During the 2024 Sacramento Regionals earlier this month, Brian Collins did the unthinkable. He brought a five Pokémon team to day 2 and achieved top 8 in ranking. Why only five Pokémon? Well, that’s where it gets complicated. It all comes down to nicknames and the rulings that come with them.

Nicknaming Pokémon is a feature that is as old as the franchise itself. Name a Pokémon after a band you like, another Pokémon if you wanted to, maybe even a movie or famous person. Well, all those names may be against the rules when it comes to official play

Brian made an innocent decision to nickname his Gallade, “Ceruledge” as a joke. However, unbeknownst to Brian this was against the rules. What would be a simple mistake to fix, was instead punished with a game loss and the Pokémon being forced removed from the team. 

Prominent New England VGC player Adrien “ColdingLight” Hurley had a few words to say about the ruling. “Teamsheet errors typically come with penalizations. Game losses, maybe even set losses, or you can’t use the Pokémon. Even though it wasn’t his fault, the issue here is that the judges are very inconsistent regarding rulings. Sometimes they are harsh and sometimes they let things slide by.”

The main issue comes with the inconsistency and personal freedom when it comes to judges known officially as “Professors” and their enforcement of said rules. Under the VGC rulebook in section 1.4.1 it’s stated that Pokémon cannot be nicknamed after another Pokémon. The problem is what is stated in the rulebook, “Any player found to be in breach of the above rules during an event may be asked to modify the problematic aspect of their game and/or be subject to penalties up to and including disqualification”. This is where it gets tricky and when it’s ultimately up to the Professor’s themselves on how harsh punishment is.

Adrien proceeded to describe a few personal stories where he witnessed inconsistent rulings. During the Hartford regionals, he went against an opponent with a Ceruledge who used Shadow Sneak, however, the opponent’s teamsheet called the move Shadow Ball in error. A Professor later had his opponent change the teamsheet, and let them off with a warning. Whereas other Professors may have given a harsher punishment. Adrien elaborated further on another example he witnessed.

“At the NAIC earlier this year, before the finals match with Raghav Malaviya, versus Alex Gómez Berna. Alex’s flight was leaving early. Normally at the end of championships, they have Championship Sunday. You’re supposed to be there present for the finals, and play your match. However, they bent the rules for these two to play pre-recorded. They showed it on stream, where there was a clear exception being made. There are times when they punish rules super harshly and others when they let them slide by.”

Exceptions and wildly different calls on rules seem to be common in official tournaments. Each Professor is expected to make a call based on the severity of the situation. How it’s penalized is highly up to the individual. Which is where it can become unfair for certain players.

“I will say, if you’re ever going to a regional just don’t nickname your Pokémon,” advised Adrien. “Don’t have fun with that, just name them what they’re named and don’t even entertain the thought. I once wanted to name my Tatsugiri I brought to a regional as “Pepto Bismol” but it’s a brand name so I couldn’t use it. Even if I censored it I probably would have been pinged by a judge.”

This rule that Adrien mentioned isn’t even in the VG side of the rulebooks. It’s in the “Standards of Conduct” rulebook for Pokémon’s organized play, pictured below.

Regardless of the judgment made in the Sacramento regionals, Brian Collins managed to get 7th out of 409 players entered. Michael Zhang took home 1st place and secured his spot in the 2024 Honolulu World Championships that Sunday. Brian was awarded with 100CP and $1,000 dollars in prize money. All this with only five Pokémon on his team in the end, which is a very impressive feat.

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