Tiers in SCL

[Star]

Given that I've been brought up as an example like 5 times due to having a good mono record, I feel sort of obligated to respond. I've played quite a few mono tours over the past few years and while I've found it enjoyable, I definitely don't think it belongs in SCL. The issue of matchup has been discussed at length, but the counter-arguments have been rather myopic. Monotype being matchup heavy doesn't just mean that you automatically lose if you bring Psychic vs Dark or Flying vs Ice. It's irrefutable that when you have six pokemon of the same fucking type, your weaknesses overlap. The majority of Kev's post is spent listing examples where type matchup itself didn't decide the game. What that fails to capture is that the specific sets chosen often (far too often) do. Just to illustrate this with a few examples from his post:

King Choco vs Sabella [Psychic vs Dark]
Shiba vs Maki [Fairy vs Dark]
(Bo3 series):
Game 1 [Flying vs Dragon]
Game 2 [Ice vs Flying]

Literally every single game here was completely decided on preview. The post (fairly) describes how this was due to good prep, but ignores the actual issue entirely. Good prep in SS OU doesn't result in all 4 finals games being completely unplayable for one side or another. The issue with monotype isn't just the type matchup, but the very limited pool of what's available to each type and what they can use. That's precisely what makes it so easy to win a game on preview with good prep. Just because the type that won wasn't what the type chart predicted, doesn't make the game any less matchup-based.

Shiba vs Fírnen [Electric vs Dragon]
TJ vs Conflux [Dark vs Dragon]
Maki vs Padox [Electric vs Dark]

In this finals we've at least improved to 2/3 (the second and third) games being decided on matchup instead of all of them. Once again the unplayable games are explained away by ill-preparedness and good prep. While that certainly might have been the case, you cannot find 6/7 finals games across 2 major team tours being decided on matchup for literally any other tier that's ever been in an official team tour. Yes, people often find an advantage as a result of preparing well in other tiers, but the innate nature of 6 shared types and limited diversity exacerbates the issue.

tl;dr here is once again, neither of the games are the product of random pokemon/matchup losses. The team got complacent and reused teams and didn't take the effort to properly prepare for their games.

This tl;dr is what annoyed me the most. Arguing that monotype isn't random is missing the point entirely. It's not random and it certainly rewards good prep. The issue is that winning in the builder happens far too often either due to type advantage or sets that win by themselves as seen in 6/7 finals games.

Replays showcasing that games aren't determined by the type chart

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1257241091 (Grass vs Flying)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8monotype-533996 (Dragon vs Fairy)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1268287697-jolr64xwzcx62rgx9826ev2r6iplxmbpw (Dark vs Fairy)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1149818797 (Electric vs Water with no immunity)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8monotype-511516 (Fire vs Bug)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1265342938 (Ice vs Water, good for Ice in theory because of Freeze Dry being common)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1262436038 (Flying vs Ice)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1300720266 (Flying vs Ice)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1254926638 (Fire vs Ice)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1255106695 (Ice vs Grass)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1145053197 (Fire vs Water)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1255250960 (Ground vs Steel)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8monotype-1275552925 (Grass vs Water)

I definitely don't want to get into the details of this section and keep repeating myself but yeah, type matchup is only the tip of the iceberg as far as monotype being matchup heavy.

To summarize/reiterate my point, monotype being matchup-based doesn't simply mean the type chart. Monotype inherently has a very shallow pool of mons to use and because of that, has limited ways to deal with particular threats. That obviously leads to encountering unwinnable matchups far more often than you would in any other tier, as evidenced by the two most recent team tour finals.

 

[mushamu]

Given that I've been brought up as an example like 5 times due to having a good mono record, I feel sort of obligated to respond. I've played quite a few mono tours over the past few years and while I've found it enjoyable, I definitely don't think it belongs in SCL. The issue of matchup has been discussed at length, but the counter-arguments have been rather myopic. Monotype being matchup heavy doesn't just mean that you automatically lose if you bring Psychic vs Dark or Flying vs Ice. It's irrefutable that when you have six pokemon of the same fucking type, your weaknesses overlap. The majority of Kev's post is spent listing examples where type matchup itself didn't decide the game. What that fails to capture is that the specific sets chosen often (far too often) do. Just to illustrate this with a few examples from his post:



To summarize/reiterate my point, monotype being matchup-based doesn't simply mean the type chart. Monotype inherently has a very shallow pool of mons to use and because of that, has limited ways to deal with particular threats. That obviously leads to encountering unwinnable matchups far more often than you would in any other tier, as evidenced by the two most recent team tour finals.

