The Silph Arena Factions Post-Season

I've been spending the past couple of days writing a couple of reflective posts, so it's time to write about something subjective for once. And something that fits that bill is the Factions competitive arm of the Silph Arena. It has entered a neat phase, which is its post-season, meaning that the current (and inaugural) season has effectively ended. Yet like in certain sports, the teams - in this case Factions - are still competing to show off their best capabilities, and that occurs through two competitions that involve the best of them.

The first competition involves the best of the best from the Diamond tiers of each region (North America, Latin America, Europe-Middle East-Africa, and Asia-Pacific), and it's called the Global Championship. The best four teams from each region's Diamond tier, comprising either Cycle winners or those with the next-best winning records, are gathered into a single-elimination tournament that proceeds over a course of four weeks, one round each week. This, of course, ultimately decides which Faction is the best in the world after having proven themselves in their respective regions.

For the rest of the teams in other tiers, there is the Global Melee, which is a large Swiss style tournament for each tier, including the rest of Diamond tiers that didn't make it into the Global Championship. Likewise, the best teams from each tier of each region are gathered to participate, and this time they battle each other to determine the best of the best in each tier on a global scale rather than that of the regions. Here, the number of teams in each tier varies depending on who is invited and who accepts, and they all battle it out in the same timeframe as the above.

Both of these competitions use different metas or themes for all the usual League and Field Specialists. The most fundamental change is that everyone brings in a team of eight Pokémon, and then the opponent will ban two at the start of the match. The Battlefields for the Championship are Atlantis, Dungeon, Comet, and Cave, and those for the Melee are Floating City and Dungeon (two each), with slight modifications. Some Leagues are to be utilized in a restricted manner, either in a Battlefield style (UL Comet for Melee) or being forced to select some Pokémon from a set list. Most of these also ban Salandit and/or Salazzle (two just-introduced Pokémon, more on this later) to even out the competition.

Silph Arena Factions has turned out to be a phenomenal mode of competition even just in its inaugural season, and if anything, the Global Championship and the Global Melee above serves as a fitting end to this first season. The teams (Factions) that made it to either one did so by no small feat, and now they'll have to do more of that to establish that the teams and their individual members are no small fry either, instead to be bigger than the rest and to proclaim that they're the first giants of this new competition.

One year ago: Let's Go Meet New and Old Friends

Two years ago: Leaping off Ledges

Three years ago: Scat-Poké-Land

Four years ago: Let's Go Research

Five years ago: Caravansary