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In the multi-team chaos of the Rainbow Cup, every rivalry was forced to adapt, and the Ground Effect Crown was no different. The flame of the rivalry burned bright, with each team accumulating a lot of scar tissue from regular season chafing and repeated Championship Series reversals. In the Rainbow Era, the rivalry naturally evolved into a fight to ensure the other team failed - and that often meant losing sight of the higher goal (winning the Rainbow Cup) in pursuit of the lower aim (knocking out their rival).

In Rainbow/Season 7, a chaotic West League Championship Series saw the Salt Lake Turbulence focus on creating a spoiler vortex, distracting from maximizing their own score but aiming to knock the Long Beach Flightless Birds out of the postseason. The gamble worked - the Birds were knocked out, and the Turbulence advanced to the Rainbow Cup series - a victory born of pure mathematical spite.

Nine seasons later, in Rainbow/Season 16, the roles would be reversed. The Flightless Birds, embodying their motto, "EVerything that rises must converge," entered the LCS with a singular goal: bury the Turbulence, deep in the earth, as deep as they could go. The Birds used ugly, inefficient, HEAVY patterns that created stagnant zones on the grid ("gravity wells") that disrupted the airfoil formation of the Turbulence, sending them into a tailspin and crashing into the heavy Birds formations. The Flightless Birds barely clawed their way into the Rainbow Cup (finishing a forgettable 4th place), but their real victory was exacting revenge on the Turbulence by grounding them.