There are reasons as to why certain sets were brought against Tony's team. The linear trends of teams they used encouraged tweaking teams to cover certain matchups, which is a natural occurrence in any tour. If you have a linear usage of teams in competitive Pokemon, people are going to be more inclined towards bringing stuff that beats those specific types of teams. For example, I was on West for MWC and Shiba faced a CM WP Latias which essentially 6-0'd his team when using Electric, but we can only blame ourselves for it as we as a team spammed the living shit out of this one type for a long time because we thought it was really reliable-and the opposing team chose to capitalize on that.

The purpose of Kev's post wasn't to point out that the games weren't decided on preview-it was to highlight that things could have been different if Tony's team changed things up instead of having a linear usage of playstyles. It doesn't have much to do with the fact that Monotype teams are forced to be the same type because consistent types can cover bases really well, but rather that the playstyle usage was rather linear and exploitable. I do think this is similar in other tiers; if you spam HO all the time you're more prone to losing to Ditto is probably a good textbook example. People take advantage of common metagame trends as well, and that's how the metagame develops. I would say due to Sabella's game against King Choco, people are aware that Hatterene is a real Pokemon again and have started running Heavy Slam Tyranitar in response to this.

I don't think repeating the same types of teams over and over again and expecting people to not catch on after a while and take action is reasonable. It happens everywhere-and thats why the best players, Monotype included, use a wide variety of teams which make them hard to effectively capitalize on. To reiterate the main point once again, Monotype would not have consistent win rates among top players if this was as large of an issue as everyone seems to paint it. There is evidence which has been pointed to plenty of times in this thread. I can say as someone who's played a ton of Monotype and built many Monotype teams throughout the years that the probability of losing to some random set is low if you try to change up your usage so people cannot capitalize on it and bring good, consistent teams. In an ideal metagame there should be many viable, consistent types to pick from and you aren't forced to sticking to just one or two. It's a common notion among top Pokemon players that you aren't forced to cteam a specific matchup to have success, you only need to go for playable ones-but if your opponent uses a lot of the same stuff, then running something to throw them off is certainly acceptable.

The only thing I can say for the whole team right now is that we asked for more discussion about OU3 vs Mono because we're not dead set on the decision. I don't want to add more and speak in an 'official' way when nothing much has been conclusively agreed on yet.

With that said, I think communication is very important, so I'll give you my PERSONAL current take and I will be very welcoming of any incoming constructive criticism to it. The rest of the team could agree with me on everything or overrule me on everything, so take this with a grain of salt.

SCL is already a big rebranding and it's coming with a lot of expectation from a lot of sides. To include Monotype for the first time ever, in the first SCL ever, is bound to result in people conflating the two things and using discontent with one new thing to discredit the other new thing. First impressions are hard to shake off, and if the first iteration of SCL runs into significant issues that could cause significant discontent with the tournament as a whole for years down the line, the same way it happened to Snake.

For that reason I would be inclined to pick the 'safe' option in OU3 over Monotype for this edition of the tournament; the players and the community as a whole are much more of a known quantity. No one will be able to complain about the level of play with OU3; a lot of people will almost certainly say "you promised me prestige and you gave me a tournament with Monotype" if we decide to include it.
And on the flipside, too, if there are any issues with SCL as a whole, Monotype will suffer from it and receive a lot of undue heat. People want something to blame when things go wrong and they'll jump through god knows what hoops to pin it all on the outsiders. I don't want that to happen because I do believe Monotype has potential as part of official tournaments in the long term (again, personal opinion of one guy, don't link this in 2024 if Monotype still won't have made it into any officials).
Of course it could all go splendidly and it's possible that none of these downsides would occur - but I think the worst case scenario for both SCL and Monotype is a lot worse if we introduce both at once, compared to dragging it out a bit more.

