Pokemon VGC pro reveals “80-90%” of tournament competitors hack
Game Freak / The Pokemon CompanyA Pokemon pro has come forward following controversial tournament bans to shed some light on the underbelly of the competitive scene.
The Pokemon VGC scene has been in disarray following a wave of disqualifications in the recent World Championships. These disqualifications occurred in August 2023 as a result of stricter testing methods for hacked or generated Pokemon.
These disqualifications have caused some controversy and split the competitive Pokemon community over the use of “genned” or modified Pokemon in tournaments. Many believe that the structure of Pokemon can be prohibitive with the best mons in the meta requiring access to multiple previous games and DLC.
VGC Corner’s Brady Smith, who was one of the first to be banned for using modified Pokemon, recently told their side of things in an interview with Gameland. In this interview, Smith revealed that the use of hacked Pokemon is common practice in the tournament scene.
Many of the competitive Pokemon community have been understanding of this given the amount of money and time that stands as a barrier to entry. Breeding and training a competitive Pokemon is a massive time sink and maintaining a meta team can require players to own up to five $60 games.
It would be far easier to use a tool like PKHex and have a team created from scratch with all the relative stats adjusted. It’s important to note that in these tournaments, the modified Pokemon all have legal stats and move sets and do not offer a competitive advantage in battle.
While it might be disillusioning to some to think that multiple top competitors are “cheating”, it is apparently a fact of life. “80 to 90% of top-level players modify or hack their Pokemon,” Smith explained.
Given that many Pokemon pros spoke out against his disqualification and echoed this exact sentiment, it’s not hard to believe. “It’s a trade secret, but everyone ‘in the know’ knows this,” Smith reiterated.
Smith is a popular Pokemon VGC competitor and fans of the game were understandably upset to see him and other favorites disqualified. In an effort to showcase their skills, YouTuber Pokemon Challenges hosted a tournament featuring Smith and other disqualified players on their channel which can be watched above.
If you’ve been thinking about getting into competitive Pokemon and want to know how to do it without having to generate a team, we’ve got heaps of guides for breeding and training.
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