A quick interview with a Pokémon speedrunner

Australian speedrunner JTMagicman on getting into the discipline, the frenemy nature of the community and, of course, the overwhelming power of Magikarp.

In HeartGold, Pokemon’s weakest monster actually breaks the game. Source: Pokemon Wiki

It beggars belief that holding the world record for speedrunning Pokémon HeartGold can come down to how quickly you catch a rare Magikarp.

It's a notoriously pathetic monster, mocked both in-game and in the long-running anime series. But in HeartGold there's an incredibly rare variant that's set at level 50. Capturing it, and boosting it by one level leaves you with a very strong Gyarados that allows you to steamroll the rest of the game. The only wrinkle: finding it is totally down to chance.

This is one of the cool insights I learned from talking to Australian speedrunner JTMagicman – who is pretty sure he discovered this strategy – earlier this year. He’s ranked #22 in the world for his fastest run of the game, behind fellow Australian speedrunner werster, who holds the world record title.

JTMagicman streamed a run of the game as part of the Superhero Streamers event in July. AusSpeedRuns, a group t…