The Pokémon franchise made waves on the 15th of November with the release of Pokémon Sword and Shield—the series’ first entry into the 8th generation of Pokémon games, and its second release on the Nintendo Switch following Pokémon Let’s Go in 2018.
One day after its global launch, we marked the occasion with our own Community Event organised together with Team Pika to commemorate the launch! If you missed the event, read on to find out how things went down…
Galarian Doubles Tournament
“I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was…”
Well, 24 brave participants definitely took those words to heart as they battled it out during the Galarian Doubles Tournament! The winners didn’t just walk away with goodies like copies of the game or a Nintendo Switch—they also had the honour of becoming Malaysia’s first ever Pokémon Sword and Shield Tournament champions.
In the end, the top 8 winners to earn that honour went to (in order) JS Deo, Zarif Ayman, Wan Aqil, Ismat Myron Beg, Stephen Tan, Wahidi Bukri, Hisham Hisham, and Nasseruddean Fadhil. We saw many exciting matches during the course of the Tournament and we hope it’s a sign of good things to come for the future of the Pokémon Sword and Shield competitive scene.
Pokken Time Attack & Mini Tournament
Back by popular demand, Pokken made its reappearance in two exciting showdowns throughout the event day. First was the Pokken Time Attack, a teeth-grinding battle against the in-game NPC, resulting in Foxy emerging as the fastest champion.
Then, the Pokken Mini Tournament which saw six participants duke it out in the ever-exciting Pokémon fighting game. In the end, it came down to a close battle between participants Foxy and Adam, with the former emerging as the winner in a clean sweep.
Free Play
Participants who wanted to “try before buy” could test out Pokémon Sword at the Free Play zone. For those who didn’t own a Switch, this was a great opportunity to try out the console while exploring the wild areas of Galar on the Pokémon Sword demo.
Participants could later buy their own copy of the game from the ATO Online Store booth, or win them from the many other activities during the event!
Poképun Contest
We challenged Pokémon fans far and wide to show us their best puns in an online competition—and six lucky Poképunsters made the cut for the Contest! Each participant presented a four-minute comedy routine to our panel of judges, who cringed and chuckled through it all.
Muhammad Fikri was declared as the competition’s winner with his deadly combination of English, Malay and even Indonesian Poképuns, followed by Nicholas Yap Bin whose most memorable routine was presented in the form of a news report.
Closing Thoughts
The Pokémon Sword and Shield Community Event was a cosy, laid-back event, where diehard fans and newcomers to the franchise alike could hang out and enjoy a friendly game with one another.
Of course, we couldn’t have done it without the help of our sponsors—THE LINC KL, our Official Venue Sponsor; our official video game sponsor, ATO Online Store; our official prize sponsors Domino’s Malaysia; and our partners at MULA and Wrappe. We’d also like to extend our thanks to Maxsoft for graciously allowing us to host this event.
Most of all, we’d like to thank our attendees for making this event a success, and we hope to see you again for the release of the next Pokémon game!
THE MAGIC RAIN team, signing off!
This event was a Community Eventfully supported by the community of Pokémon in Malaysia.
