Pokémon World Championships Disqualifies Scarlet And Violet Pros Using Hacked Monsters

Using genned Pokémon shouldn’t even be a thing anymore. Scarlet and Violet make building a competitive Pokémon stupidly easy. I’ve got dozens of Ability Patches, Ability Capsules, Tera Shards, Mints, Bottle Caps, Vitamins, and Stat berries all from playing the game normally, and the upcoming Mochi are going to make it even easier. Why travel all the way to Japan if you’re going to risk getting caught with hacked Pokémon? It’s not that hard!

Yeah, it saves time, but you need to be ready to accept the consequences if you get caught taking the risk. And saving time is hardly an issue. Make your team on Showdown first where you can endlessly test and edit it on a whim and then spend the time to build it in game.

And this is why I don’t bother with Pokémon online. People ruin it with hacked overpowered Pokémon

I'm honestly curious to know how they are checking if the pokémon are hacked, since it's possible to make them indistinguishable from legit ones at a basic glance.

So basically “we were too lazy to grind/don’t have the other Pokémon games”.

Before the “there should be no grind!” people come out of the woodworks…

This was for a PvP large tournament not for some private enjoyment. Big difference. If your gonna do competitive Pokémon (especially go all the way to Japan) then at least put in the time to properly obtain/raise them instead of instant gratification hacks…

I can’t say I’m that surprised by this, genning is still rampant in the game due to the various QoL features that were introduced in past generations still being a bit behind the curb (want a Heatran with a Speed IV of 0 or a Cresselia with an Attack IV of 0? You’re gonna have to soft-reset until you get ‘em since Bottle Caps only maximize IVs!) and it was only a manner of time until people got caught. There’s also the issue of game hacking actually being a crime in Japan that come with jail time and fines if found guilty.

As far as how they were caught cheating is concerned, I remember reading in some of complaints that it’s based on Home transfer-only Pokémon (Urshifu, Cresselia, Landorus, etc.) lacking the internal data “flags” that tell the game that they’re from Home. In other words, they were caught with Pokémon that were directly injected into SV via illegitimate means. Those same complaints also said that they’re doing complete storage checks rather than the usual Battle Box-only checks.

Also, I think it was monstrously stupid of TPCi to allow tranfer-only ‘mon to compete in VGC this season since past Legendaries tend to be the ones folks will inject, they should’ve waited for the 2023-2024 season to allow ‘em.

@BrazillianCara It’s usually through checking the internal data. Stuff like event flags, met data, and other identifiers are used to check if a Pokémon is fake in addition to the more “visible” stuff.

@FishyS In all honesty Game Freak needs to introduce a way to give people more control over IVs, Hyper Training is good but there are some Pokémon that actually benefit from having non-31 IVs.

Also, a general rule of thumb for trading in Pokémon’s competitive landscape is to trust no one and catch/breed/inject everything yourself. That way you’ll only have yourself to blame if you DO get caught.

They pretty much can't make breeding easier at this point, just raise them normally.

I’m not opposed to trainers getting disqualified, but I think that they need to rollout stricter trade protocols to prevent illicit trades in the first place. Trainers shouldn’t need to worry that a random Pokémon in their lineup was hacked simply because it was a trade.

@Arawn93 Easier said than done now that the games are complete *****. I love competitive play and USED to love legit training but now I'd rather put my Switch in the microwave than play this game outside of battles with friends for any length of time.

Awww I was hoping Wolfey was one of them, would have been pretty funny

If you want to play Pokémon at a competitive global level, you need to be willing to put in the legitimate work necessary to do so.

Anyone who feels they should get a pass for knowingly using hacked Pokémon just because they’re “indistinguishable” from those obtained legally doesn’t understand what sportsmanship is.

Principles matter, and operating without them instead of pushing for official changes to help reduce barriers to entry is exactly why everyone who gets disqualified for using illegitimate Pokémon deserves to be taught that lesson.

I have empathy for anyone who was traded a hacked Pokémon without their knowledge, but there’s a standard that needs to be upheld whether they were aware or not.

Hack and slashed

Yep, that'll happen.

You know what would make a good plot in a Pokémon game? Where the evil team were distributing Pokémon that were genetically modified to be super powerful. That would be meta.

