The Love Cup of GBL

After having proven its versatility over the past few months, now it seems apt for Go Battle League to try something new every so often. Since this month is considered by many to be the "month of love", a good thing to do would be to take that theme and run away with it, and that's exactly what the GBL did. As an alternative to the current Master League offerings (regular, Premier Cup, and Classic), which started earlier this week, there is also a special themed cup called the "Love Cup". It's a fair alternative with all things considered.

Like Holiday Cup last month, this alternative uses the Great League as a basis. For this themed cup, only Pokémon that are colored pink or red are allowed; this is based on their regular or non-Shiny form colors, though the respective Shiny forms, even if they are of different colors, are still fair game. However, there are a few other restrictions. Legendary and Mythical Pokémon are not allowed, forcing the use of common Pokémon. Three Pokémon (Mr. Mime, Darumaka, and Darmanitan) also have Galarian forms that are not allowed, but their original forms are. Altogether, the list of allowed species boils down to 105 in total, which makes for a decent list to go through and battle with.

Faithful Trainers who follow both community and official PvP formats will recognize that this themed cup bears a lot of similarity to the Rose Cup of the Silph Arena from last year. Likewise, both allow for Pokémon based on their regular form colors and disallow Legendary and Mythical Pokémon. The differences are that Love Cup excludes the purple and gray colors, which disallows pesky things like Skuntank and - still - Bastiodon, but includes the Water type, which opens the door for other kinds of pesky things like Seaking and Alomomola, both of which can potentially ruin the party of Fire types, which are still plentifully present. Similar strategies are therefore not guaranteed.

That said, a few good teams for this themed cup involve a couple of Pokémon of a specific type along with a complementary Pokémon for cover. The latter would be the lead (the first Pokémon sent out) and the former would constitute what is called the "hole", essentially trapping unexpecting opponents. If cleverly crafted, it may even be possible to use all the members of certain species families (Slowpoke, Chansey, Lickitung) with the right complement for the latter two. The biggest challenge would perhaps be to create a multivariate team that can deal with most opponents without falling into a specific "hole", though in some cases this could be unavoidable. One may have to tread lightly.

Such has been the case for me in the few days that the themed cup was introduced. Sometimes wins are hard to come by, while other times they seem to come on parade. I'll admit that in some cases this may be due to wrong strategies on my part, or conversely, the misfortune of the opposing Trainer. But what I and many of my PvP fellows can agree on is that the Love Cup is considerably easier and more affordable than the Master League offerings that currently accompany it. As a matter of fact, I've been able to spend all the allotted 5 sets of battles per day since the format is addictive and attractive. It will likely be something I'll continue to do until the Love Cup drops out.

There is admittedly "a thing of love" just around the corner, so the Love Cup is only appropriate, as well as for this month in general. Though it does look like an official rehash of a community theme (and staunch fans of the community PvP might still make the claim), as long as it's viable, appropriate, and reasonable, Trainers will come flocking to it - a fact that I can attest. As the saying goes, all is fair in love and war (or battle), and for this one, the fairness is evident however Trainers choose to battle... and love Pokémon afterwards.

One year ago: What to Nominate

Two years ago: Cryptic Pokémon

Three years ago: Two Games at Once?

Four years ago: Cosplay: Japan LovEvolution Vol. 2 - Kaizen