exactly fulfilling, competitively or otherwise, to join an interesting new tournament and build a team for it, only to have one real match before getting eliminated. Now obviously I realize that, depending on the tournament's rules, it's not always ideal to force people to put a lot more work into participating in/organizing a tournament, just to make it more competitive. That's why I never mentioned team changes or sideboards anywhere in the OP, and simply suggested Bo3 with no team changes as a baseline-- because it shouldn't be a bother to anyone, even in the most gimmicky of gimmick tournaments (which I'd like to think I participated in in the "Reverse tournament," which, might I add, I took quite seriously...), to simply have to play one or two extra matches every round.

Obviously, though, I consider official tournaments much more important to think about right now. I just think that all of the same arguments apply to "gimmick" tournaments 110%, and I'm a little tired of the mindset that "they should never matter because hey, they don't happen to matter right now."


Furthermore, any suggestion that tournament and ladder competition should be kept as similar as possible just so people are more "comfortable" in talking about the game (or more "harmonious" in general? what?), even if it means sacrificing one of them completely, is pretty much the worst sort of counterproductive nonsense I could imagine seeing in a thread like this. Even if a more harmonious community were somehow worth going out of our way to achieve (as if it's otherwise going to somehow fall apart before our very eyes), and even if arbitrarily making two separate forms of competition "compatible" with eachother were an ideal way of achieving it, that still wouldn't mean that Best of 1 tournaments should be allowed to exist. It would only indicate that the ladder also requires some form of improvement, or that we need an alternative ladder of some sort. So even if there's any actual substance to this "harmony" argument, in no way does that change anything that has been said about tournaments in this thread.

not to mention the loser has a huge disadvantage due to the fact that all 6 of his pokemon is revealed versus not all of the winner's pokemon is necessarily revealed, putting in a slippery slope game play that's sort of unnecessary. This is why I support sideboard.

I think you're potentially exaggerating the slippery slope issue quite a bit, actually. I wouldn't necessarily call it a "huge" disadvantage... I mean sure, if I only reveal two Pokemon and then 6-0 my opponent, I've got a pretty nice bonus going into the next match, but closer matches lower that advantage significantly or can even tip it in favor of my opponent. It doesn't even need to be that close-- I can reveal all six of my Pokemon and then sweep the opponent's team, and all of a sudden he might know more than me because I revealed more of my moves or something. so I really don't think slippery slope would be much of a problem to clever players in most cases; certainly not enough of one to somehow make Best of 1 preferable lol.

Usually it just devolves into mind games

oh god...

 

[Hipmonlee]

You seem to be missing my point. The fundamental purpose of tournaments is for a chance to test your skills as a pokemon battler in a more serious setting. Different tournaments have different rules, and different rules require different sets of skills, so at the moment in tournaments you can test a whole number of different sets of skills. If you say all tournaments must be best of three, then you are testing a different set of skills than a best of one tournament. People should be allowed to test the set of skills involved in best of one battling.

For official tournaments they are a chance for people to prove themselves to be one of the best at what is the standard form for battling. They arent a test of how well you can adapt to new circumstances and they shouldnt have a significant advantage for people who battle a lot in some unusual format. The whole point of an official tournament, is to test your skills at what is standard.

So unless you make sideboards the standard for pokemon battling everywhere (including the ladder) then they shouldnt be the rules for official tournaments.

I think you're potentially exaggerating the slippery slope issue quite a bit, actually. I wouldn't necessarily call it a "huge" disadvantage... I mean sure, if I only reveal two Pokemon and then 6-0 my opponent, I've got a pretty nice bonus going into the next match, but closer matches lower that advantage significantly or can even tip it in favor of my opponent. It doesn't even need to be that close-- I can reveal all six of my Pokemon and then sweep the opponent's team, and all of a sudden he might know more than me because I revealed more of my moves or something. so I really don't think slippery slope would be much of a problem to clever players in most cases; certainly not enough of one to somehow make Best of 1 preferable lol.

What you are describing here is a significant difference between best of 3 battling and best of 1. If you are thinking "I could sweep if I switch to my hidden pokemon, but I might be able to win without it, so I will try to keep it hidden for my next battle" then you have changed the set of skills required to be successful in these battles.

This is how often the word surprise is used in analyses on smogon. Which isnt to say analyses are more important than actual battling, but it goes to show that in pokemon battling, being able to surprise someone is a really important part of the game.

Even if a more harmonious community were somehow worth going out of our way to achieve (as if it's otherwise going to somehow fall apart before our very eyes), and even if arbitrarily making two separate forms of competition "compatible" with eachother were an ideal way of achieving it, that still wouldn't mean that Best of 1 tournaments should be allowed to exist. It would only indicate that the ladder also requires some form of improvement, or that we need an alternative ladder of some sort. So even if there's any actual substance to this "harmony" argument, in no way does that change anything that has been said about tournaments in this thread.

The key here, is you have to admit that best of 3 is a different game to best of 1, unless you allow people to change teams, which is impractical.

I dont think best of three should be made the standard for all battling because it reduces the impact of surprise and decreases skills such as the ability to anticipate your opponents team. It would in my opinion have the effect of centralising pokemon around standard pokes with standard sets more.

It will reduce luck, but generally, for the standard method of pokemon battling, I dont care. I can just re-enter the smogon tournament next year..

If you want to reduce luck in tournaments, you should change the format of tournaments in a way that doesnt change the skills being tested. Double elimination is better than best of 3, but unfortunately it traditionally doesnt work particularly well. I dont have a better solution than single elim and just host more tournaments if you want to improve your chances of finding the best battler..

