Explainer: The complexity of the global competitive Pokémon scene

Don't let its cute monsters and child-friendly main game fool you. The Pokémon video games are designed for sophisticated and intricate competitive play.

The massive Pokemon World Championship, held in Honolulu last year. Source: The Pokemon Company

Before Infinite Lives was conceived and launched this time last year, there was another name floating around for this newsletter: Utility Jigglypuff. It was an in-joke among my mates that just wouldn't die.

Hot off watching a video from Aaron "Cybertron" Zheng, a competitive Pokémon player, professional commentator and YouTuber, I was explaining how the hyper-competitive side of this game had given the humble Jigglypuff a new lease at life as a utility Pokémon — a term for one that is focused on opponent disruption, as opposed to dealing damage.

The phrase kinda stuck, and wouldn't go away. It didn't help that much like Jigglypuff in the Pokémon anime, I bite way too easily and get worked up over the smallest things.

I've been watching competitive Pokémon for a while now as my esport of choice. I got into it back during Melbourne's COVID lockdown. Each night, I would log on and play a handful of battles online and over the period of a month climbed to Masterball rank — the highest tier. It didn't sound like much of an achievement to my friends or family. But it was a slog.

It kind of hit me then that Pokémon as a franchise lives this weird double-life. To most, it's a kids game. One where you catch cute monsters, nickname and train them. Yet, for a significant number of players globally, it's one of the most complicated games on the planet, requiring an encyclopaedic level of knowledge, a head for quick math and a knack for anticipating the moves of the other player.

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Professional Pokémon streamers and players tend to get a bad rap in mainstream media as adults overindulging in a kids game. But make no mistake, despite its fluffy marketing and child-minded narrative, Pokémon is designed for sophisticated and intricate competitive play. With today being International Pokémon Day, for this week's column, I correct the record and dig into the complexity and slight controversy of the global Pokémon competitive scene.

What is competitive Pokémon?

Competitive Pokémon — or Pokémon Video Game Championships (VGC) — is a global esport set up and managed by The Pokémon Company. It's one of the few major Nintendo-based esports with a global footprint and a significant prize pool. There's three main divisions of VGC: Junior (born in or before 2013), Senior (born 2009 and 2012) and Masters (born before 2008). Yes, there are two 'kids' divisions. But don't be fooled, this is not a kids game.

There's usually exponentially more players in the Masters Division than there are in the Junior and Senior Divisions.

There is a global prize pool, but it's not enough to give up your day job. Many top global players also stream their matches, provide expertise or commentate to supplement their income. The Pokémon Company is offering its largest total prize pool to date, of around $2 million split across all events — including Pokémon Go and Pokémon, The Card Game (TCG). Winning VGC at the championship in Anaheim, California this year will net you $30,000 USD, with second place receiving $20,000 USD.

All matches in VGC are double-battles, meaning you face off your opponent with two Pokémon at the same time. By competing in local offical tournaments you earn points that can qualify you for an invite to the global championship, where the big prize pool is up for grabs.

But hold up, isn't this a kids game? And one based off rock-paper-scissors? How complex can it actually be?

Fair enough. Pokémon is deceptively targeted at kids through its marketing, simplicity of its main game and anime shows. But let me tell you, it's a game of four-dimensional chess if there ever was one.

Regular players will tell me I'm not covering half of it here, but with simplicity in mind, I'll do my best here to describe some of the things running through any Pokemon players’ mind during any given match:

Total number of Pokémon: We've come a long way from the original 151 Pokémon from the first release in 1996. There's now a total of 1,025 Pokémon, with several older Pokémon now having regional variations that you have to be across too. A good 100 or so Pokémon are generally considered usable in VGC, but there's always room for surprises.

Pokémon types: There's 18 types to consider, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Water beats fire, which is beaten by grass. Each Pokémon has a type (or two), but can also circumstantially learn moves of another type. For instance, Charizard can learn Solar Beam, a grass-type move that helps it 'cover' if someone uses a water type against it.

Pokémon stats: Each Pokémon has a unique set of attributes that govern how it fares in battle. Attack determines how hard it hits with physical attacks. How much damage is taken is mitigated by the opposing Pokémon's defense stat. Some Pokémon have more health, governed by the HP stat. Others move first in combat, governed by the speed stat. You can also train your Pokémon around their base stats, and breed them to have a focus on one stat too.

Pokémon abilities: Each Pokémon has a unique ability that can give it an edge in combat. Some can't be put to sleep. Others have their attack stat doubled. Usually Pokémon have access to around three abilities.

Pokémon moves: Each Pokémon can only retain four moves at a time. There's a total of 934 moves in the game, all with different levels of power and effects. Pokémon can generally operate with a toolkit of around 50 moves that they can run. Knowing what moves can be learned by the opposing Pokémon can help predict what it will do.

Held-items: Each Pokémon can hold an item that can completely change how it behaves in combat. Some enhance its attack or speed stat, but in return lock it into one move. Others allow the Pokémon to switch out for free after just one attack.

Status effects: These affect how a Pokémon performs in battle. Paralysis slows a Pokémon down, and can make it miss turns. Sleep shuts a Pokémon down completely for up to two turns, with a chance to awaken each turn. Used effectively, these moves can win a battle outright.

