Shanai Cup was a heavily simplified tier of competitive Pokemon (with just 16 legal Pokemon and 16 legal moves) that aimed to introduce an AI engine to Pokemon battles. It had a niche fanbase among competitive players attracted to the simplicity.
Shanai, and the 'Shanai Cup' (Internet Archive)
Allowed Pokemon
Axew, Chimchar, Croagunk, Cubchoo, Electrike, Golett, Magnemite, Nincada, Nosepass, Purrloin, Skorupi, Spearow, Spoink, Teddiursa, Totodile, Treecko
Allowed Moves
Aerial Ace, Bug Bite, Dragon Pulse, Electro Ball, Faint Attack, Fire Pledge, Frost Breath, Grass Pledge, Magnet Bomb, Power Gem, Psyshock, Shadow Punch, Strength, Venoshock, Wake-Up Slap, Water Pledge
Banned Abilities on Pokemon
var bannedAbilities = {
'treecko': ['overgrow'],
'chimchar': ['blaze'],
'totodile': ['torrent'],
'spearow': ['sniper'],
'skorupi': ['battle armor', 'sniper'],
'spoink': ['thick fat'],
'golett': ['iron fist'],
'magnemite': ['magnet pull', 'analytic'],
'electrike': ['static', 'lightningrod'],
'nosepass': ['sturdy', 'magnet pull'],
'axew': ['rivalry'],
'croagunk': ['poison touch', 'dry skin'],
'cubchoo': ['rattled']
};
Tier History
nixeagle joined the development team a few weeks ago with the intention of creating an AI engine to battle Pokemon. His major is mathematics and he is interested in game theory. He has already helped the developers solve bugs, and has created a bot that connects to Pokemon Online for the purposes of battling with his AI.
All of his work is open source, and can be found at his github. He has made the bot do several cool things already, like return various information using commands. If you want to see them, check out the #Shanai channel on the Pokemon Online server.
Recently, I implemented a tier on the server in order to begin AI testing. Shanai (which has become both the official name of the bot, and of the AI) learns via machine learning. It needs 'experience' in order to become an efficient battler. This means that we have to slowly introduce it to Pokemon. nixeagle asked me to create a tier with a small number of Pokemon, all at level 5. He requested that Pokemon only have simple damaging moves with no secondary effects, and no support moves.
I opened the teambuilder and selected Smeargle so I could get a complete list of moves. I sorted them by type and picked out one from each type that did simple damage. Ground only has Earthquake as its simple 1-turn damaging move, so that type was excluded. After I got a move for each type, I used the Pokedex to run a search for a Pokemon that could learn each respective move.
I set the tier on the server before I went to bed. I log on today to find that the tier has actually became a relatively successful metagame all in its own. People are playing it, appreciative of the simplicity of the tier. There are only 16 allowed Pokemon, with 16 total moves. There are no restrictions on how many moves a Pokemon can have. I didn't do any careful cross-checking and pretty much picked out whatever Pokemon popped up in the search.
The tier was named Shanai Testing but changed to Shanai Cup by popular demand. The players are enjoying the simplistic metagame and look forward to help the AI learn. This is a rapid paced tier which will see various stages of change as the AI grows and needs to learn new or different conditions. The tier has been more successful and active far beyond anything we ever expected.
Sorry for the lengthy introductory post but I wanted to cover everything. Feel free to discuss anything about Shanai, the tier, and anything else related. Also please keep in mind that we want simple non-damaging moves and no support moves whatsoever on the tier for now; to assist the AI in its learning. The AI is almost ready to start battling so get your skills honed!