I will say I don't personally put a lot of stock into the match up stuff. I've fought in these forums for RBY, a tier with plenty of perceived uncompetitivity issues of its own - people absolutely overstate the impact of luck in these sorts of tiers and like to close an eye to it in their favorite ones. For where I personally stand, that's basically a non-factor. Mons is mons. I will fight for Mono on this specific issue.
I also don't think the siloed tiers argument holds up. DOU is as siloed as it gets and most people love it. It is a little bit of a compounding problem when you stack one siloed tier on the other, but as many Mono players have said, the community has sourced plenty of people who have gone on to play other tiers with great results. I'm not concerned about this; I will also fight for Mono on this specific issue.
All in all, I'm not against Monotype in officials. I'm probably against Monotype in this official, because it's a very delicate one for the entirety of the current gen community, and I don't want people to give easy outs to criticize the tournament. As much as I believe in Monotype's potential to have a positive impact, I don't think it's controversial to say that it would be a much bigger risk than just running with OU3, and as I said earlier, I don't want SCL to go down the path Snake went, so I would prefer to play it safe until the tournament is more consolidated. I'm sure this isn't really what the Monotype playerbase wants to hear, but keeping in mind the interest of the Tournament community as a whole, that's where I'm leaning.

I'm posting here because I could be swayed and because I want to make it clear that I am listening. The discussion so far has been chaotic to say the least but there have been quite a few good takeaways from all sides and I am always looking to better understand the demands of the playerbase. Big thanks to everyone who has contributed and will contribute constructively to this discussion.

Your response is appreciated and I see your view as someone who cares deeply about the quality of tournaments, but I disagree as to when Monotype should be added. The perfect time to include Monotype is now; if you're planning on building tournament identity it's best to introduce people from an active community who will become invested into the tour. If 3x OU becomes the norm for SCL and people become comfortable with it, then it's hard to imagine a situation where we will ever be added if not now, and it helps with the identity of the tournament as well if the format isn't changing between iterations. Since things are changing, this is the best time to try out a new format for tiers as well, and adding us later would simply bring us to the same discussion.

 

[Chaitanya]

For that reason I would be inclined to pick the 'safe' option in OU3 over Monotype for this edition of the tournament; the players and the community as a whole are much more of a known quantity. No one will be able to complain about the level of play with OU3; a lot of people will almost certainly say "you promised me prestige and you gave me a tournament with Monotype" if we decide to include it.
And on the flipside, too, if there are any issues with SCL as a whole, Monotype will suffer from it and receive a lot of undue heat. People want something to blame when things go wrong and they'll jump through god knows what hoops to pin it all on the outsiders. I don't want that to happen because I do believe Monotype has potential as part of official tournaments in the long term

I'm sure my bias crept in while typing this but I tried my best to share this from an outside viewing perspective. Hopefully this makes sense I am exhausted:

I appreciate the response and I think it's a fair but slightly skewed view. I think the biggest goal of the TDs should be to make decisions that make the tournaments best for the players, and not the perceived view they have. Perceived view is important yes but it should come from people with some sort of familiarity with the subject in question. Perceived views from people who haven't ever experienced the alternative will always stay biased to what they know. Disregarding whatever tiers end up chosen, the prestige comes with time, not the format. This is true for literally every competition ever. The idea of snake was perfectly fine. The format wasn't. Snake draft was never going to make for the most competitive tournaments yet it was given a chance. It obviously failed. I sure as hell wasn't around for it but I can guarantee SPL's prestige did not start with its first tournament. It took ages to build up. What the players view of it should come after the tour, not before. This is eventually what builds up prestige in the long run. Frankly, 95% of people that are against the tier have played single digit games of mono if even that. You know this, I know this. On the flip side most monotype players posting are biased, so it can be difficult to find well reasoned, fairly supported arguments. I think star actually (Finally) brings up respectable concerns and really hones into an issue and it's a breath of fresh air lol. However, Decem's post does a great job replying to it so I won't harp about this too much. My point is the majority of negative perception stems for people who have no experience in the tier. the scl discord is a prime example of this lol

What that fails to capture is that the specific sets chosen often (far too often) do.

