Other 1v1 Tournament Policy Discussion Thread

[Waylaid]

I agree with Bandit in the sense that GSC should not be excluded purely for RNG. Like I mentioned in my post, my argument against GSC (as of now) is unrelated to metagame health or enjoyability. It's clear that there are several GSC players who really enjoy the tier, and I'm not trying to undermine that enjoyment.

My argument was about the playerbase. I understand that tiers need representation in order to grow, but OGPL is a trophy-tour (in the HOF, at least) hosting an underplayed and often unenjoyed tier. Its place as a flex slot does very little to solve this issue (I'd argue it exaggerates it) due to an increased incentive to pick GSC as a flex each week due to most teams being unable to invest in a mainer (of which there are like 4). This issue is further compounded by it only being a flex slot, because if both teams matched up don't have a dedicated GSC player, they won't pick it. That means a GSC mainer on team A is playing every week (sorta defeating the purpose of one of the flex slots being flexible), while a GSC learner on team B is only getting slotted two/three times in the tour. That's really not enough games to teach someone the tier.

The only way I could see it included was as a permanent slot, which means we need >6 players in the tour to support, but realistically between 6 and 18 because each team can double up on their GSC by picking it for their flex slot. We do not have 18 GSC players, or even close to it, and that's assuming they are all evenly distributed across all teams. I support development for GSC, it should get played if people like playing it, but it doesn't make sense as only a flex slot in OGPL and would be an unviable addition as a permanent one. I suggest continuing unofficial GSC tours, or working hard otherwise to gain a larger playerbase, until it would be a valuable addition to official tours.

 

[Nuxl]

hello dr bandit nobody cares about crits

GSC 1v1 should remain in 1v1OGPL as a regular slot. It has a growing playerbase comparable to ADV and DPP 1v1, and its RNG is frequently misunderstood or overstated.

GSC Crits

Critical hit damage doubles the Pokemon's level in the calculation, not the damage dealt.

growing playerbase comparable to what! i asked murm this about a month ago and here’s a list of Mainers I can find for EXCLUSIVELY GSC in OGPL:

murm
…longrat?
concept??

at this point the tier falls off a cliff. because here is a list of names that are also contributing to other tiers

torterra (oras)
leru (legit anything else)
iron crusher (again legit anything else)
elo bandit (sm)

would you like to include GSC because it is inclusive or because it sounds like a better prospect when you’re handholding with murm? including people from GSC continues to dilute the other pools of tiers such as adv, dpp, and bw just in order to flex them and ultimately an extra tier for people to learn dunks on team cohesion.

multiple SV slots can build off each other, but GSC has one unofficial cup a year and yet its playerbase of 3 people continues to advocate for its presence in a trophy tour

...and the DPP expectation of "crit and one-shot through the resist berry."
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Earthquake vs. 128 HP / 240 Def Shuca Berry Raikou on a critical hit: 353-416 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Cresselia Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 220 SpD Yache Berry Dragonite on a critical hit: 386-456 (100 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

GSC 1v1 is an honest tier. Team preview matchups reflect clear wins and losses. You can easily minimize your own RNG if you like - build around Earthquake Marowak, not Cross Chop Machamp. While it's funny to watch people land a freeze or crit in any gen and say "this is why gsc shouldnt be in ogpl," the reality is gens 3 and 4 aren't really any less RNG-reliant than gen 2.

- 1. CB tar is not going to be max attack as it will never beat Cresselia without enough spdef and usually you want some other stats to hit other benchmarks

Ill use a modest 100 but you generally can consider going even lower… in fact your set comp uses 4 and 20 so using max atk is so cherry-picking LOL
100+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Earthquake vs. 128 HP / 240 Def 30 IVs Shuca Berry Raikou on a critical hit: 317-374 (89.8 - 105.9%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO (75% chance to OHKO after sandstorm damage)


20+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Earthquake vs. 128 HP / 240 Def 30 IVs Shuca Berry Raikou on a critical hit: 299-352 (84.7 - 99.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after sandstorm damage

Not only is it ONE chance to hax, but it’s not as damning is it?

