Venture Past Cliffs and Old Paths

It's the start of a new month, so it's also the start of a new themed cup for the Silph Arena. It also happens to be the last one for this competitive season before the final push to the end. And since I deem that I can sufficiently write about it, I might as well finish this up with a post right now. In a way, the theme is an "ultimate finish" of sorts, which is why I titled this post the way it is titled, and certainly would be explained in clear details as the post progresses.

Anyway, the themed cup of the month is titled "Venture". As has been established as standard for the Arena, it involves the Great League, a team of 6 Pokémon, no duplicate species, and no Mega Evolution (at least, at present). For this themed cup, there are quite a few restrictions. No Pokémon can have the types of Dark, Steel, or Fairy, and there is a species ban involving Chansey. That should be simple enough yet oddly familiar, but there is much more than that.

The reason is that all the remaining Pokémon that qualify for the cup are then distributed into "tiers" with point values. There are four of these tiers, and the point values are 10, 6, 4, and 1. Further, there is also a threshold of 20 points for a team, which cannot be exceeded. This automatically means that a team cannot contain more than 1 10-point Pokémon with or without 1 6-point or 4-point Pokémon, or 2 6-point Pokémon with no 10-point Pokémon and with or without 1 4-point Pokémon, or 1 6-point Pokémon with no 10-point Pokémon and up to 3 4-point Pokémon, or 4 4-point Pokémon with none of higher points. Due to both the point system and team requirement, teams with certain point values (such as less than 6 points, or 7 or 8 points) are also impossible to be created.

Immediately, the connections are rather evident, as hinted in the title. Aside from the Chansey ban, the type restrictions are exactly the same as for the Retro Cup from the Go Battle League (thus, "old paths"), which means that some viable battle parties from there can be adapted into full teams for this themed cup. The point tiers and threshold also smack of the Cliffhanger format by Go Stadium (thus, "cliffs"), with the difference that there is no 0-point tier that practically allows teams of any number of points up to the threshold to be made, and that the format applies for the current month of the Silph Arena. The thought process that somehow led to the synthesis of the GBL and Go Stadium formats above into a Silph Arena themed cup is amazing yet equally confounding.

Regardless, there remains an identifiable meta "network" for the themed cup. Ghost types that play into Psychic types can play into Fighting types that play into Normal types, which then play into Ice types that play into Dragon types. All these types may have some importance in the conceived teams, but it is just as important to consider the point threshold in creating teams, and then fitting what works within the meta and what is available accordingly.

After a journey of a few months with the themed cups of this season's Silph Arena, that journey comes to an "ultimate finish" that remarkably looks a lot like the combination of an "old path" and an "edgy format". But it may be that for all those that have invested into the Arena, the "ultimate finish" is simply one more venture to go through before they're ultimately qualified for the final push that ends this season of the Silph Arena in style.

One year ago: The Pokémon Battlefields

Two years ago: Holding Hands

Three years ago: Raid Preferences

Four years ago: Sympathy for Villains