Pokémon fans are divided after World Championship shocker that disqualified world best players

POKÉMON held its World Championships this weekend, where the best trainers from all over the world fought for the title of world’s best player.

For Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Shohei Kimura took home the prize, but his story is not the one most people were talking about.

This year hacking checks were stricter than ever before, which led to a record number of disqualifications from the game.

While players were not publicly disqualified, people can tell which players were disqualified from when they were knocked out of the tournament.

The biggest upset is the presumed disqualification of Oceania International Champion Gavin Michaels, who had an automatic day-two ticket.

Other players had Pokémon banned, such as Federico Camporesi, who had to fight their way out of day one with just five Pokémon after their hacked Ursaluna was disqualified.

They had the chance to catch a legitimate Ursaluna for day two, and ended their championship run with an incredible top-four finish.

Pokémon players and fans alike are divided over the disqualifications, which ended so many people’s World Championship-winning dreams.

Many believe that using external software to build your team is cheating, and they should be punished for it.

As building a team takes a lot of time, it is said to give some players an unfair advantage, as players who hack ‘mons can use the extra time to practice.

While hacking has always been against the rules, it appears that in the past a blind eye has been turned to the practice due to how difficult it was to build Pokémon in game.

However, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet makes building Pokémon easier than ever before, which is perhaps the reason why checks were far stricter this time.

On the other side of the debate is that the new regulation meant that people had to also own Sword or Shield, as well as Pokémon Legends: Arceus in order to build the best teams.

All previous regulations this year only used Pokémon from Scarlet and Violet, making them easier to obtain.

Some strategies require minimum attack or speed in order for the Pokémon to be optimal.

There is still no way to modify your Pokémon for this in-game, which is why many claim that hacking is still necessary.

Others have claimed that they received the Pokémon in a trade from a trusted party, and were unaware the Pokémon was hacked.

The Pokémon Company has advised people not to use traded Pokémon in their tournament teams, but some feel this goes against the ethos of the game.

The disqualifications have led to a huge disruption in the community with famous YouTuber Pokémon Challenges offering to hold a separate tournament for disqualified players.

There was further unrest as technical problems in as many as six of the eight Top 16 matches suffered a disconnect leading to Sudden Death situations.

Pokémon has not gone public with these issues, and these reports are coming from the professional players themselves.

Whichever side people stand on the issue, it seems there has been arguments and unrest amongst the community.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.