Pro Pokemon player says 80-90% of competitors hack: "It's a trade secret, but everyone 'in the know' knows this"

Nov. 8, 2023

“Genning” competition-viable Pokemon isn’t likely to stop unless The Pokemon Company steps in more forcefully

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A professional Pokemon player has admitted that, in his estimation, 80-90% of competitors are using hacked ‘mons.

Just last month,a number of competitive Pokemon players spoke out in reaction to last-minute changes that resulted in their disqualification from this year’s World Championships. Now, VGC Corner’s Brady Smith, a competitive Pokemon player who was among those banned, has a revelation that could be disillusioning to some: almost everyone cheats.

In an interview withGameland, Smith explained that this likely won’t be a big surprise to those with knowledge of the competitive Pokemon scene, but for me, it’s just a tiny bit sad having confirmation that, at least in the real world, Pokemon trainers aren’t actually friends with their pocket monsters at all. Instead of traveling the world, training together, and overcoming challenges together to build trust, competitors use a tool called PKHex to alter and “generate” tournament-viable Pokemon.

“80 to 90% of top-level players modify or hack their Pokemon. It’s a trade secret, but everyone ‘in the know’ knows this,” Smith said.

YouTuberPokemon Challengesexplained in a recent video why “genning” Pokemon is so ubiquitous. Essentially, actually catching and training a competitive team would mean you have to own five games, along with the tools required to access all five games at once to adapt to changes in a tournament’s meta. Furthermore, you’d need to dedicate dozens of hours of gameplay to train your teams to competitive standards - time that could otherwise be used to practice.

As long as tools exist to relinquish pro Pokemon battlers of the hard work that goes into building out meta-relevant teams, competitors will continue using them unlessThe Pokemon Companyreally brings down the banhammer.

Here’s how we ranked thebest Pokemon games.

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After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar’s west coast Staff Writer, I’m responsible for managing the site’s western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I’m too afraid to finish.

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