As in the past few years, Pokémon Go Tour - for which the Global edition is this weekend, as previously noted - appropriately features the themed format for the region of concern. Given previous occurrences (Johto last year, see below, and Kanto ahead of time), that themed format would be rather predictable, and it is thus called the Hoenn Cup. Today also happens to be the first day that it is playable, but many insights can already be gleaned, and as such it is appropriate to discuss it immediately before it's no longer as such.
The features of the theme format are also just as predictable. Like the others before it, it's based on the Great League, but restricted to the range of species from the region. That would mean species with Dex numbers 252-386, a range of 135 species. That's more than Johto (and even Sinnoh) but slightly fewer than Kanto; yet like all of them, not every species is viable for battle at or near the CP limit. Even so, based on the experiences of past Great League formats, there are many gems strewn around this range of species, and here they are gems as well.
Based on rankings, the foremost of these gems is a glistening round thing called Registeel. Behind it, some species might be rather familiar: Pelipper, Altaria, Deoxys Defense, and Swampert are included. So too are Medicham and Sableye, though these two require Candy XL for viability. Some of these species have been tested time and time again, and they often come out on top, whether in regular "open" format or specified theme formats; no wonder one such format banned them completely. But now, they have to do battle against each other.
In battle, the results aren't too surprising either. Based on the experiences of a friend and me all throughout today, while in the short term there are some variations in the teams, in the long term, the compositions of the teams start to settle into the expected "meta" of the rankings. The species that I've listed above (and others) are just so viable even against each other that they continue to be used. The primary determinant will be (and always is) how a Trainer deals with the expected and unexpected variations.
Pokémon Go Tour is by now becoming a usual and expected event, and that may also be perfectly applicable to the themed cup format that accompanies the event. In this case, it's for a region with its own dynamics for both the landscape and the Pokémon that hail from it, the latter of which also turns out to be true in pitting the most viable of the species against each other. That may serve well as an indication of the dynamics of the event's Global edition, which will commence soon enough to bestow those dynamics upon the masses.
One year ago: The Johto Cup of GBL
Two years ago: Learning from Each Other, for Life
Three years ago: Pokémon Go Community Day, 2/22/2020
Four years ago: Don't Forget Our Roots
Five years ago: Pokémon Go Community Day, 2/24/2018
Six years ago: Memories of Johto
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