Doubles Premier League: Tier Discussion

[Hashtag]

Approved by the dudes

Hey guys heres a thread for the one question i excluded from last night's FAQ section

4. What tiers are there!!

No singles! :D :D!
Oh also thats the other thing this thread is for. Right now the precedence is that there will be 2 dou, 1 dubers, 1 duu, and one bw doubles; but maybe you think some of those tiers are shit! Maybe you think vgc needs a spot! Maybe you think the public is finally ready for LC gen 3 Doubles (i already have your name down for that one, dw kami)! I don't know what you want so like discuss what tiers you want to see in this thread!

there will be either 5 or 7 tiers total, and im not probably repeating any that aren't dou, so let me know what you want to see, and what you don't want to see. Cheers!

 

[Arcticblast]

OU / OU / BW / BW / VGC 201X is my preference, replace a BW with Ubers if vgc2016

I feel like UU is too unknown for people to really do much with it, which hurts team integrity

 

[Lolk]

My vote is for dou dou dou vgc vgc bw bw or just dou dou dou vgc bw

Duubers and Duu would take away some of the tour's integrity imo

 

[Stratos]

EVEN NUMBER OR RIOT. ties are a good thing for SPL. it always makes the playoff race a lot tighter when teams can tie

e: personal preferred lineup is DOU DOU DOU DUU BW BW

 

[Tymano]

Im going with dou / dou / dou / bw / duu / vgc 2016 /

DUbers would take away from the tour's integrity, but I don't really think DUU would since it has enough of a playerbase.

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

4 DOU
2 DUU
1 Duber
1 weekly wildcard (nu, bw, monotype, stabmon, vgc16, ect)

 

[qsns]

would prefer to see 3 dou / duu / bw / vgc or xy doubles. agreeing that ties are a good thing, spl woulda been hella lame if everyone was eliminated by week 6.

 

[Lolk]

And some actual discussion:

I think VGC would fit well into this tourney for a couple reasons. Firstly, Stratos couldn't bitch about VGC players taking DOU slots. Second, I learned a lot from watching the how the VGC players approached and played SPL and the benefits from working together on one team would drastically increase the level of play for this tournament. Thirdly, more tiers makes the tour more entertaining (while still keeping out DUU and DUbers, which aren't well-founded).

Also I don't really have a preference with odd vs even matches, but including more players (like 6 or 7) adds an extra layer of skill to the managing game as well as increased teamwork requirements.

 

[AuraRayquaza]

2 dou 2 bw 1 uu 1 xy would be my vote.

 

[Idyll]

I propose that we should do the following tier line-up:

DOU / DOU / DOU / BW / BW / DUU (while typing: beaten by Stratos but I don't care)

Look, it only makes sense that DPL showcases the talents of players in our most standard tier, DOU. Standard DOU is the metagame that literally EVERYONE of us can play competitively. There's a lot of us DOU players out there, so it only makes sense that we let as much players as possible play.

Now, we can't exactly just make this tour with DOU alone; we have to diversify a bit. Here comes BW. Now, BW is a good choice for a metagame not only because it has differing mechanics and environments but also because we have a good number of players that are readily competent at BW. A good portion of current Doubles players also played back in BW, and some players who didn't make it back then (such as myself) also have already played it a decent amount, meaning it won't be hard to find two players for it. Besides, it's fun!

Now, 5 is a bit tad too low and having an odd number of tiers blows (I'll explain later), so enter DUU. DUU, as it stands, is different and sane enough to play and has enough of a following for teams to actually have players in it. From the rest of the tiers available, it's easily the one where we can get a competitive metagame and playerbase while at least making sense with Smogon tiering standards (it was called Smogon Doubles Premier League before) (go away VGC).

"But Memo, teams can tie!!!" Well that's intentional. To paraphrase shake from an actual SPL thread in IS: "Ties are what make this tournament as close and interesting as it is. Without them, playoffs would be decided a lot earlier and the tournament would be less intense during the final weeks."

Now, you heard me make a case for why these tiers! It's time for me to lambast what we should not:

• DUbers: It's a really bad tier without much sense of balance. You guys are already saying it: it'd just ruin the tour's integrity. There's not much competitive value.
• VGC: It's pretty similar to DUbers except it's not even a Smogon tier lol. Go back to Nuggetbridge fam.
• Monotype: No one relevant plays this and being a gimmicky OM means players of this tier can be a bit distant with their teammates kinda.
• DLC: As much as I like Doubles LC, it doesn't have a playerbase and Speed ties is a bitch. It's not really that competitive and teambuilding for it can be a bit technical.

