Quickies: Yawning Away Matters

Lately, I've been yawning quite a lot, sometimes a few times in a row. It also doesn't help that I've also been dealing with a few issues or matters, whether of my own or others. It's been said that yawning is a way to relieve bodily stress, specifically body temperature; its contagious effect has also been said to have the possible effect of keeping others alert, meaning that it also has the effect of keeping away fatigue to a certain capacity. Therefore, it could be said that my recent yawning stretches have been to keep away some internal matters with me as well as the external matters outside of me.

Certainly, yawning has as much to do with Pokémon just as much as it has to do with my life and the rest of real life. Yawn is the move that triggers a state of "drowsiness" and eventually sleep in the Pokémon games where sleep is a status of concern. It may become a way for the user to keep away things that the opponent can possibly inflict, at least temporarily, as well as to keep the user itself alert for that moment the opponent is drowsy before falling asleep. While it could be true that the circumstances for the move might be fairly limited, at least the move might still have its uses (or avoidance) in adventure.

I'm likely to continue my yawning stretches for a good bit of time as I continue to deal with the issues or matters that need my attention. The latter of these, dealing with my progress on them, is important, but so seems the yawning stretches. Yet what I expect is to be able to remain on the side of the Yawn move that keeps me alert rather than leads me to drowsiness and eventually sleep. At the least, there is stress to be relieved inside in addition to the issues that are to be resolved outside. Perhaps after some significant progress and equally significant yawning, then I will have been able to yawn things away.

One year ago: The Flying Cup of GBL

Two years ago: Performance Critique: Project "Untitled" J-Karaoke

Three years ago: Let's Rule the World, Together

Four years ago: Triplets and Pairs

The Structure of Factions

As mentioned previously, the regular season of the Factions of Silph Arena has a fascinating structure. Earlier, the competition held one-off preseason Cycles with many teams in them, which made them appear like one big tournament. With the regular season, however, the competition is now grander in scale, and that's saying the least. It also has outgrown its tournament foundations and has become almost something different entirely with its regular season structure.

For the regular season, the teams (that is, the "Factions") are divided into 5 top tiers and 2 bottom tiers. The main tiers are Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze going from top to bottom, and these contain the top 40 teams with 8 teams in each. The teams play against each other once in a round-robin format, resulting in 7 main Bouts. After all the Bouts are completed, the top 2 teams in all tiers except Diamond are promoted to the next higher tier, while the lower third-place team battles the higher sixth-place team in a "playoff" Bout to determine who goes where, and the bottom two teams are relegated to the next lower tier. For Bronze, however, the bottom 3 teams get relegated instead to the bottom tiers.

The bottom tiers are Open and Qualifying. The Open tier is made up of the rest of the teams up to the top 50%, and the Qualifying tier makes up all others, all of them battling in the usual Swiss system format for the duration of the 8-week Cycle. The former receives the 3 relegated teams from Bronze and sends the top 3 to be promoted, while it sends its bottom 50% to be relegated to Qualifying; the latter sends its top 50% to be promoted to Open and receives the bottom 50% from Bronze, as well as new teams that register in the middle of a Cycle, who would then appear in the next Cycle.

It becomes clear that the new structure makes it evident that the competition is now essentially a league-style competition like that of soccer, though it maintains its foundational tournament basis with the round-robin and Swiss system in the respective tiers. Another evident quality is that the competition is designed to be accommodatingly huge, if the preseason Cycles don't already make that fact apparent; they have had 50 teams in them, which is already large, and now the regular season can accommodate the good, the better, and the very best in large numbers, particularly for the former two.

Yet there are adaptations. Presently, Asia Pacific has far fewer teams than the other three regional divisions (North America, Latin America, and Europe-Middle East-Africa), and it has only the top tiers of Diamond, Platinum, and Gold, immediately followed by the bottom tier of Qualifier containing 14 teams. With a little math, that means the region only has 38 teams. That may become a prompt for Trainers in Asia Pacific to try to get more teams going, in hopes that they can fill up enough of the lower tiers for a full-on league competition.

Regardless, if the intent of Factions is to create an amazing team competition that rivals its standard individual one, then its workings have that in spades. The best of the best are there in their own tiers, while the rest can vie to become as such from the bottom up. Combined with all the participating Trainers, the competition becomes grand, enough for them to declare that they can reign supreme as the team groups that they are.

