Gym Tournament 2014 - Round Two

In response to Elysia:

With respect, it's not. As I've pointed out repeatedly, I never disqualified anyone. I attempted to explain my position and requested more information, which I have now received.

As I said, my activity is shit. I have spent maybe half an hour on AIM over the past four months. As far as I am concerned, the fact that a topic is prevalent on AIM has nothing to do with whether or not I should hear it, especially considering I usually have most of the group chats offed anyway. If I am expected to know something, it should be told to me.

Extremely valid point. I wasn't sure if I should host this year tbh, but I did because no one else seemed super keen and I do love me some tradition.

Yeah, that place was the Private Messaging system. Ataro contacted me with some information, there was no "discussion" per se.

In response to Felly:

I've already pointed out that it is the competitors' job to approach me when there are issues. I will happily accept blame for many of the happenings here, but the timing is not one of them.

To be honest, I don't particularly like it either, but as Ataro said in his most recent post, that's the spirit of the dice. He happened to win a bye in the first round, and now there have been timezone issues.

In response to Ataro:

I absolutely refuse to post any PMs sent between the two of us (or any two people, for that matter) because of the gross invasion of privacy that would entail, short of an order from HKim or Monbrey.

~~~Final thoughts~~~

There are two lessons that I, personally, will be taking away from this. Firstly, no one is perfect. All three of us have made their mistakes during these events. They don't bear going into, but no one is innocent.

Secondly, if there are problems with tournament opponents getting into contact with each other, please contact the tournament host in addition to your opponent. It's not fair to anyone to assume that everyone is up-to-date with URPG gossip. That said, it's also not fair for a tournament host to have no idea what's going on in the community.

Now that I have a more full picture of what happened (i.e. Ataro didn't make the time for a legitimate reason and then both battlers couldn't meet up afterwards), I think I would have moved Elysia on to the finals. However, that doesn't seem to be what's going to happen.

For the last time, I offer a final (hopefully, look what happened last time lol) week-long extension from the end of this discussion in which Ataro and Elysia can attempt to meet up. However, if Elysia is still determined to retire, and Ataro wishes to follow suit, the tournament can go on. I'll feel guilty about my role in what has taken place, but I won't pretend that it doesn't make the tournament itself way easier.

 

[HR][/HR]No more postponing, seriously. This is round two and the tourney started a month ago with a really active round one. It's a tough call but I always think the fair way for prizes to be assorted in tourneys is a minimum of three wins in a bracket style tourney. What I propose is advancing both. Elysia and Ataro have to both win two battles to be elegible for prizes, me and Ash one. So what'd it look like:

Synthesis Vs Ataro
Synthesis Vs Elysia
Ash Vs Ataro
Ash Vs Elysia

If me/ash both win two, we'd fight in finals
If one has more wins, they get first and other fights whoever of ataro/elysia has more wins in the two battles for second/third. If everyone wins one and loses one the round resets to a neutral and two battles and a final.

Okay I think that's fairest. Forfeits are terrible idea and literally do not help any future tourneys. Idk if my suggestion is even that great, but extensions really suck for everyone else.

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That's probably not practical at all tbh but I don't think advancing either or none is fair. Forfeiting is actually lame af. You could end the tourney now, but that's even lamer.

GAWD

E: Okay hold up third place is a medium of a type you can't control. WHO EVEN WANTS THAT. ACTUALLY NO ONE HERE GETS ANYTHING WORTHWHILE OUT OF PRIZES.

do-over

E2: For future tourneys how bout 3 wins mandatory for prizes and we can work out the semantics later

E3: and better gym tourney prizes like option of mart voucher over monotype mon kinda thing. Most gym leaders prefer da ems anyway

 

Future tournaments?

Fuck this shit, we're never running any again ever.

 

Solution: time machine. Thoughts?

 

Why not, like, advance both Elysia and Ataro? Then it becomes 4 people AKA a new semifinal. Roll match ups that don't include Ely vs Ataro, and then go from there. Bonus Points of no Round Robin either.

Also, added on point after rereading everything, but it seems kinda bullshit that Ataro had begun even campaigning for a default win at all. Like, did Ely even know she had to start doing that?

 

~~~

OKAY AFTER ALL OF THAT QUOTE STUFF. I can accept the extension if they can arrange a time. That's all up to them, I don't care. I also like Syn's idea as well to keep them both in rather than eliminating one and advancing the other into a round robin, especially if it's not really either of their faults other than that timezones and life suck, and we can't do anything about that. alternatively let's all just not have lives and whatnot and just make URPG our life. we are URPG. URPG is life

EDIT: Also in regards to Syn's idea, I think Ash and Syn should battle it out at some point too, whether it be as a part of Syn's idea or in a final final round or something. However it works out, haha.

 

Advancing both makes it unfair on smo and winter

E: I did not realize ataro would've gotten two byes. I honestly feel like that should go against him getting a bye if it has to come down to one or the other getting a bye. Elysia has fought to get this far, Ataro rose by chance. Is there any chance of a battle happening if you had a few days out of curiosity @Ataro ; @Elysia ;

 

I like Chain's extension idea. ('cause reasons and stop the drama)

(If Monbrey has another idea, go with what he says. It's his section after all.)

