Competitive Pokémon's Greatest Cheating Scandal: The Mazar Story 

One of the TWO biggest cheating scandals in Pokémon showdown history? I smell a part 2 to this series?

“If a person with an iq above 65 had had this bot we woulda never caught it”

I had no idea that the "don't allow spectators" option was because of this, that's actually really cool

the fact that mazar only got caught because someone else decided to come clean scares me because we could have gotten multiple smogon premiere league ubers shut down

I love that bit at the end from the director, "if that guy had an iq above 65 we never would of caught it" cause honestly its so true. This dumbass picked literally only the most obscure hard of hard counters for each of his matches, when he easily could of just picked wide coverage options with a good deal amount of room for reasonable doubt, but instead went nuclear like a moron

When they said Mazar was an idiot for being so blatant with the cheating, that sent a chill through my gamer spine. It’s not the blatant cheaters that are scary, but the subtle ones

I accidentally won some games in the tcg as an elementary schooler. In my defense, I didn’t know you were supposed to shuffle decks. I thought you just put it in whatever order you want.

I clicked on this just out of curiosity but then I realized: I *know* this guy. I played a few team tournaments with him back in Gen 6. Once with him as coach. I didn't know him at all before and at first he seemed very competent and hands on, as he ghosted literally every game our team would play. The first time I was in call during a game though, he pulled something similar. On XY there was a bug (this was a WiFi tour) where if you turned the WiFi off at the right moment when starting up a WiFi Battle, the game would be ended before team preview on your opponents end, but you would go into team preview somehow. So, we'd know our opponents team and bring a team accordingly. I was like wtf and felt kind of uneasy about Mazar from then. I played my games and no more. The community was mad for him though, he had many good friends and fans(?) you could almost say? He was liked mostly, but admins etc. seemed like they were a little annoyed by him a lot. I always thought it was because he used to pop off a lot. Defend shitty behavior from his team mates or friends until the end, even if they had stopped caring about it themselves. He also often was a bad loser and bad winner to his opponents faces. I can honestly say sportsmanship in any sense of the word is foreign to this guy. Never knew the extent of his cheating though, goddamn..

Damn I feel bad for Gunner Rohan. Playing against cheaters in a game like Pokémon must be so frustrating.

I'd be gutted if I was one of the competitors after hearing this, especially the guy that he got matched up with that had the Smeargle, like could you imagine DOUBLE KICK on any mon nvm Terrakion? Thinking "how did he predict that?? Was he cheating or is he really good? Am I just bad?" For months and then finding out he really did cheat. I'd be beyond pissed.

the moment freezai said this guy brought an Ingrain Xerneas, I suspected he must have had access to people's teams somehow. I don't play ubers but I can't imagine ingrain xerneas is a common set. It just has that feel of a specialized set built after witnessing someone else play.

i'm so glad it wasn't a backend cheat that threw everything into chaos. and i'm glad they were able to patch the problem

The recent leap in effort and quality is absolutely commendable and wonderful to see

This is why the best cheaters (in terms of getting away with it) aren’t the ones that win the most. A good cheater will use their unfair advantage to perfectly throw basically just as often as they do to stomp, and they’ll try to do kinda normal things which can be reasonably explained

Learned this from BKC, but there was sweet revenge: Gunnar Rohan beat the crap out of Mazar in the following World Cup (before he got banned later that year) in a singles OU match and then called him out, saying he couldn't win when he couldn't cheat. Serves him right. Dude was also caught cheating before but not with said bot, so people should have seen it coming that he would do anything possible to win.

I wonder how this story would’ve gone differently if he had spoke up immediately afterwards and tried to play from a “I didn’t cheat, I played within the constraints of the website” angle, instead of just aiming for a cover up job.

To be fair to the other team, they all knew he was cheating the whole time. They just couldn't do anything about it because they never had proof of it. I mean the guy brought the most heinous sets of all times in ubers where pokemon have max 2 viable sets lmao

This is my favorite smogon story. I’m glad you’re covering it

Actually I am using scarf Terrakion with double kick in the gen 6 ubers ladder right now and the idea comes from this story… In gen 6 this move has another lead target: sash Greninja. On the other side, scarf Terrakion is a common E-killer check in gen 5 ubers, so I think it also works in gen 6.