What is far too often and what isn't is eventually subjective. I don't agree with the points star made in his post where he referenced those specific games in reply to kev but ultimately that is irrelevant. Bad matchups or not, the simple matter is the best players win more often than the rest which alone objectively makes for competitive viewing/playing. Basically if you spam dragon flying electric all tour you can't complain about running into an ice team and certain specific sets designed to fish for these types, and thus run into a negative matchup.

What I'm trying to get across above is if you think the format is competitive and you aren't worried about the matchup issues like you said you aren't (and i dont mean you) it seems to me like ignoring Monotype now is taking a cowards way out. Whichever way this plays out will satisfy some and won't others. People will complain with any number of OU slots. They will complain about the quality in any tier. We as a community love to complain, and it's really not an enviable place to be making decisions that will inevitably anger a chunk of the community. I do get where you're coming from Amaranth, I just think it's the wrong place to come from. ty for replying and reading this

 

[mushamu]

Since Tony shared his experience with matchup in Monotype team tournaments, I would like to do so as well now since final exams for me are over. We're focusing on SS Monotype with DLC 2 being included in SCL, so I will mention the most recent two team tournaments which includes that metagame.

I see people saying things like "What if the week is down 4-5, the last game happens to be Monotype, and you load Grass against Fire?". This can definitely happen, don't get me wrong, but it would be very rare. If you make SCL for Monotype, you know how to play the game at a high level. You can easily take a 50-50~ matchup, and play well in order to secure the win. Which is why the question of "Why are you using Grass, a type which loses to the top types in this metagame, and why are they using Fire which noticeably has a lot of holes against common threats?" comes up. Grass definitely does well against Water and Ground, but 90% of the time people who are competent at the game aren't going to be pulling it out because at the end of the day, it is a fish, and relying on bringing something consistent and outplaying is infinitely more reliable since your playing caliber is already high enough to do so. It's unfortunate Tony's team lost to extreme matchups when his teams made finals, but the community was surprised because this type of shit doesn't typically happen in Monotype team tournament finals.

Back in MWP I was on the Vivillons and helped make most of the teams alongside maroon. He and I supported the rest of our team and bo3 slot throughout the tournament by constantly building and testing teams and new ideas, since the metagame was relatively fresh. At the time, top types in the metagame were considered, I'd say, Dragon, Psychic, Poison, Electric, Water, Flying and Fairy. By the end of the tournament, our main strategy ended up being sticking to consistent types. We ended up playing 33 games of SS Monotype and lost in semifinals to Tony's team. And by the end of the tournament, we lost to matchup a total of 3 out of 33 games of SS Monotype played. They were all against the Murkrows; but one instance was where we got way too comfortable with this one Water team we were spamming, the other two instances were me bringing shitty types against Maki and Star in regular season and semifinals respectively. Normal and Ghost have way too many holes to be considered consistent, so I only have myself to blame for it-especially since Ghost's viability had been on a downward trend ever since people have figured out how to prepare for Spectrier. The rest of the losses were games that we could have played better, gotten unlucky in, or both. I really enjoyed the bo3 series vs Chait because we both brought really good teams and all 3 of the games came really close. I think that's probably the type of quality you'd find in SCL since both of us would be fine with playing Monotype among many others although making it bo3 in SCL is completely unnecessary for competitiveness and was only really fun to watch and play in MWP because you had the best players being funneled in the slot which resulted in many high quality games.

Fast forward to MWC and I'm on US West with Shiba/Maki/TJ who are all very good at Pokemon as a solid SS lineup. Choice Specs Zapdos had taken the metagame by storm and centralized it noticeably towards Electric and Flying and you can see that if you look at Ticken's usage sheet where they were the most used types by the end of the tournament. On US West, our main strategy was again to bring consistent types and to keep track of the current metagame and trends in order to ensure our teams were solid. That's why we had so much Electric usage, but we made sure to mix it in with other types like Fairy, Water, Dark, and Flying which also preformed well in order to avoid getting capitalized on. And by the end of the tournament, we ended up losing to matchup/at team preview a total of 1 time out of 21 games of SS Monotype played while winning the entire thing and having a great SS record in a more developed metagame. This was the one instance where Shiba faced a CM WP Latias which destroyed his team, but like I said, it was purely in response to how much our team favored this one type in Electric-we were all pretty much hyping it up everywhere as the best type. The other instances of losing were due to misplays mainly, like the time where I let my Toxapex get Tricked against Finchinator in a Water mirror which caused Urshifu-R to go crazy and the time in finals where Shiba didn't Knock Off Dragapult's Choice Scarf with Alolan Raichu against Frnen when it would have won.

