There is currently a controversy in the Pokémon tournament scene surrounding professional Alex “Len” Soto. The player was banned from all tournaments after a post on “X.com”.
Who is the person you are talking about? Alex “Len” Soto is part of the Spanish professional community of Pokémon games, currently Crimson and Purple. The player is known for teams based on the “Trick Room” principle, or “Bizarroraum” in German, and successfully took part in several regionals.
What is the situation? There was a problem at one of his last tournaments: two of his Pokémon failed the controls and were not admitted. According to “Len”, these were bred and caught in the game (via X.com).
Len apparently responded to the ban with a post on X, which is no longer available. In this, he said he wanted to “bomb” TPCI if his Pokémon were excluded again.
The reaction to this was a permanent ban from all tournaments. Now Len responded with a statement and emphasized that it was a “meme”.
How does the professional react to the ban?
This is what Len says about the situation: The professional spoke up in a long post on X.com. He was told he was permanently banned from official competitions due to “online threats”.
“Looking at the recent tweets I’ve posted, I’m assuming they’re related to the tweet where I said I would bomb TPCI if my Pokémon were banned again,” he admits.
But he emphasizes that he would be sorry if someone had interpreted it literally: “It’s a fairly common Spanish ‘meme’ that has no other purpose than to make fun of an impossible situation, and I have the tweet too written with several spelling errors to make it even more absurd,” said “Len.” However, he would understand that it could be misinterpreted if you are outside of Spain due to language barriers.
He also explains: “I know that the tweet was incorrect and that I should have behaved in an exemplary manner as a professional player.” Now he is asking to be readmitted. He would take part in the competitions since 2016 and helped grow the community. He was “shocked” because he had just quit his job to concentrate on his eSports career, creating content for the game and joining the eSports club “ESPORTMANÍACOS”.
This puts not only his hobby at risk, but his job: “I will do everything in my power to remedy this situation so that I can continue to take part in competitions, because that is what makes me happy,” said Len: “I hope I expressed myself as best as I could, and I sincerely apologize to the Pokémon Company and anyone else who may have been offended.”
What’s next? This is still open, as things stand, the ban has been determined. It remains to be seen whether there will be another change here.
There is currently a lot of support for “Len” in the reactions: Some see this as a slip-up by a young player that should not result in his entire career being lost.
However, there is also an opposing side that emphasizes that topics like bomb threats are not something to joke about. Especially as a result of the original situation surrounding the non-approved Pokémon, some view this as critical because they see it as an attempt to cheat.
It remains to be seen how the topic will develop further. What do you think of the situation? Tell us in the comments.
Aside from the main Pokémon games, the focus this month is Pokémon GO. There’s a big event coming up there: The global Sinnoh tour at the end of February is the finale of the current season.