It would be nice to have an item to zero out IVs. Other than that, you can pretty much do anything else in the games.

Deserved, you can literally make a competitive Pokémon in a matter of minutes in scarlet and violet, heck, you could get a full shiny competitive team in less than a day!

@ijulianvel Yeah I saw someone tweeting suspecting the checks were a TPC way to give Japanese players an advantage because typically the Japanese players wouldn't generate their mons. But really that's not an advantage, it's just playing the games as they were meant to.

I've always thought since Gen IV that the fanbases laizes-faire approach to cheating and prioritising genning Pokemon that "look legit" over fair play and legitimate competition was dodgy.

It's sad for the people who were traded hacked mons, but I think
that's just the consequence of well over a decade of people thinking cheating is ok as long as you can't tell its been done.

Good, I really like that they are doing this and I hope the trend continues, eventually in a future where all your devices are always connected to the internet, I hope they make Pokemon go always online and will actually ban people who use cheat techniques.

People keep saying that "It's an offline game so it doesn't hurt anyone if I cheat", well if only that was the case... The online portion of the game is full of hacked Pokemon, everyone knows it. Perhaps you are the exception who only cheat offline.
But man, you can take the hit of not being able to cheat for the greater good, can't you? Or are you gonna be an adult person crying over not being able to cheat in a Pokemon game.
Maybe you feel like you don't have time grinding to get the best Pokemon with perfect stats? What's the rush? And also what are you gonna do with those perfect Pokemon if you only play offline? Beat the Elite 4? LOL

The only realistic way I see cheating completely prevented is going full "always online" with Gamefreaks keeping a copy of your savefile and not letting you load your save if if does not match the one they have stored and also having your Pokemon and their stats always being located on the servers.
That would pretty much stop all cheating with the exception of glitch based cheating.

I am thinking that it should work kind of how MMO RPG's work, having a large portion of the game running on the servers and your device is more of less just dealing with controls, graphics rendering and sound.

Imagine spending all that time and money going to regionals to qualify for Worlds then flying to Japan just to be too lazy to actually make your own team. I’ve always hated hacked Pokémon and immediately release any that are surprise traded to me. I will never understand why anyone cheats at any game. It’s really quite pathetic.

@Dr_Lugae It's true that Japanese players don't usually generate their Pokémon but that's in large part due Japan having a law that punishes unfair competition with said law being recently amended to include save file editors (which are the main way people get hacked Pokémon into their games) and services that include altering save data and modding consoles.

Ironically enough, Kaphotics (the guy responsible for developing PKHex) tweeted out the Pokemon World Championship hashtag accompanied by a pic of a guy with a big ol' grin on his face. For those wondering why that's a big deal he's recently made a habit of pointing out how badly-hacked Pokémon have shown up in all levels of VGC events and competitors have gotten REALLY salty over that.

Pokémon battling should ideally be about skill and strategy. Imagine a game of chess where if you did 100 pushups before every game, your pawns could move two spaces all the time. It wouldn't kill them to let you adjust your mon's move pool and EV's (? I don't even know anymore) when you start competitive play. It essentially barriers entry to those who are willing to spend hundreds of hours grinding, which, if you consider time an equal to money, makes it no different than a mobile game tournament.
Edit: The visceral response to me saying, "maybe grinding in order to compete in a game that doesn't at all improve your skills at it is kinda dumb" is pretty crazy. Gonna make a mental note to leave this hornet's nest alone in the future.

Lol. Got forked over for cheating in a pokemon game? Really made my morning.

I love how people claim to hate grinding but seriously play a game that's been a grind-fest for decades, then be dismayed when they're told they can't avoid grinding.

@JakedaArbok Maybe then, playing Pokemon competitively isn't for you? Maybe stick to DOTA or something like that?

Also you have items in the games that allows you to alter both IV's and EV's making the entire thing easier than it's ever been and less of a grind.

@SpaceboyScreams Okay, so... Don't play. Just because you have a poor reception of the current games doesn't mean you should be allowed to cheat. Just don't play, move on instead of being a sad pathetic sack of cheating potatoes like the above disqualified losers.

