Italian Pokemon TCG veteran Alessandro "iCaterpie" Cremascoli says his 25-year competitive career is over, announcing on Friday that The Pokemon Company International has banned him for life. Cremascoli says he learned of the permanent ban while preparing to travel to France, where the Nice Regional Championships run October 17 and 18.
Cremascoli opened his announcement with a blunt line, "Tpci finally got me," before looking back at what the game has meant to him. "I dedicated 25 years of my life to this game," he wrote, pointing to decades spent teaching the game across Italy, raising players and building the local community.
A Deleted Post at Worlds
Cremascoli says the ban traces back to the latest Pokemon World Championships, where he says another incident led him to complain publicly about his treatment. He says some people working for The Pokemon Company International have targeted him for the past 10 years, and that his complaint post was deleted six hours after he published it.
Fellow creator JenTCG added context to the announcement, noting that the deleted complaint named a specific judge and accused that judge of treating Cremascoli unfairly. JenTCG suggested that callout appears to be the reason for the sanction, while acknowledging there could be additional context behind the decision that has not surfaced.
Still in Form Weeks Before the Ban
The announcement lands weeks after Cremascoli was still posting strong results at the highest level of the circuit. Limitless records a ninth-place finish for him at September's Frankfurt Regional Championships, a 2,793-player event where he piloted a Dipplin and Thwackey deck.
Cremascoli is a two-time Italian national champion, with titles in 2010 and 2013, and he remained a fixture of the European scene across two and a half decades. That longevity made him one of the most recognizable Italian players on the circuit, and it is why a permanent ban carries so much weight for a career of his length.
No Notice Ahead of Nice
Cremascoli says the company never told him about the ban directly, writing that he was ready to travel for Nice because TPCi did not notify him beforehand. No statement from The Pokemon Company International accompanied his announcement, and Cremascoli shared no disciplinary notice, so the reasoning behind the sanction remains his account for now.
"I'm devastated. Pokemon is literally my life. I can't stop crying," Cremascoli wrote. The veteran closed the post by wishing the players in Nice good luck and promising a fuller goodbye post in the future.
Messages of support followed through the evening, and Cremascoli replied to one supporter by thanking them for standing by him. "You have no idea how much this meant to me," he wrote, calling it an awful evening and saying the message warmed his heart.
For now, the Nice Regional Championships will go ahead this weekend without one of Italy's longest-serving competitors in the field. Whether TPCi addresses the ban publicly, or Cremascoli's promised goodbye post adds more detail, will decide whether his account of the decision is the final word on it.
Source: iCaterpie
