Pokémon tournaments can be intense enough without having to deal with a real-life status effect...
A Pokémon VGC champion has called on his fellow competitors to step up their personal hygiene after claiming another player's body odor was so foul it made him throw up.
Donghun Youm, champion of the 2023 Pokémon Milwaukee Regional Championships, recounted the bizarre incident following his run at the Baltimore Regionals.
According to Youm, a nearby player's stench became so intense that it threw off multiple competitors across the floor.
It Smelled So Bad He Had To Throw Up
Youm took to X on September 27 to call out the situation, pleading with tournament attendees to practice basic cleanliness before packing into tournament halls.
"Please take care of your personal hygiene," Youm wrote, detailing that the foul odor coming off a nearby player forced him to step away and physically vomit.
Please take care of your personal hygiene.
— Donghun Youm (@PlaymakerYoum) September 27, 2026
I've had an incident @ Baltimore regionals where I had to throw up due to a nearby player's stench. My friends and I couldn't focus that round due to how putrid the smell was and we even told a judge due to it. Like c'mon man....
He noted that his friends also struggled to focus during their matches due to the lingering stench. The group eventually escalated the situation to a tournament judge.
Youm chose not to publicly name the player in question, and it remains unclear whether tournament organizers took disciplinary action on site.
Tournament Hygiene Remains An Ongoing Problem
Following Youm's post, players across the scene chimed in with their own horror stories. One competitor admitted that extreme opponent odors routinely disrupt their focus, while another claimed they once matched up against someone who smelled like a literal dumpster.
While Youm's experience sounds wild, hygiene complaints have haunted competitive gaming and trading card circuits for years. Back in 2023, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate pro Brian "Cosmos" Kalu scrambled to track down deodorant mid-event after an opponent pointed out his smell.
Trading card venues have taken even harsher measures in the past, including an Oregon card shop that temporarily halted local Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments over unaddressed hygiene and restroom issues.
With tournament halls packing hundreds of players into tight quarters, some competitors are now pushing for official rules that would allow judges to hand out direct match forfeits for extreme hygiene violations.