Have a nice day.

 

[lilyhollow]

I understand the premise of your argument completely, but the fact is that you haven't given any real reason for me to believe in it. There is no magical Pokefairy ordering us to make our tournaments a "test of skill at what is standard," that's just something you happen to believe, for what reason I don't know. Saying that tournaments are "a chance to test your skills as a pokemon battler in a more serious setting" is plainly misleading when the current format essentially does all it can to remove seriousness from the equation (and what, is the ladder suddenly not serious or something? if so, maybe we need another thread).

If you are thinking "I could sweep if I switch to my hidden pokemon, but I might be able to win without it, so I will try to keep it hidden for my next battle" then you have changed the set of skills required to be successful in these battles.

How can you tell me that we're "changing" the set of skills required, when people have already spoken in this thread about having to play the same player multiple times in the ladder? I realize that the difference in setting means that you're not expecting to face them again and usually aren't thinking about or using these tactics, but it's not like those skills are ordinarily absent from the game or something, just emphasized less. And how is that any different from other strategic differences brought about by the change in setting, such as simply building my team based on the opponent I know I'm facing next? Because if we really want to minimize the differences between the two, I can just suggest getting rid of tournaments altogether, or having everyone's opponent remain hidden (we can just make the organizer plan out the exact time of everyone's matches). Or maybe we could somehow track each player's ladder activity and force them to use their ladder team, that'd be consistent. What you're talking about isn't black and white; we are always sacrificing consistency between the two methods of competition one way or another (and it's probably more interesting that way, even now). The fact that, without any given reason, the amount you're willing to sacrifice ends here, right before we're able to take tournament results at least somewhat seriously, is mysterious to me. Not as mysterious as your also unsupported insistence that tournaments should emulate ladder play in the first place, but it's also something I'd love to have explained for me.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Actually I think they should be as similar as possible. Earlier in this thread I suggested on ladder it would be better if people were given an opponent and then had to choose their team. The problems you are coming up with are problems with the ladder, not problems with our tournament system. If you can suggest a method where tournaments could be held where you dont know your opponent beforehand then perhaps we could argue that that should be our standard method of battling, but I cant see that happening.

Actually I had accepted the ladder up until this point because it had never occurred to me that you could change your team after seeing your opponent and that would be a relatively simple suggestion. I am going to recommend this very strongly to colin.

Remember the smogon tournament predates the ladder. So the fact that the ladder is also serious doesnt mean the smogon tournament ought not be. And there is nothing unserious about the smogon tournaments rules. Just because you dont like best of one doesnt mean it isnt serious.

If you change the emphasis of certain skills then you are changing the set of skills required. Different emphasis is difference. Best of one is clearly different to best of three. If you want to argue that best of three is better, then go ahead, but dont try and suggest there is no merit whatsoever in best of one battling. I mean, whatever happens, best of one tournaments arent going to be disallowed. That is just a ridiculous overreaction, you dont have to join tournaments if you dont like their rules..

Unfortunately the record of when we decided to have an official tournament is lost (I it may have actually have been before the smogon site.. I cant remember if the first smogon tournament was the same year we started smogon or the year after.. Anyway, the record isnt there). But the point of it was that it would be the highlight of smogon's year. It seems ridiculous that smogon should dedicate itself to one style of battling that we call standard and then have an official tournament that uses some other style of battling. It isnt so much that the official tournament is based on smogon but that smogon is based on the official tournament. Or rather, the official tournament is a test of the standard method of battling, and smogon is primarily dedicated to the standard method of battling.

For smogon and it's official tournament to be based on seperate styles of battling is just a contradiction.

If you want a magical pokefairy then I'll put myself forward for the job. Cause I am not going to accept that either our website or our official tournament should be using niche rules. To be the premiere pokemon battling website or to be the premiere pokemon battling tournament then you cannot base yourself on anything but the standard method of pokemon battling.

Have a nice day.

 

[Earthworm]

I agree with most or all of what Hipmonlee has said. I think that there should be some tournaments which require best of three and some that require a single match, and that it should be up to the host(s) and the tournament directors to determine which is more appropriate for that specific tournament. I'm not sure what the best ratio of these would be though, and I don't know how a non-arbitrary ratio can be introduced without adding arbitrary value to 'practicality' and 'ideality' (though I am not very mathematically / statistically inclined so maybe it is possible!).

I agree that the standard for tournaments should be the same as the standard for 'most battles', but that there should be tournaments designed to test the skills required to play best of three well (and that there should probably be more of this type of tournament than there are now).

More specifically, numerous tournaments currently being run require multiple teams to be built by any participant that lasts more than about a round. I might be wrong here (at least in my teams I usually try to come up with something my opponent won't be expecting to face and gain an advantage that way), but I think a lot of teams made in these tournaments rely on the element of surprise and it takes a reasonable amount of thought and effort to produce one that is most likely going to be effective. Playing best of three with the same teams removes this surprise and therefore has a good chance of removing the effectiveness it provides in a single match, which lessens the reward for coming up with something in the first place. Changing teams requires even more effort and thought, and while it should be the responsibility of the participant to realise this upon signing up, there are people that play tournaments just join whatever opens regardless of how much time they will need to spend thinking to stand a good chance in the new setting. These types of people often aren't ready to play early in the round and can end up holding up a tournament, resulting in a low (or at least not 'close enough' to optimal in my opinion) match completion rate for the early rounds and sometimes even later rounds. This makes single elimination practical for most of the more casual tournaments at least, and I think provides a good case for why they should be allowed.