Proposal abolish/reform world cup qualifers

[SANJAY]

i don't play anymore but i was just lurking about a few weeks ago and came to see that there were SEVENTEEN teams in qualifiers???????? that's an insane number lol

i started thinking the whole purpose of quals was useless anyway when france got relegated in 2021 and then went onto win it in 2022. and how south got relegated in 2020 and went onto win it in 2021. france were literally 1 loss away from not making it out of the qualifiers and that should really tell you flawed the current system is

maybe not abolish quals, but just reform them so EVERY team has to play in quals. look at how the proper world cup does it. every single team plays in quals, no one is just instantly guaranteed into the tournament.

why not just make it so it's a massive 30 stage group game (or however many teams wanna join)? you can complain about quality but absolutely not a single soul is watching the groups of any sport for quality lol. if anything it's just to scout any potential upsets towards the end of the day. you'll get the odd group of death but ucl groups are dogshit, world cup groups are objectively dogshit but it's once every 4 yrs so it creates the illusion of hype, nba groups are dogshit. the truth is absolutely no one cares about the groups anyway until like the last week. the group stages for any tournament is NEVER competitive. even for these high profile sports so elitism doesn't really make sense.

teams that are good enough will obviously still end up qualifying for the main tournament. the knockouts are what ppl care about. no one is tuning into the ucl to watch shakhtar donetsk vs malmo, and everyone knows the likes of bayern and city are making it out of the groups anyway. it just creates an opportunity for upsets/an underdog story, no one belittles the ucl cuz of the low quality of the group stages, it's still the most pretigious tournament in the world cuz of how copmetitive the actual knockouts are

what group stages do do is give a chance to teams to perform over a bigger sample size. it's so easy to fluke qualifiers. either by overperforming, getting into the main stage then collapsing, or underperforming, and a genuinely strong team beign omitted from the actual tour because of a 1 unlucky result then having to wait another yr. qualifiers are 16 games. having every team play in a massive group stage not only gives every single team to prove themselves over a larger sample size, it also filters out the bad ones.

relegation works in leagues because relegation happens over 38 games, and then they have another 46 games to try get promoted next season. here you have less games to try avoid relegation, and even less games to try get promoted. much easier to fluke results.

introduce seeding/coefficients similar to fifa to reward the good teams by giving them easier groups/opponents next yrs. that way you'll keep the quality of the top 16 even higher.

i don't really have a proposal for the exact way to split groups cuz the number of teams will change every yr. but i'm sure ppl can figure that out if need be.

all in all this format is hardly more time consuming since you just bypass the qualifiers stage, it gives teams a bigger sample size to try perform in, stops fluke results (either good teams underperforming, bad teams overperforming), and the quality filter for the poffs is increased cuz of the bigger sample size.

the only headache i can think of is that you have to change the format every yr depending on the number of teams but that's quite literally the case w quals rn w more and more teams joining

 

[Amaranth]

few things I think are wrong or I disagree with - there's not that many

the only headache i can think of is that you have to change the format every yr depending on the number of teams but that's quite literally the case w quals rn w more and more teams joining

this is not true. the current qualifier format can adapt literally any number of teams in a round robin group stage. obviously a 50-team round robin from which the top 3 advance is a little ridiculous, but that's not the world we'll be living in any time soon. and it would still theoretically work within the format we have right now.
the current qualifier format is easily the most flexible it's ever been, and I struggle to think of a format that could be better

what group stages do do is give a chance to teams to perform over a bigger sample size. it's so easy to fluke qualifiers. either by overperforming, getting into the main stage then collapsing, or underperforming, and a genuinely strong team beign omitted from the actual tour because of a 1 unlucky result then having to wait another yr. qualifiers are 16 games. having every team play in a massive group stage not only gives every single team to prove themselves over a larger sample size, it also filters out the bad ones.

