Ties or Draws in Pokémon Games

Many Pokémon games will surely (and demand to) have battles that result in a victory for one side and defeat for the other. However, in some cases (and rare ones at that), a tie or draw might just be possible, not exactly favoring either side as a result. While being infrequent, the possibility of a tied or drawn result becomes a fascinating one for the Pokémon games in question and demand at least a little bit of exploration for how, where, and when it might occur and what happens afterwards.

In the main series games, a tie would have to involve both sides coming down to their very last Pokémon and both of these getting knocked out near-simultaneously, usually the defender getting hit by a move and the attacker affected by a move/battle effect or status condition. Meanwhile, in Pokémon Go, sometimes a PvP battle will come down to the same state and there's a chance that both Pokémon will use their Fast moves simultaneously for the final hit, in which case both are knocked out and the tie occurs (a check of the Journal will affirm this). Given the non-resolution of a tie, in a tournament, it is likely that another battle (in both cases) will be required to resolve things, whereas the latter's case occurring in the GBL will just be treated as is but with less ill effects when ratings are concerned.

As for the realm of the TCG, since most matches will resolve in someone taking their last prize card to take the win, the situation often precludes one from occurring. Some physical tournaments, however, particularly those with absolute set time limits per round, might be more apt to award a "double loss" - not exactly a tie or draw, but close enough - for matches between players that just seem to drag on and on. In the TCGP sub-realm, meanwhile, the same setup as above in the main series games can occur, resulting in both players earning a point on the same turn and thus a tie, which will be indicated outright on the screen. It's still pretty rare by any means but not impossible.

Then, there's Pokémon Unite. Here, a tie or draw is practically guaranteed not to happen, because even if both teams achieve the same score in a match, it will always resolve to a win and loss, with the win condition (in other words, "tiebreaker") being which team got to that score first. Certainly, the new "First to 500" play mode introduced somewhat recently makes it clear that a team is surely going to win or lose, the latter if the other team achieves the objective instead, and the former if the team achieves the objective as intended. This kind of assurance of the outcome of a match may be the thing that helps keep them going.

Battles in the Pokémon games have all sorts of dynamics associated with them that helps them to arrive at decisive resolutions of wins and losses, but a few might still lead to the indecisive one that is a tie or draw. At that point, it might be up to the players, officials, or the games themselves to make a resolution through certain means and keep the results as decisive as they should be without the tie or draw occurring.

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