- 2. dragonite will be in range to get haxed anyway over multiple ice beam turns. You will usually use unless u are specifically teched to beat cress and generally yache isn’t able to do that without compensating. Like u just showed max HP max spdef as a specific unreliable tech, because its not even that you get crit it’s that cress can freeze, because dnite has to kill you over about 3 turns if ur yache light screen

This is not a problem with the tier, it is that your example shows an unreliable check to Cresselia getting haxed because at that point odds come in, ala SV corviknight or registeel in every tier or what have you

So not only do I find these examples subpar in context of dpp but here’s my second point, you’re saying we should dilute what you see as problematic crit tiers with other problematic crit tiers? And that makes the tier of OGPL… better? More competitive? Or do you just like seeing the tier you main get representation?

I see thst you fail to ignore the impact of max EVs in ur analysis. So let’s take it back, what about games where because of max EVs both parties have an additional chance to roll a crit? because the average damage ranges are just so low?

Let’s take an example:
GSC
Raikou Thunderbolt vs. Tyranitar: 114-135 (28.2 - 33.4%) -- 95.6% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. Raikou: 119-141 (31 - 36.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

DPP
252+ SpA Raikou Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 84-99 (24.6 - 29%) -- 99.6% chance to 4HKO [and sand! So this becomes about a 3HKO outside of it)
110+ Atk Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Raikou: 159-187 (49.5 - 58.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage (notice how I didn’t even use stone edge here or put a choice band item?)

so in GSC we just went from 4 chances to hax, whereas dpp we have 2, or sometimes, 3. One more hit to hit that dicey 1/16 or your 10% para or freeze we love to see with moves like thunderbolt and ice beam

Im not arguing against GSC being unbalanced, however u fail to show calculations that aren’t otherwise quite irrelevant and cherrypicked.

OGPL is the Smogon tour for GSC 1v1. We want to encourage the playerbase to continue to grow, and that requires sustained tournament representation.

I am happy if GSC grows through other means.

Please do not continue to ignore these points for the sake of your own tier:
1. a playerbase with less than 6 Mainers that does not dilute other players in other tiers, with only growth avenues being a TROPHY TOUR and an unofficial that gets 24 signups
2. relevant calculations that suggest it’s an honest tier and worth including and learning

In my opinion you should find other avenues to grow the tier other than trying to hamfist your tier into a trophy tour, this will ultimately soften the rest of the 1v1 playerbase’s attitude towardsGSC while giving you time to actually counter these points. Thanks

 

[fake tom numbers]

Just want to quickly chip in to defend any ideas of removing ADV from ogpl, even though yours truly was gatekept once again from going 12-0 there has been clear growth in different players learning (and succeeding) in ADV. Additionally, this meta isn't completely solved as some may have thought, as people who reused teams either went negative or neutral, and one team (TFT reference??/) went 5-0, so there is clear evidence of skill expression and new meta developments.

Also unshoutout to a certain person for saying they'll draft me, didn't, then says publicly that they don't like me getting gatekept. If u dont wanna draft a meanie then just be honest ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Lumii]

You may not like GSC. Frankly, I don't care if you like GSC or not. It's fine to dislike GSC, it's not great to attack people who do for doing so. It's not really a tier I play super actively, but it's also not a tier that most people who are arguing against it play very actively, so...

