Hello i want to revive this thread and suggest a midground both as a casual ladder player and a tournament player.
this idea is great but not implemented that well, a lot of tournament players want to test their games on high ladder using alt accounts, public games can be saved and potentially revealing your alts, and therefore your teams. On the other hand, i know a lot of players who are newer to competitive pokemon and wants to see how high ladder player plays, and don't exactly know how smogon works and how to navigate it since its daunting at first glance.
I think for the final 3 days of a month and season,
only have the top 30 player's game to be public. For high ladder testing, top 100 is frankly too low on ladder, 1850 for any decent tournament player is really easy to get to, and is generally the sweet-spot for testing games since you are no longer facing "noobs" from 1600-1700 and able to get decent games to test your teams. From what i've experienced the top 30 of the ladder are usually just ladder mains or alts that frequently get top 30 on ladder anyways so people know about them, they use similar teams always and probably don't care that their games are public anyways, some even welcome spectators. (I should know, i faced these players on a daily basis).
Top 30 is volatile sometimes being as low as 1910, to as high as 1960, but it is high enough that tournament players can just not ladder this high, but still able to get 5-8 high ladder test games which is usually enough, and if its not, forfeit games and drop elo to intentionally avoid this threshold.
To avoid jumpscares, everytime you get a medal be it top 100, 30 or 3, get a staff message saying you earned a medal (rewarding for the ladder players, a reminder for the tour players) and that the final 3 days for top 30 will be public like this.
Its sufficient enough warning for them to stop playing, or forfeit a few games.
From the casual stand point, this feature isn't great. I understand that adding new feature is not easy but this isn't even half baked, its quarter baked. I personally know a lot of newer/casual players i've met through OU Room, PMs on showdown (even discord and smogon) asking me how they can improve their games and wanting to watch me play high ladder games to see how good players play. However, unless they are actively trying to find high ladder games anyways, noone is going to know this feature is even a thing, just like the friends list feature until a few months ago.
Shaymin Sky 's post above is a great showcase of this, the people that are going to find the games are,
A.) tournament tryhards
B.) trolls
The new players i referred to would have no idea this is a thing, they probably don't even know that medals are a thing (even some old players ive seen don't even know that its a thing), a lot of them don't know how smogon works considering the forums are really tough to get around for newcomers, and if they can't find tournament replays, trying to find high ladder medal games would be harder. There needs to be a way to show the high-ladder battles, maybe have an extra button next to the active battles one to show medal battles and have a link to the season discussions room at the top.
also the room for seasonal medals isn't a thing. I don't know if its a bug or someone forgot, but its been like this for months.
Overall, this feature is a good idea on paper, but it is incredibly half baked, theres a ton of features that doesn't work, and it actively does more harm to the people playing in top 100 ladder than it does any good for the target audience, which are:
1. Newer players who wants to watch high level play for fun/to learn
2. High Ladder mains who wants to have a reward for their achievements.
You need to remember, the newer players who wants to watch this are mostly there to watch fun high ladder games like they see on Youtube, so having it be so hard to find for only 3 days isn't really enticing to them. If my suggestions of only top 30 players games are public, and theres a warning for it, increasing the time to 7 days might even be possible (tho im not really sure about this part).
Personally i really like this feature, cause its cool to have a badge under my name to show my accolade as a ladder player, and also its nice to have an easy way for new players to see high ladder games who don't know how smogon works (theres a lot, trust me) be it for entertainment or to learn. So it's sad that this feature is implemented so poorly that it actually does harm to tournament players, and doesn't have a way to hit its target audience.
I hope this gets fixed and properly implemented and not left to die like the friends list for so long (especially since its a nuisance for a lot of tour players i know).