Pokemon League Announcement

[Emerson]

Hello, this is an extension of a discussion and announcement post I had in the SF Discord. I'm currently attempting to create a Pokemon League, inspired by that of Galar's within the Pokemon Universe.

I would like to start this off by saying that, for now, all battles will be done within Pokemon Showdown in order to preserve accessibility to newcomers, as well as allow for more freedom of Battle Formats. I apologize to anyone adverse to the website, however limiting the entire process to Sword and Shield would be both limiting the players who can participate (requiring both the game, and NSO to battle online, as well as ease of access to creating teams) and the formats capable of being used for battles.

The League itself will feature 2 Divisions, Minor and Major, each having 4 Leaders, and a Champion. 4 Leaders must be defeated in order to qualify for the Finals Tournament, where the top 50% of players will move forward to the Majors division, and the cycle repeats.
Whoever takes First Place in the tournament will face the Division Champion where should they be victorious, the Minors Division winner is allowed to proceed directly to the Majors Tournament without being required to face the 4 Majors Leaders, while winning against the Majors Champion will crown you the new Champion of the League, although you may decline the chance if you wish to.
Majors Champions will persist throughout the seasons, but may step down should they wish to. Their title will also be revoked should they become inactive.

Gym Leaders will be elected through a Tournament at the start of the Season. In a standard Placement Tournament, 1st-4th will become the Majors Leaders, 5th will become the Minors Champion, and 6th-9th will become the Minors Leaders.
The elected Leaders will have freedom to use whatever ruleset or other stipulations they wish with their Gym Battles, whether it be a simple battle with a pre-existing format, or something more creative. They may also be creative with the themeing of their team, and are not specifically locked to a single type unless they so choose.
Should a Leader retire while on duty (before the Placement Tournament), or become inactive unannounced for a period longer than a week, a new Leader will be elected to take their place. A Leader who requests to leave may choose their replacement. Should the Leader leave unannounced, or not have a replacement in mind, the other Leaders will choose a replacement. The new Leader is required to maintain the previous Leader's format for their Gym Challenge.
Also, Gym Leaders will be allowed to automatically enter their division's Finals Tournament with no team restrictions, and Minors Leaders who place within the top 50% within the Minors Finals tournament will be automatically accepted to the Majors Finals Tournament.

Currently, we are planning to begin the first Leader Placement Tournament before the end of the month. Anyone who wishes to may join, however I ask you keep the above in mind and make sure you are capable of holding that commitment. 
If you are not able to become a Leader, you are completely free to join our Discord server anyways and wait to join in with the less committal Gym Challenge phase, but please make sure you let me know your intentions in regards to this.
This Tournament will be held on Showdown using the National Dex OU format, with a small catch. Each Player must choose two types to limit themselves to within the tournament. The Pokemon on their team must be either just one of the types, or both. Using Pokemon of both picked types not required. If you would like a comparison, this format is very similar to standard Monotype, but using 2 Types. This was chosen over standard Monotype in order to allow for more freedom of Team Building, and over standard OU in order to keep in with the Gym Leader theme. This Format will not be guaranteed to become the standard for the Placement Tournaments. We are still in a learning process at the moment.
The tournament will be held with a standard Bracket format, and will be completely scheduled. While we are flexible, repeatedly missing the appointed time will result in disqualification unless discussed with both me and your opponent beforehand. 
I'd also like to make sure this is clear. You are not required to stick with the same team the entire tournament. You may change your team in-between rounds, although your chosen type may not be altered.

I would like to conclude this by stating that any and all parts of this post are subject to change. I will repeat, we are still in a very large learning process with the formation of this League. If you have any questions or concerns in any regard, please let me know.

Discord Link: 
https://discord.gg/nqVVgzc

Edited May 17, 2020 by Emerson

[Integrity]

i authorize it

 

[PeaceRibbon]

This looks interesting and you have my attention. 

I've actually never been into competitive battling before though, so what's National Dex OU mean? How does it impact team building?

