Pokémon Worlds is the culmination of Pokémon’s competitive season across three main titles. The Trading Card Game (TCG), main game’s Video Game Championships (VGC) and Pokémon’s titular entry to the MOBA genre, Pokémon Unite held their finals at Pokémon Worlds. The event started off on the back foot. The official Pokémon Twitter announcing cancellation of the Yokohama Open, three week before the event.
Credit: The Pokémon Company International
Cheating at Pokemon Worlds: Reap what you Sow
With Pokémon Worlds underway, VGC, the mainline Pokémon games’ competitive format has seen the most controversy. Whilst hacked/generated Pokémon have never been allowed in the official circuit, The Pokémon Company (TCPi) has struggled keeping it under control.
Warnings were given that hack checks at Pokémon Worlds would be stricter. Despite this, some players chanced with the checks and were caught red handed. Pokémon VGC has had accessibility issues since officially supporting the format in “Generation 4”, 2009. In addition to the in tournament play and decisions made, the process of raising a Pokémon with specific stats is where champions are made. Champions would never admit to generating Pokémon in their winning teams. However, with how difficult Effort Value (EV) and Individual Value (IV) training was in early generations, raising these pedigree Pokémon would have been nigh impossible.
Those times are over
TPCi has taken improved strides to make raising ideal Pokémon less intensive. In fact, Sword and Shield made it the easiest its ever been. Each season of VGC, TPCi introduces new alterations to the legal Pokémon rotation. This season saw the introduction of Pokémon Home, the cloud based Pokémon storage box. In doing so, the legal Pokémon list opened up from the inhabitants of Scarlet and Violet and extras. The legal list now includes Pokémon from any and all generations. This include Pokémon that could be traded up and transferred to Pokémon Home.
This included the powerful and never before seen in VGC Hisuian region Pokémon from Legends Arceus. They did not feature multiplayer and therefore, no VGC. With Ushifu Rapid Strike (Sword and Shield DLC), Landorus and Ursaluna (Legends Arceus) running rampant, players would need to buy 3 different Pokémon products to compete at top level. Even if you chose not to buy a $60 Pokémon game for a single Pokémon and instead traded for it, there’s no guarantee the trader was abiding by the rules. This certainly makes life more difficult.
To trade or not to trade
The threat of superstar Pokémon coming from an illegitimate trade because you didn’t buy its game four years ago is a scary prospect. Scarier are the reports that even fully legitimate teams could face DQs based on generated Pokémon in your box storage.
Multiple participants have reported seeing players disqualified due to Pokémon in their storage being illegitimate. Even if their full team was created fairly. One player reported being given a game loss for naming his storage after the popular hack client. Whether you believe generating Pokemon should be allowed or not, the fact that trading, a core aspect of Pokemon is dissuaded due to its risk is a shame.
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