While stours updating weekly mostly eliminates the need to modify formats, there are still some exceptions (extensions / tiebreaks, multi-week tour rounds like World Cup pools) where the official tour format does not match what’s live on stours. Recent examples include the Roaring Moon ban from SV OU during SPL Finals tiebreak and the Rillaboom ban from UU at the beginning current World Cup of Pokémon’s three week qualifying stage. Tour Directors and players alike have shied away from challenge codes in these situations largely due to how opaque they are and the potential for bullshittery, such as sneaking in max moves = 8 to ensure that your team always has perfect coverage…
Thanks to some wonderful wizardry by HiZo, the complete rule changes from challenge codes are now visible both in battle and on replay. Here are some examples:
Additionally, player one in battle and on replay is always the player who sent the challenge code. This means that both players can easily verify that a challenge code was legitimate, and in the case of an illegitimate challenge code, Tour Directors can easily identify who sent it.
All together, it is now safe and effective to use challenge codes in official tours as malfeasance can easily be identified and acted on.
Why is this a good change? Current practice is to simply challenge your opponent in the higher tier after a ban, but this has a few downsides. First off it allows simple mistakes like loading an illegal pokemon, but also in some situations it opens the door to taking advantage of clauses that do not exist in higher tiers. For example, an SV OU Snowscape team could sneak Snow Cloak onto their Mamoswine and fish for misses against expected inaccurate moves. This would not be possible with an OU + Banned Pokemon challenge code.
Can I still just challenge my opponent in the higher tier? Or gentleman not bringing the banned element and play in the normal tier? Yeah, sure, this is just an option that is now sanctioned.
What’s the penalty for using an illegal challenge code? Like any other form of cheating, tour ban. And again, it’s really easy to catch, so I would not recommend trying to cheat this way.
Can you make finding challenge codes easier? Yes; challenge codes can be added to the admin threads / round OPs for easy copy / paste. We can also experiment with adding a button to stours lobby to just spit out the relevant challenge code.
Questions / comments / concerns? Ask below!
TLDR: challenge codes are now safe to use in officials for multi-week rounds / tiebreaks / extensions. Yes this is optional if you don’t care.
Thanks to some wonderful wizardry by HiZo, the complete rule changes from challenge codes are now visible both in battle and on replay. Here are some examples:
UU featuring Rillaboom, and a sneaky rule change: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2351547175
This is literally a Mashup of Other Metas: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9doublesou-2351554938
Additionally, player one in battle and on replay is always the player who sent the challenge code. This means that both players can easily verify that a challenge code was legitimate, and in the case of an illegitimate challenge code, Tour Directors can easily identify who sent it.
All together, it is now safe and effective to use challenge codes in official tours as malfeasance can easily be identified and acted on.
Why is this a good change? Current practice is to simply challenge your opponent in the higher tier after a ban, but this has a few downsides. First off it allows simple mistakes like loading an illegal pokemon, but also in some situations it opens the door to taking advantage of clauses that do not exist in higher tiers. For example, an SV OU Snowscape team could sneak Snow Cloak onto their Mamoswine and fish for misses against expected inaccurate moves. This would not be possible with an OU + Banned Pokemon challenge code.
Can I still just challenge my opponent in the higher tier? Or gentleman not bringing the banned element and play in the normal tier? Yeah, sure, this is just an option that is now sanctioned.
What’s the penalty for using an illegal challenge code? Like any other form of cheating, tour ban. And again, it’s really easy to catch, so I would not recommend trying to cheat this way.
Can you make finding challenge codes easier? Yes; challenge codes can be added to the admin threads / round OPs for easy copy / paste. We can also experiment with adding a button to stours lobby to just spit out the relevant challenge code.
Questions / comments / concerns? Ask below!
TLDR: challenge codes are now safe to use in officials for multi-week rounds / tiebreaks / extensions. Yes this is optional if you don’t care.