I tried to point out the number of times we actually lost to matchup by showing how far you can go with using consistent types alone. These teams we used for the most part weren't teams that were specifically designed to fish for specific types, they were teams that took into the account of the current state of the metagame and could cover a vast majority of teams while not too being difficult for other types to account for granted our opponents prepped well. People need to stop looking at types as just Pokemon types, they should be seen as different playstyles. The archetypes that can cover bases well against the rest of the metagame will naturally be seen as the most consistent ones, and the archetypes that simply fall short when dealing with whats consistent will be seen as niche picks, matchup fishes, or simply just not worth using. At the end of the day, the best Pokemon players are the ones who can bring consistent teams and preform well, the ones that can figure out different ways to beat what's meta while retaining consistency, all while playing the game at a high level. And at the end of the day, the people who try and innovate the metagame are the ones who push it forward and develop it. All of these hold true for Monotype much like any other tier.

 

[Berks]

I don’t play any of these meta games, but I like watching competitive Monotype and so I wanna make a mini-response to a couple arguments:

Star argues that a large percentage of monotype games are unwinnable at preview even for teams with an apparent type advantage because of niche picks from a narrow pool of viable mons. I have two points: first, if the pool of viable mons is narrow in Monotype, it is certainly narrow in Ubers and other centralized metagames. Every tier has niche stallbreakers and anti-HO mons that flop in certain matchups and shine in others. Picking a Heavy Slam TTar on Mono-Dark to ease the Hatterene/Fairy doesn’t seem different in magnitude from bringing a Shedinja to stop Specs Kyogre. Second, every tier and meta has team structures that do well against other structures. The debate in PR about SMUU Stall, for example, shows that a good stall team beats almost any bulky offense team in that tier at preview assuming both players are competent players. This is the same dynamic we see people criticize in Monotype, but it’s not foreign to any competitive meta. For another example, my SS LC teams that are generally consistent against the meta frequently have a horrifically bad matchup vs Ponyta Webs. If I play a team tour at a high level and my opponents notice this consistent weakness, they will bring a team structure that gives them the best chance of winning and it will be well deserved. This is exactly the point that the monotype players in this thread have been making: failure to prepare for tournament play at a high level is no easier or harder in Monotype than it is in other metagames.

If people are still stressed about matchups, why not deepen the SPL/SCL parallels and go with a Bo3 Monotype slot? Of course, RBY is very different from Monotype (but if you wanna talk about limited viable options...) in both prep and play. However, RBY sometimes gets called a variance tier because of how unpredictable and out of control it can get as a result of luck. The community balanced that by requiring Bo3. If we’re worried about Monotype being unpredictable and out of control as a result of matchups, why not balance it the same way and obtain the same acceptable result?

In conclusion, include Monotype in SCL!

 

[Hogg]

Star argues that a large percentage of monotype games are unwinnable at preview even for teams with an apparent type advantage because of niche picks from a narrow pool of viable mons. I have two points: first, if the pool of viable mons is narrow in Monotype, it is certainly narrow in Ubers and other centralized metagames.

(emphasis mine)

As a disclaimer I am not coming down for or against monotype, but I wanted to poke at this assertion a bit. Star's point was that you have a narrow pool of viable 'mons. I'd say that it goes further than just a narrow pool to choose from, though. You have a narrow pool of viable 'mons that you are restricted to build with, but then you have to account for a huge pool of viable 'mons that your opponent might potentially bring while building. That's the key difference, and it goes well beyond just type matchup. Glancing at the Viability Rankings, the problem isn’t that Dark is weak to Fairy, but rather that Dark has a total of 13 ‘mons with any viability at all, and only 7 of them are B rank or above. So with that small handful of Pokemon, you now have to build a team that can deal with every relevant meta threat. I'm not an expert on monotype, but I'm skeptical that there's any way to do that without actively accepting that you’re going to have several relevant matchups that you will almost never win against a competent opponent.

