A Pokémon Sword and Shield glitch has led to a “couple of thousand” players being barred from competitive battles and their rankings erased (via Resetera).
Pokémon Sword and Shield is out now for the Nintendo Switch.
It is theorised that a maintenance update for online features of Pokémon Sword and Shield has caused a portion of players who reached Master Ball Tier to be stopped from entering new battles.
“I think part of it was that the ruleset accidentally allowed some Gigantamax Pokémon in and created an unfair advantage but I don’t think banning was intentional,” it said.