this is something I agree with personally, but when I polled qualifier captains from 2022 the majority voted in favor of keeping 16 rather than expanding to 24, reception was rather mixed, with a lot of voices either unsure or outright against adding a 3rd game for each player.
and generally speaking, feedback on last year's format was overwhelmingly positive across the board, hence it was kept for 2023.

it's also ultimately a very accepted part of these tournaments; teams fluke runs to 4th place then win playoffs of SPL/SCL. teams are in or out of WCoP playoffs based on 1-2 game swings. people rejected bo3 DPP in SPL proposals because they don't think minimizing variance is worth the effort of extra games.
there's a sweet spot, and I find that I personally consistently find myself on the "play more games" side, but the actual community wishes seem to be more along the lines of "keep as is". so I don't know, I'm on board personally, but I have to take decisions based on what the greater population is on board with, and ahead of 2023 this was not quite it

the truth is absolutely no one cares about the groups anyway until like the last week. the group stages for any tournament is NEVER competitive.

to this, and to all the other sports comparisons; one big difference is that sportspeople are (1) getting paid and (2) playing for their country, officially, with, like, the president supporting them and all that shit. so they don't mind "wasting" their time on a trip to Malta.

whereas people here are hobbyists. diluting the quality of the early stages will inevitably see some players care less and not play. see Eternal Spirit choosing to sit out round 1 of qualifiers this year (I don't know the exact background but given he's playing for the tiebreaker I presume this kind of motivation is behind it - apologies if I'm wrong).

I think there is value to expediting the qualification of teams that are "good enough", and there is value in not making our best players burn themselves out playing against waves on waves of underdogs. 13 out of 16 teams auto-qualified is probably too many, given we have 30 total this year. but 0 out of 16 teams auto-qualified, and throwing everyone into the same stage as everyone else, also feels a little short-sighted. we can definitely work towards developing something more sophisticated though, using coefficients as you mentioned perhaps.

---

all of that said, I agree with the general sentiments expressed here. the 16 team main event is iconic and historical and I'd hate to do away with it, but I think this is a healthy discussion to have at the very least.

the issue of time is another one; but WCoP top16 is already only 6 weeks (+tbs) to the 11 of SPL/SCL, so there's probably space for a bit more before it gets too bad. and well, France last year already took the long road, it's not like the current format guarantees the shorter timespan.

it's a bit early now to take any decisions for 2024, but I'm very very open to listening to the community and I already spend lots of time idly pondering hypothetical format improvements so yeah, 100% ready to take steps in this sense if the community supports it

 

[SANJAY]

few things I think are wrong or I disagree with - there's not that many



this is not true. the current qualifier format can adapt literally any number of teams in a round robin group stage. obviously a 50-team round robin from which the top 3 advance is a little ridiculous, but that's not the world we'll be living in any time soon. and it would still theoretically work within the format we have right now.
the current qualifier format is easily the most flexible it's ever been, and I struggle to think of a format that could be better

yea fair enough, you know more than me. but then by that logic surely in the hypothetical case you were gonna do the revamp i suggested (just hypothetically not saying that'll be hte case), it makes the case more compelling because the format for any amount of teams wouldn't be an issue? again tho idk, you know more than me about this i don't know if teams having to play more games would change it and make it harder

this is something I agree with personally, but when I polled qualifier captains from 2022 the majority voted in favor of keeping 16 rather than expanding to 24, reception was rather mixed, with a lot of voices either unsure or outright against adding a 3rd game for each player.
and generally speaking, feedback on last year's format was overwhelmingly positive across the board, hence it was kept for 2023.

