Tournament LCPL 6 - Commencement and Discussion

hey I literally said this would discussed later. can we talk about literally anything else. cool, thanks, love you all.
I came across your recent statement calling Heysup's present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of his work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my watched threads, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in the LCPL thread, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "non-LCPL players making decisions." I have the honor of serving as a player in SPL, an organization which recruits players from every tier, with focus on OUs. I have some 227 affiliated players from across Smogon, and one of them is Heysup. Frequently I share teams, ideas, and resources with my affiliates. Several months ago, the affiliate in question here asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program to make DPP LC a best of 3 if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in the LCPL thread because injustice is here. Just as the players of major tournaments left their usual subforums and carried their "bop thele it is" and "human???" far beyond the boundaries of their natural habitat, and just as the Apostle Tele left his village in Italy and was carried by luck to the far rounds of the OLT, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of proper DPP LC tour format beyond my own home tier. Like Tele, I must constantly respond to threads that insofar as mention this topic.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and tiers. I cannot sit idly by in "Ruins of Alph" and not be concerned about what happens in "SM Little Cup." Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside tier" idea. Anyone who plays pokémon on Smogon can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in in this thread. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in the LCPL thread, but it is even more unfortunate that the thread's NAZI MODERATORS left poor Heysup with no alternative.

Free best of 3 DPP LC.
 

Imanalt

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hey I literally said this would discussed later. can we talk about literally anything else. cool, thanks, love you all.
Hi this matters for draft strategy, the format should be 100% decided before the draft, so why not talk about it now :toast:
 

fatty

is a Tiering Contributor
NUPL Champion
ye coz some dpp players only have the stamina for 1 match, where as players such as heysup, while not overly exciting and mildly forgettable in bo1 bouts, has the endurance to weather the tumultuous road of a bo3 dpp slugfest.
 
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Imanalt

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ye coz some dpp players only have the stamina for 1 match, where as players such as heysup, while not overly exciting and mildly forgettable in bo1 bouts, has the endurance to weather the tumultuous road of a bo3 dpp slugfest.
nah its just way better to invest more in dpp if its bo3, pretty basic math to understand this n_n
 
I agree with imanalt to an extent, the players will likely be the same but it's simple mathematics that Bo3 is more favourable to the better player, thus making a DPP slot more valuable. Can't we ask the players who played the tier in the previous LCPL (or maybe the subset of those that has signed up for this edition) to vote on this before the auction?
 

fatty

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NUPL Champion
why are you dudes quoting mathematics lol. whether it's bo1 or bo3 it still counts as one win for your team, that's, how do you say it, "simple math". i highly doubt you people are drastically, if at all, changing their draft strategy because this might be bo3 now. the players are going to be exactly the same. you shoulda been trying to draft a good dpp player from the get-go.

with that said though, this should be decided before the draft for simplicity and completion sake. sooner than later and all the hooplah.
 

Aaron's Aron

A concussion update in my info tab
Personally, I am alright with the Little Cup Premier League having an even number of games. It is strange too me, of course, that that is what you prefer. It isn't the end of the world though. However, when everybody keeps commenting that an odd number of games is stupid and should never happen, I get irritated. Again, I'm fine with an even number, but if either one was ridiculous, it would be even numbers. A tie is no result. You're right back where you started. Regardless, anytime this is brought up, everyone just starts shouting and saying it's stupid and blah blah blah. However, I've only heard one argument, besides "tradition," that wasn't "odd numbers are stupid." I would like someone to please explain why even numbers are good. I'm not against using them. I just don't see any value they have over odd numbers.

One argument I saw made for an even number of games is that when it was an odd number, some teams already qualified for the playoffs by Week 5. This is a bad thing? If a team is that good, then they deserve to be in the playoffs and qualify that early. If you don't want more than one team qualified by the last week, then you are unfairly punishing the better teams.

