Key Takeaways
- Alessandro “iCaterpie” Cremascoli, a two-time Italian national champion and 25-year Pokemon TCG veteran, says he has been permanently banned from all Play! Pokemon events.
- The ban followed a social media post in which he named a specific judge and accused them of unfair treatment at the 2026 Pokemon World Championships in San Francisco.
- iCaterpie deleted the post six hours later but says he received a lifetime ban notice regardless — just as he was about to travel to the Nice Regional tournament in France on October 17-18.
- Content creator JenTCG pointed out that calling out the judge by name was likely the key reason for The Pokemon Company’s decision.
- The Pokemon Company has not publicly commented on the ban as of this writing.
- A separate incident at the 2026 Worlds event saw three other Italian players — including 2024 World Champion Luca Ceribelli — effectively barred over a queue-jumping dispute at the Pokemon Center.
- The Pokemon TCG Mega Evolution: Delta Reign expansion drops November 6, 2026, with pre-release events starting October 24.
25 Years of Pokemon TCG, Gone in a Deleted Post
This one hurts to talk about, honestly. Alessandro “iCaterpie” Cremascoli — a two-time Italian national champion who has spent over two decades competing in and contributing to the Pokemon TCG community — says he has been permanently banned from all Play! Pokemon events. Not suspended. Not given a warning. A lifetime ban.
And the reason? He posted a complaint on social media. He deleted it six hours later. But by that point, the damage was apparently already done.
iCaterpie broke the news himself on October 16, writing on X that Pokemon is “literally my life” before describing how he had been stripped of the ability to attend any future official events. The post hit the community like a truck. People across the competitive Pokemon scene — players, content creators, fans — started reacting almost immediately, with the vast majority expressing disbelief that a lifetime ban could come from a deleted social media post made by someone who has given decades to the game.
What Exactly Happened
The incident traces back to the 2026 Pokemon World Championships in San Francisco. iCaterpie alleged that he received unfair treatment from a judge during the event. Rather than go through official channels, he vented about it publicly on social media — and crucially, he named the judge directly in his post.
According to Pokemon TCG content creator JenTCG, naming the judge by name is almost certainly the specific detail that triggered the corporate response. Calling out an individual official on social media by name is a different level of complaint than a general grievance about tournament rulings. The Pokemon Company International has issued public warnings in the past about harassment of staff and judges — including at official events and on social media — so naming someone publicly likely crossed a line in TPCi’s view regardless of whether the complaint itself had merit.
iCaterpie took the post down about six hours after publishing it. But the window was long enough. He did not receive an immediate notice. Instead, he found out about the ban in the worst possible way — just as he was preparing to travel to the Play! Pokemon Nice Regional tournament in France, which ran on October 17 and 18. He discovered he had been removed from the standings entirely. No formal advance notice. No appeal process mentioned publicly. Just gone.
He also alleged in his statement that some people within The Pokemon Company International had been targeting him for roughly a decade, though that specific claim remains unverified and has not been addressed by the company.
Who Is iCaterpie — And Why the Community Is So Upset
Alessandro Cremascoli isn’t some random tournament grinder. He is, by all accounts, one of the most respected and genuinely beloved figures in the European Pokemon TCG competitive scene. His career spans well over two decades — he played his first official tournament back in 2003. He won the Italian National Championship twice, making him one of the most decorated players in his home country.
Beyond his own competitive achievements, iCaterpie has spent years actively teaching the Pokemon TCG to players across Italy — running guides, running coaching sessions, building community. His Metafy coaching page shows that level of investment clearly: he’s someone who put in the time not just to compete but to grow the game at a grassroots level in a country where Italy consistently punches above its weight in international Pokemon competition.
Fellow players and community members describing him after the ban used words like “pillar,” “kind,” and “one of the most genuine people” in the scene. That’s the person who woke up to find out he’d been banned for life over a social media post he deleted the same day he made it.
The community reaction split roughly into two camps. A significant portion called on The Pokemon Company to reconsider, reduce the ban to something temporary, or at minimum provide a transparent explanation. Others acknowledged that naming a judge publicly — even with a legitimate complaint — is exactly the kind of behavior TPCi has warned against before, and that the social media approach was a mistake regardless of what actually happened during the match.