it's also ultimately a very accepted part of these tournaments; teams fluke runs to 4th place then win playoffs of SPL/SCL. teams are in or out of WCoP playoffs based on 1-2 game swings. people rejected bo3 DPP in SPL proposals because they don't think minimizing variance is worth the effort of extra games.
there's a sweet spot, and I find that I personally consistently find myself on the "play more games" side, but the actual community wishes seem to be more along the lines of "keep as is". so I don't know, I'm on board personally, but I have to take decisions based on what the greater population is on board with, and ahead of 2023 this was not quite it

i'll be straight up, no one wants to admit it, but im sure arguably the biggest reason ppl are against expansion is just because of elitism. a lot of ppl just think they're too good to play against saudiarabianseviper542. and rlly i think this attitude/approach is part of the reason why growth on smogon has been so stagnant. instead of making it more inclusive, everything is going backwards. and personally w respect to world cup, you can't convince me otherwise, cuz how i see it, there is absolutely 0 reason against a world cup expansion.

ppl are against playing more games? there are about 5000 formats that can be implemented, meaning you can still play the same amount of games, whilst also giving other teams a chance to try participate. like personally im an advocate for more games for better opportunity/less variation and stuff like that, whilst just adding a few weeks to the deadline so the amount of games played per week is the same. if ppl can play 9-11 weeks worth of spl surely 6-11 weeks worth of world cup isn't gonna be the end of the world. but if ppl are truly against more games like i mentioned earlier, surely there exists so many formats that will keep the same amount of games played for each player but increase expansion.

maybe a lot ppl who say they dont wanna play more games as a reason against expansion just haven't given any possible formats that would keep the same amount of games played, but allow more teams, enough thought which is fair enough. but there's most definitely a lot of ppl who are just saying the "i dont wanna play more games" for ego reasons

we're in 2023 and smogon's growth has been absolutely 0 for the past 7 years. world cup is quite literally the perfect tournament to do that. it's not like team sudan can randomly form and go onto win the whole thing. but who knows maybe in a few yrs? it gives ppl a chance to play against the best, gain experience, which rlly just has a butterfly effect on every single tournament. you'll see new players play against vets, get better, do better in other tours and just improve the rest of the competitive scene. do you think alakazamfan will become a better player playing against clefable5342 1 game during world cup qualifiers once every yr, or playing a few games vs some of the best? and i can guarantee you opening the world cup to an unlimited amount of slots will make it the most popular tournament on this site by far without compromising competitiveness (cuz let's be real the likes of us east are still making playoffs). but it gives a chance to smaller teams to try cause an underdog story + improve themselves for next yr.

(after typing this out i just realised u said qualifier captains but the sentiment still stands cuz i cant imagine many captains of the main tour being pro-expansion either)

and @ spl: yea fluking it is v easy once you make playoffs. personally i think the playoffs format for that is also awful cuz there's too much variation and the weight of being 1st and 4th is identical meaning a team going 9-0 and another one going 5-4 would have the same weight but that's a different topic. but fluking a playoffs is bound to happen when there's only 4 teams i guess.

w the dpp proposal i get it tbf tho, prepping for technically 3 games a week is crazxy. at least w world cup you can format it in such a way so you play a game a week. and if you can't make time for a 20 minute game a week u rlly shouldnt be playing in the first place.

to this, and to all the other sports comparisons; one big difference is that sportspeople are (1) getting paid and (2) playing for their country, officially, with, like, the president supporting them and all that shit. so they don't mind "wasting" their time on a trip to Malta.

whereas people here are hobbyists. diluting the quality of the early stages will inevitably see some players care less and not play. see Eternal Spirit choosing to sit out round 1 of qualifiers this year (I don't know the exact background but given he's playing for the tiebreaker I presume this kind of motivation is behind it - apologies if I'm wrong).

this is true but i was mainly talking from a spectators perspective. you make a good point tho. but let's be real, if a trophy is involved i think 99% of ppl will be willing to still play a few extra games over a few extra weeks. or like i mentinoed above, surely there are formats that don't compromise the amount of games a team plays, but still caters towards an expansion.