In the NHL, you get 2 points for a win, 1 for an overtime or shootout loss, and 0 for a regulation loss. Some people aren't a huge fan of this because it provides a "loser point", just for making it past regulation. This allows a lot of teams to say they are over .500 or a playoff team, when in reality they aren't or otherwise wouldn't be. It creates a huge sense of parity in the league. This doesn't directly translate here because that is a points system and ours is a win/loss system, but the same general idea applies. Saying you don't want too many teams ahead of the others (or too many teams behind the others, depending on how you look at it) and then manipulating the scoring system and schedule to fit that is not the fairest of things to do. We're just adding false parity to the league that isn't really there.

There would still be exciting playoff races. The MLB doesn't have ties, and it has great playoff races every year. There is a reason just about every sport (aside from non-US soccer, which is alright because they use a points system and there is no playoffs) does everything it can to avoid having ties.

It just doesn't make sense to me that you guys have a set "goal" you want the league to end up as, and then do everything you can to force it to reach that goal. The best teams should be rewarded for being great, and the worst teams should toil in the basement for being bad.

Again, I say this all in a "debating, friendly discussion," not a "you're wrong, this is stupid" way. I'm not interested in witty, one line answers. Thanks in advance for any explanation.
 
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Nineage

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The difference between LCPL and sports is the number of matches. The MLB (your example) has well over 100 games per year, which means that a substantial amount of matches have to be played before a team can be matchematically eliminated from playoff contention. If we consider a "match" in LCPL a week's worth of games (since thats what a team wins or loses), each LCPL team has 7 games before playoffs. If we force wins and losses, several teams likely will pull too far ahead too early, leading to uninteresting matches and lack of motivation for mathematically eliminated teams.
 

jake

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I was present when you were arguing your case on Discord, and I am a former head Tournament Director (slash SPL host). Here is the reasoning for even games:

In SPL and other variants of SPL (LCPL is one), points are distributed each week depending on the outcome of a series. A winning team receives two points, and a losing team receives zero points. In a format where ties can exist (even numbers), a tie results in both teams gaining one point. Ties even out PKMN luck, and they make sense in the format that we play.

I understand your NHL example, but you also must understand that we play competitive Pokemon in a format that is entirely unlike traditional sports. We are not granting points to "losers"; if a team wins half of the games in a week, they very well deserve as many points as the other team. Furthermore, Pokemon is extremely RNG-heavy. It is entirely plausible that a team that is "better" loses by games by getting lucked, and such a series is especially sour if it's the determining game (imagine getting triple scald burned at 5-5!).

In general, we strive to reduce the impact of luck in our tournaments, because literally anyone can beat anyone in one single game. This is why you see Bo3 series in major tournaments like OST and Smogon Tour, among many others; this is why we want to push for an even number of games.

The best teams should be rewarded for being great, and the worst teams should toil in the basement for being bad.
A team can lose every week 4-3. It should toil in the basement for being bad, deserves no points, and it's definitely not close to beating other apparently good teams.

There would still be exciting playoff races. The MLB doesn't have ties, and it has great playoff races every year. There is a reason just about every sport (aside from non-US soccer, which is alright because they use a points system and there is no playoffs) does everything it can to avoid having ties.
We tried an odd number of games in SPL 3 and it returned an overwhelming amount of dislike. It may be a single instance, but you will almost certainly see unwinnable races develop from week 1; a team that wins the first two weeks is in the driver's seat for playoffs and literally will not miss it unless they lose every other week. A team that loses the first two weeks can no longer make playoffs on their own merit and must depend on specific results from other series. Ties make xPLs more interesting, more engaging, and more rewarding to participate in. We WANT exciting, close finales where multiple teams have the opportunity to break it into finals. It grants every team the ability to make playoffs, which means less teams are eliminated by the later weeks, which means people don't throw and have fun participating in their team.

tl;dr: pokemon sucks and ties make xpls tolerable

i, among others, would probably no longer be interested in playing if we went to no-ties
 