Anyways posting because I need to respond to Tom later but a few things.

hello dr bandit nobody cares about crits

You quite literally go on to mention crit chances later in your post. Knowing about the crit mechanics that influence those crit chances is pretty important. This feels a little bit contradictory, but Bandit's post does explain things regarding how crits impact GSC games quite well, and how players have options to mitigate said crit odds, even with the extra hits that maximized EVs tend to cause. I don't think that it was by any means a bad post or a bad faith post, or brought up something irrelevant to the conversation at hand about GSC. I've also seen many people argue about how crits affect GSC in the 1v1 Discord. I don't know why I have to end up saying this, but nothing bad comes out of being nice to someone like Bandit, even when you disagree with them.

growing playerbase comparable to what! i asked murm this about a month ago and here’s a list of Mainers I can find for EXCLUSIVELY GSC in OGPL:

murm
…longrat?
concept??

at this point the tier falls off a cliff. because here is a list of names that are also contributing to other tiers

torterra (oras)
leru (legit anything else)
iron crusher (again legit anything else)
elo bandit (sm)

I agree with this portion. The playerbase for GSC is an issue. However, that's not an issue that can't be solved by removing GSC from tournament representation. OGPL is Old Gens Premier League. I'd rather see a format in which OGPL includes GSC, as GSC still is quite the skill expressive Old Gen. There's many cases in which a player started playing a 1v1 tier because of a tournament having it. Allowing GSC to have this option is good for its development.

I see thst you fail to ignore the impact of max EVs in ur analysis. So let’s take it back, what about games where because of max EVs both parties have an additional chance to roll a crit? because the average damage ranges are just so low?

Let’s take an example:
GSC
Raikou Thunderbolt vs. Tyranitar: 114-135 (28.2 - 33.4%) -- 95.6% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. Raikou: 119-141 (31 - 36.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

DPP
252+ SpA Raikou Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 84-99 (24.6 - 29%) -- 99.6% chance to 4HKO [and sand! So this becomes about a 3HKO outside of it)
110+ Atk Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Raikou: 159-187 (49.5 - 58.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage (notice how I didn’t even use stone edge here or put a choice band item?)

so in GSC we just went from 4 chances to hax, whereas dpp we have 2, or sometimes, 3. One more hit to hit that dicey 1/16 or your 10% para or freeze we love to see with moves like thunderbolt and ice beam

Im not arguing against GSC being unbalanced, however u fail to show calculations that aren’t otherwise quite irrelevant and cherrypicked.

Saying that examples are cherrypicked when there's no mention of Screech or Earthquake on the GSC Tyranitar feels odd. Also why is that Tyranitar 110+ Atk.... Typo aside, GSC Raikou has a lot of sets, but most of these sets that you will often see will have Reflect, Mint Berry, or both in some cases. These can be used for critical hit Earthquake, which, despite what the sets compendium says, is also a very common move on Tyranitar in GSC. While I'm basically using the specific example provided here, critical hit mitigation with defensive boosting moves, Rest + Mint Berry and defensive boosting moves are quite useful and are (imo) an important part of the skill expression in teambuilding in the tier.

Overall, I do think that a lot of skill expression in GSC comes from crit mitigation when teambuilding. While this is quite different from other 1v1 generations, having new things to focus on in different 1v1 generations isn't a novel thing. In ADV, you have type-based physical and special moves. In DPP, you have the physical-special split at its most barebones form, and don't have many common items seen in later gens, like WP, Air Balloon, and AV. BW: Gems; ORAS: Megas, SM: Z-moves, so on and so forth. Different generations have different challenges, and I think that putting GSC down for the crit stuff doesn't make too much sense. On that note, do I think that I'll end up playing GSC? Probably not. The reality is that I sorta suck at sequencing, and GSC puts quite a lot of emphasis on that. But from the little that I have played of it in test games, GSC's been quite fun to try to get a grasp of.


Also for the Tom stuff...

Also unshoutout to a certain person for saying they'll draft me, didn't, then says publicly that they don't like me getting gatekept. If u dont wanna draft a meanie then just be honest ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My bad, I didn't really go in with a plan and after how everything shook out with our more expensive buys combined with what I predicted the team's culture to be like, I couldn't justify buying you. Maybe next time though.

