SeaprincessHNB
Pokémon GO as an esport – yes, no, maybe, only on Tuesdays… all the dithering has got to go. It’s time for us as a community to step up and just say “Yes, we believe it’s time and here’s what we’re doing about it.”
The Silph Arena has made team challenges available for a while and is now promoting a league dedicated to team battles called Silph Factions.
This week, we bring you the birth of a new league for Team Battles – Indigo League, presented by TeamRocketPvP. Indigo League is kicking off tonight, March 25th, with a four team tournament as a preview of the season to come. We will do a more in-depth introduction of the league and the teams next week. For now, this is a quick intro to grab your attention and let you know the quality of the battles you will see during the 6 weeks of Indigo League.
The rules are similar to Friday Night Fights. Each team selects 5 battlers. Those 5 battlers confer to determine 5 Pokémon that they do not want anyone to use in the battles. Team composition is done as a draft tournament. Within each team, only 1 battler can use any given Pokémon; there can be no duplicates.
A Game consists of 5 Matches – 1 battler from each team faces 1 on the opposing team. Each Match consists of 3 battles. Each battle won earns 1 point for the team. The team with the most points after all 15 battles have been played, wins the Game.
In this tournament, we will have two sets of teams facing each other in round one. So you will see 2 Games (30 battles) in the first round. Then only 2 teams advance to the Finals where we will see another 15 battles, with 1 team emerging victorious over the whole tournament.
Still, have questions? Drop them in the comments section or in the Twitch chat.
The Games
| Thunderlions | v | Pokébattle Tower |
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| Elite 4 | v | Mazer Gaming |
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Where and When to Watch the Battles
The broadcast for this Indigo League tournament kick-off will feature pre-recorded battles with live shoutcasting on TeamRocketPvP. Tune in to the Twitch channel on Thursday, March 25th at 4 pm PDT to catch the action. The Final will be broadcast tomorrow night, Friday, March 26th at 4 pm PDT with a special guest. Tune in to find out who!
A few days after the event has already been broadcast, you can find the video on TeamRocketAcademy’s YouTube channel, along with other exciting PvP content.
Final Weigh-In
I think Pokémon GO has a long way to go before it is a thriving esport that the gaming world in general will acknowledge. Niantic actually needs to make some significant changes to how PvP works (rentals?) in order for that to happen. Unfortunately, I don’t think we will see those changes any time soon. In the meantime, it is up to us as a community to build the sport the way we want it to work and wait for Niantic to catch up. I’m fully behind any organization that is doing what they can to provide a platform for pro-level battling. I will tune in. I will cheer from the Twitch chat. I will fall asleep in my chair to Twitch battles playing on my laptop (East Coast time zone!).
Have fun. Fight fair. And as my Uncle Jimmy used to tell his kids, “No pulling hair!”