Camden

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Personally, I am alright with the Little Cup Premier League having an even number of games. It is strange too me, of course, that that is what you prefer. It isn't the end of the world though. However, when everybody keeps commenting that an odd number of games is stupid and should never happen, I get irritated. Again, I'm fine with an even number, but if either one was ridiculous, it would be even numbers. A tie is no result. You're right back where you started. Regardless, anytime this is brought up, everyone just starts shouting and saying it's stupid and blah blah blah. However, I've only heard one argument, besides "tradition," that wasn't "odd numbers are stupid." I would like someone to please explain why even numbers are good. I'm not against using them. I just don't see any value they have over odd numbers.

One argument I saw made for an even number of games is that when it was an odd number, some teams already qualified for the playoffs by Week 5. This is a bad thing? If a team is that good, then they deserve to be in the playoffs and qualify that early. If you don't want more than one team qualified by the last week, then you are unfairly punishing the better teams.
The issue isn't with good teams qualifying too quickly, it's lesser teams being eliminated from contention too early and not giving a shit, lowering the quality of games and the league overall.


There would still be exciting playoff races. The MLB doesn't have ties, and it has great playoff races every year. There is a reason just about every sport (aside from non-US soccer, which is alright because they use a points system and there is no playoffs) does everything it can to avoid having ties.
The MLB has 162 regular season games. Playoff races are interesting because of the sheer number of games providing ample opportunity to keep afloat. Losing a single baseball game means a lot less than losing one of your seven LCPL weeks.

It just doesn't make sense to me that you guys have a set "goal" you want the league to end up as, and then do everything you can to force it to reach that goal. The best teams should be rewarded for being great, and the worst teams should toil in the basement for being bad.

Again, I say this all in a "debating, friendly discussion," not a "you're wrong, this is stupid" way. I'm not interested in witty, one line answers. Thanks in advance for any explanation.
LCPL is the most important community event of the year for LC, and we want to do everything in our power to assure that it's fun and successful, and having ties is the best way to do that. We're not paid to play in this and we don't receive any reward for winning. We play in this because we enjoy doing it. If a team knows going into week 5 that they're eliminated from playoff contention, do you think they're gonna put in the effort to keep going? Probably not.


Edit: Nineage and Zeb can suck my ass.
 

Aaron's Aron

A concussion update in my info tab
Zebraiken
The difference between LCPL and sports is the number of matches. The MLB (your example) has well over 100 games per year, which means that a substantial amount of matches have to be played before a team can be matchematically eliminated from playoff contention. If we consider a "match" in LCPL a week's worth of games (since thats what a team wins or loses), each LCPL team has 7 games before playoffs. If we force wins and losses, several teams likely will pull too far ahead too early, leading to uninteresting matches and lack of motivation for mathematically eliminated teams.
The MLB has 162 regular season games. Playoff races are interesting because of the sheer number of games providing ample opportunity to keep afloat. Losing a single baseball game means a lot less than losing one of your seven LCPL weeks.
I knew someone would respond with this, and I had a really good counterargument, but now I can't remember what it is... So... good game, well played? It's really late and I'm tired, so if I remember tomorrow after some sleep, I'll edit it in.

I agree that some people would lose motivation to play if they were eliminated, but that is poor sportsmanship, and just poor honor to be honest. When you sign-up, you're agreeing to play till the end. Again, look at sports. Teams don't get to just be done once they're eliminated from the playoffs. I truly think this is an area where people need to be punished/held more to their commitment. I do understand what you're saying though. Also, like I said, I'm okay with even numbers. I just hadn't heard a good reason for it yet. Thank you all for providing actual debate and not just saying the other is stupid. It is appreciated. Thanks!
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
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Making random tiers bo3 in pls is really dumb, if the tier is so bad/uncompetitive that it requires bo3 to be worthy it shouldn't be in the pl at all (I don't think this is the case for dpp lc). You can argue dpp lc is more match up based than the other tiers but that should even out over the course of the season and can be offset by match up / luck in other tiers within the same week (as is how pls work). If both players want to bo3 and get it down in writing (in say a vm or something) then they should, but the default should be bo1.
 
