A plot to have a massacre at the 12th Pokemon World Championships has just been foiled. A link to the news story is here.

I’m happy that the Boston Police stopped these guys. While it’s easy to get cynical and think that police like to let power go to their heads, they do make communities much safer. I hate to think what might have happened if the would-be gunmen weren’t stopped.

As for the two would-be gunmen, they were competitors who had received invitations to worlds. One of them posted a picture of a hunting rifle on Facebook and said that they were “ready for Worlds”. The other joked about “killing the competition”.

One might think that it was just a joke between the two. If that were the case, it’s a vintage bad joke.

The two would-be gunmen might not have been bad at playing Pokemon (they did receive Worlds invitations), but they evidently didn’t understand the public nature of social media. The two attempted to gain entry into Worlds, but for a possibly unrelated reason, they were turned away and were slapped with “No Trespass” orders. The convention center security contacted the Boston Police Department, who were aware of their Facebook exchange, and they detained the two.

Bravo, Boston Police Department!

As it turns out, the two weren’t joking in their Facebook exchange. Boston Police found firearms in the two’s vehicle, and the two were arrested.

When you think about Pokemon, what do you think about? Maybe you think about cute, colorful hug-em-squeeze-ems that can breath fire and expel electricity. Maybe you think about dragons and whales wrestling for sport. You probably wouldn’t associate Pokemon with some guys who flip out and decide to kill a bunch of kids. As it turns out, there are some pretty messed-up people out there.

Pokemon is a game about friendship and adventure. In the Pokemon fanbase, there is a sense of energy and enthusiasm that makes it different from other game communities that I’ve seen. Pokemon players are less likely to become intellectual tyrants and instead encourage players that seem to be struggling. Because of this, it’s surprising that someone who plays Pokemon would seriously consider carrying out a mass murder. But, again, there are some messed-up people out there.

While it’s surprising enough that such a person existed in the Pokemon community, it’s more jarring still that two such people met one another and encouraged one another to carry out their sick murder fantasy. In the years that I’ve played Pokemon, I have never seen anything close to the kind of attitude that the two would-be gunmen exhibited.

However, there is a bright side to this. The Pokemon community, as well as the community at large, is much safer thanks to the efforts of the Boston Police.

As for the two failed terrorists, they’re probably finding out that Pokemon isn’t very popular in prison. One of the big games in prison is Poker. Not that they’ll be the ones playing; guys like them are typically used as bets.

I know that there are people out there who would use this incident to attempt to further their political agenda, saying things like “this is why guns should be banned”. No, it isn’t. This is why spanking a misbehaving child is a good idea. Doing stupid things like counting to five or ten only encourages your children to act up, because you’re establishing a limit that is very easy to push, and demonstrates to them that you’re too lazy to administer an actual punishment. Children have a hard time understanding an explanation as to why acting out is wrong, but they do understand when something hurts. Use that to discourage negative behavior, and in time, they’ll figure out the relationship between bad behavior and bad results. Besides, if you spank your child, you won’t kill them.

And if you spank your child, you’ll be far less likely to suffer the shame and disgrace of being the parent of some deviant that fired a gun at some kids playing games. Preventative measures are better than long-term regrets.

As for those who are worried about the safety of the Pokemon community, it’s much safer now that two would-be killers are locked up. The news may be jarring, but you can continue enjoying Pokemon.

UPDATE: I have made a separate entry with additional thoughts on this matter. It might be that the two men weren’t conspiring to carry out a mass shooting, after all.

Have you had a pokemon where what you’ve heard about it is much different from your own personal experience? I have. Dusclops is a pokemon that I’ve played competitively and had so much fun as other players struggled against it.

If you were to go to a community like Smogon, you’d probably hear something like “Don’t use Dusclops. It’s terrible.” But here’s the thing: not only is Dusclops not terrible, it rocks pretty hard. Here is a set that I’ve used:

Snickers
Dusclops
Sassy nature
Ability: Pressure
Item: Eviolite
– Will-O-Wisp
– Night Shade
– Pain Split
– Protect
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpDef

Not going anywhere for a while? It might because Dusclops is walling you so well. Dusclops’ already high defensive stats are brought even higher by the presence of Eviolite, which makes it soak up moves it’s not weak to as though they weren’t a big deal. Most walls are either physically or specially oriented, but Dusclops’ physical and special defense are both really high. A Sassy nature is chosen because once burned by Will-O-Wisp, physical attackers wouldn’t be doing much damage. Night shade is there so Dusclops has something to do when Taunted, and in between racking up passive burn damage with Protect. It’s a little disappointing that Pain Split is it’s only form of recovery, but it still works pretty well against opponents that think they’re nearing a KO.

Now, there are a few concerns that players express when it comes to Dusclops:

“But Dusclops is Knock Off bait.”
Yes, Dusclops is Knock Off bait. That doesn’t mean that Dusclops is unusable. In fact, that could work well in luring in threats with Knock Off. Dusclops even has Protect to scout.

Oh, I just brought Dusclops in, and the other player is bringing in something like Weavile. I’ll just bring in a Pokemon holding a Mega Stone.
Oh, the opponent used Knock Off. How predictable. Now I know which of their pokemon has Knock Off.
So, the opponent’s surprise is lost, and they’re probably going to want to get their Knock Off pokemon out of there, unless they want it clobbered by my mega.

Strategy.

“But Dusclops doesn’t have reliable recovery.”
Dusclops’ Pain Split isn’t very good, but Dusclops benefits very well from a Wish used by Sylveon. Dusclops can even switch in easily to benefit from Wish, as long as the player doesn’t allow it’s HP to get so low, that it’s hard to switch it in. It takes foresight on the part of the player to get that to work out. Again, strategy.

“But Dusclops doesn’t work well when statused, especially with Toxic.”
Something like Toxic can make stalling backfire, but the same goes for just about any pokemon that walls. Remember how I mentioned Sylveon? It also has access to Heal Bell. Or you can have Chansey use Aromatherapy. This is the kind of team support that’s often used in competitive play, so status conditions aren’t usually much of a problem as long as the team’s healer can get out there and do it’s job, which is pretty easy to do.

“But Dusclops is slow.”
And? There isn’t much expectation that pokemon that wall go first in a turn. Unless Trick Room is up, the opponent is likely going to attack first. I know that a lot of players out there like their walls to be something that they just send out and then they shut their brains off as they watch their pokemon soak up attacks, but sometimes a person might want to use a little strategic thinking to determine that it might be a good time to get Dusclops out of there so it can later safely come in on Wish support. It might seem like Dusclops needs a lot of help from Sylveon, but Dusclops worked great for me before adding Sylveon to my team.

“But Dusclops is shut down when Taunted.”
That’s true, but here’s the thing: Dusclops can be switched out to get around it. Dusclops doesn’t need to set up to do what it does, so it’s not hurt much by the minor inconvenience of switching out of an unfavorable situation to let a teammate take over. Much of competitive pokemon does involve prediction and strategic switching. I know it sounds like I’m using the word “strategy” a lot, but that’s something that makes certain pokemon very effective.

Dusclops is the kind of pokemon that Mega Mewtwo Y wants to get a critical hit on. If Dusclops doesn’t seem to be working on your team, that might not be Dusclops’ fault. Dusclops might not be invincible, but a pokemon doesn’t need to be high on Smogon’s viability charts to be usable. Perhaps the reason so many players are having a problem with this thing is that they aren’t very well prepared for it. Or maybe they’re seriously underestimating it.