South Korean Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Tournament Finalists Banned “Indefinitely” For Using “Illegally Modified” Pokemon

Earlier this week, a major official Pokemon Scarlet And Violet Tournament was cancelled in South Korea, after it was discovered that the four finalists were planning to engage in a Metronome battle in protest of various issues with Pokemon Korea’s handling of the tournament’s earlier brackets.

To give a brief recap of the situation. The four finalists idea was to protest by only using Pokemon that knew Metronome in the final battle. Metronome causes Pokemon to use a random move from all that are available in the game. This would have led to a chaotic, if somewhat entertaining finale that would nevertheless have caused some problems for the tournament organizers. Pokemon Korea caught wind of this plan and cancelled the finals before it could come to fruition. More details about the incident and the problems the finalists had with the tournament can be found in our previous article.

Since then, Pokemon Korea has issued a follow-up statement about the incident, which can be found in Korean here. This statement alleges that the four finalists teams included “illegally modified Pokemon” and that they “agreed in advance to manipulate the results of the tournament”. For these reasons, all four will be banned “indefinitely” from official Pokemon competitive play in South Korea. Presumably, the first part refers to the finalists’ Metronome teams, while the second refers to their plan as a whole to participate using those teams.

In a response shared on Twitter, NashVGC, one of the disqualified finalists, implied the penalty was overly harsh, and “clearly shows that it is a penalty for the protest and for making a fuss.”, ” discouraging players in the future to stand up.”. He also expressed disappointment in Pokemon Korea’s decision to penalize them instead of sitting down to discuss and resolve the issues they had been protesting. In a statement shared to Kotaku,  NashVGC also called the accusations of hacking “groundless”, with the entire incident showing TPC’s “ lack of respect” for its “most devoted fans.”

The truth of the first allegation of hacking is somewhat debatable, as all the Pokemon used can learn Metronome naturally in the games. However, the second allegation is a bit harder to argue against, as the players did agree in advance to only use Metronome in the battle, which would have had a major impact on the results of the tournament. Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.