The "competing pathways" formalism is based on the thermodynamics of all relevant steps involved in sintering of a particular cluster size. The energetics of the monomer movement between different cluster sizes and all their accessible isomers are calculated to assess thermodynamic (un)favorability of such Ostwald ripening steps. It is essential to consider the energetics of monomer migration between all cluster sizes, as they build up and participate in sintering, rather than simply considering said energetics only between the initial, sizeselected clusters. The persistence of a given cluster size throughout the sintering process is determined by the energetic relationship between the isomers of a given cluster size and those of all other cluster sizes.