Meowth is bad the best
Best of 3s are bad
Odd number games are bad
The Cleveland Browns are bad
Phil Jackson is bad triangle
The amount of memes on this page so far is depressing

So let's talk less boring stuff... Lets... Make LCPL Great Again!

My name is MK007, and I'm playing Gen 7. If you draft me I will go 7-0 (or 0-7). If you like Vegas and risk taking and 777s I'm your go to guy. I've also hacked showdown and will use 7 mons a per battle(7 meowths). I will give your team 7 memes a week the first 7 weeks. I will have 7 discord channels. I will have the number 7 (not in parentheses or next to another 7 I.e.777) mentioned seven times in this paragraph of it will bring about a turning point in this discussion that is boring and flavorless.
 

Xayah

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My name is MK007, and I'm playing Gen 7. If you draft me I will go 7-0 (or 0-7). If you like Vegas and risk taking and 777s I'm your go to guy. I've also hacked showdown and will use 7 mons a per battle(7 meowths). I will give your team 7 memes a week the first 7 weeks. I will have 7 discord channels. I will have the number 7 (not in parentheses or next to another 7 I.e.777) mentioned seven times in this paragraph of it will bring about a turning point in this discussion that is boring and flavorless.
 
even # of games
bo3 dpp

if u dont support these things u probly pick ur shit up out of toilet and play w/ it so ur opinion doesnt rly matter to me

also mk007 u mean e.g., not i.e. e.g. is an example whereas i.e. is clarification

e: draft rowan dpp he siced me a squad 1 time
 
If it comes down to mandating either bo1 or bo3 for DPP, then I personally prefer bo3, but I think that the arrangement we had last year was fine. Let the players decide.
 

Fiend

someguy
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LC Leader
i prefered bo1 as a player last year, but my luck was impressively bad and i tilted easily. i don't see an actual merit to bo3 DPP other than people want to play it more and this caters to them. it isn't unreasonably luck based, and it isn't unreasonably matchup based though both are factors of playing the tier. however adding a bo3 doesn't help very much as it tends to force lazier building making mu issues worse, and it therefore it also heavily favors people with a myriad of teams already build for the season (*cough* heysup *cough*).

while i don't truly care on how the issue turns out, dpp being a bo3 tends to make the quality of matches go down as the season continues while doing little to help make the better player win far more reliably. it doesn't make much sense to me other than you get to play more dpp matches, but that's such a shit point that it shouldn't be considered.
 
i prefered bo1 as a player last year, but my luck was impressively bad and i tilted easily. i don't see an actual merit to bo3 DPP other than people want to play it more and this caters to them. it isn't unreasonably luck based, and it isn't unreasonably matchup based though both are factors of playing the tier. however adding a bo3 doesn't help very much as it tends to force lazier building making mu issues worse, and it therefore it also heavily favors people with a myriad of teams already build for the season (*cough* heysup *cough*).

while i don't truly care on how the issue turns out, dpp being a bo3 tends to make the quality of matches go down as the season continues while doing little to help make the better player win far more reliably. it doesn't make much sense to me other than you get to play more dpp matches, but that's such a shit point that it shouldn't be considered.
first of all smd.

second, the reason I usually want it bo3 is because the games are really short. Wanting to "play more" is less about "enjoying it" more about that I think there's value in showing you can consistently play well rather than stumbling on a few plays here and there with disproportionate impact in a short game. One could say "well just play oras or sm" but there's a difference between having one long drawn out game than 2-3 quick ones.

I know the players are going to end up voting but I'm hoping they'll read this so I'm posting it anyway.

also for those who didn't see don't bid high on me I'm gonna have activity issues. 15k is too much.
 
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