 

[Nuxl]

The stuff presented in my post was to
1. to speak against the two very silly imo dpp examples I just read was, especially seconded by because elo’s main synopsis point to justify was “oh you can get crit in any tier” it was
a. backed by the use of cherry-picking dpp calcs that did not favor either of those resist berry calcs anyway (the raikou will usually win because tar doesn’t run max ada and dragonite ultimately haxed regardless over time in that MU, showing that it’s not a reliable check anyway)
b. assuming those calcs were representative of another metagame that you could argue could get haxed. Like putting those implies they were supposed to raise a counter point that you’d like to say hax doesn’t exclusively apply to gsc, despite it being a tier with max evs, so you need more hits to KO something and thus something terribly unfortunate can happen if you were destined to lose.

the exact examples doesn’t matter to me in ctx of GSC and they shouldn’t matter to you too! you can probably find more issues of thunderbolt or ice beam being the best MU move that results in a 4HKO. the 108 atk ev tar was a favorable midground i gave elo bonus evs for, not anything relied upon its own set

however none of this matters! i don’t care about crits, or gsc being a hax filled tier because


2. if gsc has more than 6 exclusive people that can main the tier id be happy to see its inclusion in ogpl, as opposed to throwing it in and trying to force its development by putting pressure on managers to find people for a tier without an existing playerbase. [of which takes away pools from tiers struggling to find 6 anyway, such as adv and dpp]

Would you guys like to counter this point? Lumii Elo Bandit

 

[luser]

Why does exclusivity matter? There were a grand total of Two people that "exclusively" play SS in the tournament (me and recti). If you really want to, you could also throw in like delemon and zo but it's still a huge stretch to say there's 6 "exclusive" ss players - I'm not sure why GSC is being held to this same standard.

 

[Lumii]

2. if gsc has more than 6 exclusive people that can main the tier id be happy to see its inclusion in ogpl, as opposed to throwing it in and trying to force its development by putting pressure on managers to find people for a tier without an existing playerbase. [of which takes away pools from tiers struggling to find 6 anyway, such as adv and dpp]

tbf I didn't want to respond to this but I'll respond saying one thing to this point, which is basically rehashing what luser said. For BW, which is the tier I have the most experience in, there were 8 players who either got 2 wins or played 3 games. These players are Iron Crusher, Waylaid, stravench, A Hero's Destiny, Dusk, ZackPalace, Opchurtle100, and myself. Out of these players, Iron Crusher can play SM amongst other things. Waylaid can play SS, SM, and even ORAS. Stravench is more known for his DPP than he is his BW. A Hero's Destiny can play ORAS. Dusk had never touched 1v1 before this tournament, and I am not 100% sure that they've stayed around the community after OGPL. Opchurtle can play ADV as well. And I've played every tier that has a physical-special split during this tournament. This really leaves us with ZackPalace as the only exclusive BW player.

If you want to go to ORAS, the same criteria has 6 players, being SEROO, RADU, torterraxx, cakeezz, Synonimous, and crow crumbs. RADU can play probably any tier he feels like playing. torterraxx can play tiers like SS and SM. cakezzz had not touched ORAS 1v1 before this tournament. bird is definitely known more as an SS player. Synon can theoretically play DPP if he felt like it. Even if I take Synon DPP out of the equation, we're left with SEROO and Synon. Still not great.

The point I'm trying to make is the same as the point luser is trying to make. Not every tier will have 6 people who solo focus on that tier. Speaking as a manager here, but there's often a lot of merit in just drafting someone new who has 0 tournament experience whatsoever and just giving them whatever support it takes to make sure they succeed in the tier. That doesn't mean that you just feed someone 5 teams every week, it means that you stay around them and talk to them about what they wanna use and give them advice as they build. That sorta thing. That's how I got my start in the tier, and that's how I hope a lot of new players will get their starts in this tier too in the future.

