Eighth Gym Tourney Discussion

Hey guys.

As you've probably seen, the Eighth Gym Tourney has come to a close (about two weeks over-draft, but when was the last time a tournament ever finished on time anyway). This thread is to get your opinions on what went down in this tournament - what you liked, what you didn't, and etc. Please don't say things like "oh I got matched up against Ash, unfair battle" because that can't be helped. We all draw the short stick sometimes. Below is the method that I use to determine type-neutral rounds, just in case anyone want to examine me for bias:

First step, mark down the type of every gym leader attending, noting multiple type entrants like so:

Poison
Water x3
Fire x2
Electric
Normal

Second step, order them using random dice rolls.

Electric
Fire x2
Water x3
Poison
Normal

Third step, pick the type with the most recurring leaders closest to the top and match them with the first type they are neutral with. So, in this situation, Water is selected and the first type it is neutral with is also Water. The list now looks like:

Electric
Fire x2
Water
Poison
Normal

Water v Water

The next type picked would be Fire and Electric would be selected to vs it. This repeats until there are no more types. It's not perfect but it's pretty good, and I only have to juggle a couple battles this entire tourney. Once the matchups are determined, I roll who actually fights who. This was witnessed by a few people for the first and second rounds, I don't remember who though.

Anyway, the other big concern I've had a few people come to me about is the inclusion of the Orange Island gyms. Most of these gyms do not have monotype teams, which gives them an arguable advantage. There was a huge shitstorm about this last year, so this year I decided to do the tourney first and then ask what people thought. Here are a couple of reasons against OI gyms that I've heard:

- OI gyms have a noticeably increased win-rate in the Gym Tourneys.

- All the OI gym leaders have normal Gyms to battle with anyway.

- It's categorically unfair to have multitype teams running around in what is 95% a monotype tourney.

Here are my opinions on the matter:

- Personally, I believe the increased win-rate is because the OI Leaders are all really good battlers. Even if we locked out OI gyms, I'd still expect to see TED and WTP and FD do really well.

- These Gym Leaders hold the Gyms and battle with them, so it's unfair to exclude them just by the way their gym mechanics work.

- Multitype teams might have a slight edge, but I believe no more so than the Flying or Water or Dragon gyms that are packed full of really powerful stuff.

- Having multitype teams in the tourney roster makes it a lot easier for me to organise type-neutral rounds as they act like wildcards. For example, without multitype teams the first round is always guaranteed to have a Steel v Steel match.

Here are some possible solutions to this potential problem that have been suggested to me:

1) Suck it up, guys.

2) Force OI Leaders to battle with their regular gyms if they have them.

3) Ban OI Gyms outright.

4) Limit the OI lineup to 12 Pokemon like everyone else.

Personally, I prefer number 4, because while I don't believe OI lineups are a huge problem (hell, I nearly took down TED) I don't think they should have a larger pool of Pokemon than anyone else.

Now, after that massive wall of text, what do all of you guys think?

-Chainy

I never ended up battling TED because I failed to show for our scheduled battle, but i do have input for OI/multitype gyms.

I feel OI should be broken up, for more reasons than just the gym tourney. They were originally created (as far as I know) so that there were more gyms back when Gen 1 was a thing. Now that we have Gyms through five and soon to be six generations, OI gyms are nothing more than a gimmick, and a bad joke to more than some people. As for the gym tourney, they're all (except Mikan) gyms that have access to a variety of types, and there's no getting around the fact that they offer an unfair advantage, and also that they kind of crap on the idea of the gym tourney where single-type teams battle each other. I don't feel like too many people would disagree with killing OI off, and that speaks volumes.

As for Striaton, I would like to see it as a gym where people apply with one of three types: Grass, Fire, or Water. Each of the three Striaton Gym Leaders only have one type, there's just three of them. Since it's impractical to have three Gym Leaders for one Gym in URPG, have one Gym Leader with their pick of any one of those three types. Problem solved.

Feels kind of like I went beyond gym tourney context, but I like my ideas so what does everyone else think?

