Pokémon’s 2016 World Champion and popular content creator Wolfe Glick has broken his silence on a taboo topic in the VGC community after the 2023 World Championships saw an alarming number of disqualifications due to the use of hacked ‘mons.
Since Worlds took place last month with tons of hacking disqualifications, the Pokémon community has gone back and forth on hacked or “genned” Pokémon and why so many players break the rules by using them at tournaments.
The reasoning isn’t as clear-cut as it seems, especially in the eyes of fans who might not actively participate in the competitive scene.
In an attempt to give fans a better understanding of the controversial issue from the perspective of an actual VGC player, Glick talked about it in depth in a Sep. 6 video, along with other mishaps from Worlds.
One of the biggest debates surrounding hacked Pokémon is whether or not it’s considered cheating to use them at official events. Glick gave a clear stance on this: “It is hacking, it is against the rules, but it is not cheating. It does not give you an unfair advantage.”
He went on to explain how hacked Pokémon aren’t any stronger than legit ones. They have access to all the same moves, stats, and abilities as legit Pokémon, so hacking isn’t going to make a Pokémon perform better.
Glick then mentioned the only difference between hacked and legit Pokémon is the price and time it takes to obtain them. While hacked Pokémon can be generated quickly at no cost, it can get pricey and take a significant amount of time to legally obtain a whole Pokémon team with very specific IVs.
For example, with the current VGC Regulation D ruleset allowing the use of ‘mons transferred from previous games, you’ll essentially need to purchase Scarlet, Violet, Sword, Shield, the Gen VIII DLC, and Legends: Arceus to have access to the most viable Pokémon in the meta. And some Legendaries, like Enamorus, will require you to restart your entire save file if you don’t catch one with the right IVs. For these reasons, players would often gravitate toward using hacked Pokémon to save time and money.
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But what about trading legit Pokémon with other players to save time when building a team? As Glick explained, there’s no in-game method for players to identify if a Pokémon is hacked or not. He even believes this could’ve happened to him in the past without realizing it at the time.
Because of instances like this, the only way to make sure your Pokémon are 100 percent legit is to obtain them yourself, which again takes a lot of time and money.
While Glick now obtains all of his Pokémon on his own, he doesn’t mind the idea of other players hacking their Pokémon. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t really affect him. What matters to Glick and other VGC players is battling and competing at the highest level with the clever strategies and teams they’ve cooked up.
Perhaps if there were an easier way to obtain Pokémon, players wouldn’t even feel the need to hack in the first place.
