Pokemon Go introduces trainers to the Element Cup today, laying down what might be its strictest Battle League ruleset so far.

Niantic introduced Battle League to Pokemon Go well over a year ago. A feature allowing trainers to pit their Pokemon against one another in the name of competition. However, it's not as simple as having your best Pokemon square up against someone else's. Well, not always. The varying leagues and cups involve different rulesets and restrictions, requiring trainers to carefully select different teams for various occasions.

Today marks the beginning of Pokemon Go's first-ever Element Cup. A Battle League competition that might well have brought with it the strictest set of restrictions to date. As the name of the cup implies, Pokemon used to compete in the Element Cup are restricted to three types, water, fire, and grass. Chosen Pokemon can be dual-types, but must have at least one of the three listed.

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angry bulbasaur
via Bulbapedia

That's not all. All competing Pokemon must also be under 500 CP to be eligible. They must also be Pokemon that can evolve and have to be the first in their evolutionary line. That's a lot of caveats to consider when assembling your team of three, and will make for some very interesting and thought-out match-ups in the coming weeks.

Pokemon Go's Element Cup begins today (June 28, 2021) at 6 PM EST and will run until Monday, July 12, 2021, at the same time. Trainers will get double Stardust from win rewards and end-of-set rewards during those two weeks. The Master League and Master League Classic will be running alongside the Element Cup and will be replaced by the Great League and Great League Remix on July 12.

Battle League was introduced right before the pandemic gripped the world in 2020 as Niantic had to figure out how it was going to keep people playing Pokemon Go. It did that by waiving Battle League's walking requirements among other changes. The news that some of those changes will be removed has resulted in backlash from some players. So much so that one of Niantic's employees deleted their Twitter following the barrage of complaints they received to their personal account.

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