In Pokémon UNITE, there is a reward system after every game, you gain battle points on the Pokémon you've selected to play. A win gives you more points than a loss. These points earn you in game rewards like tickets and emblems and what not, but there is something special for the Pokémon you play. There are three thresholds that when your Pokémon reaches them, they earn a ribbon that is displayed to all on the loading screen. It's a way to show that, "Hey, I've play a lot with this Pokémon."

With the double points card rewards, you earn 200 points for a loss and 300 points for a win. You'll get half that if you haven't activated the reward card. The first threshold is at 35,000 points, or roughly 150 games minimum (assuming you lose just a few more than you win). The next threshold is 85,000 or roughly 340 games minimum. The last threshold is 165,000 points or 660 games minimum. Over the course of that many games, you learn a little bit about yourself, the Pokémon, and the game.

Alright, done with the math lesson, here's my progression towards getting my Gold Ribbon (165,000 points) on Pikachu:
- Games Played: 926
- Win Rate: 63%

Over those 900+ games, I have a few things I've learned. Get ready for my hot takes...

I made a meme about this, but it holds a lot of my truth. Corporate needs you to find the difference between these two pictures...Ranked and Standard.  The trick is, they are the same picture.

I used to think that for the longest time, playing ranked and having a high rank in Pokemon UNITE meant that I was, in fact, a good player. Couldn't be further from the truth. Not even a win rate in this game is all that important with factors like bot games and match making being what it is.

I don't think enough people take an aggressive line in the game. Now, this harder with no communication to your teammates, which is a large portion of the player population. Play the numbers, aggressively position yourself to steal farm, and don't hesitate getting dunks in when you can. As long as you don't take it to the extreme and just throw yourself at the other team, I think you'll find more success in the game.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE. You have to be having fun. There's something about having good, strong, mental health when playing the game. As things start to go not your way, you get angry, you try to buckle down and do things tighter, which sometimes throws blinders up on you and your performance declines even further.

I play by the rule of 3 strikes, I'm out. I lose three, doesn't matter when or how frequent, I'm done for the gaming session. I'll go for a walk, go find a different game to play, anything to refocus and then I'll consider approaching the game again in the same day.

You learn a lot about yourself and the game when you put a lot of time in. Let me break it down to 3 rules.

1. Play what you want.
2. Have fun.
3. If you aren't having fun, stop playing.

As long as you can abide by these three rules, you'll find yourself happier, healthier, and more successful in the game.

There's no denying that Pokémon UNITE flows in a bit of a cycle. The opening week or two of a season is frustrating as everyone is trying to bust out of their rankings and back up into the upper levels of Masters. Then there is a period where everyone coasts and is enjoying the ELO grind and earning their stickers. Then the season comes to an end and everyone is waiting for that reset to start all over again. SoloQ is fun until it isn't and playing with friends gets a little stale when its the same thing over and over again.

How do we shake it up? How do we get ourselves out of the mud? How do we make it fun when the grind tells our brains that it isn't fun? Well I'm here as your Fun/Chaos Manager with THREE ways to play Pokémon UNITE that do not care about the final result of a game. Victory or Defeat, at the end of the game, if you're playing one of these "game modes", you're undefeated on the night. Not to mention each of the games actually improves an aspect of gameplay when it does become time to get serious.

Players: Up to a full 5 stack can play.
Mons: Any and all! Play what you like and what you think is good for the game mode.
Directions: Objectives are the sole focus of the game. +1 point for securing a top or bottom objective. +2 points for securing Rayquaza. Compete amongst your friends in the stack to find the secure wizard, but beware. If the opposing team secures Rayquaza, all players lose a point. For added extra toughness, when 2:00 minutes hits, no one is allowed to team fight, but instead, everyone must try to secure Rayquaza. Team fighting is allowed the rest of the game and with the other objectives. Highest score at the end of the night wins!

Players: Up to a full 5 stack can play.
​Mons: Any and all! Play what you like and what you think is good for the game mode.
Directions: Play competitively or cooperatively with the party and see who can score the most points in the game. Play cooperatively and judge your total score each game and see what your team best is. Best played in bot games where you can easily throw caution to the wind and focus on scoring.  My stream's team best is 1,709 against bots, let me know if you beat it.

Players: Up to a full 5 stack can play.
​Mons: This is where it gets fun...
Directions: This is a very popular one among content creators and streamers. Having a wheel or means to randomize the Pokémon that you play or the team composition. That's it, as long as your having a good time with the randomization, you're winning!

If you are a streamer and don't already have a command that randomizes the pokemon for you, allow me to introduce you to "Bill's PC." Bill's PC is a command I use with nightbot (!bill) to tap into Bill's PC and spit out a random UNITE pokemon to play. Here's the full text of the command so you can quickly add it to your stream:

Don't worry, I keep the URL it fetches from updated with each new release, you don't have to worry about a thing.

There you have it. Three ways to not only play UNITE and not care about the final results, but three ways to play that can actually improve your ability to play when it is time to get serious. I call that a win-win.

When you feel like you're stuck in the mud, grinding SoloQ, or just looking to shake things up, here are three exceptional ways to play Pokemon UNITE without caring about the final results of the game. Try these out, let me know what ones are your favorites. Are there other ways you play UNITE with your friends? Hit me up on social media and let me know!

This bonus game mode is for the SoloQ warriors out there that just want to take a break or for those that want to keep pushing their competitive edge. It does also depend on the results of a game, so I couldn't technically count it in the article, but I wanted to share it anyways.

