Proton Splat League (PSL)

The Proton Splat League is the first community league made out of the ProtonJon community, focused on the Nintendo shooter series, Splatoon. It currently focuses on Splatoon 3 officially, but was established near the end of Splatoon 2's primary content cycle. As of Fall 2023, they are on Season 8.

It is also represented in the Jonaverse through the alt-Jon Joanne.

About
In response to the very positive reception of the Splatoon 2 Turf War Tournament Stream, the idea for creating the league was pitched and given the green light very soon after. They promised that they would also include the other Splatoon 2 battle modes in their league matches, whereas the Egg Farm tournament was Turf War only to be as accessible as possible.

The league tries to be similarly inclusive, provided by its Discord server being a hub for people to find fellow Splatoon players in the community to play with. While there is a lot of discourse about competitive Splatoon by nature, a lot of casual players are in the server and more casual tournaments come up from time to time, like the Rando Rondo randomizer tournament.

Lore
Joanne was made to be the mascot of the league, making her one of the more known Alt-Jons especially through promotional material. In-universe, the PSL is canonically sponsored by Tiger-Brew, often being the cause of some... interesting collaborations. PSL matches are also broadcast to TVs at the Booru Voodoo Arcade.

Since Season 3, Joanne has also been joined in the PSL by a pair of idols, known as Oni and Giri.

Seasons
League teams are made up of 4-6 members, one of which being the team captain and any extra beyond the main four being considered backups that can switch in/out between battles. There is a theoretical cap of 32 teams. For Seasons 2-4, they had adopted a conference system where half of the teams would be in one of two conferences: Tentatek and Kensa. They stopped doing conferences from Season 5 onward to adopt a semi-swiss format. Since Season 7, the game of choice was transitioned to Splatoon 3.

Each week, two teams are matched up to play one battle in each game mode on stages picked randomly by computer RNG. If the stage randomizer picked a stage three times total (even across game modes starting in Season 4), it would be removed from the randomizer until playoffs. Originally, matches were only played on the Ranked battle modes (one match each of Splat Zones, Tower Control, Rainmaker, and Clam Blitz). From Season 2 onward, one Turf War game added to the stage rotations. Season matches are often streamed featuring the community's commentators, especially from Season 4 onward, but any direct recordings of matches are not required. Points are rewarded on a point system based on the results of the game.

Seasons last for 10-12 weeks (16 in Season 1) including bye weeks, followed by playoffs. If the season coincides with TRG Colosseum, the season is paused for the week out of respect of the community at large. Splatfests, Big Runs, and other in-game events do not affect the schedule, as they are usually not known publicly until a couple weeks or a month prior.


 * 1) Spring 2019 - Splatoon 2 (Round Robin, 16 teams)
 * 2) Fall 2019 - Splatoon 2 (Conferences, 19 teams)
 * 3) Spring 2020 - Splatoon 2 (Conferences, 21 teams)
 * 4) Fall 2020 - Splatoon 2 (Conferences, 21 teams)
 * 5) Spring 2021 - Splatoon 2 (Semi-Swiss, 16 teams)
 * 6) Spring 2022 - Splatoon 2 (Semi-Swiss, 14 teams)
 * 7) Spring 2023 - Splatoon 3 (Semi-Swiss, 22 teams)
 * 8) (Current Season) Fall 2023 - Splatoon 3 (Semi-Swiss, 18 teams)

Playoffs
The playoffs are a double elimination tournament with the top 12 teams of the regular season (or top 6 teams from each conference in Seasons 2-4) that reach a certain point threshold. They are always streamed to Jon's Twitch channel, always landing on a Friday to ensure the entire stream is dedicated to it. The current format is a Best of 5 (Best of 3 in losers, minus Losers' Finals) across all four Anarchy (Ranked) game modes, up until Grand Finals which are Best of 7. Originally, every match and battle would be streamed to Jon's channel, while Kyon would host the Loser's bracket. As of Season 5, only Jon's stream shows one winner's bracket match at the time as well as Loser's and Grand Finals. All matches are played simultaneously, even for off-stream matches. Both streams have a co-commentator: on the winner's side it is a rare moment for some of Jon's Splatoon-playing friends to take the co-comm seat (such as Emile, Masae, and PKSparkxx), while on the loser's side the commentators are Kyon joined by a co-comm of his choosing.

Trivia

 * Of all of the Splatoon 2 seasons, only the first season was played during's Splatoon 2's main content cycle and crossed the 2-year mark of the game's release. The Splatoon 2 FinalFest/2nd Anniversary Splatfest (Splatfest #26 for Splatoon 2), marking the end of significant new content (beyond the extra Splatfest for Super Mario's 35th Anniversary and reruns), happened near the end of that first season.
 * A few teams are/were made to represent TRG and friends:
 * Planet Firefin, representing JoshJepson and FireLordBrooke. They are currently the only outward reference to TRG across the league while still leaning toward the Firefin reference in its current logo.
 * Their original logo was created by Fayelina.
 * Golden Octos, initially representing Masae as the Gold Anelas.
 * Inktoberfest, initially representing Tom Fawkes.
 * Inky Rose, a Turf War Tournament and Season 1 team that had ACFan120 as a member.
 * Many regulars of the Egg PAC are represented in regular league teams.
 * Icee is a league organizer and has been on Team Sol since Season 3 (was captain of Kalamari Kombo in Season 1). He became team captain for the team as of Season 8.
 * DropsOfMoonlight is the captain for Team ESUBA who have played in most seasons (Seasons 1-4, Seasons 7-Present). They are also the creator of PSL Idol, Giri.
 * Fayelina is a former and founding member of Planet Firefin. While dropping at the end of Season 5 due to low morale, she officially resigned long before the start of Season 6.
 * JennyBlaze and CrimsonSun are a part of the Takoroka Titans as of Season 7.
 * Deevins is a part of the Scrapyard Squids as of Season 8.
 * Xant is a part of the Booyah Brigade team as of Season 8.
 * Professional team FTWin participated in one season, Season 2, and ultimately won the playoff tournament.
 * Kyon has become a notable commentator in the greater Splatoon community during his tenure as a league organizer, commentating for multiple events including Top 16 at a large Splatoon LAN (Riptide 2023).
 * The playoff streams are the origin of Jon opening MS Paint to jokingly make a play-by-play over an ongoing match.