Of course, that's where prep comes into play, and I'm fully willing to believe good prep can help minimize the potentially bad outcomes and potentially let you build to take advantage of similar weaknesses in your opponents. But there is always a limit to good prep, and even with perfect prep, it doesn’t change the fact that a significant number of games are going to be decided in the builder. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing - there's no rule against including metas like that - but I think pointing out that other tiers or metas have matchups or narrow pools of 'mons to choose from too is a bit unfair.

 

[Iguana]

This thread has died down quite a bit in recent days, so hopefully my post isn't too late, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the exciting new tour's final tier for this year. :)

I would like to throw my support behind one slot of Monotype being the 10th slot in this year's SCL tournament.

To me, SCL is a beautiful fusion of the old and the new: Ubers, a once staple tier in the biggest team tours turned disgraced and exiled due to serious issues, now returns with many fresh and eager faces, an overall improved community, and active metagame tiering. Now there also exists the opportunity to introduce another tier that could really reinvent what was once Snake into a brand new tour in SCL. This opportunity is adding Monotype. Through persistency and careful community- and tier-building, Monotype has made an excellent case for inclusion in this tour.

Running 3 slots of OU might be the easiest solution, but this tour shouldn't be about doing what's standard or safe. It should be a celebration and demonstration of lower tiers in Smogon. Another realization I've had about the new SCL tour is that it's just that: new! This is an exciting opportunity to create a massive tour, which is quite rare given how established many tours are now. OU is a part of SCL not because it's obligatory but because it's a helpful glue that combines playerbases and encourages players from other tours to join SCL, yes, but adding in another OU slot just seems like wasting a really cool opportunity to introduce another playerbase and to really revolutionize this tour. I believe inclusion is one of the most important keys to success in practically anything but certainly when we're trying to build and build up a brand new tour. ima had a wonderful line in their post that really resounded with me: "If we want to make SCL prosper we should have open arms to people who really want to participate." We have an eager, prepared community in Monotype that is hungry for inclusion in a big tour and has been for years. It's time to reward that in a way not too dissimilar to how Ubers has been rewarded in this tour.

The argument against Monotype in regards to its playerbase being siloed from other lower tiers in SCL is missing the point, in my eyes. This hasn't disqualified DOU from previous Snake tours, has it? I would definitely argue that the sole doubles format in a team tour of otherwise all-singles-format tiers is more culpable of siloization, but that wasn't a valid reason to cut it from that tour or any other. What this does is create opportunity and incentive for players to specialize in more than one lower tier. Think of some of the most valuable team tours players there are. People like BKC or ABR or McMeghan--these are valuable players because they excel at particular tiers, yes, but another huge reason is that you can slot them into several different slots. Wouldn't it be wonderful to incentivize more people to specialize in a variety of lower tiers? And forgive me if this is off base, but I don't actually see this as very different from SPL. Sure, there are definitely some people (like the GOATs I just mentioned and others) who excel at several different Gens of OU, but there definitely are some who are very, very good at one Gen but really don't play others. And that's fine! It's just a decision that a team manager has to make when preparing for the auction.

I'm not going to spend much time on the matchup argument except to say that it's a tired topic that generally plays on lack of knowledge of Monotype. It's very easy to point to matchup as a problem when each team is comprised of only one Pokémon type, but this is not the reality. I defer to Monotype enthusiasts and leaders here, as should we all.

This is a less formal point, but come on, people. We have SS OU slots, and several of them, in EVERYTHING. Now, (unfortunately) WCoP has gone all-CG OU, so there's even more emphasis on it now. I get that it's the flagship tier of Smogon and how it benefits this tour to include a couple of OU slots, but this tour is literally designed for lower tiers! Please use this opportunity to introduce something fresh and exciting to the world of big Smogon tours. Don't wear us down with yet another SS OU slot.