I will end off with this because frankly I cba to talk abt this topic much longer, but teams could have upbid on Murm. Teams could have further upbid on Bandit. Torterra, for example, knows GSC, and RTM managed his own team while knowing GSC. LongRat went for 5k, while Concept went for 3k. There's always merit for getting someone like Bandit and just having him help a GSC slot with his building support, which is what he did to our GSC slot. There's also the option of getting someone like Urfgurgle in your discord as GSC support, as he was one of the biggest helpers we had throughout the tour there. And in ADV. And in DPP. And in BW. Maybe Urfgurgle is the goat. Tangent aside, I don't think that the GSC playerbase is as bad as people are making it out to be, and I don't think any generation of 1v1 is immune from being a tier in which someone with decent knowledge of how 1v1 as a whole works can slot and win games in. Sure, it might be harder to build teams in that case, but that's why it's a teamtour and not an individual.

That's all I've got on the topic. Gn.

 

[fake tom numbers]

Why does exclusivity matter? There were a grand total of Two people that "exclusively" play SS in the tournament (me and recti). If you really want to, you could also throw in like delemon and zo but it's still a huge stretch to say there's 6 "exclusive" ss players - I'm not sure why GSC is being held to this same standard.

I think theres a pretty big difference between knowing and maining multiple tiers, versus GSC where they send someone in that has never played the tier before. Despite being a flex-only slot 14 different people played (aka the same number as ORAS and higher than ADV, DPP SMBO7 SSBO7 etc) and only 3 people played more than 2 games lol.

Also this metric of seeing who played only that tier is very flawed, think about people who have been building that tier for the whole tour or even someone on the sidelines building and still (obviously) being considered a mainer of said tier

 

[Nuxl]

Why does exclusivity matter? There were a grand total of Two people that "exclusively" play SS in the tournament (me and recti). If you really want to, you could also throw in like delemon and zo but it's still a huge stretch to say there's 6 "exclusive" ss players - I'm not sure why GSC is being held to this same standard.

because it matters as a new tier that people are arguing should be a permanent slot into ogpl

if you have the tour hold two flexes at the very least you can account for someone on your team being able to QC teams or build or whatever that already plays a tier between SS and ADV if some thing were to double up

people are arguing for a new tier that doesn’t have a greater than 6 playerbase that’s shoving other playerbases to it, ergo it damages other pools because they have to commit their resources to something that’s not covered on average (as there are not enough players to cover it!), despite bw-adv showing problems already when it comes to builder and mainer stretch

if you hold 6 slots to it then it shouldn’t damage other slots

Btw id have no problem if say GSC had 6 mainers and dpp had 4 and thus if dpp had a worse playerbase you’d cut dpp. This factor only matters because there’s genuine playerbase shriveling across multiple tiers to begin with, and yet there’s a pro new tier argument despite this issue

 

[lost heros]

Alright OGPL retrospective time as the host.


1. On the team level, Flex slots were a big win. Allowing teams to have some control over their fate of what tiers they want to play allowed for unique and varied rosters. In addition, how the flex slots were approached also provided some unique strategies. Some teams changed their flex every week. Some teams never changed. Some teams had 1 person handle all opponent's flex slots. Some didn't. It was cool. The only real issue with flex slots was deadline. Initially the plan was to have flex choices due on Saturday, with lineups due on Sunday. However, at some manager's request, this was pushed back to flex slots due 8 hours before week deadline, and lineups due 16 hours later. This did cut short the week by 8 hours, but in my opinion this tradeoff was very good.

2. GSC's inclusion as a flex-only slot was a good idea, but should be unlikely return come next year. This has nothing to do with GSC or its mechanics, but rather about its relative interest as a tier. This year we were able to test the waters to see how many people wanted to play GSC at a highly competitive level, and the results were well, mixed. 14 players played at least 1 game of GSC, with only 5 playing at least 2. The conclusion is fairly obvious. There are a few people that really, really like having GSC, but the majority of people don't. I don't think there is much of a point if we were to have GSC as a flex option again next year, and it would only exacerbate the feelings of GSC being "forced on" players and teams. This is counterproductive, as team tours should have games where everyone is eager to prove their metal and show off their best. You should want to play your tier. Now, in my opinion, there's not enough people gunning to play GSC that merits a "promotion" to full slot. That very well might change in the future, especially as an unofficial GSC Cup will likely occur later this year, and I know the GSC playerbase will likely still continue to play and develop this metagame.

