If you’re playingPokemonprofessionally, you’re playing to win. This probably involves putting a balanced team together, one that can respond to anything your opponent throws at you. It certainlydoesn’tinvolve putting all of your faith in luck, spamming moves that leave everything up to chance. Well, this is exactly what four pros were planning to do, all agreeing to go into the finals with a Metronome-only team as a form of protest.Organisers were quick to put a stop to this, disqualifying all four players from the tournament before the match could even begin. However, this has only added to tensions in the region, with Korean players citing this as one of many examples of competitive play being poorly managed in Asia, a sentiment that has support among players worldwide.Related:Stop The Boycott: Pokemon Unite’s Most Serious Problem Has Just Been FixedFor those of you out of the loop, Metronome is a move that’s been in the games since the beginning. It selects a random move out of all available in the game, to either dull or fantastic results. There’s no real strategy behind it, making it a poor choice in competitive play.However, that’s exactly why these pros chose to run Metronome-only parties. The four were planning to hold such a ridiculous match in protest of how the tournament had been managed by Pokemon Korea, with the finalists saying that the company had shown “absolute disrespect to players.”
One of the now-disqualified pros, Nash, breaks down the situation in aTwitterpost. Here, he explains how players had been trying to raise concerns surrounding the organisation of the tournament for some time, complaining that matches were set up poorly, preventing many from qualifying at all. There were also complaints that players were being disqualified without explanation and Pokemon Korea lacking transparency - a feeling only exacerbated by this latest move.
Pokemon Korea has sinceannouncedthat the final will be cancelled altogether, rather than held with different players. In the announcement, Pokemon Korea says that the four players committed the following rule breaches (machine translated from Korean):
Despite their bans, it doesn’t seem that the players are backing down. One of the pros, Twitter userBingha, says, “I’ll never regret my choice,” and thanks the other pros for joining the protest. It remains to be seen if their bans are extended into future matches.
They’re even receiving support from outside of Korea, with Gabe Mendoza - playing in the Milwaukee Regional Championships - also running a Metronome-only party. Curiously, he was actually allowed to compete with this team, raising questions about why the Korean players were disqualified.
Pokemon Korea is yet to make another statement as the story is shared throughout the international Pokemon community. The Pokemon Company has not commented on the matter.
