Summary
Numerous competitors at the 2023PokemonWorld Championships have been disqualified from the event for using hacked pocket monsters. The move prompted polarizing reactions among the banned pro players, some of whom were quite upset with this development, positing that it’s an overall net loss forthePokemoneSports scene.
The Pokemon World Championships is an invite-only event that sees the best players on the planet compete for the titles of world champions across multiple game categories every August. The 2023 iteration of the competition started in Yokohama, Japan, on August 11 withaPokemon GOWorld Championships celebrationand will run until Sunday, August 13.
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The first day of the event stirred some controversy after the organizers decided to ban players competing inthe Pokemon Video Game Championships (VGC) categorywith hacked pocket monsters, which turned out to be a non-negligible portion of participants. That group includes Brady Smith, a three-time VGC regional champion who was disqualified after it came to light that half of his six-creature team was either modified or generated using third-party tools. Taking to Twitter, Smith said that he received the ineligible Pokemon from another player under the assumption that they were legitimate, having decided to trade for them because he didn’t have all of the games required to build the team he wanted.
He still appeared to be in good spirits following his disqualification, concluding that he should have gone through the effort to get the Pokemon he wanted himself. Not every disqualified competitor shared that sentiment, with Italian player Roberto Parente stating that he “cannot stop crying” following the unexpected hack check that barred him from continuing the tournament. “We spend money for this, we need respect,” Parente wrote on Twitter, arguing that he doesn’t have the time to legitimately breed competitive Pokemon that keep up with the VGC’s ever-evolving meta.
The hacking check, which was performed after the 2023Pokemon World Championshipsalready started, caused a contentious debate in the eSports community. A vocal portion of both competitors and fans appears to agree with Parente’s position that spending hundreds of hours on team compositions simply isn’t feasible, arguing that the whole point of competitive battling is to determine the best strategists, not see who has the most time for grinding.
Seeing howthe best-performing Pokemon in competitive playare always changing, offering a legitimate way to generate creatures with desired stat bases and movesets—or at the very least turning a blind eye to hacked creatures—would make thePokemoneSports scene more accessible, thus helping it grow, according to some critics of the recent bans. On the other hand, many feel that doing so would undermine the importance of being a Pokemon trainer that is fundamental to the iconic series, positing that putting the effort into team-building is at least as important as battling.
