This past Saturday, I hosted my first in-person Pokémon tournament as a Professor! Knowing that I'm providing someone their entryway into the game feels really good.
To answer this Trainer's question: you need two copies of your Team Sheet! One for the TO and one for opponents!
But what even IS a "Team Sheet"?
What is a Team Sheet?
Simply put, a "Team Sheet" is a piece of paper that outlines the Pokémon on your team: species, abilities, items, moves, and as of Generation 9, the Tera-type as well. Everything except the stats! (Though the stats go on the copy you give to the TO!)
Starting in 2023 Pokémon moved from a Closed Team Sheets (CTS) format to an Open Team Sheets (OTS) format for almost all events. Why?
Why do we use Team Sheets?
Well, in this Professor's opinion, it's because OTS makes the game a lot more accessible!
In prior CTS formats where team information was a secret, players that had wide networks of peers who could perform reconnaissance and watch matches for them often greatly benefited. They would be able to learn and record the move sets of other teams in advance, to give their player an edge. Especially with the advent of Tera-typing, where any given Pokémon can potentially become 1 of 18 different types, there are simply too many variables that can drastically swing the outcome of a game if they remain secret. If you were squaring up against a player with such a network, they likely knew much more about you than you knew about them. OTS levels this field.
CTS also, in my opinion, discouraged practicing, at least in public. When the element of surprise was at a premium, you wouldn't want to reveal your secrets on ladder. These days, though, you'll find all-stars playing in open online events like Tom Hayden's now-famous [Tommy's Tuesday Tours.
As a result of OTS, the flow of information is a lot more free, and the fundamentals of team building are very accessible to even brand new players. Instead of having to ideate a team from scratch, you can start immediately with something you've seen and like, or perhaps lost to in the past. From there, you can make tweaks until it suits you. It's demystified.
Channels like Cybertron's are great starting resources for players who want to play in the modern OTS format. He is able to collect Team Sheets from some of the best players in the world, and present them for you to use with a comprehensive analysis of strengths and weaknesses. He's a true asset to the Pokémon community.
Tangible Outcomes
All this is to say that most players agree that OTS is a great benefit to the competitive scene.
At the aforementioned event I ran this weekend, I handed out Player IDs to five first-time players. More than one of them told me that the finally felt the impetus to play because they could start teambuilding from a Team Sheet they found online (one specifically namedropping Cybertron, ahaha!)
I'm hoping that OTS is here to stay, and I hope that its use expands to all regions. As mentioned earlier, we use OTS for "almost all events". So which events do we not use them in?
The answer, unfortunately for players in these regions, is for events in the Japanese and Korean Circuits (though Worlds 2023, which was hosted in Japan, was still OTS). For whatever reason, The Pokémon Company and The Pokémon Company Korea (which are different entities than The Pokémon Company International (TPCI) ), have decided that there would be no in-person events in these circuits in the 2023 season. Instead, all events would be conducted online, CTS, and primarily BO1. Essentially, playing the ladder with a Worlds invite on the line.
There has been a lot of discourse on this matter from players in the region and abroad that I won't get in to in this post, but suffice to say, a desire for a more accessible OTS environment in all regions is prevalent. Here's hoping we can get OTS as the worldwide format some day! The benefits would be tremendous.