Legit Pokémon reportedly failing hack checks at VGC events, causing ‘unfair penalties’

More and more Pokémon VGC players are being penalized for failing hack checks at major tournaments these days, but now there’s evidence suggesting the hack check system was flawed all along—and competitors might’ve even been unfairly punished.

In a March 11 post, Kurt a.k.a. Kaphotics, the creator of the popular genning program PKHeX, “tentatively confirmed” The Pokémon Company International’s hack checks are flawed due to “an incorrect understanding of how Hyper Training works.” In other words, competitors may have been wrongly penalized for hacking, despite using perfectly legal Pokémon at official events. This could be the reason we’re still seeing lots of hacking penalties, despite the stern warning players were given back during the 2023 World Championships.

To better understand the situation, let’s talk about Hyper Training, Gold Bottle Caps, and perfect IVs in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Generally speaking, VGC competitors want to bring their best Pokémon to tournaments and this usually means Pokémon with perfect (or near-perfect) IVs. Most Pokémon you encounter during your travels do not have perfect IVs, but there are three ways to intentionally make them perfect: Breeding, hacking, or Hyper Training.

Hyper Training is faster than breeding while being a legal method for acquiring perfect IVs for tournament teams, unlike hacking. As long as you have a Bottle Cap or Gold Bottle Cap, you can totally max out the IVs of your Pokémon instantly by speaking to the Hyper Training NPC in Montenevera. Bottle Caps will max out the IVs for one stat, while Gold Bottle Caps max out the IVs of all stats. According to Kurt, it was possible to fail hack checks with Pokémon that were legally Hyper Trained with Gold Bottle Caps.

“I have seen at least one example/team where a player had a ‘mon removed by TPCi because of this, which by my understanding, was an incorrect action,” the PKHeX creator stated. With plenty of other competitors being penalized or even disqualified for failing hack checks, it’s unclear how many of these instances were due to Gold Bottle Caps and not actual hacking. Imagine being disqualified and having your reputation tainted when you did nothing wrong. And, even if players weren’t outright disqualified, this flawed hack check system could’ve put them at a severe disadvantage by removing their “hacked” Pokémon from the rest of the tournament.

To avoid failing hack checks with Gold Bottle Cap Pokémon, Kurt has recommended moving those ‘mons in and out of Pokémon HOME to fix the issue until TPCi looks into it. This is especially important for Legendary Pokémon who often benefit most from Gold Bottle Caps since they’re rare and cannot be bred for perfect IVs. It’s just unfortunate how this responsibility falls on the player, and that they could be penalized if they’re unaware of the faulty system.

The fact there’s no in-game method for players to check the legitimacy of their own Pokémon also makes it harder. Oftentimes, players don’t know if their traded Pokémon are legit or hacked because there’s no clear indicator until they get hack checked in the middle of an event. There’d be less anxiety if the game provided a real way for trainers to hack check their own team prior to events, and likely fewer penalties and disqualifications overall.