thanks for updating with his unballed pix. he's beautiful.
what reduces his pattern? is it the pastel/super pastel gene?
I would say Super Pastel. Here's a Leopard Mojave Pastel:
As you can see it has a bit of a busier pattern, but Scorch ball pythons also can have a busy pattern (that's what my male is). The Leopard gene seems to be really aberrant and that just may be it.