I think there is value to expediting the qualification of teams that are "good enough", and there is value in not making our best players burn themselves out playing against waves on waves of underdogs. 13 out of 16 teams auto-qualified is probably too many, given we have 27 total this year. but 0 out of 16 teams auto-qualified, and throwing everyone into the same stage as everyone else, also feels a little short-sighted. we can definitely work towards developing something more sophisticated though, using coefficients as you mentioned perhaps.

yea i'm not exactly sure on the format myself, pros and cons to everything. just personally in my head a massive 32 team group stage, that goes into top 16 (or 8) just like the actual world cup would be the best. i just dk anything about time constraints and formatting. but a lot of cool things can do be done w coefficients, whether it be tiebreak advantages, introducing a strength of schedule so the better teams will still be favoured to go through, or even letting certain teams play for first round byes. all depends on the format but i do think regardless of the format coefficient should still def be something introduced in the future

 

[Leni]

Good OP Sanjay,

To me, the biggest and probably main reason why I like WCOP is the base structure itself that we have right now. It differs from other officials and rewards teams that have rightfully earned their success past years to carry their legacy. This creates the idea of having fan-favorites in the long run and possibility for 'smaller' teams to create cinderella stories like Sanjay described eg. France. I do think there is room for improvement hence is why I'm proposing following, and arguing over why the current format of having qualifying stage - round 1 - playoffs is great;

The change: Implementing a tournament format where relegation affects the bottom six teams (places 11-16 in stage 1) out of a total of 16 teams that we have now competing for playoffs. Leaving six positions open for a qualifier round, can bring several advantages. Additionally, having the relegated teams lead their own group for the qualifier round next year (not necesassary, but throwing this out of the hat as well):

How does this benefit WCOP?

Increased competitiveness and motivation: Expanding the relegation zone to six teams raises the level of competition in the tournament pool phase. Teams that narrowly miss the playoffs have a significant goal to strive for, as they compete to avoid relegation. At the same time, more countries have the opportunity to prove themselves and earn a spot in the main stage next year. This heightened competition ensures that all teams should be motivated and engaged throughout the tournament.

Meaningful competition for teams relegating: Allowing the bottom six teams to lead their own group for the qualifier round following years ensures that we will already see more established teams facing underdogs and set a possible upset early on the tournament. This creates opportunities for unexpected outcomes for new shining stars, even if they are called CharizardLover/SaudiArabianOilSeviper. Making the tournament more captivating for viewers and fans should be somewhat prioritized always when we are talking about bigger tournaments. This also helps in the development of emerging talent and encourages growth within the Smogon. All in all this allows for greater diversity and representation, as different teams and regions get a chance to participate and gain recognition against better teams.

Current few positions that qualifier stage provides is too low. Wcop been growing year after year and looking at 2023 qualifier stage, we have very impressive 17 teams trying to slide themselves in.

Now that I got myself into writing this wall of text, I will tackle the round 1 proposal while I'm at it as well.

Current idea in the nutshell is to throw every pairing out there and let players finish all three games within three weeks. Only limitation being forced to finish one game within two weeks out of three games.

Suggestion:

Split 16 teams into four or two different groups based on their last year result and qualifier round result.

Example 1

4 Groups:	Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
	Last year 1st	Last year 2nd	Last year 3rd	Last year 4th
	Last year 5th	Last year 6th	Last year 7th	Last year 8th
	2nd Qualifier	1st Qualifier	Last year 10th	Last year 9th
	6th Qualifier	5th Qualifier	4th Qualifier	3rd Qualifier

Very simple solution. Top two of each groups advances to playoffs, overall 9th and 10th keeps their position and rest relegates.

Example 2

2 Groups:	Group A	Group B
	Last year 1st	Last year 2nd
	Last year 3rd	Last year 4th
	Last year 5th	Last year 6th
	Last year 7th	Last year 8th
	Last year 10th	Last year 9th
	2nd Qualifier	1st Qualifier
	4th Qualifier	3rd Qualifier
	6th Qualifier	5th Qualifier

In their respective pool teams will follow same playing order than in previous example. Meaning Last year first plays against last year 5th, 2nd Qualifier and 6th Qualifier and so on. After everyone has their games played after three weeks, top four of each group advances. Respective 9th and 10th again keeps their position and rest relegates.

