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.
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.