One year ago: Spending Afternoons with Eevee(lutions)

Two years ago: Where My Voice Gets Heard

Three years ago: Dexterity, Pokémon Games, and Me

Four years ago: Team Harmony

A Glimpse into Faction Battlefields

After a couple of preseason Cycles, the Factions of Silph Arena got its regular season going, along with the start of the new regular individual Silph Arena season. It has a neat structure, which ought to be discussed later. Along with that, it also introduced the Battlefields for the cycles of its regular season, four of which have been put in play in the first Cycle that has passed and the second Cycle that is currently ongoing. It is fascinating to take a brief look into these Battlefields to see what goes on in them.

In the first Cycle, there was a Battlefield called "Dungeon". Pokémon types were to have at least one of Water, Bug, Poison, Dragon, and Steel, and the ban list comprised Azumarill, Skarmory, Altaria, Bastiodon, and Shadow Pokémon. Since there are few direct type relations with the necessary types, Pokémon that have other types decided how well species matched up with each other, which is evident with the four banned species that would become dominant otherwise. The non-inclusion of Shadow Pokémon ought to have made this a more friendly choice for some Specialists, though it may be restricting to others.

The first Cycle also featured the return of a previous Arena themed cup as a Battlefield, and that was "Nightfall". The same restrictions for the themed cup still apply, but there is now a ban list, with Pidgeot, Chansey, and Lickitung within it. The first of these has been known to be errantly powerful, and the last two are known to be somewhat supreme defenders, so to balance things this time around, they've been taken out. With all other particulars remaining the same as well as the ability to use new species that have been introduced since that time, the theme becomes slightly renewed but still ready to challenge.

Meanwhile, there is the current second Cycle with its two Battlefields. The first of these is called "Comet", with Normal, Fire, Flying, Ice, and Psychic as the types of choice and Chansey, Wobbuffet, Mantine, Altaria, Medicham, and Deoxys Defense as the ban list. This list is significant, as many of them need Candy XL or are just plain bulky to start out with, which might be cumbersome for Faction newbies or totally dominant for expert Trainers. Therefore, this Battlefield might be considered another (or rather, the more) friendly choice when it comes to entering this Cycle and battling.

Like the first Cycle, the second Battlefield is a returning themed cup called "Twilight", which I hadn't covered on this blog because it was before I'd gotten into Silph Arena. Here, the types of choice are Poison, Ghost, Dark, and Fairy, which are quite interrelated; to keep things in check, the ban list here comprises Nidoqueen (fairly powerful in and out) and Pawniard (another Candy XL seeker). This Battlefield will obviously find favor with those who possess prior experience, and with the ban list being not too extensive and new species in play, there is something to be gained with the new experience as part of Factions.

With the above Battlefields, it can be seen that two are completely new and two are returns from the Silph Arena to suit team play. Yet they still make sense, as Factions itself represents a kind of "novel return" for veterans of Silph Arena together with those who may be relatively less experienced. As Factions continue, new and old themes alike - this time as Battlefields - will certainly mingle and challenge Trainers to make sure that they do well for themselves and their teams in this current season and hopefully beyond.

One year ago: Hype and Habit and Pokémon

Two years ago: Cosplay: Erafun Cosplay Contest

Three years ago: Cosplay: Art and Cosplay Stage "PANSOS"

Four years ago: How Many Is Too Many?

Going for an Arena Brawl

Earlier in April, the Silph Arena instituted a novel themed cup format that "segregated" or "shoehorned" Pokémon into six groups, after which a Trainer picks from the six groups that were formed in order to form a team as mandated by the Arena competition. The intent is, of course, to create a totally new format that reduces reliance on certain dependable meta Pokémon. For this month's themed cup, a similar format is once again instituted. This time, the Pokémon are separated not by color as in the Prismatic themed cup format, but by weight, which results in something called "Brawler".

The separation of Pokémon by weight recalls something else that is separated by weight, which would be boxing classes. True to that, the six groups are called Bantamweight, Featherweight, Welterweight, Middleweight, Cruiserweight, and Heavyweight, containing approximately 50-70 selected species (save for "Heavy", which only has 30). Legendary and Mythical Pokémon are included accordingly and can possibly be selected if one can somehow make them work, though it is likely that one may not. The full lists and grouping of species can be seen on the page for the themed cup. One Pokémon from each group is selected, heeding the Great League format and the rules of no Mega Evolution and no duplicate species; unlike Prismatic, Shadow Pokémon are also permitted.

