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This year's Pokémon World Championship tournament saw organisers disqualify multiple pros using hacked Pokémon teams, sparking debate across the community.

Using hacked Pokémon is technically against the rules, but players haven't always been caught. However, at this year's tournament in Yokohama, Japan, the rules were seemingly tightened and many players who travelled across the world were disqualified.

As a result, the community has been debating whether using hacked teams is an acceptable method of saving time, or if it's against the spirit of the monster training games.

Players have used homebrew programmes like PKHeX to create specific Pokémon with exact stats. These don't have a competitive advantage over Pokémon you could legitimately find or train - it's just done to save time.
The alternative would be to either breed and train Pokémon from whichever game yourself, or trade with someone else who's done that. This is considered the 'proper' way to play the games, but requires hundreds of hours of gaming and money to own the games themselves.

Brady Smith was one such player disqualified from the tournament, who shared his experience on social media.

"Should have gotten the 'mons myself," he said. "I tried trading for the 'mons with a reputable trader, but the 'mons didn't pass."
He added: "I guess like the weirdest part in all of this is that they waited til the WCS to start upping their game. I wish it was consistent throughout all the season, but at least we now have this consistently established."

Roberto Parente was another disqualified player. "So many effort put in this season for literally nothing, cancelling the open less than 1 month before worlds + this new hack check last minute way its no sense," he said. "We spend money for this, we need RESPECT."

On the flipside, YouTuber Verlisify has - somewhat gleefully - collated posts from disqualified players in a playlist of videos to highlight the major issue of hacked Pokémon.

Verlisify's take against what he sees as cheating is shared by others on social media too.

The Pokémon Company is yet to publicly comment on disqualified players from the tournament.

Where do you stand on the hacking debate?

Pokémon World Championships disqualifies pros with hacked creatures, sparking community debate

This year's Pokémon World Championship tournament saw organisers disqualify multiple pros using hacked Pokémon teams, s…

www.eurogamer.net

 

[Cyberpunkd]

As a result, the community has been debating whether using hacked teams is an acceptable method of saving time, or if it's against the spirit of the monster training games.

How is this even a question?

Hey, that 1% Bindings of the Windseeker drop? Fuck it, let’s just hack and get Thunderfury.
Blizzard, y u ban?

 

[MagiusNecros]

Shouldn't be using hacking or pokegenning or whatever else to begin with. If you want to be legit you breed/catch your Pokemon from scratch. Instead of hacking in a party with perfect stats.

It presents a pretty clear advantage over other players that don't "cheat".

But we also have the issue with Global trading where a lot of Pokemon that aren't legal have flooded Pokemon trading. It's pretty awful.

 

[Rentahamster]

I'm not that familiar with the situation, but even if all the hacked Pokemon are theoretically possible, that's still an unfair advantage. If this is a competition, it's even more important to keep things clean. How does one differentiate hacked Pokemon from authentic Pokemon?

 

[MagiusNecros]

I'm not that familiar with the situation, but even if all the hacked Pokemon are theoretically possible, that's still an unfair advantage. If this is a competition, it's even more important to keep things clean. How does one differentiate hacked Pokemon from authentic Pokemon?

In most cases. You don't. Hacked Pokemon saves time from min-maxing the stats but it's still as you said an unfair advantage over others.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Grown men crying over comp Pokemon.

Go get some pussy and this is coming from a homo.

 

[kanjobazooie]

I cannot stop crying

 

[rodrigolfp]

Cheaters crying?

 

[Sleepwalker]

On one side these definitely shouldn't be allowed.

On the other hand, gamefreak know full well what they are doing when they spread competitive pokemon across 5-6 $60 dollar games lol. I believe there's even some pokemon stuck on older gens that are no longer sold and are going for massive prices used.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

"Hey guys! I brought my completely normal and legit Picachu!"

 

[Hendrick's]

How is this even a question?

Hey, that 1% Bindings of the Windseeker drop? Fuck it, let’s just hack and get Thunderfury.
Blizzard, y u ban?

