CallumOnToast

CallumOnToast
Posted 1 week ago

We have our winner! Congratulations to robedigiov who takes the win in the BATTLE OF SPICE World Championships for a second year in a row with a team of level 50 Pawniard, level 50 Feebas & level 50 Magikarp.
I also want to say congratulations to the runner up Emeraldnightmar who ran the level 50 Spinarak, XL Larvesta & shiny bow Butterfree!

Now this is a very long community post, but there has been plenty of controversy surrounding recent BOS competitions, what factors make a team more or less spicy, what I expect as the bare minimum from a BOS submission, whether I'm being too strict or too lenient with my requirements, amongst many other things, so I want to address some of those controversies in this post before there's even more controversy!

Before I say anything, I'm going to paste exactly what robedigiov wrote as their answer for "What team are you running?" in their submission for the competition:
"Pawniard, Feebas, Magikarp. All three Pokemon are level 50 & best buddied. The theme is "Sous chef at a sushi restaurant". This submission might be a little controversial because my opponents team is under leveled, but it took like 150 battles to get a win so my ELO dropped to the point where I saw those types of opponents. I committed a lot of time & dust for this team so I'm just going to go with it. Any criticism of my submission for that reason is fair, I just hope people enjoy the team/idea."

You can see that robedigiov was the first to admit that it was a bit of a controversial submission & accepts any criticism of it, but at the end of the day, it's the team that resonated most with the voters. I don't choose who performs well in these competitions, you guys are the ones voting.

Previously there has been controversy with trainers essentially bringing 1 somewhat spicy Pokemon & 2 low CP Pokemon as sacrificial swaps, as it's not so much a full spicy team, but instead a unique challenge. Those 2 low CP Pokemon could be literally anything & it wouldn't change the outcome of the battle in any way. This team however was different, as the two low CP Pokemon weren't "literally anything" but instead 2 very specific completely useless Pokemon that were fully maxed out just for the sake of the theme of this team & they were at least utilised in the battle.

The other controversial point in this battle comes from the fact that the battle was at such a low ELO that the opposing trainer didn't even use fully powered up Pokemon & all 3 members were a few hundred CP below 1500. I've made a point to try to be as inclusive as I can be for the BOS competitions so I have stated that the ELO range of your battle isn't that important, but many have now suggested that I make an ELO requirement in future competitions. The fact that there was no ELO restriction was to encourage trainers of all skill levels to participate, not to encourage people to tank their ELO so low that they're facing opponents that aren't even running fully powered up Pokemon. Don't get me wrong, I know robedigiov didn't tank prior to trying to get this win, it was just an unfortunate result of trying to win with such a difficult team to use, but when a battle in the 1300 ELO range is able to win the BOS World Championships, what's going to stop people from tanking all the way down to 300 ELO in the future to get a win with a team that it just wouldn't be possible to win with at any other ELO range?

I've made the point many times that I expect people to fully power up & double move (if applicable) their Pokemon for a submission, but that means I kind of expect the opponents you face to also have fully powered up Pokemon or close to that. For certain XL Pokemon & especially in the ML it's more understandable, as you could be in the 2500 ELO range & face a team that isn't fully powered up, but especially when the Pokemon being used are non-XL, if they aren't fully powered up it's probably because the opponent has no clue what they're doing & are just using 3 Pokemon already sort of close to the 1500cp threshold.

Previously people have complained about the requirements being too strict for this competition & this time people have complained about the requirements not being strict enough! The way I see it, there will always be something to complain about. It is literally impossible for me to make the perfect BATTLE OF SPICE competition, but I do hear your feedback & I do try to implement changes based on that feedback.

I'm just trying to create a fun & entertaining competition & regardless of all the controversies, I think we can all admit that this BOS World Championships was the most entertaining BOS video & potentially the most entertaining GBL video I've ever put together!

Thank you to everyone that participated, everyone that watched the video & everyone that voted in any of the polls!

121 - 21

CallumOnToast
Posted 1 week ago

We have our two finalists for the BATTLE OF SPICE World Championships! Vote for the team you thought was the spiciest & in 24 hours we'll be able to crown a new BOS World Champion!

If you're struggling to choose between the two, feel free to rewatch both battles to see how the teams performed in this video: https://youtu.be/IiYVkbPruls

Also, without slandering either of the two finalists, let me know which other team you'd have liked to see reach the final!

32 - 26

CallumOnToast
Posted 1 week ago

We have our winners from the first round of voting, here are 3 of the 6 semi-finalists! Vote for the team you think is spiciest & the winner of this poll will go through to the final! As always, if you haven't seen the video yet, it's genuinely the craziest video I've put together & you can view it here: https://youtu.be/IiYVkbPruls

I'll most likely be taking a break from making videos until the start of next season so don't expect many videos from me this week. I might do a livestream at some point but not sure. If you have any spicy content you want to submit, I'll suggest you send those battles elsewhere as I likely won't get round to showcasing them.

28 - 12

CallumOnToast
Posted 1 week ago

We have our winners from the first round of voting, here are 3 of the 6 semi-finalists! Vote for the team you think is spiciest & the winner of this poll will go through to the final! As always, if you haven't seen the video yet, it's genuinely the craziest video I've put together & you can view it here: https://youtu.be/IiYVkbPruls

I'll most likely be taking a break from making videos until the start of next season so don't expect many videos from me this week. I might do a livestream at some point but not sure. If you have any spicy content you want to submit, I'll suggest you send those battles elsewhere as I likely won't get round to showcasing them,

23 - 7