That last bit about "If he hadn't used it to create some of the most lopsided match ups in competition history." or something like that, reminded me of a similar remark from "The Expert at the Card Table" "A skilled card handler can take ordinary chances in 19 hands out of 20 and still come out on top."

eject button tangela into magnezone against that corviknight has to be the hottest shit ive seen this week

Freezai your content lately has been insane. Like top tier Pokémon content. Keep it up man

That was genuinely really interesting and well produced, content like this is really good

Never seen this channel before but the quality is amazing and the content is perfectly presented, great stuff!

The editing on this was reaaally good. I like how far Freezai came after all these months

"One of the TWO biggest cheating scandals in Pokemon showdown history" You don't end a video like that, tell us!!😤

one of the most interesting videos ive come across, thank you for this

You put so much work into this video and it shows. I hope it'll succeed

The actual method of cheating is really smart, and dare I say, impressive. Which is terrifying. Obviously what he did was 100% wrong. But at least it led to Showdown increasing the security of its system. And I agree with the final statement that Mazar has an IQ of a lukewarm potato. If he had just an ounce of common sense, and that other person had not cracked under scrutiny, he would have gotten away with this scheme for a lot longer. And Gunner Rohan is absolutely right. It takes a truly morally corrupt person to cheat at such a high level.

Dude I'm loving these smogon History videos. Pumped for part 2

Your content is only getting better. Love to see the channel grow

I like all your videos but this one feels like you put extra effort / work into it and it was super pleasant to watch 💯

great video, and i love the subtle reference to the other cheating scandal which i find interesting that no one rly talks abt that one

Wonderful work as always!

this is insane. please keep shit like this coming, i love smogon drama. even if its just someone stalling a game for 8 hours LOL

I think this is more interesting than some of the other Smogon drama I'm familar with like the player named Somalia who baby rage quit and started banning people after he lost to Energy Ball Jellicent or the mod name hunter who was banned for allegedly grooming minors.

This is your best edited video to date

This is the BEST showdown channel, love your work man :) let’s keep this game alive!

The video is amazing, keep making pokemon event history vids like this

Imagine blind all inning on a 2 6 of hearts if poker. That’s the equivalent of taking double kick Terrakion. When you act surprised when you get a straight flush people are going to raise eyebrows. Truly double digit IQ moment.

Can't wait for Part 2!

i remember this happening in real time. the chaos in every server, even side tiers that had nothing to do with SPL, was huge. EVERYONE was talking about it. fantastic video. love the story and drama lmao

I enjoy watching drama about stuff I never followed in real time lol. These vids are great

As scummy as cheating like that is, I will admit that it's incredibly clever.

This video was so interesting! I am a new subscriber but Ive been loving all of your content so just keep doing you Freezai

yo freezai i just want to say that you should really do more of these types of videos. these videos are super interesting and would LOVE more of these scandal or documentary videos. keep up the good work!

damn this editing is clean, great video man

Insane quality video. Nice editing and script.

“Mazar will be banned from Smogon Fourms permanently. The Circus Maximum Tigers will have their trophy removed. SPL 8’s result is Nullified” - Smogon University

2 things: 1. Had no idea that the “Don’t allow spectators” button was because of this, so that’s cool to know. 2. Double Kick Terrakion should’ve made everyone suspicious of both the player with it and the team INSTANTLY. Unless you’re preparing for the insanely exact matchup of focus sash Smeargle in Ubers, there isn’t a single reason to bring that

A++++++ content Freezai. Keep it up!

If possible, I would really love if you can cover some of the unusual mechanics behind some moves like Assist. It is hard to find any information about a lot of these moves on RU-vid and it would make a good miniseries.

This guy was really dumb. The first rule of cheating is making it look plausible, you gotta make mistakes on purpose sometimes or it's not realistic. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Awesome video, the quality of content coming from this channel has been amazing lately!

Excellent video here, Freezai, keep it up.

i just discovered your channel and i really love that you don’t go into a ridiculously long intro and out to every time !!!