Depends on what the competition is about. If it is just about skill, then everyone should have access to all the same Pokémon. If it's about "finding them all", then this rule makes more sense.

 

[Saber]

I'm not that familiar with the situation, but even if all the hacked Pokemon are theoretically possible, that's still an unfair advantage. If this is a competition, it's even more important to keep things clean. How does one differentiate hacked Pokemon from authentic Pokemon?

Shouldn't be using hacking or pokegenning or whatever else to begin with. If you want to be legit you breed/catch your Pokemon from scratch. Instead of hacking in a party with perfect stats.

It presents a pretty clear advantage over other players that don't "cheat".

But we also have the issue with Global trading where a lot of Pokemon that aren't legal have flooded Pokemon trading. It's pretty awful.

Thats the thing. Even pokemon company themselves doesn't control how hacked pokemons spreads overworld.

I remember this from B/W for instance. Lets say you want to trade a pokemon online using Global trading. And someone gives you a hacked pokemon(you don't know its hacked because theres nothing to say its hacked), even though you offered a legit pokemon for trading, nothing stops them to offer hacked pokemons for trade.

Now who is wrong? It's supposed to be the one who gave a hackmon, however since the hackmon is yours now they can theorically banned you for hacking.

And the thing that I wanted to be clear is that people hacking their mons should be punished. But Pokemon company itself never did any kind of work to block them or stops this shit from happening. Pokemon hacked(with very specific IVs, custom pokeballs, you name it) has being a thing for ages.

 

[Robb]

Not sure why it’s debatable.

Someone who spend hundreds of hours to find/breed the perfect Pokémon should be rewarded with a competitive advantage, not go up against someone with the exact same build that took 5 minutes because they hacked the game.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Depends on what the competition is about. If it is just about skill, then everyone should have access to all the same Pokémon. If it's about "finding them all", then this rule makes more sense.

It's about skill. The "hack" is a time saver but gives no advantage in battle.

Still you could say training the pokemon is part of the process anyhow. I don't think they should be allowed but they were allowed (or let go) on every single tournament until the very last one lmao

 

[Fake]

The game that keep deliverying.

Grown men crying over comp Pokemon.

Go get some pussy and this is coming from a homo.

Not only that, but some of than come at the tournament with masks covering all their face to not being recognized lmao.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Not only that, but some of than come at the tournament with masks covering all their face to not being recognized lmao.

So Team Rocket in real life. With all of their hacked Pokemon. Or hacked Pokemon that they got from someone else.

 

[Robb]

So Team Rocket in real life. With all of their hacked Pokemon. Or hacked Pokemon that they got from someone else.

Now all I can imagine is all of the hackers leaving the tournament like this:

 

[Raonak]

Imagine taking competitive Pokemon seriously...

Watching Pokemon battles is like watching a calculator do math equations.

 

[Sojiro]

On one hand, there should have definitely been consistency with this rule for all the other tournaments leading up to the finals, so these guys didn't waste money on travel (that does suck I will admit). On the other hand it seems like these people had an inkling this could happen at any time, but why take that chance if you care about playing competitive Pokemon? IMO what they are doing is cheating, and a ban is warranted, so it's a hard lesson to learn for next year's tournament. They shouldn't have been fucking around with something that was obviously a gray area, so I don't feel too bad for what happened to them.

 

[Paltheos]

Mixed feelings on this. I think the training element of pokemon should be totally sidesteppable for people who just enjoy battling but the more open invite and official status of the World Championship should discourage cheating in any element of the game. The best solution is probably that ultra-serious battlers should satisfy themselves with Pokemon Showdown, and people who enjoy the whole package should attend the official event.

I'm not that familiar with the situation, but even if all the hacked Pokemon are theoretically possible, that's still an unfair advantage. If this is a competition, it's even more important to keep things clean. How does one differentiate hacked Pokemon from authentic Pokemon?

When a pokemon is generated, lines of code distinct from but that tie with their IVs and other information populate their bio. It's not enough to make a pokemon with legal stats, move combinations, and origin information. That extra bit of code needs to tie with all of that for the pokemon to pass inspection from someone who knows what to look for.