 

[kaori]

Would like to see DOU / DOU / DOU / BW / BW / VGC Anything but 16

vgc 16 sucks ass lets not do that but I think 2015 or 2014 would both be fine choices n_n could just do "battle spot doubles" which is basically vgc 15 but yeah

 

[Stratos]

i agree lolk, i love seeing how vgc players played DOU in SPL and sam's seasonal teams versus me were cool too. Emphasis on played DOU. if i want to see VGCers play VGC i can watch a regional stream. Let's keep the DOU-based formats for DPL. Otherwise each team will just draft a VGCer and then not interact w/ them and they play once a week and nobody cares

if u dont want to repeat tiers then instead of 2 BW the next best option is XY (as in 2014) DOU imho fam

 

[Idyll]

Oh and btw, a Wildcard slot is terrible and shouldn't even considered.

Like, lolno fam

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

Why is bw instantly popular choice for meta as soon as this tour comes around?
Duu is much more popular than bw has been over the past year.

No one plays bw. If you were to include it twice then team managers definitely have to draft long time player who were around for that.
This tour should be representative of the current doubles community - Duu our second most popular, bw old nostalgic people trying to revive a dead game.

 

[Stratos]

bw is fun as fuck and ppl like qsns who werent even around for it are actually quite good at it. stop trying to push this "current doubles community" line like just cuz we're old we're irrelevant unless you want me to mop the floor w/ u using mega pidgeot again. by contrast, duu has like xzern and n10sit who play it and of those two id only draft n10sit

 

[Idyll]

Why is bw instantly popular choice for meta as soon as this tour comes around?
Duu is much more popular than bw has been over the past year.

No one plays bw. If you were to include it twice then team managers definitely have to draft long time player who were around for that.
This tour should be representative of the current doubles community - Duu our second most popular, bw old nostalgic people trying to revive a dead game.

ah, Stratos, Arcticblast, BLOOD TOTEM, AuraRayquaza, Level 51, clearly old retired vets that might be too rusty to play BW.

On a serious note, BW has been much more relevant than DUU ever has, considering it has been a main metagame of its own. A good number of people have actually played that meta, and being a historical tier a good number of modern players have tried it out and enjoyed it as well, including afaik qsns and I. DUU has never been able to grasp as much as a number when it comes to playerbase, much less a competitive playerbase.

 

[miltankmilk]

As a new player to the community, I'd much rather play a tier that used to be super popular than one that never has or will be popular. BW>DUU

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/doubles-uu-post-124-for-drops-rises.3542755/

We have quite a good amount of people who are really interested in duu evidenced by this thread. Also I have battled many more people than n10 and zxern. It's more popular than you think.

I just don't see any discuss or anyone playing bw ever.

I guess bw is more popular than I thought but dont think we should have more than 1 bw per team and I think we could easily have enough sign-ups for 2 DUU per team

Edit my suggestion :

4 DOU
2 DUU
1 BW
1 weekly wildcard (will make a case for it later)

 

[clius]

probably 3 DOU / 1 DUU / 1 Dubers(instead of VGC2016) / BW

more DOU than anything so other tiers don't damage "integrity" as much
BW needs to be there or else we're forgetting about our roots, but 2 BW might be too much, considering there is only 3 DOU and that would make BW too influential on wins.
Opposing Arcticblast, DUU isn't too well known, but that means that players will be more creative in the teambuilding process, which is always a beautiful thing to see. And just because its an "unknown" tier doesn't mean that the best battler won't win given enough preperation. Plus we've had multiple mini-tours, and a ladder, and a teambuilding thread, so there are resources for those that are lost.
Dubers over VGC16 since this is DPL. I don't enjoy this tier too much but I'm sure there are many that do/will fight for it.
e: okay why all the hate for DUU? if anything Dubers is less relevant of a meta. I know n1n1 made it a war between BW and DUU but in this case:

 

[KyleCole]

I think that making the tournament have as many tiers as possible is for the best, if you want a DOU only tournament (like 4 dou slots really?) then just play a seasonal. One of the main points of DPL (I feel at least) is that you showcase a number of different Doubles metas, so here are my thoughts on each:

DOU - obviously yes, I think 2 DOU slots is a good number - that gets 12 people playing each week, if we bump it up to 18 players (3 slots on 6 teams) I think the overall quality suffers a bit, and 4 is ridiculous.