@JakedaArbok So anyone should be allowed to participate in the PGA because that one summer when they were 14 they won a round of putt putt against their family? No, they should be properly trained, pay their dues, and put in the effort. The same goes for gaming, cheaters are cheaters, worthless pieces of scum that deserve no sympathy for when they're ultimately caught. I personally feel they should immediately and permanently be banned from any affiliated tournaments moving forward.

@Shepdawg1 This. Hacking was more lenient in earlier generations because it took an unrealistically proportional amount of time to get a competitively viable party.

If the current methods of obtaining a viable party is still too much, might as well just play on Showdown.

I'm glad. I've always been against genning Pokemon. "but all it does is save time!" yea, that's the idea! people who invest the time and mental energy are the ones who should be rewarded with the benefits.

and as many have already said, these days it's so easy, even the time excuse is barely relevant.

@Dr_Lugae Exactly! Imagine arguing that it’s an “advantage” to players who obtained their Pokémon in legitimate ways. That’s just delusional.

I’m sure there are still some hacked Pokémon that got through the checks, but making the checks better every year and setting a precedent that only official methods of acquiring and training Pokémon are permitted is exactly what needs to continue.

I understand people wanting to save time, but being competitive takes commitment, patience, and diligence. The competition starts long before the actual matches begin.

@RubyCarbuncle I certainly understand your view on it. I just don't agree with it. I don't expect to change your mind and that's ok — we can disagree.

I think I already explained my perspective. It's a question of fairness to me. Someone getting something immediately that possibly took someone else hours. I don't see that as fair. Maybe you have reasons for thinking it's fair, but I think it cheapens the entire process. I like the idea that certain Pokemon have different strengths and weaknesses — I think it is part of the fun of the entire franchise. Removing that from the equation removes a lot of the fun for me.

It would be like watching the NBA except all the players can just change their stats to Michael Jordan without practice or exercise. Winning in that league wouldn't mean as much in my eyes.

Again, you're allowed to disagree. Peace.

Eh, good riddance.

At this late stage in the franchise, any whining about "saving time" or "barriers to entry" fall flat. You can now change your Pokémon's moves, stats, abilities, and everything else about them instantly and repeatedly. There is no longer any "grinding hundreds of hours" to get a competitive Pokemon - you can achieve everything you need in about fifteen minutes. The one and only thing they've yet to give us for free is the ability to lower an IV to 0, as another commenter mentioned.

The only "time and effort" required to play competitive Pokemon these days is, you know, just playing the actual game. If that's too much to ask of our world champions... well then they're not all that much of a champ, are they?

@BrazillianCara Frame data most likely.

PkHex also takes RNG manipulation into account, as there's only specific frames that genned pokemon can exist on and if it doesn't match, its illegal. Its what's tripping up a lot of pros rn cause RNG manipulation is not an easy concept to understand for the individual even if it guarantees everything when done right.

@Paej13 There's also the whole 'can't obtain mon X without playing through an entire game and catching it' problem, like with hisuian mons which have their stats messed up.

Pokemon is one of the few only competitive titles where you're handicapped for not owning or playing through certain versions or previous titles. Let alone having to do it multiple times if you need multiple sets of one time capture only monsters, and in some instances its entirely luck based you even go into the fight with even odds especially in past generations where perfect legendaries were impossible if you ever encounter someone that spent a whole year grinding for 1 singular perfect legendary, missing almost every tournament, they can sweep the entire competition and its unfair for everyone else.

It improved in the IV/nature/hidden power aspect (the later just being removed), there's still some grind for XP and mints, but if you're doing everything 100% legit there's a lot of chore work still unlike other competitive games where you can just hop in.

Even some competitive card games likely cost less to make a deck than buy a whole game.

Only way competitive pokemon can ever be fair to its players is restricting any one time capture limited mons like legendaries and sub-legendaries, but end of the day genning has no harmful affects on matches anyways so its a bit dumb to pretend its a sin to use them.

@Araquanid I only hope this never becomes a problem regarding pokémon deposited in Home. I never did any genning, but I can't be so sure about certain unique ones I got through trades, no matter how legit all their data seems to be (and I even compare OTs and obtained dates for event pokémon).

This is a great reminder to all of us - if someone beats you online, they are cheating. You, yes all of you, are the best player of all time. And everyone else is a cheater...

Seriously though, glad they caught these POSs. I hate cheaters.

@calbeau see, that's the funny part.