Lastly, I'm not sure where this stands, but I'd really like to echo lighthouses' point regarding the possibility of making Monotype a best-of-three slot in SCL. I don't share the same concern as many others seem to regarding Monotype's apparent matchup issues, but this would seem to me to be a great way to remedy that "issue" in a similar way to how SPL tries to remedy the "hax issue" in RBY OU. In fact, this seems like an even better idea than I first thought as I'm typing this because it would further balance SCL and SPL! Both tours would have a Bo3 slot for understandable reasons. While I've already mentioned that I view these tours as very independent of one another, I do recognize that a lot of people want balance between them and for SCL to be at an SPL level, so I feel like this definitely contributes to those goals. I really like this. :)

Although I do hope Monotype is chosen as the ultimate slot in this tour, whatever happens, it'll be exciting to see what transpires with the first SCL tour!

 

[Coconut]

Don't really have a strong opinion on the subject at hand (not anymore at least free VGC), but I wanted some clarification on something moving forward in regards to bo3 slots. I've noticed it used as an argument for Monotype's inclusion and I think that would be really bad from both the perspective of the tier and the perspective of the rest of the community.

One of the more prominent justifications I remember RBY being a bo3 in SPL (and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong here) was because of its extreme ease of use to build for. There are no real unique spreads and frankly not much diversity in general. In addition, it's a more luck-centric metagame in which the extra games are more justifiable. Does Monotype really have either of these? Its inclusion in SCL from a lot of the Monotype mains appears to be that people don't quite understand that it isn't a matchup flip. If that's the case then why do we need to make it a bo3? If it is more of a matchup flip then why are we including it in SCL if it has to be bo3 and doesn't have the same aspects as our previous bo3 case?

Again I don't really care what the final slot is but I was just looking for some clarification from people a bit more invested in the conversation.

 

[Chaitanya]

Don't really have a strong opinion on the subject at hand (not anymore at least free VGC), but I wanted some clarification on something moving forward in regards to bo3 slots. I've noticed it used as an argument for Monotype's inclusion and I think that would be really bad from both the perspective of the tier and the perspective of the rest of the community.

One of the more prominent justifications I remember RBY being a bo3 in SPL (and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong here) was because of its extreme ease of use to build for. There are no real unique spreads and frankly not much diversity in general. In addition, it's a more luck-centric metagame in which the extra games are more justifiable. Does Monotype really have either of these? Its inclusion in SCL from a lot of the Monotype mains appears to be that people don't quite understand that it isn't a matchup flip. If that's the case then why do we need to make it a bo3? If it is more of a matchup flip then why are we including it in SCL if it has to be bo3 and doesn't have the same aspects as our previous bo3 case?

Again I don't really care what the final slot is but I was just looking for some clarification from people a bit more invested in the conversation.

Bo3 seems to have been brought up to alleviate some matchup concerns to basically appeal to both sides is how I see it. I don't agree with it and I also don't think it's what most of monotype is aiming to see in this tour? Can't speak for everyone of course but none of the 'mono mains' posted for bo3 because it is completely unneeded. Overall Bo3 monotype has the same benefits/issues as Bo3 OU - while it provides for better pokemon due to less mu fishing possible/a chance to make up for an unlucky game which in an ideal world is fantastic, it's obviously just extremely time consuming to prepare for (unlike rby?) and play. Altogether I don't think anyone who wants monotype in the tour would say no to bo3 but it's definitely unnecessary, Bo1 Monotype is great.

 

[Ren]

Hi there! I don't main Monotype, I've played some of their tournaments though (they're very fun, try them!) and I have to say that it's a really interesting and fun metagame. I've also been tutored in it, and one of the first things I learned from Eien is that very few matchups are ever really lost on preview. It's true that some matchups aren't really doable... But a lot of the types that lose these matchups aren't top tier in Monotype. Strange coincidence, right? That's because Monotype mains are really good at understanding risk and reward. The lower tier types do have uses (last time I checked, anyway) and they're also pretty risky, and yet people bring them anyway and they win.

