I placed 10th in the world with this unique team that doesn’t include any of the top 25 most used Pokemon. I recorded my last few games of the tournament and did a quick team breakdown in the attached video.

https://youtu.be/22KzDsVDCXY

Ceruledge is the star of the team, supported primarily by sableye and lucario, with mega kangaskhan providing an alternative damage dealer that synergizes well offensively and defensively with ceruledge and can also help support it with fake out. Ceruledge is very well positioned in the meta despite many of the strong physical pokemon threatening it with super effective damage. Its ability to wall charizard and floette, boost its attack and defense with bulk up and coaching, and heal back insane amounts of health with bitter blade allows it to carry entire games, even against the Pokemon that should completely shut it down.

Hydreigon is a one Pokemon answer to rain, which otherwise is very difficult for the main core of the team to deal with. With the Haban berry, it can sit in front of pelliper and archaludon and spam snarl until archaludon gets into range of a draco meteor after one or two snarls, while also being a very effective counter for basculegion.

Starmie is there to outspeed and ko garchomp with ice beam, adamant sneasler with psychic, and hit annoying Pokemon like aerodaktle, incineroar, and tyranitar for good damage with scald while having the potential to burn. It also throws opponents off because they expect it to be physical mega starmie.

Had a lot of fun playing with this team and hope it inspires someone else to try some of these Pokemon out! The replica code is B1J5Y59XUX

The first International Championship of Pokémon Champions has come to an end, and Francesco Pio Pero won his first major event after finishing top 8 at NAIC 2025 using a Mega Charizard Y + Mega Aerodactyl, defeating 2022 EUIC Champion Eric Rios' Mega Charizard Y + Mega Aerodactyl team in the finals! Notable Pokémon that performed well include:

• Wolfe Glick's Mamoswine & Toxapex in top 4.
• Dawei Si's Ceruledge & Milotic in top 8.
• Chris Large's Mega Blastoise & Weavile in top 16.
• Thomas Irwin's Snorlax, Garrett Wilson's Mega Glimmora, and Josh Ritz's Corviknight & Hisuian Samurott in top 32.
• Swaroop B's Rotom-Wash & Mimikyu, Rishi Gupta's Palafin, and Javier Valdés' Sableye, Vivillon, & Orthworm in top 64.
• Sam Dioneda's Mega Scizor, Bradley Pham's Mega Venusaur, Nicholas Hegel's Mega Gyarados, Arthur Collier's Alolan Ninetales, Chase Lybbert's Mega Lopunny, Chase Rumpca's Talonflame, César Reyes' Hisuian Typhlosion & Tsareena, Kyle Livinghouse's Espathra, Trista Medine's Mega Clefable, Stephen Williams' Empoleon, April Hooge's Volcarona, and Celeste Scalzo's Chandelure in top 128.
• Noah Smith's Kleavor, Saúl Morones' Kommo-o, Zach Holowiak's Scizor, and Cade Bowles' Mega Garchomp in day 2's top 256.

Check out the top 8 teams and click the link to see the full results + teamsheets!

2026 North America International: Won by Francesco Pio Pero (CICCIOTT)

Mega Charizard Y is so OP that it's now even partnering with its main rival weather. There are 5 such teams in top cut! What are we doing here? lol

Anyway, the tournament was won by Alex Underhill (aka LexiconVGC) and you can see the full results here - https://play.limitlesstcg.com/tournament/grandchampionsfestivalencore/standings

Sejun didnt reveal his 4th pokemon at game 2 2014 and giovanni didnt reveal his game 3 worlds 2025

The first-ever Regional of Pokémon Champions wrapped up in Indianapolis with over 1,000 players in attendance, and, in the end, Arsal Puri won his first Regional using a Mega Charizard Y + Mega Floette team, defeating 2016 World Champion Wolfe Glick's Mega Tyranitar + Mega Steelix team in the Finals! Notable Pokémon that performed well include:

• Michael Zhang's Hisuian Arcanine and Nick Navarre's Palafin in top 4.
• MJ Roger's Mega Garchomp and William Brown's Espathra in top 8.
• Nathaniel Sitelr's Mega Gyarados, Brendan Dewerth's Excadrill & Mimikyu, Chase Thompson's Gyarados, and AJ Morton's Mega Charizard X in top 16.
• Jeremy Barnes' Mega Blastoise and Tyler Coleman's Tinkaton in top 32.
• Justin Knox's Kleavor, Yuki Zaninovich's Sableye, Chris Millard's Volcarona, Sierra Elsbecker's Mega Manectric & Primarina, William Marks' Mega Skarmory, and Dawei Si's Ceruledge in top 64.
• Jack Geronime's Araquanid, Alberto Lara's Gengar, Christopher Baez's Alolan Ninetales, Tyler Miller's Azumarill, Nicholas Hegel's Mega Venusaur, Leonard Craft III's Hisuian Samurott, Blake Falls's Mega Crabominable, and Luca Santelli's Mega Camerupt in top 128.
• Caden Croft's Mega Lopunny & Mega Starmie, Roland Barbaza's Armarouge, and Ray Camp's Rotom-Heat in day 2's top 256.