This is an amazing video. Imagine how much work you have to do to make the servers for Pokemon Showdown work correctly only to find that you have been accommodating bots.

makes you wonder how many people cheated and actually got away with it

Dude I love how ominous the video looks, that combined with the music gives me chills

11.5 minutes of pure entertainment. Good shit freez

If he gave himself good match-ups but not unwinnable match-ups he could've gotten away with it

I've never played a single competitive game in my entire life. But even for me a pokemon with double kick vs legendary teams is a super obvious red flag

love your videos!

Very informative and good summary of showdown Fantastic, wish i saw it sooner

I have carried this line from my primary school teacher all throughout my life: "If you're going to do something bad, at least do it good." In other words, if you're committed to doing something wrong like stealing or cheating, at least make sure you do it well and not get caught. There are ALWAYS going to be cheaters, especially in a huge community like Pokemon Showdown. Mazar was an idiot because he didn't cheat WELL. He was too arrogant and believed that nobody would catch onto his schemes despite it being so obvious that if you continue to consistently have perfect teams that dominate your opponent completely, people will get suspicious. In a huge community like Pokemon Showdown where there's strict management and official tournaments? That's BEGGING to be caught.

bkc covered this but it's nice to see a coverage on a different player

Great video!

Great vid Freezai

This sounds like a oversight by Smogon site itself that probably should have been implemented way before this could happen. Other competitive games with private matches is purely private for a reason. Imagine if anyone could just join a LoL private scrimmage for a LPL team.

Incase anyones wondering what happend to mazar after this. Well he just dissapeared, friend of mine (id say like this cause hes a nice guy) xray hasnt heard of him since, as far as i know

Great vid subscribed!!!

Here to pop off cuz your content so good!! 🥳

Had to close my eyes when the "bot" started joining games and showing some Gen 9 pokemon! I need to keep playing haha. Good video!

My 😱 face when you revealed that they got the Discord login for the other guy - this is juicy as hell! I love that you are documenting the culture of competitive Pokemon, not just the metagame itself!

Your recent vids have been absolute 🔥!!! Keep it up bro, new sub!!!

I don't know your channel, but first of all I liked your video, second thing I can hear you might had a lisp problem earlier, you managed it well and that's not easy (have the same problem...). So, well huge respect for you keep doing this great work

Pokemon Showdown is a blessing. It's a wonderful place where people who might not have the time or resources to make teams can quickly and easily do so and makes them able to battle their friends too. I'm so grateful Pokemon Showdown exists.

Imagine caring enough about a game that you want to consistently win, but not caring enough that you want to win with your own skill. I'll never understand cheaters.

I came for the content. I stayed for the awesome RU-vidr narrating _with a lisp_ and still rocking on. AND being verified. Bit of my faith in humanity has been restored. Keep rocking on, Freezai!

Perfect video freezai

With that ending, I just knowww Bloo/Stylegate is going to be covered next.

I know Mazar personally (also met him many times) and it‘s so bizzare because just from knowing him like that you wouldn‘t think he‘d be such a b**tard but lmao

Wonderful video

Great video. Nice length. Needs some pokemon knowledge (like knowing focus sash) but yeah, pretty good!

I love the BKC vid on this.

It's kinda crazy showdown is still around. I remember when the site was in its infancy during Gen 5, I would show it to people in middle school and a lot of people wound up getting in trouble for playing it lol.

great vid, waiting for the other cheating scandal vid. good to know what the dont allow spectator is for 😍

The new editing's really cool! only thing i don't really like is the camera tilt, it throws me off a little. Still, really nice vid!

What is the site he was using at 1:49 to view the imports of teams from a replay?

On that last bit, that was like my first thoughts through the video. If he had taken a couple of losses and didn't make his teams so hard countery, he would've gotten away with it lol.

FREZAI WE need part 2 ASAP

I never knew why that addition was added to the home section; this is very interesting

One of two scandals you say…..

the new tilting zoom actually super distracting. just use it like once per video for special emphasis, but if you spam it it gets irritating real fast

This doesn't feel like cheating, he was getting public information.

Great vid

To be fair, clearly he was still a good player if he was able to build teams to counter any and every strategy.

This was probably the most nerdy thing I've watched in a while. But I love pokemon, and I love scandals, so I ain't complaining lol

I need more smogon lore 😂

yo congrats on 100k