I know how this looks for people who'd argue against Monotype - They're gonna say that they got lucky in bringing a random type that won. But that's not really true? Having been in a few Monotype tournaments, it's really misinformed and short sighted to say that it's just luck. The preparation that goes into Monotype isn't really different, from what I understand. Sure, you are limited in your pool of selection for whatever type you choose to bring, but this glosses over the fact that choosing a type is also preparation. Prep is an important part of team tournaments, and I've seen so many times that people in OU bring a team composition that works incredibly well. It's not an issue then. People call it nice prep, which it is. Analyzing your opponent, their team and their trends and coming to an educated decision on how that should influence your selection is fundamental in Pokemon. Literally everybody involved in this discussion knows this. So why is it different for Monotype?

I know that there's also an argument that Monotype, by nature, has less playing flexibility than other tiers. This comes back to my point of Monotype players being incredible at analyzing risk and reward - If they're choosing to bring a low tier type that's very narrow in the matchups it can win, then that's because they understand that it's a good choice to make. A lot more work goes on behind the scenes than "let's bring ghost and load up vs psychic lmoa it'll be an ez dub", and I feel like simplifying it to that isn't just wrong, but it's also kind of disrespectful to the tier and its players? I promise you that the players put a ton of work into their metagame. The biggest gripe for me is that preparation is part of Pokemon, and if I had ever brought Psychic and faced Ghost, I promise you that I'd be complementing my opponent on their preparation because frankly, they deserve it. That's not them bringing a random type or a random Pokemon, that's them making an educated decision on what to bring and it's also their decision paying off and they deserve credit for that. This also doesn't happen very often - I find that most of the time, the people prepping the slot go for a type that has a lot of flexibility outside of the matchups they expect to see. That's because they're making the decision that it isn't worth struggling in matchups outside of the ones they expect to see in exchange for a more comfortable win. That's them recognizing that they can still play well once they secure the matchup and they can grab the win.

You'd be including an incredible and fairly large community by implementing a Monotype slot over an OU slot, and there are quite a few Monotype players who are incredibly capable and could definitely pick up other tiers if their managers needed them to. I know the community, and I know they deserve this slot. In comparison, OU3 would include the same community as OU2, but it'd let more people from that community play. The choice is the TDs, but if they do choose OU3 over Monotype, I hope that it's because they decided the benefits outweigh the cost of cutting a chunk of Monotype's community out (some Monotype players would definitely still make it in cause they're fire), cutting a metagame out and not giving Monotype a chance here. I hope that they recognize that the matchup issue is exaggerated and a lot of work goes into the metagame when making this decision. That being said, I respect Monotype and the people who play it and I do hope to see some of them in this tour playing the metagame they love, because they deserve it

 

[Gondra]

Hello, I really think monotype should be included in this new team tournament at least it would be one more step to make a difference between the SSD and this SCL, otherwise it feels like the TD team just changed the name of the tour.
Monotype is a well-developed community and I had the opportunity to play their last team tours which were particularly fun and competitive like any other tier, and not everything was decided in the team preview even though, I was playing gen 7 no match up was auto lose (except ground vs water).


Give monotype a chance to shine, is the first edition of this tour if it really is as terrible as others think it can be removed the next year. Worse decisions have been made on this site anyways.

 

[TPP]

The format of this year's SCL will be:

SS OU
SS OU
SS OU
SS Ubers
SS DOU
SS UU
SS RU
SS NU
SS PU
SS LC

The TDs have agreed to retain the 3rd OU slot. The purpose of rebranding Snake into SCL was to promote the hype and prestige surrounding the tournament, and to turn it into the best competitive format for a current generation tournament. SCL is not a lower tier tournament, it's a current generation one, and that means OU will always have a greater amount of exposure.

The strong dissatisfaction with Snake as a whole is why there's been so much effort to rebrand it into something as grand as SPL, and so far everything has been going very well. Adding a new tier for the sake of representation does not directly support that goal, which is why we have opted to not include Monotype. Monotype has clearly made great strides, and we value the enthusiasm of its proponents, which made this a difficult choice. As hogg said here and here again, 10 slots is a good balance and it will be staying for the time being.

Regarding the argument of future-proofing our tournaments, this is a good goal, but it should never come at the potential expense of today's tournament. This is especially true with the inconsistent release schedule of the DLC era. The best way to ensure that this tournament is successful in the future is to make sure it has the best possible first showing, and we felt that this decision moves us toward that.

If you have any questions or concerns, you are welcome to PM a tournament director.