Tournaments

Fun Pokemon tournaments are a format of Pokemon battles that Elloss and Dworlock take part in to see which Pokemon are the most powerful along with the most powerful teams.

## Historical Structure

The idea for tournaments was something that Elloss and Dworlock had since before Batch 4 was completed. They wanted to create a format so that all the Pokemon that they have made can test their strength against others in a structured way. Putting their Pokemon into teams would also show how well Pokemon can work with each others' strengths to become the best and win the tournament. They also came up with a drafting process to make selecting the Pokemon into teams be fun and interactive as well.

Here are the main details about the original tournament structure when it was first used after Batch 5 was made:

1. There are 48 Pokemon to choose from, and all Pokemon would be put into teams. There would be 12 teams total with 4 Pokemon in each team. 6 teams are owned by each player and are used during the tournament.
2. During the draft, each player takes turns choosing one Pokemon to add into their team, and each team is done in order. There was also restrictions on which Pokemon could be in which teams.
	* Teams can only have one Broken tier Pokemon and up to two Overpowered Tier Pokemon. All other Pokemon have no restrictions.
3. A bracket was made to fit all 12 teams. There are two brackets, the regular and loser brackets.
4. When two teams owned by different players are on the same spot on the bracket, they battle to see who gets to move up to the next level. The loser gets thrown into the loser bracket. If two teams with the same owner are on the same spot, the player who owns them gets to choose which one gets to move up.
5. Teams who lose in the regular bracket get thrown into the loser bracket. If a team loses in the loser bracket, they are out for good. This essentially means that all teams get up to two chances to lose.
6. Each level of a bracket is part of a single round. All matches in a round are played from left to right. The losers of the regular bracket get to play twice in a round because they get to play on the loser bracket of the same round at the right side of the bracket.
7. Whichever team manages to beat all opposing teams within its bracket and survives all 5 rounds gets named the champion. This is considered the best team with the strongest Pokemon which work best with each other.
8. During each battle, every Pokemon gets a scorecard which counts stats like how many times they killed a Pokemon within a match, or AKM (Average Kills per Match) and how many turns they stayed alive, or ATS (Average Turns Standing). All these stats get saved and then averaged out at the end of the tournament to show a quantitative representation of how good the Pokemon performed in the tournament.
9. After every tournament, their AR, or Actual Rating gets averaged out with all previous tournament ratings to give it a more or less accurate measurement of its power level.
10. The formula for calculating AR goes like this: AR = ​(2/3)AKM + (1/3)ATS.

## New Structure

By September 2020, they came up with a finalized rework for the tournament structure. Here are all the changes:

1. During the draft, you choose Pokemon to put into a pool which you can create teams with after the draft ends. You no longer have to put Pokemon into teams while drafting.
2. After the draft, both players create 6 teams each with 4 Pokemon in them from the pool. Any Pokemon not in the team stay in the pool which can be switched into a team at a later point.
3. Players can now change their teams after the draft and during the tournament with the new Ban and Switch phase which occurs before a match starts, and with cooldowns.
	* The Switch part of the phase allows for either player to look at the opposing team and switch out one Pokemon as a tech choice or to remove a vulnerable Pokemon for something more fit for the opposing team.
	* The Ban part of the phase allows either player to look at the opposing team and ban one of the Pokemon in the opposing team for one game. Both players only get 3 bans in a tournament so they should only use it when they feel it's necessary.
	* Cooldowns are a way to check very powerful Pokemon being abused in a tournament. All Pokemon that are considered in the Overpowered Tier get a 2 game limit while Pokemon in the Broken Tier get a 1 game limit. All other Pokemon of lower tiers have no cooldown. Any Pokemon used up to their limit in consecutive games get a cooldown of 3 games where they are forcibly switched out from their team into that player's pool. They cannot be switched back in until their cooldown is over. What this means is that if a Pokemon, such as in the OP Tier, is used in two consecutive games in a row, they are switched out of the team into the pool and are unusable for 3 games.
4. A new statistic was created to measure the effects of status effects and abilities. It is called SEI, for Status Effects Inflicted per match. It gives a certain amount points towards things like status conditions like Poison, secondary effects like flinching, and abilities activating during a match.
5. The new formula for calculating AR is now: AR = (1/2)AKM + (1/3)SEI + (1/6)ATS.