For three days, the four Twitch streamers Varion, Chefstrobel, Zarbex, and Trymacs locked themselves in an apartment to play Pokémon Heart Gold together. During the LAN, they played against each other in teams of two.
What kind of challenge is this? From Tuesday, February 24, to Thursday, February 26, Trymacs, Chefstrobel, Varion, and Zarbex spent time together in an apartment where they held a Pokémon LAN. In teams of two, Varion and Chefstrobel against Trymacs and Zarbex, they played a Soullink in Pokémon Heart Gold against each other.
A Soullink is a special challenge of the Pokémon community that follows certain rules, including:
- On each route or in each city, only the Pokémon encountered first may be caught and added to the team.
- Defeated Pokémon are considered deceased and may no longer be used.
- The Pokémon of the two team partners are linked. For example, if Chefstrobel’s Pokémon dies, the linked Pokémon of Varion also dies.
- If one loses all 6 Pokémon in battle and consequently faints in the game, the challenge must be restarted for that team.
- The goal is to progress further in the game than the opposing team.
Good luck, but also a lot of skill
How did the LAN go? In total, the four Twitch streamers played Pokémon Heart Gold for over 50 hours (Source: SullyGnome.com).
Chefstrobel and Varion had to restart their run relatively early when Chefstrobel fell to a trainer who sent Metang and Meowth into battle. However, the restart didn’t set them back too far, and they still had a neck-and-neck race with Zarbex and Trymacs.
Overall, Trymacs and Zarbex had simply more luck with the Pokémon they were able to secure for their team. For example, Trymacs got the Pokémon god itself, Arceus, for his team. At the same time, the Zarbex-Trymacs team also recorded more Pokémon deaths: Trymacs ultimately had 4 on his conscience and Zarbex even 11.
Varion and Chefstrobel played more cautiously, probably because they had less luck with their team. However, the opposing trainers were somewhat kinder with their Pokémon, so Varion and Chefstrobel had a slightly easier game. Nevertheless, the Varion-Chefstrobel team recorded a total of 11 deaths: 5 for Chefstrobel and 6 for Varion.
How did the LAN end? In the end, Trymacs and Zarbex came out on top. They managed to progress further than Varion and Chefstrobel, but only by a narrow margin.
Varion’s luck completely ran out against the first member of the Elite Four when a Giratina appeared as the first Pokémon, causing Varion to lose a Pokémon. The subsequent Pokémon were not any easier, which is why Varion and Chefstrobel failed against the first member of the Elite Four.
Zarbex and Trymacs managed the first battle, which crowned them the winners of the challenge. Both teams tried to progress as far as possible for fun, but ultimately fell to a member of the Elite Four.
Towards the end, Chefstrobel and Trymacs got into an argument. Trymacs accused Chefstrobel of cheating.
While the Twitch streamers are in important battles, such as against gym leaders or rivals, there is a rule to switch their own chat to emote-only. This way, viewers can no longer give tips, but can only send emotes in the chat.
Although Chefstrobel adhered to this rule, he had Trymacs’ chat open on his second screen. Trymacs noticed this and yelled at Chefstrobel, who responded.
Chefstrobel urged Trymacs to realize that he was currently yelling at him in front of several tens of thousands of viewers and what consequences this could have. In previous streams, Trymacs’ accusations had led to Chefstrobel receiving private messages on Instagram from people repeating Trymacs’ allegations.
Already in 2023, Trymacs had repeatedly mocked Chefstrobel, which led to a general hate wave against Chefstrobel.
Now that this Pokémon LAN or Pokémon Soullink is over, Trymacs and Chefstrobel can perhaps try again with the Trio Soullink they have going with Rumathra. A Pokémon LAN was also held in the past for this challenge: 3 Twitch streamers lock themselves in for days for a Pokémon challenge, failing after a total of 95 hours
