YouTube Tournaments on PS!

YouTube tournaments are fun to host, watch, and participate in. Pokémon Showdown! has shown me the different YouTubers who tend to visit the website, some just to make videos for their subscribers, some to actually ladder and to participate in voting, and others to host massive tournaments through streaming on websites such as Twitch or YouTube. There are many well-known channels that have visited us in the past or are currently still doing so, and here's a selection of them.

Past YouTube Channel Hosts

Lumiose Station: Lumiose Station is a collaboration channel filled with multiple YouTubers that all have over 1,000 subscribers, such as PKsparkxx, shadypenguinnn, and HoodlumScrafty. This channel has hosted multiple tournaments in the past on PS, with there most recent one being an Overused tournament which was held on August 23rd. Their streams have caused the simulator to become jam-packed with users for a period of time due to the number of spectators that they attract and have sometimes gotten so overwhelming that even the staff had to get involved to quell the excitement to a reasonable level.
G.Yee Gaming: G.Yee Gaming was first recognized for participating in the 'Pokemon Cypher 2013' video made by shofu, and from there quickly became a well-known YouTuber. G.Yee has also hosted Pokémon Showdown! tournaments, one of which a staff member of the Trivia room, Scarf Wynaut, won, and earned a spot on his banner as a 'Champyeeon.' Get the joke? ...No? Well then... Scarf Wynaut has had quite the experience with tournaments, so if you want to know more, make sure to hit him up.
King Nappy: Although he is part of Lumiose Station, King Nappy has quite the history of doing Pokémon Showdown! tournaments on his own channel. He tends to do collaborations with one or two other people as well. Scene, a global Driver (now a Leader) won a tournament of his. He managed to get past the qualifying rounds after being randomly selected and ended up winning the whole tournament, an amazing achievement considering so many people entered.
TheCanadianWifier: As someone who frequently contributes to Smogon and recently earned a Pre-Contributor badge, has over 2,500 subscribers on YouTube, and visits Pokémon Showdown! on a regular basis, while still having time to host tournaments, TheCanadianWifier definitely has to be included. He keeps his subscribers updated with the Smogon tier changes and has made a popular video for teaching PS! users how to properly use Stylish and get different backgrounds. Although his tournaments may be smaller in the number of players, they aren't any less fun to participate in or watch. If you ever want to find him, he is a Driver in the Neverused room.

Many other YouTubers have hosted tournaments, some small and others big. We do have those who prefer to do tournaments with Wi-Fi battles, but using Pokémon Showdown! has proven to be much easier when it comes to keeping track of what is going on while offering the same kind of enjoyment.

Hosting the Tournament

How do they pick the participants from so many people?: As is the case with normal Tournaments on PS!, you either don't have a limit for how many people can join the tournament, or you use the Challonge website and have people race to join before the spaces are filled. With YouTube tournaments, however, it's a bit different. To join, people post a comment in the comments sections of the entry video. The people who have posted are randomly selected until they get 32, or sometimes lower number, of participants playing. This procedure usually takes place as the suspense of who actually gets a chance to play builds.
How does the tournament get streamed?: Through Twitch or YouTube. More are streamed where it is easy to see comments of the viewers and also provide a decent-quality image of the screen. They go live and place the actual screen inside a layout that was previously made before the stream started. This layout usually contains the type of tournament, the people who are hosting the tournament, where it is being hosted, and what stage the tournament is in, such as the qualifying rounds or the semi-finals.

The Tournaments

Pokémon Showdown! Tournament

Hosted by: King Nappy and BIGCountry77x

Winner: NumbNexus

Pokémon Showdown! Tournament [2]

Hosted by: King Nappy, CuddleofDeath, NumbNexus, and JayYTGamer

Winner: Scene

This tournament consisted of three videos, two of qualifying rounds, and one with the actual tournament with the participants gathered. All of the videos came to a total of 19 hours of streaming. The qualifying matches were decided by having three random battles between two people who were selected from the comments. The person who won two of the battles out of three would then pick a tier that they wanted to compete in.