Edited May 17, 2020 by PeaceRibbon

[Emerson]

5 hours ago, PeaceRibbon said:

This looks interesting and you have my attention. 

I've actually never been into competitive battling before though, so what's National Dex OU mean? How does it impact team building?

National Dex OU is a Generation 8 game-incompatable format on Showdown that allows usage of every Pokemon, even those unavailable in Sword and Shield at the moment. It also allows for usage of Mega Evolutions, Z-Moves, and Dynamax/Gigantamax all within the same team, although Pokemon may not be able to do more than 1 at once.

The idea of the format is to have a Sword and Shield format that includes the ability to transfer in any Pokemon through Home into Generation 8, and also include battle gimmicks and removed moves previously available in Generation 7, while also retaining any changes Generation 8 has made to stats, moves, abilities, and items.
The available Pokemon include everything accessible in Generation 7 plus everything accessible in Generation 8, however with some Pokemon and Abilities/Moves deemed to be too powerful for the tier either relegated to another meta called National Dex AG (Anything Goes). This includes, but is not limited to, the majority of Box Legendary Pokemon, many Mythical Pokemon, the Abilities Shadow Tag, Arena Trap, and Moody, Baton Pass, both Regular and Mega Blaziken, and Galarian Darmanitan. If you'd like an explanation of any of these bannings, I'd be happy to give them.

There are some finer stipulations, most of those being standard to all Smogon formats, but that's the general gist of it.
If you want to read them yourself, here's a link to it: 
Format mechanics: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-mechanics-thread.3656786/
Banlist and other Format Rules: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-metagame-discussion.3656899/

Now to speak frankly, we are mostly just using this format so we can have access to greater variety in regards to available Pokemon, since our house rule for this initial tournament is having every team be Dual-Monotype, like I said in the OP.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Emerson

[PeaceRibbon]

24 minutes ago, Emerson said:

National Dex OU is a Generation 8 game-incompatable format on Showdown that allows usage of every Pokemon, even those unavailable in Sword and Shield at the moment. It also allows for usage of Mega Evolutions, Z-Moves, and Dynamax/Gigantamax all within the same team, although Pokemon may not be able to do more than 1 at once.

The idea of the format is to have a Sword and Shield format that includes the ability to transfer in any Pokemon through Home into Generation 8, and also include battle gimmicks and removed moves previously available in Generation 7, while also retaining any changes Generation 8 has made to stats, moves, abilities, and items.
The available Pokemon include everything accessible in Generation 7 plus everything accessible in Generation 8, however with some Pokemon and Abilities/Moves deemed to be too powerful for the tier either relegated to another meta called National Dex AG (Anything Goes). This includes, but is not limited to, the majority of Box Legendary Pokemon, many Mythical Pokemon, the Abilities Shadow Tag, Arena Trap, and Moody, Baton Pass, both Regular and Mega Blaziken, and Galarian Darmanitan. If you'd like an explanation of any of these bannings, I'd be happy to give them.

There are some finer stipulations, most of those being standard to all Smogon formats, but that's the general gist of it.
If you want to read them yourself, here's a link to it: 
Format mechanics: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-mechanics-thread.3656786/
Banlist and other Format Rules: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/national-dex-metagame-discussion.3656899/

Now to speak frankly, we are mostly just using this format so we can have access to greater variety in regards to available Pokemon, since our house rule for this initial tournament is having every team be Dual-Monotype, like I said in the OP.

Thank you so much for the links! One last question in regards to the tourney, is Dual mono-type as described create teams made up of pokemon with at least one of the types or at most both of the types? I was ruminating on the format and thought about how tricky it would be to run flying outside  of normal/flying types if the latter was the case. 😛

[Emerson]

1 hour ago, PeaceRibbon said:

Thank you so much for the links! One last question in regards to the tourney, is Dual mono-type as described create teams made up of pokemon with at least one of the types or at most both of the types? I was ruminating on the format and thought about how tricky it would be to run flying outside  of normal/flying types if the latter was the case. 😛

The Pokemon on the team only need to be at least one of the types, and no requirements to use a Pokemon of both types.