What almost everyone agreed on: a permanent lifetime ban feels disproportionate to a deleted post. Whether it holds is a different question, and a lot of eyes in the community are waiting to see if TPCi responds officially or quietly restores some level of access down the line.
The Worlds 2026 Italian Controversies Don’t End There
The iCaterpie situation isn’t even the only major controversy involving Italian players coming out of the 2026 Worlds in San Francisco. Three other Italian competitors had their own nightmare experience at the same event — and it started in a completely different place: the Pokemon Center merchandise queue.
Luca Ceribelli — the reigning 2024 Pokemon VGC World Champion — along with Luca Lussignoli and Ruben Gianzini, found themselves in serious trouble after Gianzini joined Ceribelli and Lussignoli in their spot in the Pokemon Center line, effectively allowing him to skip ahead in the wait. The trio said the reason for this was that Gianzini reportedly has difficulty in crowded environments, and the Pokemon Center setup did not have any accommodation for that.
Security staff spotted what happened and confiscated all three players’ event passes. The players said they were initially told the Pokemon Center incident would not affect their ability to compete in the actual tournament. That turned out not to be the case. With their badges gone, they were effectively locked out of the entire Worlds event — a 2024 World Champion unable to defend his legacy at the 2026 championship, over a line-skipping incident in a merchandise shop.
The Pokemon Company never issued a public statement about that incident either. For a fanbase that loves to organize and engage with official tournaments, two separate major controversies involving Italian players at the same Worlds event — and total silence from the organization on both — has not gone down well.
Pokemon TCG: What’s Coming Next
Amid all the off-field drama, The Pokemon Company is rolling forward with the game itself. Following the launch of the 30th Celebration set, the next major expansion is Pokemon TCG: Mega Evolution — Delta Reign, which launches worldwide on November 6, 2026. The set brings back Mega Rayquaza ex for the first time since the XY: Ancient Origins era, alongside Mega Golurk ex, Mega Malamar ex, and Mega Golisopod ex.
Delta Reign features over 135 cards in total, including six Legendary Stadium cards that function in pairs — you get both halves of a Stadium card in the same pack, a new mechanic for the English TCG. The set also includes 14 illustration rare Pokemon, 17 ultra rare Pokemon and Trainer cards, and 20 special and rare illustration cards combined.
Pre-release events for Delta Reign start at participating local game stores from Saturday, October 24, with Build & Battle Boxes featuring one of four foil promo cards — Masquerain, Magmortar, Enamorus, or Kommo-o. The cards also hit Pokemon TCG Live on November 5, a day before the physical release.
Initial pre-orders for Delta Reign booster displays and Elite Trainer Boxes sold out quickly when the Pokemon Center opened them up, which signals the demand for cards remains just as strong as ever despite the scalping issues that have been straining TCG inventory throughout 2026.
The Bigger Picture for Pokemon TCG in 2026
It’s been a genuinely messy year for competitive Pokemon outside the actual gameplay. Between iCaterpie’s lifetime ban, the Worlds 2026 Italian exclusion incident, ongoing scalper pressure across TCG retail, and The Pokemon Company’s continued silence on multiple controversies, trust in the organization’s handling of its competitive community has taken a hit.
Whether the iCaterpie ban holds as-is, gets reduced, or quietly disappears in the coming weeks is the question the community is watching most closely right now. If nothing else, his situation has opened up a wider conversation about how complaints get handled in official Pokemon TCG competition, and whether a player with 25 years of service to the game deserves a clearer process before something this severe gets handed down with no formal explanation.
For now, iCaterpie himself said it plainly on X: “I can’t stop crying.” That one statement probably says more about the situation than anything else.
For more gaming community drama and major news, check out our coverage of Jeff Kaplan walking away from Overwatch for good — another story about what happens when a beloved figure’s relationship with a game and its company falls apart. And for the latest on big upcoming releases, our God of War Laufey Collector Box breakdown covers everything Sony just announced ahead of the February 2027 launch. Also worth reading: the Final Fantasy 6 Terra Branford return in Final Fantasy Resonance, one of the most exciting JRPG reveals this year. And if you’re into gaming revivals — or the lack of them — our piece on the Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines remaster situation is worth a read.