If you're grinding in a recent Pokémon game, you're playing it wrong. There's an absolute a**load of ways to cut down that part of the games and it literally takes minutes to build up a newly acquired Pokémon from lv1 to 100 with all the bells and whistles you want for it.

i don't know anything about pokemon so all of this is very confusing to me

why are competitive players not using equal level characters? all of them should be on the same playing field in any given event. shouldn't this be about player skill and not about who grinded the most levels? a competitive event should not have people using different leveled characters in any game, they should be on a level playing field.

just let them use max level characters for competitive events. just have a roster of balanced characters that competitors can choose from. i can't think of any reason not to do this.

the player's performance in an event should determine their success. not how leveled up their toon is? how much they grinded before the event? that's a really bizarre way to structure a competitive event

why are they even using "their own" pokemon? just assign them standardized, balanced pokemon for competitive events.

I understand that TPCi want to crack down on cheating (As far as skipping busywork is cheating, but i digress), however, in that case, players should have access to the same checks the tournaments use in-game, so they can check their teams beforehand, if anybody still fails the checks when they can check for themselves, that's on them. (Extra upside: It removes the "I didn't know!"-defense, which looks better PR-wise, too)

Trading is very tricky, with hacking and genning tools being so commonplace, any traded pokemon is suspicious, and for a series that has had trading pokemon as an important part of the whole experience, that's ridiculous.

@Not_Soos Gold nuggets?! I'm rich!

@DaniPooo But that wouldn't work on a game that famously is released on handheld consoles. How would you continue playing when on the bus or train? What if you did manage to play on the bus or train and then you got home and tried to play and your save no longer matches the one on the server due to playing whilst offline? This sort of thing only works for games and devices that can have a constant online connection, which doesn't work for handhelds.

Also, your final paragraph basically describes the way the cloud versions of games on Switch works, like Kingdom Hearts. Not everyone has a connection strong enough to stream those games. It just adds an extra cost barrier to stop those who are less affluent from being able to have fun with what little spare money they may have, by making them spend extra on faster internet connections, which in less affluent areas are also less likely to be available.

@RubyCarbuncle Did you mean to post this? It says "note to self" but is clearly public. Not sure if, you know, "cryptic post" was what you were going for or not.

@twadebarcelona I did write: "eventually in a future where all your devices are always connected to the internet"

"Also, your final paragraph basically describes the way the cloud versions of games on Switch works."
No that's incorrect, Cloud versions are video streams and you send inputs through to their servers.
And that's not what I am talking about.

I am talking about the graphics being rendered on the machine, but data such as stats and encounters are being provided by servers.
Similar to how other online games work.

@DaniPooo Your final paragraph does sound like it could be describing those.

As for a point in the future when all devices are connected online, that still seems unlikely for people in less affluent areas, especially with handheld consoles.The last time I recall a console manufacturer including the ability to go online on the go was the 3G model of the Vita, which was an optional extra and was a feature dropped in later models. The point when that would be likely is very far off. Even mobile phones struggle to get mobile signal in a lot of areas and they're made for doing that. I know the exact places on my work commute where my signal will drop completely for certain amounts of time. One is just an area where there's no mobile signal whatsoever, another is a tunnel, the last is when I'm actually where I work, where mobile signal seems to drop. So even if I was to try and use my phone to make a wifi hotspot for my other devices to connect to in order to go online, I know for a fact which places the signal would drop. Again though, that's under the assumption that people have the ability to pay for those online connections. It's not exactly cheap to get internet access. You're clearly advocating for something that stops poorer people from being able to play their games.

This problem will never go away, and make no mistake, the players that end up winning do in fact have hacked Pokemon on their teams. They're just better and masking it and/or have more resources to make them look fully legitimate.

It doesn't matter that there have been numerous improvements to reducing the time it takes to breed and train up competitive Pokemon. The process still takes far too long because it's intentionally gated by way too much randomness.

Remove natures.
Remove IVs.
Remove the EV contribution limit from vitamins.

People will always do whatever is quicker and easier.
If you want people to use legitimately acquired Pokemon, make getting those Pokemon easy and fun.

@greengecko007 Do you have any proof of that? I really doubt Japanese players would risk fines and possible jail time over a tournament even if it’s a World Championship.