Weather: Sun, Rain, Sandstorm and Snow are weather conditions that can be triggered by Pokémon and affect various types and moves. The power of Fire-type moves are doubled and water-type are halved in sunny conditions, for example.

That's an overview. There's a lot more to it, including: terastallization types, terrains, softer status effects like confusion, move priority, which circumvents the speed stat. Still think it's just for kids?

So how does a match actually work?

As I mentioned, VGC is a Pokémon Double battle, which means each player controls two Pokémon on the field at a given time. You enter a battle with six Pokémon, then pick four of them to use based on seeing the opponent's team. More often than not, your selection here can outright decide whether you win or lose.

Then, the battle commences. Your first two Pokémon are sent in, and you see your opponent's Pokémon. Abilities trigger, depending on the speed of the Pokémon on the field. You can then attack the opposing Pokémon or make a strategic switch. There's no limit on switching. You have 45 seconds to decide your moves, then it plays out in the game.

The first player to knock out an opposing team wins that battle. Winning the match is a best of three battles. You can adjust which four Pokémon you bring each battle. Matches go for a total of 20 minutes, after this the player with the least fainted Pokémon, or most games under their belts wins. This is a quick summary, but there's a full rulebook available online.

It sounds like you have to be a walking Pokédex to be good at this game. What is actually fun about it? Pokémon VGC is one of the few esports that relies on pure brain power, game knowledge and anticipation of your opponent. This differs from many other esports that heavily rely on reaction time.

It can be incredibly rewarding building your own team and piloting it to success. Especially if you are creating something unique that nobody else has seen, or that utilises a Pokémon that's not common.

Often, Pokémon can be a game of math. The difference between winning and losing can be as simple as knowing whether a move faints a Pokémon in one, two or three hits. But there's variance here too: Moves can miss, and can also critical hit — dealing 50% more damage. So winning can come down to a bit of luck too.

To what extent is the competitive Pokémon scene supported by Nintendo?

The Pokémon World Championship is more or less the exception to the rule with how Nintendo engages it competitive scene. Nintendo has a dicey history with the sector. It's quashed the ability of others to hold events with prize pools for its fighter title Smash Bros. Its own competitions are significantly lower key than the Pokémon World Championship, offering custom controllers and gaming chairs as prizes.

However, Nintendo only owns a stake in The Pokémon Company which runs the event, it does not outright own the property.

It's arguable that the Pokémon World Championship is in fact a card game tournament at its heart, with the video games bolted on for good measure. This is somewhat indicated by the prize pools tied to the event, winning first place in Pokémon TCG world championship will net you $50,000 USD.

Are there any controversies I should know about?

Of course there are: Competitive Pokémon has its own ongoing cheating scandal.

It takes a lot of time to breed and train Pokémon for competitive play. In my personal experience: one monster can take almost five hours of pure gameplay grinding to get into fighting form, and even then it won't be perfect. Meanwhile, the meta of VGC changes very quickly. New gimmicks and teams come up all the time, and if you don't adjust for them, you will just outright lose through no fault of your own.

The time investment required to maintain competitive viability has led some players to turn to unauthorised methods. Some either hack the game or purchase 'hacked' Pokémon — creatures with optimal stats that are ready for VGC competition. And yes, there are sites that sell hacked Pokémon.

Accounts vary across the web as to how commonplace this practice is. But, to be clear, it's against the rules of VGC. If you hack a Pokémon to do something it can't already do, then that's an immediate red flag and if caught you will be disqualified. But if you are using hacking to simply speed up the process of training Pokémon, it's still illegal if you get caught but it can be harder to spot.

The Pokémon Company could address this issue and eliminate the associated black market by making Pokémon easier to customise when trained in future games. Newer games have progressively made training new Pokémon simpler over time, but not easy enough to completely eliminate the grind of it. As a result, the hacking of Pokémon persists.

I'm interested. What are some good resources for me to follow if I want to start playing?

First off, play the game: Violet and Scarlet are the latest. And to keep up with the VGC meta, you need to own both expansions of the game too. Endgame content in Pokémon games is typically designed to ready players to compete at a VGC level, albeit after an inordinate amount of repetitive gameplay from Pokémon breeding and training.

The fix for this in the current game is rental codes. Using a code off the internet you can borrow someone else's team and give it a whirl. Just look up ‘Pokémon VGC’ on YouTube and you'll see plenty of teams and rental codes to get you started. I wouldn't, however, use a rental team in a proper tournament as it's likely your opponent will know exactly what it does.

If you don't want to go through the rigmarole of trying to train and breed Pokémon to a level where they can compete effectively, and want more flexibility than the rental system, I'd give Pokémon Showdown a go. It's free, and the unofficial training ground for VGC play. It allows you to customise your team on the fly.

And in terms of studying up, Serebii is the go-to resource for everything Pokémon. It has thousands of pages detailing each and every creature, move, ability and type. Smogon University on the other hand, gives you an idea of what movesets and builds you can expect with any given Pokémon.

Beyond that, it's worth watching other players to get a feel for the game and how it works. I'm a big fan of Aaron Zheng and Wolfe Glicke's content, but there are plenty out there.

Has this article changed your mind about Pokémon? Would you give competitive Pokémon a go? Or are you already a pro player? And what was the most surprising thing you learned? Let me know in the comments.