Why?

Group-based play ensures a more balanced schedule for teams. In a single pool phase, teams may face a wide range of opponents, some stronger and some weaker. With groups, teams play against a more consistent level of competition within their group, providing a fairer and more balanced playing field and easy to follow format. Group stage allows for strategic adaptations and a deeper understanding of their group opponents playstyles and likings. Teams can put more effort in analyzing their group opponents' strengths and weaknesses weekly basis, leading to more intriguing matchups and decision-making. It is arguably hard to always be up to date not only your own score, but other teams as well in pool phase.

The group stage format enables the development of compelling storylines. Teams battle not only for overall placement but also for the top spots in their respective groups. This creates narratives and rivalries within the groups, adding excitement and drama to the tournament. Fans and viewers can follow the progress of teams within their groups and witness competition to secure playoff berths. This increased engagement not only lead to higher viewership and sustained interest throughout the group stage, but also creates the very much needed hype in the tournament's progression.

Hopefully this makes any sense to you guys,

Cheers.

 

[SANJAY]

well i hope w the conclusion of this yrs group stage, it's become more apparent how much the current format could be improved. north east are playing a relegation tiebreak, but 2 more wins and they would be playing a qualifier tiebreak. imagine a relegation level team in the premier league that could get europe if they won 2 more games. thats a crazy swing. 2022 finalist got relegated in 2023, 2022 winner got relegated in 2021, 2021 winner got relegated in 2020... like city getting relegated the next year after winning it or burnley winning the league after promotion. 24 games is nowhere near enough to dictate a team's season.

so my proposal:

introduce coefficients. remove the concept of relegation and qualifiers. massive group stage, 32 teams or however many.

• introducing coefficients of a teams performance over the past 3-5 years would make this tournament 100x better because there's so many ways you can use it. it keeps the tournament still competitive and prevents big teams from tanking because they get put in a group of death randomly, and rewards teams on past good performances.
• allow any team that can obviously legally form to enter
• make groups based off of coefficients. stronger teams against weaker teams. this gives the weaker teams to compete on the main stage still without being able to fluke their way into the playoffs. the playoffs should largely still be competitive, and if a team with a lower coefficient is able to advance it's cuz they've played well and not beat south sudan and syria to reach it
• and most importantly, increase the amount of games each player has to play to 6 to reduce variation. extend the deadline by 3 weeks. cuz theoretically, lower ranked teams could find it easier to fluke some results if it's 3 games as opposed to 6. and also 24 games rlly isn't enough. in spl scl assuming you need 5 wins to make playoffs that's 35 games you need to win. for world cup it's nearly 3x less that to have a shot at making playoffs lol. i get it's top 4 vs top 8 but still.
• currently, the tournament takes 6 weeks for qualifiers + round 1, so this doesn't crazily effect the length of the tour. more prep for players sure but most man are prepping for 3 more extra weeks in spl and that. and tiebreaks more unlikely w this format cuz of the increased games

my proposal:

• world cup groups uses a formula to decide its groups using coefficients and stuff. the same can be applied here. we can make sure that each group roughly has a similar "coefficient rating" for reasons below.
• very generally when predicting these groups we can assume groups either have 4 average teams, 2 great teams and 2 bad teams, etc.
• scenario 1: odd number of total teams that's one greater than the nearest multiple of 4.
  • so this yr was 33. we'd have 7 groups of 4, and 1 group 5. again, assuming we're using some formula to generate the groups n making sure they have a similar coefficient rating, being in the group of 5 isnt too advantageous/disadvantgeous.
  • teams in the group of 4 will have each player play 2 players from each team in the group. 6 total games
  • teams in the group of 5 will have each player play 1 player from each team in the group, and 1 player from 2 teams again that are randomly selected (or coefficient based). 6 total games
  • depending on if you want top 16 or top 8, who qualifies is fairly straight forward. top 2 from each group go through, or the winner of each group goes through
• scenario 2: odd number of total teams that's one less than the nearest multiple of 4.
  • so eg 31. we'd have 7 groups of 4, 1 group of 3.
  • teams in the group of 4 will have each player play 2 players from each team in the group. 6 total games
  • teams in the group of 3 will have each player play 3 players from each team in the group. 6 total games
  • depending on if you want top 16 or top 8, who qualifies is fairly straight forward. top 2 from each group go through, or the winner of each group goes through
• scenario 3: even number of total teams that's not a multiple of 4
  • eg 34 teams. we'd have 6 groups of 4 and 2 groups of 5
  • see above for how it works w groups of 5, just happens to 2 groups now
  • same as above for qualifiyng
• who qualifies when there's less/more than 8 groups?
  • well this is why coefficient seeding is nice. cuz assuming all groups are relatively the same strength, we can just choose based on records. e.g for 27 teams when there'll be 7 groups as opposed to 8, we can choose the top 2 of all 7 groups, then the next 2 teams based on the next 2 best records
  • if it's 35 teams and we have 9 groups, top seed of every group[ automatically qualifiers, and 2 teams with the worst record as 2nd team do not.
• and then top 16/top 8 would just be regular bo8/bo7.
• obvs maybe there's a better way to do the groups but really i think you should always keep the groups of sizes 3-5 cuz the bigger the groups get the more insignificant coefficients get cuz better teams will get placed against better teams than they would for 3-5 groups.
• point is round robin groups w all teams included based on coefficient seeded to keep it fair -> top 16/8 stage
• it all sounds complicated but it's rlly not if ur a player cuz you just look at the mus lol, maybe from the host but aye if im around hmu ill help u

maybe there's another way to use coefficients (like giving the top 1-2 teams a pass from the intial stage when there's less than 32 teams) but i think whatever happens w the format that rlly should be something essential to introduce

 

[Astoria]

whatever happens I hope we get a fairer system with more WCop slots or more relegation slots.

China, Brazil, Chile, etc. would all have deserved to play this WCop much more than weak teams such as US Northeast.
At least they should have been given a fairer chance with more relegation slots.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

I think the play-ins arent unfair on the spot as whole, but the relegation system could/should have some kind of revision, to have at least a system in which you dont need to basically win a secondary tournament or multiple tie-breaks to simply play wcop. We basically doubled the number of teams trying to compete since when the tournament was created, while having only three opportunities/spots to see different teams competing, so for the time being, we could see changes to improve the tournament and make it more dynamic. Either way, that being said, it also feels weird to see just everyone playing each other every year to see whos in or not, it seems to be such a big waste of time and energy LOL. Coherence is rather subjective when it comes to Smogon Tournaments, but numbers are not, and these should be used as north to any change we are going to consider for a decent route if we wanna improve something.

Playoffs are basically a second tournament in any team tour, and we can tell that the "elite teams" of the edition were able to get in, so its fair to argue that they should not have the need to prove themselves on the following year, and are parameters of what kind of games we wanna usually watch. Theres also a cut made by the teams that got very close of being in this group, having made a great work to stay alive till the end, and kept in track for possible tie-breaks, with an above-average performance (or at least ended up with an even record). Imo, these teams should be returning teams as reward for their efforts, to say the least, but any result under this point should be questioned considering the low gap between them, the fact that they are usually quite a smaller group (5-7 teams at max) and finished with a negative record.

Another relevant data: there is a relative big gap between the last spot and the playoffs cutoff, but only two wins separated NE or Bangladesh from the tie-break this year, and still, they are in need to prove themselves not to get relegated. It becomes even funier that NE is involved by its own, when they had arguably the best group of the tournament (at least considering their players individually), which just shows the ups and downs of the tournament that, at this point, should be something to care about when there are so many people actually cappable to make part of the actual WCOP main stage. Thing is that Belgium and South also got close by a single point above, and will NOT need to worry about playing again or getting relegated, even if their performances were also subpar and not so better than the other ones at all. Weird to say the least, considering that, again, they also didnt make it for playoffs and finished as negative as the others.

