2018 Pokémon North America International Championships Livestream

Lord Arcadio said:

The VGC community seems to be supporting Alberto though. Ian had been banned from competing until recently for cheating. I do think some of the support is just coming from the VGC community being very close and people not wanting to see their friends get dq'd.

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The VGC community is generally accepting of rulebreaking, hence the amount of people who hack. It doesn't matter if they're "indistinguishable", it's still against the rules and I have little to no respect for anyone who does it and those who attempt to justify it.

Rules are rules and to be enforced. It sucks that Alberto did it, and he should have known better but it is what it is.

Seen so many people jump on the guy who reported it. The notion of "snitches get stitches" is ridiculous. Was it a dick move out of jealousy? Perhaps. However, rules were broken and the fact that cliques are a thing and try to stop rule breaking being reported and jump on those who report it is a bit silly

Pokken now. TCG at 11:30am EDT (will overlap with Pokken). TCG will have Junior, Senior, and Masters divisions finals. After that at 3pm EDT will be VGC which will also show the Junior, Senior, and Masters finals in that order.

So it will be a long time from now if you're only interested in seeing the VGC Masters Division finals. It's really fun watching the Juniors finals though. Those kids are badass.

Lord Arcadio said:

Pokken now. TCG at 11:30am EDT (will overlap with Pokken). TCG will have Junior, Senior, and Masters divisions finals. After that at 3pm EDT will be VGC which will also show the Junior, Senior, and Masters finals in that order.

So it will be a long time from now if you're only interested in seeing the VGC Masters Division finals. It's really fun watching the Juniors finals though. Those kids are badass.

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I tend to see more unique lineups in the non-masters divisions, so those are always fun to watch

Is there even a Pokken community on Era? I still have no idea whether to get this game or not. Chandelure is the only character I liked, and who knows if they'll ever add other gen 5 Pokemon. (I have my doubts...)

Main channel has started streaming and no longer hosting the Pokken channel.

That was a cool play on Benny's part, the last minute gamble was intense.

RealTravisty said:

Is there even a Pokken community on Era? I still have no idea whether to get this game or not. Chandelure is the only character I liked, and who knows if they'll ever add other gen 5 Pokemon. (I have my doubts...)

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Not really, your best option would be to join the reddit Pokken discord. I've found that to be a good resource.

VGC juniors is starting.

these kids are way more accomplished than I am. goddamn

It's always funny seeing blatantly hacked pokemon at these things. At least make a few non shiny ones!

Neo0mj said:

It's always funny seeing blatantly hacked pokemon at these things. At least make a few non shiny ones!

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That's what I don't get. Why do people make it so bloody obvious if they are going to break the rules

God I wish the hack check was better

Neo0mj said:

It's always funny seeing blatantly hacked pokemon at these things. At least make a few non shiny ones!

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How do you tell they're hacks?

Superbadr said:

How do you tell they're hacks?

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They're being used in VGC competitions.


Seriously though due to how VGC works with teams and builds constantly being cycled, the likelihood of full shiny teams is minimal and is often an indicator.

The majority of VGC players do unfortunately break the rules but unless it's blatant (illegal move, ball etc) their hack check just can't pick it up and their manual hack check has had so many errors itself in the past that I had to notify them of that it's not really easy to spot

Serebii said:

They're being used in VGC competitions.


Seriously though due to how VGC works with teams and builds constantly being cycled, the likelihood of full shiny teams is minimal and is often an indicator.

The majority of VGC players do unfortunately break the rules but unless it's blatant (illegal move, ball etc) their hack check just can't pick it up and their manual hack check has had so many errors itself in the past that I had to notify them of that it's not really easy to spot

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Smells like they're using the same checks pokebank has, as someone that easily managed to smuggle hack pokemons from black to ultra sun, i can tell it is preeeeeeetty bad..

Serebii said:

That's what I don't get. Why do people make it so bloody obvious if they are going to break the rules

God I wish the hack check was better

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You and me both. I hacked as a kid a few times and felt like a huge loser. I'm never doing it again because it's unfair you can create competitive pokemon with the snap of a finger and even make them shiny like they aren't hacked. But like you say it's damn obvious these people hack and even the Judges dont seem to give of shite. I've seen videos of the Judges saying they dont care if pokemon are hacked yet the official pokemon rules say you may not have illegal hacked pokemon.

udivision said:

I feel like they should make the whole thing moot and just develop a battle simulator (mode?) that allows people to just choose and customize their mons like Showdown.

I never hear commentators go "wow, his Blastoise has so much HP!" or "Ive never seen an Inceneroar who deals so much damage" or "he must've worked hard to teach that mon that move" or some acknowledgement that the effort you put into getting your perfect team is commendable. No, it's juat what is expected.

The meta is so developed for competitive pokemon that the vestiges of the single player RPG behind it may not be all that relevant.

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Preach.

