Pokémon has been an official event for only the last two years yet has been running unofficially for closer to seven. So what actually happens at this exhibition?
Competing in seven different game formats over the course of seven hours, it really serves as an opportunity for the two Pokémon societies to share their love for the universe and showcase their skills. The exhibition and its players are incredibly friendly and open to spectators, the commentators making it even easier to follow along.
The President of the Lancaster Pokémon society gave us a statement:
“We’re incredibly excited, especially since this is the first time it has been included as an official event while Roses has been hosted at home. It’s made almost even more exciting by having the spectators in the room and the various set ups with commentators make it all feel more official.”
Everyone in the room brought along plushies of their favourite Pokémon and some even had Pokémon-themed signs that brought some university spirit. The entire mood of the room was a happy, excited buzz with people showing off various Pokémon-related items they brought with them. The mutual appreciation for a shared passion really brought a more relaxed and positive atmosphere to the event. In discussion of how people felt about it not counting for points despite involving competitive games, both presidents seemed open to the event becoming weighted for points like Esports has however they did express that it would potentially limit what they could do with the event in terms of how the formats are played. It could be played similarly to competitions run by the Pokémon company but that has the potential to be much stricter than they would like the event to be. So as of right now, the general consensus seemed to be happy with how far the event has come already and they are enjoying the freedom that comes with being an exhibition.
Each format was worth one point, awarded to the team that won two out of the three games. The majority of the exhibition consisted of single one-on-one card battles in different formats such as Over-used, Under-used, Rarely-used and Never-used. Each of these descriptions refers to the type of cards used in the games. The final event was the Video Game Championship (VGC) where players picked 4 Pokémon out of 6 and played pairs of pokemon against each other, the next pair entering the game after the first pair were destroyed. York won two of the three rounds right off the bat. To select their players, Lancaster actually had a best of three, round-robin to select their players, ensuring they had the best players in every format. That being said, York still managed to win 5-2 with a number of formats ending 2-0 with the last match being a friendly match.
My main takeaway from the entire opportunity to meet these two societies is how welcoming and open they are to people with very little knowledge of the game so whether you only know Pokémon from memes or the iconic anime, I highly recommend giving the society here at York a chance!