So like, seeing these numbers, i believe that basically everyone that didnt reach the cutoff SHOULD OPEN ROLES for possible new teams, specially when there are like, 18 teams behind to fight for three spots only, in a kind of hard fashion (low number of games for, also, low number of spots). The current play-ins format (from my player perspective that, unfortunately, needed to play and manage there LMAO) has basically the difficulty level of a secondary tournament, but with no reward after all. If we need more spots as a cohesive goal, the annual cutoff for play-ins over a fixed number would be much fairer at this point, and will sure work way more than the current system.


tldr; the cutoff of playoffs/tie-break, to me, should be the line deciding whos returning and whos getting relegated, since basically everyone that didnt reach it was almost equally erratic, while finishing negative in the group stage. In this one scenario, we would have 6 spots for the next year.

 

[blank]

The various changes over the last few years have made WCoP a much more competitive tournament with many more competitive teams. The overall quality difference between qualifier teams and main event teams is much smaller than before. Still, there is degree of difference in quality that makes it hard to justify expanding the main event, at least to 24 teams.

I think gama's post hits the nail on the head for the current landscape of WCoP: expanding qualifiers rather than the main event while not punishing teams that make playoffs (or come close). To me, this is the correct way to fix the current issue with qualifiers without penalizing teams that perform well.

Given the way things are going, with an increasing number of good qualifier teams, I think we can have 24 team pools in the future. We just aren't really there yet.

Whatever happens, I don't think there should be any significant changes to the main event/playoffs format. Those work very well. The issue is qualifiers, which need to be fixed to be more fair to newer teams.

 

[ninjadog]

I think the main event should be increased to at least 20 teams (and from there relegation could be 4 slots), and then maybe playoffs are 1-6 in and then 7-10 uses a play-in system or something like that for the last two spots. There’s definitely enough decent teams to expand the field though.

I heavily disagree with expanding relegation if you’re going to keep it at 16 teams, with the main reason being I think it’s really good that teams still have something to play for once they’re unlikely to make playoffs, both from a competitive point of view in that they won’t give up and from a spectators standpoint it makes the games more interesting, for example on the last day jyt vs ninp with Canada at 8-14 and South 10-13 was an important game when literally no one would care if you were relegating half the teams.

 

[SANJAY]

im ngl w you i couldn't care less about the exact format and what happens to it but i do feel strongly about some things. just to add on to my prev post a bit and echoing stuff i said in the op as a general sentiment not aimed at anything above

• look at any serious playoff based league. absolutely none of them have a competitive group stage. but ppl still watch them. the goal of group stages really should be inclusivity not competiveness. competitiveness should be reserved for the knockouts.
• ppl are underestimating how much opening up qualifiers/round 1 to every single eligible team would do for tournament growth which has otherwise been pretty stagnant. it gives inexperienced ppl playing for countries like south korea a chance to play actually component ppl rather than cumshotcresselia354 on the ladder. and obvs this is rlly gonna improve them, or even give spl n them managers a chance to scout new ppl. so i really really think the format should be as inclusive as it possibly can hence why personally im against only a 24 team expansion. i think everyone should have a shot.
• co-efficients should 100% be used to reward teams on past performances in at least some metric. so even when teams feel like they're out or have nothing to play for a few extra wins can help give them more favoruable runs next yr. also it means the top 16 will 100% be stacked and competitive like how a top 16 should be.
• and finally, i think expansion is completely pointless if each team is still only gonna have 24 games. there being a 2 point gap between being relegated and potentially having a chance to win the tour is not something that should be happening. there's too much varaince in a game like pokemon for 24 games to be able to determine a teams season. if there's more games less likely any hax involved will end up having such a significant impact on ur season. even w more games you'll still be playing less games than spl/scl in total so

 

[Reymedy]

I guess by competitive people mean "close" and view it as a good thing. However this isn't a goal nor is it something tournaments should be trying to reach..
The goal of a competition is to offer a structure where the participants can be ranked accurately, with regards to their respective level. The Olympics don't make it harder for one country over another to compete. If Usain Bolt was Japanese, he theorically would have to do the same "work" in the tournament to win his Gold medal, it's not harder because Japanese runners are less good than Jamaican runners historically (I think they are at least, don't quote me on that ).