I feel Orange Islands should sign up with a 6 Mon Team from their line-up at the beginning. Similarly, I think they should use their mono-Gym first.

I'm not too fussed with OI gyms, but I kinda agree with Nitro in that they've become a bit of a gimmick - mainly because we had to allow owning multiple gyms just to get them filled. I think their battle rules are interesting enough to keep around, but I do think they should sign up with a lineup of 12 like everybody else when entering in tournaments like this. I think the win rate is more because the leaders are great battlers, not because they have a varied line up. After all, the rest of us regular gym leaders fight other people for badges when they use multiple types all the time, so what's the difference?

That being said, to keep the spirit of all-out gym battles against each other, I think the first round should also be 6v6, like the rest. This takes more time than a 4v4, but can you really tell who's the better battler when you only select 1/3 of your lineup? (especially when paired with a multitype). I think a 4v4 makes it more of a 'you need to predict/guess the right mons' rather than a 'you need to battle well' sort of thing. The whole battle can hinge on just one mon in 4v4, whereas you have a little more wiggle room in 6v6.

I think the way you determine who fights who is fair, since it plays down type advantages. You could make OI leaders sign-up with their normal gym first - but then there are going to be more horrible match-ups, like you said, Steel Vs. Steel. I think they should just pick their 12 (and some of them only have 12 anyway) and call it good.

Uh the tournament was perfectly balanced as it was. Try playing better instead of blaming 'unfairness'.

As much as I can see the benefit of preventing type matchups, in a sense it also rigs the battles, limiting who you could potentially have to fight.

An electric gym would potentially never come up against a highly skilled battler like Ash K who could (I'm not saying definitely) win anyway, and might instead only have to fight "easier" opponents without any type advantage. While type-wise the match-ups are fairer, it's still debatable skill-wise.

As for OI gyms, Ive never seen the problem with allowing them their own varied line-ups. It's much more difficult for them to take advantage of weather conditions and more than likely only have one Pokemon that acts as a valid counter to your type. For example, if I manage to take down a Starmie or something, the rest of their line-up is a lot less likely to cause me problems, instead of also having to fight a Kingdra and a whole bunch of other waters.

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Originally Posted by Pidge

Uh the tournament was perfectly balanced as it was. Try playing better instead of blaming 'unfairness'.

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You could say this tournament was balanced in that the better battler came out the winner most/all of the time. But still, multitype gyms are undoubtedly an avantage. If you can fix it, why wouldn't you?

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Originally Posted by Nitro

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Originally Posted by Pidge

Uh the tournament was perfectly balanced as it was. Try playing better instead of blaming 'unfairness'.

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You could say this tournament was balanced in that the better battler came out the winner most/all of the time. But still, multitype gyms are undoubtedly an avantage. If you can fix it, why wouldn't you?

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Explain how they have an advantage. I don't see it at all and never have. How could a monotype tournament where people can only represent certain types possibly be unbalanced, especially with a few multitypes introduced to mix things up? Surely if something was flawed someone would have said something about it before and listened?

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Originally Posted by Pidge

Explain how they have an advantage. I don't see it at all and never have. How could a monotype tournament where people can only represent certain types possibly be unbalanced, especially with a few multitypes introduced to mix things up? Surely if something was flawed someone would have said something about it before and listened?

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The multitype gyms have the advantage because they have access to a wider typing of moves. That's flexibility monotype gyms don't have as ready access to, and flexibility in what you are able to choose from for your battle lineup is great long-term through multiple tournament rounds with different opponents. As for individual battles, you can see the flexibility in having a wider variety of options to turn to when you want/need to switch out.

Not just that, but monotype gyms, being limited to one type, have to pick Pokemon from exclusively that type, meaning they have to reach deeper to fill out their roster. Multitype gyms have lineups spread out over different types, meaning they can and usually will pick out a top-tier Pokemon from each type. A roster made up of top-tier Pokemon of multiple types will be much stronger in general than one that is limited to the top-tier Pokemon of one type, and then some random niche Pokes from the rest of the type.