3. Manager prices were good but could be better. Striking a balance between a fair priced manager-player and not outright discouraging manager-players is hard. Very hard. But still, the method was relatively fair. In fact, managers spent nearly the same amount per win on a manager then they did on a player, which tells me yea, overall this method works on a conceptual level. My only remaining issue, is that it's a bit too game-able. A more pure ranking system devoid of prices, and then a price formulation afterwards from those rankings would likely be more fair.

4. Tie breaks should not be SS7 by default, especially with flex slots. Fairly self-explanatory, but SS and SM are already given some premier attention via their Bo7 slots, but realistically I don't believe there's anything overwhelmingly special about these tiers to prioritize either of them getting a must have Bo7 slot in a tiebreaker. The best argument I can see is that you're guaranteed to have drafted for that SS7 slot so it's not a problem filling it, but I think I'd still prefer a mutual strike system instead of just default SS7.

Thanks all for y'all input and wait like 20 minutes for the PL post

 

[lost heros]

Double posting for the PL post. Feel free to continue prior discussions as well, but I gotta do this.

1. I propose we change virtually nothing. Last year's PL worked great. I think every one of our slots worked out really well and the relative skill levels of each tier inside is still good. Right now all of our official tours are meaningfully distinct from one another in the best ways, so I don't see any reason to change that. Slots stay the same. Manager pricing stays the same. etc etc.

2. Except I would like to just bring up the point again about retains + self-buys. Currently teams are allowed to have a maximum of 3 players prior to the draft start either from manager self-buys or retains. This does allow for 3 retains theoretically even though literally no one did that last year. I think this policy is fine, but if you want to talk about it feel free too.

 

[neomon]

3 players prior to draft is standard for all teamtours atp and I think its a good enough framework that it doesnt need changing (1 Manager, 2 Players/2 Managers 1 Player/ 3 Players)

So yes, change nothing for PL, please

e: for Tiebreak tier in OGPL, i dont have a good solution, I considered suggesting to !roll the gen but that is unnecessarily adding an RNG element to a high stakes situation, which means it should either be decided pre draft with with a !roll or we need some other method i cannot think of, thank you for mentioning it LH

 

[Murm]

GSC should remain in OGPL, and be given a proper slot instead of being a flex slot exclusive. I broke my talking points down below.

Hax:

So I want to comment on Litt's post here, where he lays out the games that he deemed to have hax. I have gone through all of the replays they posted to test the hypothesis that GSC has more hax than other generations, and to show my results, I am going to split these up into a few groups.

Didn't Matter

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2305759656 (Also could be under the Freeze category)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2305880483 (Also could be under the Freeze category)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2309673895
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen21v1-822802

So quickly starting out with these, none of the hax that happened here really mattered, the winners were favored to win anyways. Games 1 and 2 were Water-types stat checking Grass-types with Ice Beam, and game 3 was me being stupid and not realizing that Earthquake-less Machamp doesn't actually beat Raikou. I do want to go more in depth with Game 4 though. Porygon2 has ways to reliably beat Aerodactyl, between Ice Beam which is already run for Ground-types like Marowak and Nidoking and Flying-types like Dragonite, or Thunderbolt which is already used for Water-types. It also had revealed Recover in another game, meaning that alongside Thunder Wave to make Aerodactyl waste turns, and the fact that the Aerodactyl was not running Leftovers, and it was likely not running Rest (feel free to correct me if I am wrong), Aerodactyl was not likely to win that matchup at all. Even if it had gotten all of its Curse boosts, Aerodactyl is still not strong when not hitting super effectively, so it would likely not be able to break through Porygon2 without a crit itself.

Magnet Raikou Thunderbolt vs. Machamp: 137-162 (37.3 - 44.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Machamp Cross Chop vs. Raikou: 154-181 (40.2 - 47.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

+6 Soft Sand Aerodactyl Earthquake vs. +6 Porygon2: 79-94 (21.1 - 25.2%) -- possible 5HKO

Freezes

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2292506879
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2319783329
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen21v1-818944
There are also two more in the above category.