BW - again obviously yes, I am hugely against repeats of any tier that isn't ORAS DOU though. It isn't the current meta and while it certainly deserves representation let's not pretend the BW players are coming out in droves during the year any more than DUU or Dubers players.

XY - I would like to see XY represented, pre or post pokebank doesn't matter much to me (though I would prefer post) but this chapter in DOU history deserves a spot in some form or another.

VGC16 - Doubtful. The only good VGC players who will sign up are (I suspect) not interested in playing the tier, they're joining doubles tours to play doubles. If they wanted to play even more VGC16 they wouldn't be here. I would only want to include VGC16 as a last option to bump up the tier count to an even number, and honestly would prefer Dubers in that situation.

DUU - Yes, DUU is not nearly as empty or "unexplored" as people seem to think. I played DUU last year and had a lot of fun, and the tournament doesn't "suffer" at all by having it. If you look at the DUU thread you'll see that there are certainly more than 6 people interested in playing the tier who have a good amount of experience in it.

Dubers - Doubtful, unlike DUU I don't feel like the playerbase or interest exists, but it would be a good way to get some of the Ubers community involved like last year. That being said, to bring the tier count up to 6 Dubers is a good option.

Gen 4 - Doubtful. Unplayed, and only available as a custom game. I guess some Gen 4 singles players would somewhat know how to play but I don't think the overall quality would be there, and that's assuming we could even get 6 people.

Monotype/Wildcard - F no

FWIW I also think that we should really try to have no less than 4 different tiers represented in DPL no matter which ones are picked up.

 

[Hashtag]

just gonna weigh in with my opinions at the moment.

after reading stratos's post on interaction with the vgc players im thinking its a bad idea to include vgc. its best to keep it a smogon doubles centered tournament.

i am not sure yet on duu, so if you would like to play it you have to post here to help your case because im not sure yet.

xy prebank sounds interesting and i'd like to gauge interest on that as well

even number sounds good to me, there will be 6 slots.

obviously bw will be included, you dont have to worry about that, but i can be convinced to make it 2 bw if people show interest

my opinion on dubers is honestly that its pretty bad so im kind of standing with kyle for the moment.

i would sooner do 3 dou than add dubers i think

 

[BlueSkiddo]

DOU / DOU / DOU / DUU / XY / BW

1. 3 DOU slots seems like a good choice to me so that a decent number of people get a chance to play and show off what they're worth.
2. DUU is a decently played metagame and I'm pretty sure people can pick it up relatively easily if needed. It would just take a bit of effort to get used to using some lower tier mons. I'd be very interested in seeing this played.
3. I wasn't around for XY or BW but there are plenty of players still active who were so it seems to that these would be the most obvious choices for old gens. I'd like to see ADV played, but there's not really a player base for that.

This lineup represents plenty of different metas, gives lots of players the opportunity to play as opposed to having 2 DOU slots, and is just a generally well rounded lineup with a wide enough player base for each option. Also there's no reason to include VGC because I'm pretty sure the VGC players showed they were more than competent enough to play doubles this SPL (They went 13-6 versus DOU players).

 

[Idyll]

I'm p sure the majority of the people right now would be fine with DOU / DOU / DOU / DUU / BW / x which is cool. The only thing we have to deal with is what x is supposed to be.

It definitely shouldn't be XY, however.

Post-Pokebank XY isn't really that much different from ORAS. Aside from the inclusion of Mega Diancie, Mega Metagross, Hoopa-U, and Skymin's ban, there's not much of a substantial difference metagame-wise; one could still use your average run-of-the-mill Kanga + friends team and then call it a day. The only real difference is the usability of bulky Flying-types because Mega Diancie didn't exist then, but that alone isn't really worth dedicating an entire slot for. ORAS is just p much a continuation of XY since there's not much difference.

Pre-Pokebank XY is just lolno. We can't really form anything competitive out of that due to it being really dated. Making a tournament metagame out of it now would be heavily impractical since it's an irrelevant metagame. There's also the concern of properly enforcing legalities; I'm not sure if we have the means to do that.

 

[CorruptedOmega]

Personally I'd love to see DUbers in the line up, cause maybe then there'd actually be a player base. It's far less explored than most people think.

I'd be hesitant to include DUU since every time usage stats are released it's like you're playing a whole new metagame. I'd probably be fine with its inclusion or exclusion either way (also, why tf is Mega Metagross legal).

vgc wait what lol no bye

 

[Nuxl]

dou dou duu bw dpp adv!!! c:

those are what seems the most fun from a spec point of view but probably

dou x4 bw duu