What: Pokemon Trainer's Union Gym Leader Challenge
When: 10 a.m., Nov. 7; 1 p.m., Nov. 8
Contact: poketrainers@bsu.edu
This is the sixth time the student organization has held its gym leader challenge. This year’s two-day search for the next Pokémon champion starts on Nov. 7 at 10 a.m. and Nov. 8 at 1 p.m and is open to everyone.
Each participant, or trainer, will travel around campus battling eight gym leaders and collecting a badge for each leader they defeat.
Gym leaders were determined a few weeks before at a tournament. The four highest performing gym leaders became the Elite Four.
LARPers won’t have the opportunity to face the Elite Four until the second day, and only after they have earned all eight badges from the other gym leaders.
If a trainer beats the Elite Four, they battle the former Pokémon champion for a chance to assume the role and become the “very best.”
The Pokémon Trainer’s Union created the gym leader challenge not long after Nathan Golub founded the group in 2013. Golub, a Ball State alumnus, created the trainer's union after leaving Ball State’s Urban Gaming League.
“I did it because I love Pokémon and I just thought the idea of a Pokémon club was really, really cool and the fact that there wasn’t a club where Pokémon fans could get together and enjoy it and meet other like-minded people ... was really a shame, ” he said.
The LARP doesn’t come together on its own. Months of planning are required to make sure it is a success.
Chris Purvis, president of the Pokémon Trainer’s Union, said it takes time to plan the gym leader tournament and invite the Japanese Animation Society, who often attend the event as members of villain organization Team Rocket.
The Pokémon Trainer’s Union tries to incorporate something new into the LARP each year—just to keep it interesting, Purvis said.
This year, they changed the rules to a standardized version, instead of their previously modified one, in the hope that students from other universities might attend.
The LARP is special to its participants. Purvis’s favorite memory was becoming champion in 2012.
Lauren Taylor, a junior computer science major said she enjoyed being a gym leader, even though they are meant to lose.
The Pokémon Trainer’s Union meets every Monday from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Whitinger Business Building, room 138, for competitive players and every Wednesday from 7 to 10 p.m. in Robert Bell Building, room 125, for general players.
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