So I will concede one thing here: GSC thaw mechanics do make frozen Pokemon have a worse chance of thawing out. There are two important differences with thaw mechanics here: 1) the check to thaw is performed at the end of the turn (importantly, this means if you are frozen by a Pokemon that is faster than you, you are guaranteed to stay frozen for that turn), and 2) there is only a 10% chance each turn to thaw. That all being said, the chances of unthawing for all of these matchups in time to actually win the game were still unfavored for the frozen Pokemon with current generation freeze mechanics. Now let's go on to the freezes themselves. I watched every replay again and counted all the Ice Beams used. In total, 21 Ice Beams were used. However, not all of these could have frozen, between them being used on Pokemon that were already statused, or them being used to knock out the opponent. Out of the 11 total Ice Beams that could have frozen, 5 of them did. 45% of the Ice Beams used this tournament in GSC 1v1 froze. That isn't GSC's fault, that is just bad luck. I also want to highlight the third game, since this is the only one without a turn one freeze. Now I do not know what Litt was running (if you want to let me know I would love to know), but if they were running Earthquake, it would have been optimal to use that twice to get the KO to avoid Cross Chop misses.

Old Gen Crit Rate

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2292503833
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen21v1-817547
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2293169176
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen21v1-819768

So I want to start out by saying, these situations could have happened in any generation with the 1/16th crit rate. Now I know what you're thinking: "without GSC's bulkier mechanics, the Pokemon that won would have just fainted." And this is technically true, but 1) the Pokemon could theoretically bulk to live the attack, 2) the bulk argument can go both ways, so the Pokemon that got "haxed" still could have lost depending on what was ran, and 3) many of the Pokemon present in these games heavily benefit from GSC's bulk, so in a metagame without these mechanics, bulkier Pokemon would be chosen, and we would still have a lot of these interactions, provided there still is a 1/16th chance to crit. Going into a little more depth with the games:

1) Longrat did admittedly get bailed here; his team was built in a way where it was 3-0d by Meganium, and he got very lucky.
2) While I did still get lucky here, I could have still gotten the full para from Stun Spore, so it is not as egregious.
3) We had brought this Vaporeon set knowing it was quite shaky into Starmie, especially since they could be running Scope Lens. We had also brought a Raikou for that matchup for that reason, but Iron Crusher decided that risking the potential odds against Starmie was worth it (which I agree with for what it's worth), and unfortunately lost.
4) This was just unfortunate luck, though again, this could theoretically happen in any other generation with 1/16th crit odds.

Other

I am going to go through these one at a time.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2292461540
No disrespect to anyone here, but I personally do not believe that Curse Raikou is worth running. Reflect and Psych Up would have both given better odds to win alongside Crunch and potentially Mint Berry + Rest. While Mcthelegit did get lucky with a critical hit here, it was possible to play around with a different set.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2305883678
Similarly to the above replay, this situation could have been remedied by running a different Raikou set. Thunderbolt-less Raikou is incredibly risky to bring, and Raikou has ways around Heracross, most notably Hidden Power Flying, but Thunderbolt can be used alongside Thunder to get a sleeping Heracross into range of Thunder.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2319785744
I want to point out here that 30% flinch moves claim what were thought to be lost games all the time, even outside of 1v1. I did get unlucky here, but I had also failed to consider that this was an avenue that Marowak could take, since I personally dislike Icy Wind Marowak, and therefore did not truly consider it when building. I could have run a more reliable Marowak answer on this team, or I even could have just ran Icy Wind on Dragonite, since it both helps with that matchup, and gives Dragonite better odds into Jumpluff and opposing Dragonite.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen21v1-2309671079
I did get incredibly unlucky in this game, however I also was a bit too greedy in the teambuilder. Instead of running what I believe to be the best set, being Leftovers with Sleep Talk, I instead ran a much more unreliable set, being Mint Berry with Acid Armor, to try to beat Earthquake Heracross (though the odds still aren't amazing). If I had brought the other set, I could have had a significantly better shot at winning this game. While this example could theoretically be used to argue that GSC bulk gives more chances for RNG to occur, a Muk set like this would still run a significant amount of Special Defense investment.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen21v1-822799

