Competitive Pokemon is usually decided by team composition, speed tiers and nerves of steel. At the Baltimore Regionals, one player says something far more basic got in the way: the smell of the person sitting near him.
Pokemon VGC regional champion Donghun Youm went public on social media with a complaint and a request for change after falling ill during the event. According to him, he and his friends struggled to concentrate on their matches because of a “putrid” odor coming from a nearby competitor. He says the group even raised the issue with a judge, though it isn’t clear whether anything was actually done about it. In the end, the smell was bad enough that Youm vomited.
A Call for Basic Hygiene, Not a Rules Change
Youm isn’t asking for penalties or disqualifications. His message is simpler: before you show up to play, think about your hygiene, because everyone around you shares the same room for hours at a time.
That request lands on a well-known sore spot. Gaming and anime conventions have carried a reputation for body odor problems for years, and the reason is mostly physics plus crowding. Pack a lot of people into a small space, add consoles and PCs pumping out heat, and you get sweat – and then a smell that nobody in the room can escape. If you want to keep up with everything else happening around the franchise, we collect it all in our Pokemon news section.
This Isn’t the First Incident Like It
Poor hygiene has disrupted competitive events before. In 2024, a female competitor reportedly walked out of a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament abruptly, which led some onlookers to assume she had been harassed. She later clarified online that she simply couldn’t tolerate the overwhelming body odor of some of the people at the venue any longer.
The problem is recognized widely enough that it has even been built into games. In TCG Card Shop Simulator, stinky customers can walk into your store and hurt business, and you deal with them by spraying them with Cleanser or installing the Auto Scent M100 so it’s handled automatically. Real-world tournaments don’t come with that button.
What It Means If You Compete
The overwhelming majority of attendees take care of themselves, so this is about a small minority with an outsized effect. Still, a few practical takeaways follow from the incident:
- Long tournament days in packed halls get hot fast – plan for it before you leave home.
- If a smell is genuinely making you ill, judges are the people to flag it to, as Youm’s group did.
- Streamer Asmongold has claimed he doesn’t wear deodorant and doesn’t need it; if you’re spending a day shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other players, that’s not a model worth copying.
Where to Go Next
If you’d rather read about the games themselves, we’ve covered the Pokemon Winds and Waves Pokedex, and there’s also our piece on the Mega Gengar retail raids in Pokemon GO.
FAQ
VGC regional champion Donghun Youm says a “putrid” smell from a nearby competitor made it hard for him and his friends to focus, and he eventually vomited. They spoke to a judge about it, but it isn’t clear whether any action was taken.
No. He is asking players to take their own hygiene into consideration before attending matches, rather than calling for penalties.
Yes. In 2024, a competitor reportedly left a Yu-Gi-Oh event abruptly and later explained online that she could no longer tolerate the body odor of some attendees.
Large crowds in enclosed spaces generate heat and sweat, especially when consoles and PCs are running, which can quickly turn into an overwhelming smell if attendees don’t prepare.
TCG Card Shop Simulator includes stinky customers who hurt your business, and you can deal with them using Cleanser or the Auto Scent M100.