Stadium Cup
A Stadium Cup is one of the four competitions in Stadium Mode of Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Stadium 2. Though there are only four in each game, there are six total.
Each Cup has different rules and regulations on things such as levels of the entered Pokémon, moves used, items held, and even the species of the entered Pokémon.
All of the cups have the same format: The player will pick out six of their Pokémon from their party or boxes, then go on to the challenges. There are eight battles before a cup is won, and each of them require the player to choose three of their Pokémon to face three of their opponent's. If a match is won without any of the player's Pokémon fainting, they will receive a continue which will allow them to re-challenge once if they lose to a future trainer in the same set of eight.
Challenging the cups with Pokémon owned by the player (as opposed to rental Pokémon) allows for use of the box trick, provided said Pokémon are drawn from the boxes rather than the party.
The Petit, Poké, and Pika cups were first introduced in Pokémon Yellow, if a player was battling another Yellow version. The Prime Cup was based off of the free battle rules of normal link cable battles, with a few restrictions. Quite fittingly, it was these four cups which were the four official cups of Pokémon Stadium.
Six new cups were introduced in Pokémon Battle Revolution, four of which have very similar rules to four of the Stadium Cups of Generation I and Generation II. For a listing of them and their rules, please see Stadium Cups in Generation IV.
