Absolute chaos at the official Pokémon tournament – All top players disqualified!

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Cancelled, repeated and then ended early – everything is going haywire at the biggest Pokémon tournament in Korea!

Eclat at the biggest tournament in Korea: The Pokémon Trainers Cup was supposed to determine the participants for the big Crimson and Purple World Championship. Instead, the tournament was a pure disaster and the top players protested against it.

Consequently, the entire final matches had to be cancelled and all protesters were rigorously disqualified – but how did the uproar come about?

The Chaos Tournament in Korea

On May 14, the top 150 Korean Pokémon players were to compete in the (Trainers Cup) to crown the top 16 who would be allowed to compete in the World Championship. A total of 10 rounds were to be contested in best-of-one.

Furthermore, all participants had to permanently search for new matches and play them one after the other without breaks. This meant that they had to play the same opponents more often. In the case of disadvantages against certain teams, this was of course quite unfair and sometimes did not really reflect the skill of the players.

Due to the fact that the Trainers Cup also took place online, there were several bugs, disconnects and sometimes the ranking of the players was not calculated or displayed correctly.

In the end, Pokémon Korea revised all the results of the tournament because of the mistakes and all those who had actually earned entry to the World Cup had to forgo it and compete again.

The Trainers Cup was then repeated (on 28 May) -but the final rounds were never to take place.

Protest at Pokémon Trainers Cup

So the tournament was held again at the end of May, and it seems that no major mistakes were made.

The (Final of the Cup) should then actually consist of the top four players competing again against each other and locally. The placings will determine who will also receive the flight and/or accommodation for the World Cup in August.

However, everyone decided to “protest” – too much had happened before. Everyone signed up teams in which every Pokémon has the attack Metronome. If you perform this attack, it randomly determines which attack of all the existing ones the Pokémon uses.

However, the organisers did not let this pass () and the entire top 4 were disqualified – they are also no longer allowed to participate in the World Championships. The final including the event and livestream was also cancelled

 

The players felt disrespected and wanted to use the protest to ensure that Pokémon Korea finally did something about the current situation in the competitive area, communicated better and adjusted the rules – because things were already in a bad way before.

Disturbed communication on the part of Pokémon in Asia?

NashVGC, one of the four protesters, described why the Korean players felt disrespected and acted the way they did:

  • Due to Corona, there have been no in-person events since 2019 – everything has taken place online.
  • 2022 was the first time a World Cup had been held since 2019, but there was no information in Korea about how exactly to qualify for it.
  • First after the online Coaches Cup, it was announced that the top four players would be allowed to compete on Day 2 of the three-day World Cup.
  • Juniors and youths were completely excluded from this.
  • 2023they did not know how they would be admitted to the World Cup until March.

Now that this tournament was also completely flawed and the compensation was insufficient according to the players, they wanted to do something.

Other players also protest

It seems to be not only in Korea that there are problems. Things are apparently similar in (Japan), (Hong Kong), (Taiwan) and (other Asian countries) regarding tournaments and communication.

One player from Taiwan has named his Pokémon specifically and this was even shown in a livestream for the event. Among other things, he uses the nicknames to demand that no more best-of-ones be played and that “Swiss rounds” be used.

Whereby players compete in several rounds and fight against people who have a similar record as themselves.

There was support from America too, as another VGC player took the same team as Nash to the tournament in Milwaukee.

The Pokémon organisers responsible in Asia have not commented further – so whether things will be different in 2024 is questionable.

Nash, however, suspects that nothing will change, at least in Korea, as the compensation for the 14 May tournament is that the revised Top 16 will gain immediate access to the 2024 Pokémon Trainers Cup.

This is what the World Cup participation conditions look like in our country

To give you an idea of how (different the process is) compared to Asian countries, we have given you a rough idea of how everything works in Europe and America.

  • Depending on the region and age group, between 100 and 300 “Championship Points (CP)” must be collected in order to be allowed to participate in the World Championships.
    • Players can do this in certain online and in-person tournaments at various locations.
    • The in-person tournaments consist of 9 rounds on Day 1, each consisting of a best-of-three. Those who pick up enough wins will be admitted to Day 2 and the remaining bouts.
    • The Pokémon teams of the opponents including attacks and Tera types are visible – in Asia the Tera types are not visible. So luck and surprise are also (an unfair) part of the best-of-one there.
  • Invitations to the 2nd matchday of the World Cup vary by country.

In addition, the official Pokémon websites report quite early on how participants can qualify – so it”s much clearer than in Asia.