 

There is another option I saw, perhaps more messy than I'd like but I believe it would be "fairer" and it would at least keep the tournament moving. We could retroactively make this round the final round, and it could be a big honking round robin between all of this rounds' six participants. Any battles that have already happened (such as Ash v Winter) will be kept as the result. This round would go for, say, three weeks so that there is ample time for everyone to fight everyone else. At the end of the three weeks, the placings will be decided by whoever has the most wins to their name, with ties being determined by number of Pokemon lost in the individual battles.

While I can't say I'm 100% happy with this solution, it does tick a few boxes I'm worried about:

- It keeps the tournament moving.
- It gives Ataro and Elysia more time to battle.
- Everyone who entered this round is given the fairest shot possible.

What is everyone's thought on this? I'd like to have a path forward inside the next couple of days, this tournament has stagnated enough already.

 

I would agree with this as long as @Lovecraft; is included. He deserves to be in this conversation / given a fair shot since he was in this round too.

 

I, uh, re-read my posts in thread from last night, and I apologize for the vitriol. They seemed largely acceptable at the time, but in hindsight/with less context/not sleepless Ely mindset, they were really quite rude.

My final thoughts on the matter:
1. I forfeit, not entirely because of the reasons I gave before but because it really does clear up things with the least amount of drama, assuming:
1a. Ataro moves on to the finals. He really didn't rig anything in his favor and got a lucky hand, and we'd all be kidding ourselves if we say he hasn't proven his battling skills before.
1b. Having a massive six round robin/extended the round more/most of the other alternatives are going to bloat out the tournament even more. It's nearly February, and this was meant to be fun D:
1c. Accepting Chainy's reasoning that he'd actually push for me to advance now feels really, really scummy haha
2. I don't blame anyone for anything that happened. We dun goofed a couple of times, but that's because irl has priority over URPG, and it always will, and I understand that. Furthermore:
2a. I have the utmost respect for Ataro as a person/opponent/battler, and I apologize for the difficulties we've had in terms of scheduling this past month
2b. I have the utmost respect for Chainy as tournament host (and person!), and I apologize for the difficulties we've had this past month as well haha, and the mess I made of this thread
3. Seriously, good feelings all around, and I don't want to prolong/overcomplicate/make dramatic this tournament any more than it already has. We should all just go to Stories and write for our rents go WWC

 

Elysia, I'd really rather you not forfeit for something that I claim as partly my responsibility But if that's what you wish, I won't deny you, especially considering what I'm about to propose.

@Ataro; @Lovecraft; what are the chances that the two of you can battle in the near future? And @Elysia;, will you mind if they battle for entry to the final round?

And are you guys sure that you wouldn't prefer a round robin? There seems to be a bit of popular support for that, and it means a lot more cash for everyone involved and I could probably justify not dropping the prizes too much if there was some more battling going on.

 

I actually like the round robin idea, if Elysia stops trying to forfeit it. The one thing I'm a bit iffy on is tiebreakers, as knowing what they are could affect strategies in matches which already finished.

 

@ChainReaction01; Zero. I had a chance to battle and I forfeited so I sat out of the tournament which led to Syn v Smores.
So if I accepted it wouldn't really fair to Smores (since as stated before he went from fighting an easy battle with a type he was SE against to Syn with a type weakness) nor would it be any hurdle to Ataro besides the inconvenience of trying to schedule a battle but instead of a 13 hour difference we'd have an 11 hour one.
Specially since school's coming back again next time.

 

Seriously, just accept my forfeit and advance the round. All of the other alternatives will take up even more time, and Ataro shouldn't be penalized for something outside of everyone's control. D:

 

Alright, I suppose there's no alternative. Thank you for your understanding, Elysia.
@Ataro; Do you still intend to forfeit alongside Elysia? I don't mind either way, I just need to know what to post in the finals thread lol.

 

I will do a round robin with Syn and Ash.

 

Sorry, but why exactly is Ataro calling the shots? There's no way someone should be in the finals when they haven't even completed a battle, let alone start one. The last round was well within his ability to get done, regardless of their schedules, and it seems as though Ataro was against the forum battle idea. Not to mention the behind the scenes puppetmastery were misleading and shady af.

I mean, go ahead because the circumstances/forfeits suck, but that's complete bs.

 

Ataro isn't "calling the shots".

I agree that it is definitely sub-optimal, but Ataro hasn't done anything wrong. He hasn't match-dodged or "puppeted" me or anything. I find it awfully weird that people are unhappy about him having used the PM system instead of posting in an open thread. There's nothing wrong with PMing. Hell, if I had PMed Elysia instead of posting in an open thread, we wouldn't have had that miniature debacle that went down.

Fact of the matter is, Ataro lucked out on a bye, and now his opponent has forfeited. In one post, he said that if Elysia was forfeiting, he would too, and I was just asking him if he still intended to do so. Nothing there about calling the shots. There was no time for them to meet up, I saw the logs myself, and personally I fucking hate forum battles (triply so when they're tournament related) so I don't blame Ataro for not wanting to do it.

tl;dr The final round will have three participants, unless Monbrey or HKim want to tell me otherwise. It'll go up some time tomorrow. And I'm not a puppet.

 

okay well I'm going to forfeit too lol