RE: The Smogtours Timer
During SPL - and other official tournament games the timer is to remain on at all times. The only exception to this is when one of the players disconnects. Not only is time management a big part of playing competitive Pokemon at the highest level, but keeping the timer on eliminates the risk of the alternative being abused. The matches will be a lot more spectator-friendly on top of that.
Smogtours moderators, please do not turn off the timer unless there's a disconnection. Even if the opponent consents, the timer should stay on - the TD team recognizes the imbalance with player perception and what is competitive in these situations. While some players may feel confident or comfortable requesting that the timer stay on to allow their opponent to time-out into a loss, there are situations in which this could be made more difficult for inexperienced or newer tournament players. Other than making cheating significantly more difficult, we also want to minimize the effect that community perception has on the decisions a player makes in battle. It is for these reasons the TD team has decided that consent from the opposing player is not sufficient by itself to warrant turning the timer off.
Should a disconnection happen, please only turn off the timer if the opponent consents. If the disconnection followed by a time-out loss happened with little time remaining, then the game will be considered a loss. If the disconnection followed by a time-out loss happened with a good amount of time remaining, then the game will be recreated. We've decided against revealing the exact benchmarks for these rulings, in order to minimize the opportunity to abuse this information.
Please send in your teams before you start playing! It doesn't matter if your connection is Smogon's finest; the TD team cannot guarantee a recreate if we cannot access both teams. Always send in your team beforehand! Read
this thread if you're unsure how to do so.