All the post-World Championship Pokémon News

Howdy fellow Cooltrainers! It’s your main Poké-man Ace here with another week of the latest and greatest Pokémon news. And boy, did we get some stories out of Worlds. Limber up at scrolling finger/thumb and prepare for trouble enlightenment.

Here’s this week’s rundown (estimated read time, 7 minutes):

• The latest Scarlet & Violet DLC news from Worlds

• “Genned” Pokémon controversies at Worlds

• The Pokémon Company addresses its extremespeed release schedule

• What’s that stank? Pokémon GO’s Noxious Swamp event

The cherry on top of Pokémon Presents

Following last week’s Pokémon Presents (which your humble servant Cooltrainer Ace steadfastly covered in two parts here, and here), the Pokémon Company hit us with what is becoming a traditional teaser video to celebrate the conclusion of the 2023 World Championships.

Aside from news about Paradox Pokémon coming to the TCG (see below) and the announcement of the 2024 Worlds location (more on that later), we got a few more tasty morsels about the upcoming DLC.

First Partner Pokémon all over in the Indigo Disk

For not the first (but probably the most convenient) time EVERY “first partner” aka “starter” Pokémon will be available to capture within Blueberry Academy’s Terarium as part of the Indigo Disk DLC.

Excluding the Paldean starters, you’ll be able to catch and presumedly shiny hunt the first partner trios from Gens 1-8. I imagine there will be some overworld spawns with non-traditional Tera-Types roaming around inside the biome. And maybe we’ll even get 7-Star Tera Raids for the rest of the starter final evolutions?

A 19th (Tera) Type

That’s right, lasses and youngsters, we’ve got ourselves a new Tera typing. With hints ranging from Briar’s earrings and, well, everything about Terapagos, it seems this new mechanic will feature heavily in the Indigo Disk storyline. Based on the screenshots, there’s some interesting specualtion out there on how this may work.

One idea is that it makes the move Tera Blast do STAB (same type attack bonus) damage, regardless of the typing of your opponent. Another suggests that it does 1x damage against any type, and makes it so you only take 1x damage from any type.

A third theory by X user @Light_88_ is best summed up in this pic:

Busting some new moves

Upper Hand - the user reacts to the target's movements and strikes with the heel of its palm. If the target was trying to use a priority move, Upper Hand will get the jump on them, allowing the user to attack first and cause their opponent to flinch without fail. This move will fail if the target wasn’t readying a priority move.

Psychic Noise - deals damage as it bathes the target in abrasive sound waves. This attack also prevents the target from recovering HP through moves, Abilities, or items for a certain number of turns.

Genned Pokémon: convenient or cheating?

Multiple professional players were disqualified at this year’s World Championships for using “genned” Pokémon. Since then, the debate has raged through the Pokémon Community: is it cheating or just a shortcut?

For background context, these Pokémon aren’t any stronger than their hand-raised counterparts. A hacked Pokémon knows moves or abilities that are impossible in-game, while a “genned” Pokémon is one that technically anyone could obtain (is otherwise legal to compete) but is created outside of the games.

Players use homebrew programs like PKHeX (go down the Raboot hole here) to build specific Pokémon with specific stats. This is done to save time—the alternative is to hatch dozens of eggs until you get the IVs you’re looking for and THEN spend a small in-game fortune or a ton of time raiding to get EV stat-changing items like Proteins, Feathers, etc, to max out your competitive Pokémon’s most utilized stats. Plus now you’ve got to consider what Tera Type you want for each team member = potentially lots of raids for tera shards.

When you take into account that this needs to be done to field an entire team, PLUS you may want switch out/in Pokémon during the season, there’s a significant time commitment. Players who created or traded for these modified Pokémon argue that’s all they’re doing: saving pointless grinding hours.

Recent changes in games HAVE made it easier to quickly build a competitive team, and we can only hope features like the upcoming Ogre Oustin’ minigame in the Teal Mask DLC will continue to make perfecting Pokémon more convenient.

The controversy heightened when The Pokémon Company appeared to tighten their rules AT Worlds, meaning players were kicked out for using the same Pokémon they’d used all season to get there. Plus, you know, the fact that they paid to travel to Japan and suddenly had lots of free time on their hands. The system isn’t great, but you gotta know you’re playing with a Charizard tail by bending them.

The issue is the consistency that TPC uses when cracking down on this. It’s not fair for some people to slip through while others get automatically booted. Maybe it’s time for the competitive scene to switch to a program that’s dedicated to building mons, rather than using an antiquated, time-consuming system designed for a single-player experience or casual battles.

But what do I know? Back in my day, we didn’t even have a Physical/Special split!

TPC on releases: Slow down. Maybe. IDK

Props to Comicbook.com for addressing the Donphan in the room during an interview with The Pokemon Company’s COO (Chief Operations Officer, for those who didn’t get a Team Rocket Exec education), Takato Utsunomiya.

Their million-dollar question? Whether there was a specific schedule that the Pokémon brand was beholden to when it came to the release of new Pokémon games.

Here’s Utsunomiya’s answer:

Now, this isn’t quite an admission that they'll be slowing down releases. It does confirm what we’ve all suspected: the video games are beholden to the much, much larger aspects of the Pokémon Company that drive revenue: TCG, merch, anime.

You might not like to hear this, Cooltrainers, but the video games are basically the vehicle that drive the new Pokémon to the TCG-printing and merchandise-making facility. Like it or hate it, TPC has chosen to base it’s entire business model around a constant stream of new Pokémon to drive sales, of which video games are a small drop in the bucket.

Still, it’s good to know that these things are being talked about publicly. It doesn’t sound like things will slow down but maybe, Gamefreak will get the additional resources it needs to polish games right? I expect we’ll continue to see the trend of “remakes” being given to third-party companies, ala ILCA taking over Brilliant Diamon/Shining Pearl. As technology continues to advance and games become more time and labor intensive to make, something’s gotta give.

Shiny Skrelp comes to the stinky swamp in GO

Grab your gas mask or plug your nose: Poison and Dragon-type Pokémon appearing in GO Fest NYC are available globally in the upcoming Noxious Swamp event, beginning Saturday, August 19, at 10:00 a.m. to Tuesday, August 22, at 8:00 p.m. local time.

In addition to Shiny Skrelp for the first time, you’ll also see more of the following (all shiny unlocked).

• Zubat

• Venonat

• Tentacool

• Dratini

• Surskit

• Gulpin

• Skorupi

• Axew

• Tyrunt

• Noibat

Raids include Hisuian Qwilfish, Hisuian Sneasel and Galarian Weezing, if you’re still hunting for them, or ones with better stats. Only Galarian Weezing is shiny unlocked.

Bonuses

• 2x Catch Candy

• More Rocket balloons

• One additional free Raid Pass per day from spinning Gyms

Card(s) of the Week

Beginning fall 2023, Ancient and Future Pokémon are coming to the Pokémon TCG, including these illustrated rares of Brute Bonnet and Iron Moth.

Random encounters around the internet

• Watch Path to the Peak episodes 1 and 2 on YouTube.

• Who became the very best? Meet the 2023 Pokémon World Championships Winners.

• First ever mom-son duo competed at the 2023 World Championships.

Obscure Pokémon Fact of the Day (from u/Mx_Toniy_4869)

Until next time,
Cooltrainer “my Pokémon are all organic” Ace