I don't think it's fair to have a structure where so much "extra" is put on teams having to qualify. Ideally, if there are 60 teams willing to represent a country in this tournament, there should be a tournament structure to accomodate for 60 teams fairly. That's what tournaments are designed to do, they accomodate for the playing field, not the other way around.

In truth, what Smogon did with the WCup as it stands, is that the community created two playoffs... a first one reached by either qualifying or avoiding the last spots of the last year... and a second one reached by getting in the top 8.

It's just like if one day for OST we thought "oh actually, it's much more competitive at 256 entrants ! so let's make a qualifying round for every 257+ ranked entrant !". I don't think people would find it very fair when you take the tournament in a vacuum.


I'm in favor of :

- Creating a flexible tournament, a tournament which will either be 20, 24, 28, 32 etc. depending on the number of teams who signed up, just keep it a multiple of 4 if that's the ideal amount of players in each group​

- Put in place a way of ranking teams, just like SANJAY proposed with a coefficient or whatever people like best. I have a feeling most people would stick to the # of wins across the past Wcops, I'd rather be in favor of creating a point system based on the rankings within each Wcop group (having a player be #1 in their group awards X amount of points for their team, having a player be #2 in their group awards Y amount of points for their team etc.) as it makes for a deeper point system which is very beneficial to the accuracy of a ranking (you don't want to have 15 teams within 2 wins of each other), have it integrate at least several Wcups to avoid as much as possible having too many teams at 0 points (but do give a higher value to the most recent iteration of the tournament)​

- The last teams fight for the last spots. Say you have 35 teams signing up, you will have a 32 teams Wcop and 3 teams won't make the cut. If teams are ex-aequo, then they all have to qualify.​

- Once all the teams are known, have the teams be split in 4 tiers depending on their coefficient rankings. Guarantee one player of each tier in every single group (just like the real football WCup), keep mixing up the countries like we do currently (Country A faces Country B as much as they face Country C etc.), this should help ranking accurately each team's performance (more homogeneousness across the groups, less homogeneousness withing the groups, ie: less groups of death or groups much weaker/stronger than others)​

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That's it, keep the 8 teams playoffs if that's what people deem best, but I think it'd be interesting to explore the idea of expanding it to 16 if the size of the tournament warrants it (say a 32+ teams Wcop takes place).​

I see nothing wrong in being flexible in the # of teams, this isn't SPL afterall, it's a team tournament that should be approached like we approach individual tournaments since there is no barrier to entry and the # of teams varies from one year to another. I have yet to see an argument for an inflexible # of participants.​

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[Genesis7]

My thoughts here are that a win/loss differential threshold should be used for relegation, rather than standings. Around a -6 w/l differential should show that the team clearly struggled in the tournament. But it could be higher than that, just obviously does not make sense for a 10-14 team to have to play for relegation, when 12-12 is a playoff tiebreak.

On the topic of a coefficient for "historic teams", I think this makes little sense. Many players retiring or getting banned in the off-season will result in a much poorer team, and the quality of a roster can fluctuate heavily from year to year. This is more apparent with teams with smaller playerbases, such as UK, Greece, Oceania, etc. If the team in 2023 is bad enough to be at the bottom, why should they get special treatment just because they were successful in the past. If they are truly better in 2024 they should have no worries getting into the tournament through qualifiers, see US South and France winning the whole tournament out of qualifiers in previous iterations. Just because a team was once good does not mean it will stay good, and similarly, a bad team can get much better. Making the tournament solely through play makes the most sense, and I believe the system in place for qualifiers is solid.