Trainers, we want to inform you that there seems to be a new bug (or exploit) making the rounds in GO Battle League. The exploit forces your game to crash when queueing versus particular Trainers, giving them an instant victory, and an instant loss to you.
The exploit was first noticed by João Correia yesterday, when João mentioned that both he and his friend got an instant crash when matched with a Trainer named JukkaBukka.
JukaBukka has since managed to become the first Legend ranked Trainer in the GO Battle League Dual Destiny Season:
According to João Correia, JukkaBukka is not a known Trainer in the PvP world, and the name appeared on the GO Battle League Leader Board out of nowhere, racing fast into the 2800-2900 rating in less than 24 hours.
As of the time of writing this article, the leader board shows JukkaBukka was the #13 Trainer in the world, with 2868 rating and a total of 675 battles. JukkaBukka was not present on the leader board two days ago, which would imply an ELO rating jump of over 250, a feat which is possible, but highly unlikely.
JukkaBukka reveals their intentions to AXN on a Twitch live stream
João is not the only one who encountered JukkaBukka, as another Trainer experienced the same on a live stream. ItsAXN, the 2023 Pokémon GO World Champion, was lucky (or unlucky) enough to queue against JukkaBukka, and experienced the exact same thing as Correia:
What is even more crazy, is that JukkaBukka walked into AXN’s Twitch Chat and proceeded to explain their intentions. Jukka shared that they “…have reported the bug to Niantic a while ago, but Niantic didn’t fix the issue.”.
They continued to say that “the only way to get them to do anything is to get attention”, and that getting to AXN’s stream was the best thing that could’ve happened for visibility.
The exploiter continued to say that they don’t care whether they are banned for doing this or not, pointing out that Niantic hasn’t invested enough in the quality of the in-game features: “Over the last few years Niantic has proven that they don’t care at all about the integrity or quality”.
Jukka shared that they are sad that the company doesn’t even listen to the champion’s plea for better game quality. AXN is well known for critiquing the amount of bugs and issues that are present in GBL, but unfortunately, not much has changed since then:
JukkaBukka decided not to share the exact mechanics of the exploit, but did note that there could be more people who are using it. It is yet to be seen whether the exploiter will keep their word.
With most of Niantic being on their holiday break, GBL would become incredibly instable if this was to become widespread. If you notice a large number of crashes when queueing, don’t queue anymore if you care about your ranking.
