Four top professional Pokemon players have been 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:banned from competing in the Pokemon Trainers Cup, Korea’s answer to Nationals. The best participants in official VGC competit♏ion in Korea this season had reached the finals, known as Top Four, and agreed to only use Pokemon knowing the move Metronome to protest against the Korean circuit prior to the ban. As it stands, there will be no winner of the Trainers Cup this season, and all four players have had their World Championship invitations retracted.
Metronome makes the ‘mon use a random move – anything at all, from Magikarp’s useless Splash, to Rayquaza’s exclusive and devastating Dragon Ascent, to the mutually assured destruction of Explosion. Instead of the finals being a test of skill, all four players would be relying on pure luck to take the victory and the prizes that come with it. This protest against unfair regulations on the Korea circuit would undermine competitive integrity and make a mockery of the region’s biggest tournament: aꦯ suitably powerful protest that is disruptive and funny in equal measure. Metronome’s animation is a w🤡agging finger, likely another small protest aimed at Pokemon Korea.
One finalist, known as ‘NashVGC’, explained why the players were protesting on . His main points were the lack ofꦚ in-person tournaments, the state of online competitions (which are currently a sprint of Best-of-One matches, leading to luck and surprise factors taking more precedence than skill), and the systematic disregard of younger players, but you can follow the link to read his thoughts in full.
“What I mainly want to stress about the current situation is the lack of respect,” Nash tells TheGamer. “As a fan who's loved Pokemon and the competitive scene, what I personally think of as the most important factor of the franchise is mutual respect and in the end, becoming friends.
“The Pokemon Company Korea (TPCK) has, over the years, been seriously lacking communication. From how I see it, the series of events that have happened to not only South Korea, but Asian regions in general – from terrible formats to technical issues and disqualifying top contestants without valid reasoning – all leads to꧒ the same problem. Disrespect to [its] fans.”
The Korean Pokemon circuit has been neglected for years, and this protest was intended to highlight the situation that those players face. However, 𒁏one player, known as ‘Blue’, was banned ahead of the ܫfinal without explanation. His replacement agreed to the Metronome battle, but after all four players locked their Metronome-only teams in, all four were banned too.
The players eventually received as to why they were disqualified, with Pokemon Korea explaining that “(1) Multiple Pokemons [sic] hold only one move, and hence normal battles and tournament operation is impossible,” and “(2) (1) has been detected from multiple players”. While the actual ban comes under the nebulous ‘deeds that The Pokemon Compan𝓀y finds inappropriate’ rule, the latter translation from VGC player suggests that the ban is for collusion, as the players’ protest impacts the competitive integrity of the competition.
However, the protest has gathered a lot of attention in the wake of the players’ bans, with high profile players and former World Champions like Sejun Park and Wolfe Glick speaking out against Pokemon Korea and in support of the players. Who knows if the Metronome battle would have garnered half as much attention if it had gone ahead? It’s hard to say, but Glick 𓄧worries that it could have a more serious impact on competitive Pokemon.
“I’m proud of the Korean players,” said Glick in a video on the subject, which you can see below. However, he added, “I worry that… if we make the headache too big for Pokemon, that we will lose events.” Comp✃etitive Pokemon is not a revenue driver for The Pokemon Company, but that cannot and should not prevent players from having a good experien꧟ce. In the wake of League of Legends’ player walkout, it’s high time games companies looked at the players whose salaries it provides – directly or indirectly – and treats them as human beings.
You wouldn’t get this kind of treatment in tennis or golf, arguably the closest IRL sports to competitive Pokemon. Players in those sports are told about their competitions well ahead of time, youth tournaments are encouraged and talents fostered, and the Wimbledon final wouldn’t be decided by one set. The same could be said for US or European Pokemon events. While it’s understandable for The Pokemon Company to have multiple subsidiaries covering its global empire, t🌸here should be some consistency between the competitions in different parts of the world. That playe༺rs in the US are getting best-of-three Swiss rounds at in-person events, while those in Korea have to deal with a best-of-one online ladder system hardly seems fair.
The players also deserve thorough explanations for their disqualifications from P♕okemon Korea, and as to why they have had their World Championships invitations 🀅rescinded. If no satisfactory conversation is held, this may just be the beginning of Pokemon protests, so watch out for waggling fingers in all your tournaments henceforth.
“I’m glad that people are believing in the cause,” Nash says, &ldq💃uo;and helping to get [a] better future for gamers.”