The New Structure of Factions

Earlier in January, when I noted that there was seemingly (dis)engagement in the goings-on of the Silph Arena, I also noted that its Factions arm for team competition was going to change majorly in its structure, and it has done just that. Its new regular season has just kicked off today, with all the teams having registered by yesterday - as the deadline for that - and beginning combat this week. With it, the changes have also been implemented, and all the teams are to face each other as well as all these changes.

The top tiers are still there, but they've been expanded list-wise and content-wise. List-wise, there is a new highest tier, Emerald, and there are two new lowest ones, Copper and Iron. Content-wise, the tiers now have 10 teams ("Factions") that play each other once round-robin style in the 9 weekly Bouts of a Cycle. Gone are relegation "playoffs", which were more disengaging for others more than they were engaging for the teams of concern. Instead, for the Iron through Silver tiers, its leader at the end of a Cycle gets promoted two tiers while the next two runner-ups are promoted one tier; likewise, for Platinum through Bronze, its bottom-ranked team gets relegated by two tiers and the two teams above get relegated by one tier. Platinum also relegates the seventh-place team and Iron promotes the fourth-place team to maintain parity, while Iron also relegates its bottom four.

Also gone is the Qualifying tier in the bottom section; thus, the only remaining bottom tier of Open now contains all other teams in a regional division that don't fit in the top tiers (or else are insufficient to create another top tier without leaving the Open tier with less than 10 teams), restarting teams (which count as a new progression), and new teams that register mid-way through a given Cycle. It still plays by the Swiss-system format along with the 9 weekly Bouts - thus the requirement for no less than 10 teams - and in exchange for the four bottom teams of Iron, it sends its top four teams there at the end of a Cycle. By calculation, now the top Factions tiers can support more than 80 teams in a single regional division, with those 80 teams in the top tiers and everything else in the Open tier. It is still clear that the tournament is designed to be as huge as possible.

Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific situation is still meager. At the start of this season, the regional division only has three of the topmost top tiers (Emerald, Diamond, and Platinum) followed by an Open tier of 13 teams. That works out to 43 teams, an increase of only 5 teams; under the previous tier system, it would have been four top tiers and a Qualifying of 13 teams, still not enough to fill every tier. It is also clear that the regional division still pales in comparison to the other three, with them having at least double that number of teams. Alas, there seems to be not much that can be done except for more Trainers in Asia Pacific to be more open to the Factions concept and be able to fill up more or even all of the tiers. All the other regional divisions already seem to have things quite established and even more so with this new and expanded structure for the team competitions.

Overall, for the most part, what didn't change for the Factions structure was organization; what did change was the scale of it all, befitting the situation for most of the world save Asia Pacific. In theory, this should lead to a lot more engagements across many more teams; now, they'll have time over the next 36 weeks (the 4 Cycles of this next season) to put that into practice. At least, the matter of engagement may now be less of a concern, and the teams only have the objectives of representing themselves and winning.

One year ago: Quickies: Bike for Pokémon

Two years ago: Everything Is Electric

Three years ago: A Wonderful PikaWorld

Four years ago: Beyond Gyms and Trials

Five years ago: A Pokémon Pencil Bag