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brightknightie) wrote2019-01-21 09:09 pm
brightknightie) wrote2019-01-21 09:09 pm
Entry tags:
Boulder Badge achieved
My local Pokémon Go community held our inaugural Silph Arena player-versus-player (PvP) tournament ("Boulder Cup") at the public library. It was fun! And, well, I won. :-D
Really, we had a 5-way tie among all who had lost only one match each. (I lost my last match by going for a more effective move rather than a faster one.) Per rules, ties are broken by the Buchholz system (from chess). This put me in first place by just one point. It was as close as it could have been! A different order of opponents would have given a different result.
Background: The Silph Arena is a new community-play mechanism designed by players for players via the Silph Road, a leading Pokémon Go fan resource/community, now that we have PvP. January is the first month. But it seemed to work well! All tournaments are Great League (under 1,500 CP) because the lowest-CP league is accessible to players of all levels, has the widest pokémon pool, requires the lowest stardust investment, and frustrates advantages spoofers could potentially get from ill-gotten catches in the other leagues.
Of course January's "Boulder Cup" is a tribute to Brock's gym, the first gym in the main series games. (Many expect Misty's gym for February! We'll see. They could mix it up.) As part of that tribute, for this month's event, only Rock, Ground, Steel, and Fighting type pokémon were Cup-eligible. This restriction gave parameters to the strategizing, which I really enjoyed. My squad: Medicham, Hitmonchan, Breloom, Whiscash, Skarmory, and Magneton. At the last minute, I changed my registration and left my Scizor out; I thought I couldn't risk 2 pokémon with dire weakness to fire, and I had to have Breloom for the half-Water types. It was the right call, even though it turned out that Magcargo was the only fire-user I faced; no one else had taught Hitmonchan fire punch.
(FWIW, if you haven't yet done your Boulder Cup, my advice: Don't bring Rock types. Do bring Skarmory and a counter for Skarmory!)
Really, we had a 5-way tie among all who had lost only one match each. (I lost my last match by going for a more effective move rather than a faster one.) Per rules, ties are broken by the Buchholz system (from chess). This put me in first place by just one point. It was as close as it could have been! A different order of opponents would have given a different result.
Background: The Silph Arena is a new community-play mechanism designed by players for players via the Silph Road, a leading Pokémon Go fan resource/community, now that we have PvP. January is the first month. But it seemed to work well! All tournaments are Great League (under 1,500 CP) because the lowest-CP league is accessible to players of all levels, has the widest pokémon pool, requires the lowest stardust investment, and frustrates advantages spoofers could potentially get from ill-gotten catches in the other leagues.
Of course January's "Boulder Cup" is a tribute to Brock's gym, the first gym in the main series games. (Many expect Misty's gym for February! We'll see. They could mix it up.) As part of that tribute, for this month's event, only Rock, Ground, Steel, and Fighting type pokémon were Cup-eligible. This restriction gave parameters to the strategizing, which I really enjoyed. My squad: Medicham, Hitmonchan, Breloom, Whiscash, Skarmory, and Magneton. At the last minute, I changed my registration and left my Scizor out; I thought I couldn't risk 2 pokémon with dire weakness to fire, and I had to have Breloom for the half-Water types. It was the right call, even though it turned out that Magcargo was the only fire-user I faced; no one else had taught Hitmonchan fire punch.
(FWIW, if you haven't yet done your Boulder Cup, my advice: Don't bring Rock types. Do bring Skarmory and a counter for Skarmory!)