The qualifying round consisted of 32 participants, 8 for each tier, which would each be commented on by one of the hosts. Numb Nexus took Overused, King Nappy took Underused, CuddleofDeath took Neverused, and JayYTGamer took Rarelyused. Scene picked Rarelyused as his tier after winning this Random Battle qualifying match whereas his finalist opponent, Conform, picked Underused. The two finalists of Neverused and Underused would then face off in an Ubers match with King Nappy and CuddleofDeath commenting, while the other two finalists of Overused and Rarelyused would also have an Ubers battle. These battles would be the semi-finals.

The finals was the best out of three in random battles between Scene and Conform, in which Scene won the first two battles, giving him the win. The last battle was in the Underused tier between one of the hosts and last tournament's winner, champion versus champion: NumbNexus vs Scene in a fun match, in which a close 1-0 match came out with Scene being able to finish off an Azumarill with a Mach Punch to take the win, despite not having an Underused team.

Pokémon Showdown!: TOURNYEEMENT I

Host: G.Yee

Winner: Scarf Wynaut

This tournament took place in the old YouTube room and the tier throughout was Overused. The brackets were made using the Challonge website rather than random selecting people from the comments so that everyone was given the chance to participate. This, however, meant that the host wasn't able to keep track of all of the battles, so he randomly selected ones to join and commentate. This tournament lasted only 1 hour and 20 minutes due to the surprise exit and disqualification of some participants. While streaming, G.Yee started calls with some of the players in the tournaments to make it more entertaining and get their view of the battle to the subscribers.

Scarf Wynaut stumbled upon some amazing luck in the semi-finals with a Focus Blast critical hit on a Heatran, a game changing move, and from there, he was able to outplay his opponent by going for two Thunder Waves against Bisharps' Sucker Punch and Focus Blast him on the third turn when he correctly predicted that his opponent would change moves. This easily allowed him to proceed to the finals.

The finals were between GazaBoy and Scarf Wynaut, ending in a 3-0 win for Scarf Wynaut. But that wasn't all! Pokémon Showdown!: TOURNYEEMENT II was hosted months after, and he manged to win that one as well! The suspense and fun of it was too overwhelming. This also means that Scarf Wynaut has never lost even a single battle in the tournament! I can't wait for Pokémon Showdown!: TOURNYEEMENT III!

A few words from tournament winner (Scarf Wynaut)

Darnell: Hey Scarf! Hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions about G Yee tournaments you won

Scarf Wynaut: No problem, go ahead.

Darnell: Great, so how did you actually find out about the tournament?

Scarf Wynaut: Well, one day I found myself watching one of shofu's rap videos and in one of them, this guy called G.Yee was in it. After a little digging around, I stumbled across his channel and then, literally the next day, he announced this "Tournyeement" that was being held.

Darnell: Lucky you didn't miss it. I was watching back on the first tournament and in the semi-finals you actually got a game changing crit with Focus Blast, how did that feel?

Scarf Wynaut: Ah, I remember that. Actually, if you recall, my opponent's Heatran actually dodged a Focus Blast earlier.

Darnell: So you basically feel that it was fair that you got the crit?

Scarf Wynaut: "Fair" isn't the word I'd use.

Darnell: Balanced?

Scarf Wynaut: Yeah, that's it. I guess Lady Luck was on my side that day.

Darnell: It consisted of a lot of mind games, were you watching the stream as the tournament was going on?

Scarf Wynaut: I was watching the stream, yes. Seeing the people's reactions to that series of plays was thrilling, to say the least, hehe!

Darnell: You then won the second tournament, so you haven't lost a battle yet! Are you looking forward to tourney number 3?

Scarf Wynaut: Yeah, of course! However, some people are petitioning for me being banned from that event, so I doubt I'd be able to enter. D:

Darnell: They can't do that. You need to defend your champyeeon title, but thanks for the talk, Scarf, and good luck in the next tournament!

Scarf Wynaut: Alright, I'll try my best!

Conclusion

Well guys, that's it. I hope you enjoyed this article on a few YouTube tournaments which have been hosted in the past and it has given you a view on how fun they were. Hopefully there will be more in the future in which even you can participate in them!

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