Now this game, as Litt described it, was a bit of a "disaster." That being said, I do not believe that it is nearly as egregious as it looks. First, provided there is no luck involved, Entei is favored to win this game. Now I didn't put this into the "Didn't Matter" section since I believe that the odds here were close to even. Now I do not know what Suicune set they were running, but it is likely that Zack did not bring a team with a secure enough Machamp answer, and just got lucky. This is the one game I would say that was affected by GSC being a bulkier metagame.

Ultimately, most of the luck that occured during OGPL could have theoretically happened in other gens, and GSC's extra bulky metagame has a much smaller effect on hax than was previously described.

Playerbase:

I'll keep this short. GSC's playerbase is not perfect, but neither are a lot of the tiers featured in this tournament. This was GSC's first official tournament showing, it was a flex only slot, and as a few others have mentioned, there were a pretty solid amount of people who knew the tier that signed up. Other gens playerbases aren't perfect either: many gens like SS and BW didn't have many "mainers." ADV especially had very few "mainers" who actually played the tier a lot in the tournament, really only being Marshmelto (this was Bern's first ADV tournament since they joined 1v1 and I am admittedly not sure about Blanched but I don't believe they have played much of the tier either). These generations aren't on the chopping block, and for good reason. In my opinion, GSC should be the same way.

Flex:

I believe that the flex slot significantly affected how GSC is perceived, and I had called this at the very beginning, though I had seemed to forget to post about it. Ultimately, having GSC as a flex only slot had an affect on drafting, as many managers did not deem it important enough to draft GSC players or at a minimum people with GSC experience. Therefore, Spectres were able to take most of the people with GSC experience, as they were not very contested. I also want to mention that GSC being a flex only slot affected the playerbase. Saying very few people wanted to play GSC at a high level is inherently flawed since very often the flex slot was filled by someone else on your team. I do not believe it is fair to judge GSC's spot in OGPL without giving it a tournament where it has a fully fledged spot.

Raikou:

Litt had said at the very end of his post, "this is outside any complaints of any complaints around gsc centered around raikou's existence, of which there are enough." While Raikou is a very dominant Pokemon, I have heard very few complaints about its effect on the tier. I have only heard one person complain about Raikou's presence. If people really do think Raikou is an unhealthy presence in the tier, they need to be more vocal, and the best way to do this would be posting in the Old Gens thread. I have brought it up in council chat before out of sheer curiosity, and currently, none of us believe that Raikou is problematic, but instead a healthy top tier.

Conclusion:

GSC should be included in the next addition of OGPL. Its hax is overstated, and its playerbase is comparable to the other generations that are exclusively represented in OGPL. Ultimately, OGPL, first and foremost, is meant to be a tournament about celebrating these older generations, and GSC is an extremely interesting and nuanced generation. While there are less Pokemon than any of the other generations featured in the tournament, there is still a wide array of viable Pokemon to choose from, while having a healthy centralized metagame. Without EVing, you have to be very creative to find other ways of flipping matchups, and ultimately, I think it is really nice to include generations where matchups aren't nearly as muddy as future generations.
Before I go, I would like to say that you are allowed to not like GSC. I know that the lack of EVs and a lot of the other generation's mechanics turn a good amount of people away. However, this does not give anyone the right to be rude or to discuss in an unproductive manner. I am perfectly happy to talk about GSC and/or GSC's inclusion in this tournament in a productive way, but can we all stop with the rude remarks?
Thank you all for reading, this is a long post so I do not blame anyone for skimming through it. This took me way too long to write. If you have any questions, concerns, or corrections, feel free to reach out. Have a good day.