A Pokémon Scarlet and Violet tournament in South Korea was canceled after its finalists planned to stage a unique protest.
All four players had agreed to field teams made up entirely of pokémon that only know Metronome – a unique and unpredictable move that fires off a completely random move when used.
“Pokemon Korea saw our teams, didn’t like it, and therefore disqualified all four of us for playing Metronome,” said Nash, one of the disqualified finalists, in a Twitter post.
How we got disqualified for playing Metronome. pic.twitter.com/AR6ukdApMU
— Nash (@NashVGC) June 3, 2023
The result would have been a tournament final that was decided by pure chance, but The Pokémon Trainers Cup was completely canceled before this could go ahead.
This also meant that the four competing trainers lost their Day 2 pass to the World Championships later this year.
“[We] decided to go on Metronome battle to protest against all these issues within our community,” added Nash.
Pokémon players in Asian regions have been increasingly frustrated by how tournaments are run there, especially when compared to other regions.
“No irl events, constant problems in tour system, disregarding younger divisions, absurd compensations for the problems they caused,” Nash said. “But the real problem behind all this is that they show absolute disrespect to our players.”
However, one of the biggest issues is the use of a best-of-one format, on top of hectic scheduling which caused back-to-back games in the Pokémon Trainers Cup.
“People were getting re-match after re-match, and could not stop playing during the tour,” explained Nash.
Despite these frustrations, Pokémon Korea chose to penalize the protesting finalists, with all four receiving an email informing them that they were disqualified.
“The reasoning behind it was that we all locked in poke mons that learned one specific move,” said Nash. “According to Pokémon Korea, this falls into prohibited acts.”
Although the final didn’t go ahead, the four players certainly got their message across, with players from other regions coming out to support them.
“Bringing Metronome to the Milwaukee Regional Championships in solidarity of the Top 4 people DQ at Korean Nats,” said competitive Pokémon player, Gabe Mendoza on Twitter. “Good luck and have fun to all my opponents.”
IGN’s review of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet gave it 6/20 and said: “The open-world gameplay of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a brilliant direction for the future of the franchise, but this promising shift is sabotaged by the numerous ways in which Scarlet and Violet feel deeply unfinished.”
Want to read more about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet? Check out the recent Pokémon Home update as well as another Pokémon event that was canceled – this time due to crashes.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
