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We finally got some good news after being bombarded with Covid, the Ukraine war consequences, and economic inflation. Team Bangladesh reached the finals of the World Cup of Pokemon.
You might be wondering what in the world is Pokemon World Cup. Well, the World Cup of Pokemon is an international online tournament hosted by Smogon. Smogon is the largest competitive Pokemon community.
In this year's tournament, 200 players were playing in 17 teams in total. These 17 teams represented their countries or continents.
The game follows a double-elimination format. The match goes on like this - each player faces two opponents. The teams battle it out in a best-of-five series. Ultimately, the best three teams are chosen to proceed to the finals. Teams mostly contain eight players and a coach.
This tournament has quite a craze among Pokemon game lovers. Before coming to Team Bangladesh, let's explore a little more about this unknown world.
Most of us were introduced to Pokemon through anime. They started to show this anime first in the mid-2000s here and continued for quite a long time. It was the children's favourite show back in those days.
But the brand of Pokemon, Nintendo, offers way more than this anime. They have video games, trading cards, merchandise, and many more, most importantly, Competitive Pokemon battling.
Did you know Pokemon is the highest-grossing media franchise? In November of last year, Nintendo launched Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. These two are their latest switch games. More than 22 million copies have been sold since their launch. Now you can very well feel the hype.
Coming back to this year's tournament and Team Bangladesh. In the qualifier round, Team Bangladesh was the highest-scoring team. They scored 12-4 against the opponent nations, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, and South Korea.
There is a Facebook group called 'Bangladeshi Pokemon Battlers'. This is the group for local Pokemon battling fans. The members of Team Bangladesh are from this group.
The members are Soumav Biswas, Mir Muhib Hosain, Shadman Khalid Chowdhury, Shafakat Arifeen, Uzair Uddin Ahmed, Arafi Kabbo Milky, Mohammad Kaif Sewak, Sadman Sakib Nipun, A K M Mushfiqur Rahman, Nadid Masrur Kabir, Fahim Shahriar, and Asim Abrar and Albab Maswood Haider as co-captains.
This is the 5th year Bangladesh has attempted to ace the qualifier round, and it was a mind-blowing success.
Two types of competitive Pokemon battles take place. The Nintendo and Pokemon Internationals arrange one. The other is the fan-arranged program. The official one is arranged in a very glamorous way. But Bangladeshi players often find it hard to participate in those foreign events.
Luckily, the alternative is present. The event, arranged by the largest online community, Smogon, becomes the target for Pokemon fans worldwide. The tournaments take place on the site called Showdown.
You will be surprised to know that competitive Pokemon Battles bring almost 18.5 users to the Showdown site every month.
Many people consider the Pokemon franchise to be for children. But in reality, the competitive battle of Pokemon is played by a much older group of people. The members of Team Bangladesh are SSC students, University students, and some are full-time office goers. According to fans around the world, Pokemon knows no age.
It is astonishing how a video game created such a giant world community of diverse groups of people. Pokemon lovers not only spend their fun time in Smogon but also achieve a 'global voice' as a reward for good performance.