Rules for the UNITE Nuzlocke are as follows: 

1. Randomly assign yourself three Pokémon, they are your "Party" in the nuzlocke. The Party has a max of 6 at any time.
2. Games are played SoloQ only. Ranked or Standard, doesn't matter at the end of the day.
3. If you win a game, you earn a point and the Pokémon stays in your pool of options.
4. If you lose a game, you don't lose a point, but you do lose the Pokémon from your pool of options.
5. If you run out of Pokémon in your pool of options, then the nuzlocke is over.

​
Special Catch Rule: If you are the MVP of a game you won, you may add the losing MVP to your pool if you haven't added them yet (congrats, you earned an extra life, high five!). Example: You play a game with Mew and win and are the MVP. The losing team's MVP is Garchomp. You have not added Garchomp yet to your pool, so you decide to.
 
I would love to see content creators and streamers post and share their runs, it would be really cool to see what kind of high scores we could obtain. If we start a Hall of Fame, we will need video evidence of your run to count it.

It's not out of the norm for my brother and I talk about Magic: The Gathering. In fact, it would be really weird if it didn't come up in conversation. We're constantly checking in with each other and saying, "Oh, did you know (insert random MTG news item)." This past weekend, the conversation started with my brother asking, "How excited are you that Oathbreaker picked back up? You love that format!" 

It's true, I was an early adopter of the format and a big fan. I got a few friends at work to at least try it, but it never really took off among my playgroup, for reasons I'm still unsure about. But alas, my decks, while never taken apart, were left in my closet next to commander decks I'll never play. That was, until just a few weeks ago.

Now that Oathbreaker has be given sometime in the spot light, I followed my response to my brother with, "Are you going to build a deck finally? I would love to game with you." To which he replied, "Yes, but can I tell you one thing that disappoints me about the format?"

Without even a second guess, I answered, "You can't play some color combinations." 

"Yes, and even some of the dual colors kind of lock you into a particular strategy based on the planeswalker's ability."

I verbally affirmed that yea, that sucks, and then the two of us did what any two nerds who like rules and game design would do...

We tried to come up with a balanced solution. It was a 30 second conversation that started with, "Wouldn't be great if..." and the entirety of my weekend became less "What if?" and more "Why not?

So, without any further introductions, let me introduce my proposed rule change to deck construction for Oathbreaker.

It is a subtle, yet very impactful, change to the rules of deck construction and color identity of your deck. The idea is fairly straight forward. The signature spell needs to have some connection to the Oathbreaker, and having at least one shared color is the cleanest solution to that. It means mono-colored planeswalkers  can continue to have signature spells in their same color or consider adding a color for the cost of a higher mana cost spell. Think like in D&D, it is like an up casted spell. This prevents people from jamming just any powerful instant/sorcery with any planeswalker just for the sake of power. The additional color comes with a built in downside of having to cost extra mana to get the extra color.

The biggest impact this has is that the dual color planeswalkers can then dip into the other guilds that share a color to create the shards and wedges that are missing, and more importantly, open up a much more diverse pool. No longer would you be locked into one of two Esper commanders or the single Jund commander, but instead could play Jund with a Golgari Oathbreaker tapping into the Rakdos or Gruul.

One of the biggest attractions to Commander is that every color is not only represented, but there are so many options that you can personalize your deck to a particular color combination or strategy. Until WoTC prints what is missing, there is both a hole in the represntation and a less diverse pool of combinations for deck building.

By saying that color identity of the deck is determined by BOTH the Oathbreaker and its signature spell, in addition to the shared colored connection between the Oathbreaker and Signature Spell, you are creating more opportunities for people to play what they truly want and isn't that one of the reasons to play a format like Oathbreaker in the first place?

One example does not make a law, but consider the following deck:

I love Abzan. I love Siege Rhino. As it currently stands, I can not play Siege Rhino in Oathbreaker without some sort of rules adjustment or conversation with my playgroup. Conveniently, Abzan Charm shares two colors with Ajani, Mentor of Heroes, but that isn't a requirement. I originally had Vraksa, Golgari Queen and Dromoka's Command for this deck, and eventually decided I like what is above more.

• Am I doing a disservice to myself by adding a third color? Maybe, but Esper, Bant, and Jund get to exist.
• Is this any more powerful than a two color strategy? Maybe, but it comes with its own challenges.
• Do I get to play with some of my favorite cards in my favorite format? Yea, and I love that for me. That's the point.

What happens to cards like Command Tower that reference the commander?
Nothing changes. Cards that reference commanders refer to the Oathbreaker. In Command Tower's case, it would only tap for the colors of the Oathbreaker. You do not gain the extra color from your Signature Spell.

Why wouldn't you just pair any instant/sorcery with any planeswalker?
Ah, I see you're looking for the most degeneracy, have fun with your friends, but that's not the point of this consideration.

Instead of playing a mono-colored planeswalker with a dual colored or three colored signature spell, why don't you just play a dual colored or three colored planeswalker and follow the rules?
The easy answer is not all the shards and wedges are represented currently, so this is attempting resolve that issue. Second, if you are playing a mono-colored planeswalker with a three colored signature spell, you're likely hindering yourself and keeping yourself in check.

You can't be serious, that means I get to play x that combos with y?
Look, I'll admit, I didn't go through each of the couple hundred planeswalkers and match them up with the thousands of instants and sorceries. If you found something broken, it's a multiplayer format, your table will keep you in check (or at least should)

Why don't you just make your own Abzan Planeswalker in the meantime?
I've seen the card designs on Reddit...NO THANK YOU! This rules consideration works with official cards already printed.