According to the development notes, which also affirm the distinct similarity of Brawler to Prismatic, the latter did succeed in differentiating Pokémon but had the side effect of clustering types as well, as types are often linked to (very specific) colors. Separating Pokémon by weight thus makes evident seemingly unlikely options and clusters the big hitters, preventing them from being chosen together. One of the ultimate goals of the format is thus to allow various and diverse Pokémon to be picked, essentially to make them "shine".

Because of the practice of selecting Pokémon for the group lists, there are bans that may not be immediately evident. Typical meta Pokémon such as Mew, Azumarill, and Bastiodon that even transgress themed cup formats have been excluded. Some Pokémon that are known to need lots of Candy XL, particularly lighter Pokémon that can be bulked up for competitions like Pachirisu and Vullaby, are out. Speaking of regional Pokémon, of which Heracross is an included one, they were also considered to be kept or thrown out based on their weight groups. Shadow Pokémon escaped being excluded because Trainers should be able find a way to deal with them, including the possibility of actually making them work later on.

It is said that much was learned from Prismatic and thus applied to Brawler to make it work in diversity and variety. This is apparent in the selection, separation, and "shoehorning" that went on across the groups of the themed cup, much like boxers in their separate classes. At least now those same "boxers" as Pokémon species can compete together in the Silph Arena as a team and make for an "Arena brawl" in their name.

One year ago: Singing My Hearts Out: After One Year

Two years ago: Cosplay: Project "Untitled"

Three years ago: The Joys and Sorrows of Raid Marathons

Four years ago: Late-Night Lure Party

The Currencies of Unite

Currencies are common in many games present today, especially if they involve role-playing elements, no matter how small. As expected, this applies very well to MOBA games, of which Pokémon Unite is one of them. It too has its own system of currencies that cover all the things that may be purchased in the game in order to expand, improve, or change specific elements for the purpose of gameplay and beyond.

The three basic currencies are Aeos Coins, Aeos Tickets, and Aeos Gems. The first and last of these are considered the primary currencies and are displayed even on the main menu. Each is obtained in different ways: the first two are obtained through matches and/or missions involving them, while the last must be paid for with real money. Regardless, all of these currencies find their place of spending in the in-game shop, though as expected, they're all for different purchases of different things.

In the shop, Coins are used for the purchase of new Unite Licenses or other held items, while Tickets are used for the purchase of held items or fashion items for the Trainer avatar. Gems can stand in for the purchase of Unite Licenses or fashion items, and they are also the currency for purchasing Holowear. It is neat that some of these items can be purchased in an either/or manner with these currencies, as it means that resources can be diverted to purchases of whatever is deemed fitting.

Additionally, there are a few items that almost act as currencies. Item Enhancers power up certain items and make them function better and are obtained through regular play. Meanwhile, Fashion Tickets can be used to obtain selected fashion items, and Holowear Tickets can be used to obtain selected Holowear; these are obtained through Energy Exchange, in particular if a duplicate item of any of them is obtained. These last two tend to be rare but still have their uses.

With three currencies, Pokémon Unite may appear to have a complex system for purchases of things. However, beneath the surface, the system is not at all very complex and the purchases are relatively clear with the currencies that are provided. In that way, it may be a simple (or not so simple) manner of mustering up the resources to purchase what is needed to bring up one's Pokémon Unite game in different ways. 

One year ago: The Pokémon Evolution (and More) Music

Two years ago: Pokémon Go: A Colossal Discovery

Three years ago: Balance of Topics

Four years ago: Kids (...or Trainers, Fans) These Days

My Current Unite License Targets

I've been playing Pokémon Unite for a good while, and I've amassed a number of Unite Licenses now. Among these, there are some that I frequently use and some I haven't learned how to use. Even with this being the situation, I also have a few prospective Unite Licenses that I desire to possess, and these would be my "target" Unite Licenses that I would like to obtain at some point in the future for matches in Pokémon Unite.

Some of my friends have extolled the virtues of Sylveon, a Pokémon so powerful that it had to be toned down - "nerfed", in game parlance - to keep things balanced. Even after that, Sylveon has proved to be a popular(ly powerful) Pokémon by different skill sets and practices. Therefore, Sylveon is an imperative target to be obtained. Yet right now, I can actually use Sylveon on a "trial" basis by a temporary timed Unite License, which I can take advantage of to practice using the Pokémon before I decide to go ahead and spend my resources on the actual Unite License.