As for no one having brought it up earlier, well, I don't really worry about the past. What happened or didn't ended up that way, and we're having this discussion now because it didn't happen before. We're having this discussion so that we can explore this.

The only thing I really had a problem with was how neutral-matchups were rolled in every round. I can just about understand it for the first round, but from then on, it should be a luck of the draw. People have won in "disadvantaged" matchups before.

I also agree about the type match-up thing. If you have to face a type you're at a disadvantage against, it means you'll need to think some more in the battle, and that could make it more fun. A water-gym can beat a grass-gym, a flying-gym can beat an electric-gym, ect. And if we had actually done our battle, you with fighting could have beaten my flying for all you know.

I wouldn't say that OI have that great an advantage against a monotype, but I look at it like this. When you challenge a gym, do you only use one type of Pokemon? When people battle gyms they draw across all the types to win, not just one type. That is my reasoning behind going away with OI.

Pidge is righto about multitype gyms not having an advantage.

All the OI multitype teams are designed to battle OTHER multitype teams, not any one type. For instance, I don't know many gyms I would challenge using only mons from my Navel lineup. When you challenge a monotype gym you use mons that are gonna have an advantage over that type, and not all the multitype gyms have a check for each type. I thought they were kinda OP for gym tourney for awhile too, until I became leader of one. Also type is just KINDA factored into it 90% of the time. Like, the best battler is p. much always gonna win, regardless of type. Remember when Kai beat my Water gym with Cinnabar?

To add to this, I give a scenario. If I'm battling an Electric gym for example in a 4v4 or w/ever, I have to pick the 4 best mons to use against Electric. I only have one mon with a straight up type advantage, and only like 2 others that would be considered good vs Electric. After that I'm scrounging to find stuff to use, and end up just picking the least retarded option. Same goes for Water/Flying/Ground etc. The only types that multitype would have an obvious advantage over would be like Grass and the other weaker types that everyone beats most of the time anyway.

I don't really care, I liked the Tourney. The Rock type is pretty much screwed either way. GO PEWTER!

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Originally Posted by Nitro

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Originally Posted by Pidge

Explain how they have an advantage. I don't see it at all and never have. How could a monotype tournament where people can only represent certain types possibly be unbalanced, especially with a few multitypes introduced to mix things up? Surely if something was flawed someone would have said something about it before and listened?

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The multitype gyms have the advantage because they have access to a wider typing of moves. That's flexibility monotype gyms don't have as ready access to, and flexibility in what you are able to choose from for your battle lineup is great long-term through multiple tournament rounds with different opponents. As for individual battles, you can see the flexibility in having a wider variety of options to turn to when you want/need to switch out.

Not just that, but monotype gyms, being limited to one type, have to pick Pokemon from exclusively that type, meaning they have to reach deeper to fill out their roster. Multitype gyms have lineups spread out over different types, meaning they can and usually will pick out a top-tier Pokemon from each type. A roster made up of top-tier Pokemon of multiple types will be much stronger in general than one that is limited to the top-tier Pokemon of one type, and then some random niche Pokes from the rest of the type.

As for no one having brought it up earlier, well, I don't really worry about the past. What happened or didn't ended up that way, and we're having this discussion now because it didn't happen before. We're having this discussion so that we can explore this.

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How does having a wider typing of moves help? Machamp can own everything with Dynamicpunch and Payback. Serperior can own everything with Leaf Storm. I only need 1-3 moves with most of my Pokemon. I think actually having more type of moves would be a disadvantage because what about things like Sleep Talk? Also you can get caught up and confused try to use some fancy move, when in fact all you needed to do was spam your STAB move.

Also, there's no such thing as top-tier Pokemon. Drapion can beat Blaziken just by using Earthquake (again, you only need 1-2 moves). Klinklang can beat Starmie with Shift Gear and Wild Charge.

If you wanted to explore, I think you should have been a Pokemon paleontologist, instead of a Pokemon forum poster.