Hello, my fellow Pokemonsters! 

As we wait for Ultra Sun and Moon, let me tell you about a feature of Pokemon Sun and Moon. It's called "Friendly Competitions". One of the features I forgot about for a while as it wasn't in effect immediately, and came out later with a PGL update. The PGL is known as the Pokemon Global Link where you connect your game to through Festival Plaza and it keeps records of your playthrough and your participation in the official Online Competitions (such as Tiny Tourney and Weakness Cup). But it also hosts a setting called Friendly Competitions. The screen on the PGL for which can be seen below:

In theory, this seemed like an absolutely brilliant idea which could spawn creativity and longevity for the game. But in actuality, it's worse than a Verlisfy moveset. The main cause of this is the absolute lack of creativity. With this feature, when it comes to selecting eligible Pokemon, you are only able to select between Alola Dex or National Dex, and decide whether Major Legends can be included or not. That's all. Oh and you can select whether you allow items, disallow them, and the same for Mega Stones, and I believe Z-Crystals. Wow, so... extensive. I don't like attacking GameFreak coz they do a great job and people whine about the most asinine things, when they've never actually put out a game that I don't like... but this was honestly so badly done. A brilliant concept with terrible execution. 

So... how do they fix it? Well, here's what I'd like them to do. They should have an actual filter for Pokemon on a 1 by 1 basis, that allows you to go through the whole National Dex and choose which Pokemon are allowed and disallowed by clicking on them. And they should make sure not to restrict it either (i.e. don't try a "you can only ban 100 pokemon" feature mess). Ideally, they'd do the same with Items, but it's not required. Of course, they could do the same for every ability and move in the game too but that's just... much. I'm only really interested in the Dex Selector tbh - and maybe items in some cases. If this doesn't end up being added to in Ultra Sun and Moon, well that's a shame, but if they do expand on it, I'll be a very happy boi. 

I'm sure that most of you are asking yourselves what the point of this "series" is, at this point, or just wishing I'd stop typing endlessly, but poor you, I'm not going to. However, I will explain the reason and it's something I've been thinking about for a while. Whether or not this feature gets updated in USUM is irrelevant, but if it does get added, maybe it's something we can actually do. I was thinking of - as the blog post's title suggests - a Type Tourney; where in each one you can only use Pokemon of that one type. In general, the rules for each type tourney would be something like this:

• Double Battles Format; Bring 6, Use 4
• All Pokemon allowed; Includes Legendary and Mythical Pokemon
• All Moves, Abilities and Items are allowed; Includes Type-Changing Moves and Abilities
• Duplicate Pokemon and Items are allowed. (Due to restrictions, as we probably won't be able to officially ban them)
• No Smogon Clauses; i.e. Sleep Clause, Recovery Clause, OHKO Clause, etc.
• Pokemon with type-varying Forms may only participate in the correct Type Tourney; i.e. Alolan Vulpix only in Ice and Arceus-Ghost only in Ghost, etc.
• Mega-Form Pokemon are regulated by their base form; i.e. Mega Gyarados (Mega: Water/Dark, Base: Water/Flying) is allowed in Water and Flying, but NOT in Dark, etc.

In short, even though these may not happen in USUM or ever in the future, this series will be a theoretical-based series, where I will be going through each of the potential Type-Tourneys and identifying what I believe would be top-tier threats and the most prominent Pokemon in the tier; almost like a prediction, and y'all can discuss each one and tell me if you think I'm right or wrong. But how, oh how, will I determine which order we're going in? Well, I have the perfect solution...

Meet a particular set of very well liked, respected and famous characters. The Gym Leaders. Each Gym Leader in Pokemon also has their own specific type. And why not go in the same order that these Gym Leaders appear throughout the regions. The first two games alone have 16 differently typed Gym Leaders, with X & Y adding a Gym Leader for the fairy-type; which leaves one type without a Gym Leader (do you know which?) - which will be done last. The order of the gym leaders, and the links to each of the future posts, can be found below:

 The Rock-Type Tourney 
 The Water-Type Tourney 
 The Electric-Type Tourney 
 The Grass-Type Tourney 
 The Poison-Type Tourney 
 The Psychic-Type Tourney 
 The Fire-Type Tourney 
 The Ground-Type Tourney 
 The Flying-Type Tourney 
 The Bug-Type Tourney 
 The Normal-Type Tourney 
 The Ghost-Type Tourney 
 The Fighting-Type Tourney 
 The Steel-Type Tourney 
 The Ice-Type Tourney 
 The Dragon-Type Tourney 
 The Fairy-Type Tourney 
 The Dark-Type Tourney 

See ya there!