Hikari said:

You and me both. I hacked as a kid a few times and felt like a huge loser. I'm never doing it again because it's unfair you can create competitive pokemon with the snap of a finger and even make them shiny like they aren't hacked. But like you say it's damn obvious these people hack and even the Judges dont seem to give of shite. I've seen videos of the Judges saying they dont care if pokemon are hacked yet the official pokemon rules say you may not have illegal hacked pokemon.

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I'm a judge at smaller events and if I spot a hacked Pokémon, I follow the rules and do what is intended

Superbadr said:

How do you tell they're hacks?

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because the amount of effort needed to get some of these pokes are pretty bullshit. hence why people inject hacked pokemon. as long as they're tourney legal, no one cares because of plausible deniability. never mind the stats that tells you how many eggs you hatched or whatever. no one cares

I don't blame them either. raising competitive pokemon is not fun. it's a fucking chore and needs to be fixed. if GF can't be arsed to fix it at least they don't care about hacked tourney legal pokemon. though it's pretty much an admission that their shit is busted as it

ILikeFeet said:

because the amount of effort needed to get some of these pokes are pretty bullshit. hence why people inject hacked pokemon. as long as they're tourney legal, no one cares because of plausible deniability. never mind the stats that tells you how many eggs you hatched or whatever. no one cares

I don't blame them either. raising competitive pokemon is not fun. it's a fucking chore and needs to be fixed. if GF can't be arsed to fix it at least they don't care about hacked tourney legal pokemon. though it's pretty much an admission that their shit is busted as it

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Game Freak care, that's why there's frequent banwaves on the Global Link.

TPCi, the people who run these tournaments, however, don't. And that's wrong considering money is involved now

Serebii said:

That's what I don't get. Why do people make it so bloody obvious if they are going to break the rules

God I wish the hack check was better

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Maybe there would be less people hacking if breeding decent Pokemon wasn't a boring ass grind fest.

Serebii said:

Game Freak care, that's why there's frequent banwaves on the Global Link.

TPCi, the people who run these tournaments, however, don't. And that's wrong considering money is involved now

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maybe Gamefreak should realize their band aids ain't solving the problem and actually do something about it.

I spectated live at the event and had a great time! While I enjoy watching it, I don't really follow the competitive scene that much and had to BS my way through a few conversations, but it's great just how friendly and welcoming everyone in the community seems to be. I really enjoyed watching the Juniors VGC finals, that was probably my favorite match that I saw. I hadn't attended something like this before and didn't realize how many side competitions there were, or I might have prepared for something like that. I did get to buy a bunch of cheap (I imagine competitively irrelevant) booster packs and had great fun opening them just to enjoy the art.

It's a shame that community day for Pokemon Go happened during it, but I still managed to get everything I needed from it. It was also very easy to get people to join in on raids! I was disappointed that niantic didn't deploy some unown to the area for the event, though.

bulletbill10 said:

I spectated live at the event and had a great time! While I enjoy watching it, I don't really follow the competitive scene that much and had to BS my way through a few conversations, but it's great just how friendly and welcoming everyone in the community seems to be. I really enjoyed watching the Juniors VGC finals, that was probably my favorite match that I saw. I hadn't attended something like this before and didn't realize how many side competitions there were, or I might have prepared for something like that. I did get to buy a bunch of cheap (I imagine competitively irrelevant) booster packs and had great fun opening them just to enjoy the art.

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The community is so welcoming to a point. When you get into it, it can get a bit cliquey and certainly levels of elitism exist, but they are very welcoming to new people :) I'm glad you had fun

bulletbill10 said:

It's a shame that community day for Pokemon Go happened during it, but I still managed to get everything I needed from it. It was also very easy to get people to join in on raids! I was disappointed that niantic didn't deploy some unown to the area for the event, though.

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They did that for the Pokémon World Championships last year. During that weekend, they increased Tauros spawns, brought Kangaskhan over, and brought the Unown letters W, O, R, L, D & S to be around the Anaheim convention center and it was INSANE



These are all people playing GO around the Convention Center just as the event ended. There were raids continually cycling (the Legendary Birds were in their final week so all 3 Kanto ones and Lugia were possible). I did a raid with Game Freak staff, people ran when an Unown spawned around. It was constantly lured. It was great.

I would not be surprised if they do that again

I want to go to World's too, since it isn't that much further away, but we will be close to a big move (to Columbus, coincidentally) and will be too strapped for cash to justify a trip D:

The last day of nationals seems to have been mostly just actual competitors left, so I think that contributed to several people thinking I must have known more about the whole season and scene that I really did. It was neat to get to talk in person to some of the people I see on twitch, and see all of the personal celebrations you don't get to see on stream.

Top cut for

Masters
Seniors
Juniors

Toxi said:

Top cut for

Masters
Seniors
Juniors

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Inceniroar in all three teams, and 3 different tapes. Not surprising. As I mentioned before, juniors tend to have more interesting lineups

I just moved to Columbus, OH last week!! I saw this was in town and I'm thinking about going. I'm not huge in to competitive Pokemon. I might watch some matches... I was more so curious about getting a chance to play the Sword and Shield demo.... Also how is the Pokemon Center Shop? Is there lots of swag or will it be pretty picked over by tomorrow afternoon?