By CLeonardo77
Hi Trainers! Hopefully you got some rest with the easy-to-build Rainstorm meta in April. For this month of May, we have a more challenging proposal for you. We present Genetic cup! This meta is comprised of 3 different slots, or Parent, Children, and Mutation. Choose your parents carefully, as this will affect your downstream decisions when you complete your battle party. Keep in mind, however, that Electric and Ground types are banned.
THE RATIONALE
We wanted to create a meta that no one else ever made: the logic follows some constraints that force you to adapt choices while you progress through the team building ladder. And this is not entirely new, for example, we have seen point-based or category-based metas in the past. However, no one ever thought of making progressive restrictions based on types that could be inherited! it is easy to make a comparison with biology: two parent species will generate some offspring which will inherit some traits from them. To fully stay within the genetic ethos, we thought about mutations, or offspring that will have characteristics from causal mutation in their DNA, a characteristic not inherited from the parents.
We thought about Water, Ghost and Poison as the parent-typings because they provided the best compromise between a strong monotype Pokemon base with a variety of dual-type, and therefore more pvp-valuable Pokemon. As we thought about it, Water typing has the largest number of possible dual-type combinations, so it would be a likely choice. After that, we considered Poison as a good candidate because Poison Pokemon provide good coverage and contain a pool of very strong choices such as but not exclusive to Drapion, Skuntank, and Tentacruel. Soonafter, we realised that many choices were unfortunately off the table, for example, we could not select Grass, Fire, Psychic – let alone Ground or Electric – because all of these types had super effective relationships with the already-selected parent types. So, instead, we opted for Ghost typing, which although it does not provide a great set of choices – barring the notable exceptions of Dusclops and Cofagrigus – it still generates some niche combinations with Water (Jellicent) and with Poison (Haunter, Gengar). Additionally, it provides trainers an opportunity to use Annihilape in a restricted meta for the first time!
The rationale on choosing our bans. Ultimately, we chose to ban all Electric and Ground Pokemon because Electric is too strong against Water – a meta staple – and, Ground is super effective against Poison, and Water against Ground. There were also concerns about Lanturn and Whiscash being available generally as children, and this restriction also addressed that concern.
RULES
Slot 1 & 2 – Parents
For Slot 1 and 2, trainers may choose 2 monotype Pokemon from approved Ghost, Water, and Poison types. For example, on the infographic above, Cofagrigus and Feraligatr are the two chosen Parents / monotypes. If trainers instead wanted to choose a Poison parent instead, Muk or Swalot would have been a valid choice over one of the Parents.
Slot 3 & 4 – Children
Children Pokemon must be dual-type and need to share at least 1 type with either parent. So, if we look again at the infographic, we are showing Sableye (half ghost) and Tentactuel (half water). If you had chosen Sableye and Annihilape (two dual-type Ghosts), it would have still been right, as they inherit at least 1 type from a parent. You do not need to have equal representation of both Parents in your Children.
Slot 5 & 6 – Mutations
Here comes the fun part! After you have picked your first 4 Pokemon, you have to select 2 dual-type Pokemon whose type has not been chosen yet, but here’s the catch: it must be shadow eligible (you can still select the regular version). The mutations themselves can also not share typings, so you have to select them carefully to complete your jigsaw puzzle.
CONCLUSIONS
We expect people to have fun with this tricky teambuilding ruleset! We envision first 4 slots will quickly converge to a condensed number of academic picks, but Mutations are going to be the real corebreakers of this meta. Don’t forget to follow us on Discord to stay updated about metas and tournaments!
ADDITIONAL INFOGRAPHICS
APPROVED LIST & VALIDATION TOOLING
It is important to note that our meta development team used the initial mono-typings and inter-relational logic between Parents, Children, and Mutants in order to develop an Approved List. Not every Pokemon that theoretically could be included is permitted. Some babies, regionals, and/or Legendary/Mythical choices may have been removed for distribution health. We’ve also developed in-house tools and reached out to partners for validation tooling. The Approved List and Validation tooling can be found below:
Genetic Cup – Approved List & Validation Tooling
Gym Breakers Genetic Cup Remix
As many of you know, the Genetic Cup was used by Gym Breakers in their World Cup format. The World Cup involves multiple rounds that are separate from and extend beyond the individual ranked play in Devon’s solo format. As trainers play a meta for an extended period of time, they begin to see limitations and flaws in the distribution. For that reason, our Devon meta staff and our friends at Gym Breakers developed a remix on Genetic. The changes made were based off survey level data from Gym Breaker’s trainers, our own meta team at Devon, and from the meta team at Gym Breakers. Although we don’t intend to write up a full set of developer notes, we do want to ensure you can find the updated flier and rules below.