Of the Unite Licenses I currently have, I'm not in possession of any Pokémon with the Supporter role. They may be useful in certain matches and to just have outright. As with Sylveon above, I've been able to put Wigglytuff in play, which is indeed a Pokémon with the Supporter role; in doing so, I've learned about some possible uses and practices for this Pokémon, and this becomes very much desirable to be obtained. Having Pokémon of different roles ought to speak for versatility and ability to complement other Pokémon in a team, no matter who they might be.

Meanwhile, others have suggested that I obtain Machamp and/or Absol, and there is some support regarding these suggestions. They are of the Fighting and Dark types respectively, and either of these might back up the current roster of Unite Licenses in my possession, which lacks both. I've also obtained Mamoswine after having learned how to use the Pokémon effectively in matches, and this is a desired "target" that was fulfilled elegantly, also thanks to a timed Unite License from a mission. Other temporary Unite Licenses also ought to indicate other desirable "targets".

With the current situation, there is still much for me to learn about the Unite Licenses I possess for the Pokémon that I can take to matches in Pokémon Unite. At the same time, there is the desire to expand this collection to fill in some elements that are beneficial, necessary, and/or novel. The "targets" that I've set out here should serve as further directions by which I can elevate not only my skills but adaptability in Pokémon Unite.

One year ago: The Halloween Cup of GBL

Two years ago: Later, Psyduck

Three years ago: Hardcore (Dis)United

Four years ago: Duff Knows Pokémon

Halloween 2021: Spooky Branding

It's been one year since the Halloween where everyone faced the "spooks" (see below), and... well, the "spooks" are still there, so it's still being faced. In the meantime, I'd like to discuss another spooky matter, and this time it concerns branding, the way that something would be regarded by others, particularly in presentation. This matter regards myself and obviously Pokémon as the core topic of this blog. It has become relevant in the past few days and has become relevant for the both of us.

For me, I wouldn't brand myself as "spooky", in general concerning all the things I do and speak of publicly, including of languages and Pokémon. Therefore, I don't have the obligation to appear spooky, and it is preferable that I don't anyhow; happenings like the other day are thus the exception and not the norm. Private matters are another thing, but those are way beyond the scope of this blog and certainly not for the consumption of everyone. "Spooky" is therefore a non-option or potentially the very last alternative.

Then, for Pokémon, it is also in general not spooky, but it does provide the aspects that can make it spooky. Those aspects would be yet again the Ghost, Dark, and Poison types primarily as well as the Psychic type in some cases. Taken together, or even strongly individually in some cases, they may very well be quite spooky. In this way, it can present itself as especially "spooky" when circumstances demand it, such as during this bewitching time of Halloween. The brand itself is still not spooky, but it can fit into spooky situations.

As for this spooky day, it would be wise to turn to a generally non-spooky character I identify with.

Ash: No, I'm not spooky. But I've had Haunter and Gengar along the way, and they are spooky.

Me: I'm sure of that. Today, I wanted to send you out with your Sinnoh costume for a few things, but it looks like the weather wasn't supportive.

Ash: Yeah! It rained later in the morning and afternoon. It's fine that I didn't go out, at least very far.

Me: But you could still take care of a few Pokémon things for me, right?

Ash: I did! I captured a few Pokémon just outside, then I took care of your Luxio buddy. After that, I sent a few of your Pokémon into battles with others on Aeos Island - but we didn't do well in most of them.

Me: That's OK. Without a friend, it tends to be like that often. To make up a little bit for the rain and not being able to go out, I got you an online story event. How was that?

Ash: It didn't work out. The storyteller had problems and couldn't perform.

Me: Of all the days. I guess I'll take care of that some other time.

Ash: You know, I would have loved to go to the place that you went with all black clothing.

Me: That wouldn't suit you, though. You'd look like a thug instead of a Trainer, and that can't happen. I do have an idea with Gengar, though.

Ash: That's interesting! Can you tell me more?

Me: When it's the right time. Halloween is already it for this year.

Ash: That's fine. Let me know if you can make it work.

Me: For sure.

Halloween will always present itself as spooky in many ways, and it's hard to change that. What seems to be easier to change is how one presents oneself as the branding; I could totally do so if desired, though it is not a personal one, and Pokémon has the means for spookiness, if such a thing is very much desired as with Halloween. It may be well to do, especially with today, to find just the right and best ways to present a spooky branding.

On that note, Happy Halloween 🎃 - however spooky it might be. 👻

One year ago: Halloween 2020: Facing the "Spooks"

Two years ago: Halloween 2019: Taking My Chances

Three years ago: Halloween 2018: The Tricks to Treats

Four years ago: Happy Halloween!