Also, two of those the factors you mentioned (EVs and Nature) are EASILY alterable on the players with IVs being a technical outlier due to Hyper Training only being able to max out IVs rather than precisely tuning them in any way.

@twadebarcelona

Yes in my last paragraph I am not describing cloud game streaming. Like I said, cloud streaming is just a video stream, much like watching a YouTube video that you can send input back to.

Streaming data is a whole different approach, and it actually uses less data and is less prone to cause performance issues such as stuttering. (Since you're not reliant on a constant high data stream)

As for game devices being always online, Again, I was talking about in the future (Years from now). I believe that in the future most people will be constantly connected even in countries that suffer from poverty. Of course there might still be some countries where people still won't be that fortunate yet, but you know I think the last thing of those peoples mind is getting an expensive new game console..

And remember these are game companies, their function is making money and growth at all cost, their target audience are the people who can actually afford to buy their product. And most of these people are already on data plans.

Yes the PSVita tried allowing cellular data, but the mobile networks back then was not equipped for online gaming.
5G and beyond is definitely going to make it possible.

@greengecko007 And then you have adult people managing to have a full time job and doing their dailies in games like world of warcraft without much complaint. If you think it's too much time to spend on a game, then play a different game? one that you have time to play.

But why are the Wow players not complaining? because there's no way to cheat there without a huge risk of getting banned from the game. Also pretty much the only way to cheat there is using bots, because the data is not stored locally on the device but rather lives on blizzards servers.
When there's no way to cheat then people just accept it, but if there is a way to cheat then people desperately tries to justify doing so.

Should GameFreaks eventually go the same route, then cheating will be reduced to pretty much 0.
Unless the players find glitches to exploit. But there would be no chance whatsoever to hack save files or directly modifying Pokemon. because the savedata stored on your console would just contain game settings and account information. Your actual game progress would be stored on a server and it would be inaccessible to you.

It’s a competition. You wanna cheat on your own time? Have fun but once you go competitive then you have to play fair. So weird that fair play is even up for discussion but it’s a wacky world. I think they should add a fine as well if you are caught cheating.

@Zochmenos It's weird. It's almost as if @RubyCarbuncle was trying in the wrong app. Is that a mistake people sometimes make?

@BreathingMiit Unfortunately, think it's more likely someone who is used to "gruff'ing" through conversations and found himself at a loss after trying to clumsily defend cheating.

Or, maybe it is just confusion. Time is the fire in which we all burn, ultimately.

Good.
Put the work in if you want to play in a competitive setting.

I agree with everyone seperately in the comments.
There needs to be a way to reduce IVs or make getting very specific numbers easier, pokemon needs to actually come out of the closet and explain how to breed competitive pokes without you having to youtube it. The games make it super easy now, but they are still missing some QOL things.

Also, they are dumb just gen in a Ditto with the IVS you want and use it to breed your pokes, surely your babies would be fine even if mama was a big fake? (this is what I do btw)

There is no advantage in doing this other than skipping the work. Someone who put the effort in and someone who genned, their pokes should be identical and have no advantage, and if they aren't, then they deserve to be caught anyway because that's such a schoolboy error!

Buttttt I'm not playing Pokemon at such a high level, if i was playing this legit I would put the effort in, it's a no-brainer.

@martynstuff yeah they made that game a long time ago already, it's called Colosseum and Gale of Darkness.

Once again, I would love for competitive battling to be even further integrated into the games themselves.

• A full lineup of Gyms dedicated to competitive battling. Each gym emphasizes different aspects, like timing your Pokemon switching, cohesive team building, advanced double battle tactics, etc.
• Each of these gyms unlocks different tools for competitive battling. One gym gives you full control over EV training, another gym offers IV tweaking, another gym offers exclusive battle items, etc.
• In-game online battle lobbies, where players can share strategies, team builds, etc.
• Speaking of online lobbies, I want to have the same thing for players to get together in-game and discuss Tera Raid strategies, Pokemon builds, etc.

@Ninetaled Oh damn. I didn't think of those!

@RubyCarbuncle Ah, so it was just a bit of theatre and irritated passive aggressiveness. Thank you for the confirmation. To be fair, your perspective seemed unserious from the start, I just didn't know how deep the troll went.