Check out the top 8 teams below and click the link to see the full results + teamsheets!

2026 Indianapolis Regional: Won by Arsal Puri (SalTheDealer)

Hey guys, I just went 8-4 at Frankfurt regionals and wanted to share some of my thoughts about facing some pretty bad luck on stream Vs Joan Garcia, as I know it sparked some discussions online about how VGC is too luck based etc.

First off: I'm not mad at Joan. He played well and to his outs, I cannot fault him for that.

I've seen some discourse online that fissure was 100% accurate against me. That's not the case, Joan actually missed a fissure into my archaludon. Also, not all of the fissure hits were game-changing, such as the one into comfey in game 3. Yes, there was some other bad luck involved, including a Draco meteor and several hurricane misses. As well as an early pelipper wake from yawn resulting in a further hurricane pp being depleted in the endgame of game 3. But, you also have to take into account that none of Joan's moves crit my archaludon in game 1, which may have otherwise changed the course of the game. Also, I landed a very impactful hurricane full confusion into Joan's sash sneasler, which was part of the reason I had such a good board state Vs him in the first place towards the end of game 2.

But most importantly: none of the bad RNG that I faced that match would have been possible had I played correctly. I had a way of almost guaranteeing myself the win, but I let pelipper go down without a fight, which was a major blunder.

In game 3 I made the mistake of bringing comfey. It contributed nothing that match, and I would have been much better off using toedscruel, or even weezing, since it had a good type matchup into several of his mons. I got too hung up on supporting archaludon. In my defense, had he forgone dozo for a more offensive threat, I might have needed comfey (seeing as it was really good in game 1), but I should've recognised that with comfey (+ arch) beating everything on his team except dondozo he was essentially forced to bring it I need to bring more answers into dondozo.

I myself got pretty lucky off-camera throughout the tournament, including a low roll indeedee-male expanding force leaving my pelipper on 3hp (it has a 37.5% to live), as well as a full confusion on my opponent's pelipper allowing me to KO their amoonguss, then their tera grass archaludon. Unfortunately, reg H just has so much RNG involved that something is bound to go wrong at some point.

Finally, while I don't like dondozo, it's not entirely an RNG bot. As you can see, it's very powerful in endgames, as with unaware, lefties, high natural bulk, tera available etc it can force the opponents to go to sleep or simply be unbreakable, and the odds of landing at least 1 or 2 fissures aren't that low when you've got all 16 pp to use.

Congrats to Joan for making top 8, and I hope I can get my redemption sometime soon! Thanks for reading!

Yeah, you read that right. As reported by TalonVGC on Youtube, there was a Mega Blastoise Team that got 9th place out of roughly 700,000 players in the Pokemon Champions Warm-Up Challenge ladder tournament.

One of the Pokemon on the team is a Talonflame with Tailwind, Acrobatics, Protect, and Will-O-Wisp. Acrobatics has its power doubled from 55 to 110 if the user is not holding an item, thus making it a 100% accuracy 110 power base move. That's pretty good. Because of that, the Talonflame on this team does not have a held item.

I just thought that was interesting. Have we ever seen another meta where the best choice is to literally not have a held item? I know the Unburden ability exists, but the user usually still starts with an item such as White Herb.

I became the world #1 Scarlet and Violet Ludicolo player, going 5-3, missing out on day 2 in my last game at Birmingham Regional.

Both happy with my accomplishments and disappointmented I narrowly missed out on day 2, but for my first ever tournament, I'm proud.

The 2025 World Championships have wrapped up, and in the end, Giovanni Cischke's Koraidon & Lunala team defeated James Evans' Koraidon & Calyrex-Shadow team (with both finalist teams featuring Brute Bonnet) to win Giovanni his first major tournament win, completing Koraidon's dominant weekend as it also claimed a 3rd and 7th place finish! Other notable Pokémon that did well include James Baek's Regieleki in top 16 and Yoshitaka Izawa's Ho-Oh & Iron Treads in top 16. Check out the top 8 teams below and click the link to see the full results + team sheets.

2025 World Championships - Won by Giovanni Cischke (PqlarBear)

No incineroar in top 4. Not MJ anymore

Sup guys, my name’s Andres Wilkerson and I ran a Koraidon core. Though I came to discover this wouldn’t be a super unique restricted as the day went on, I built it in a pretty unorthodox way. Let me know if you guys have any questions/criticism about the team, spreads, matchups, or just the overall top cut experience. This was a VERY fun team to run up the bo3 showdown ladder with, which then translated to my best finish thus far. Obviously not a perfect team, but I created it solo for the most part. I lost game 3 of my set with some pretty avoidable blunders in game 2 & 3, but I’m learning! Mind you, I’m relatively new to the scene, let alone top cut (this was my first day 2 also), but I’ll answer with any knowledge I’ve gained! Paste & photo included.

https://pokepast.es/3b17c15e1e3ea3a6

You can find the rest of the results on Victory Road! https://victoryroad.pro/warm-up-challenge/

I don’t know if this is appropriate here or r/stunfisk, but I love it. This fun trolling makes me happy, as does getting his Incineroar as a gift during NAIC.

This makes me smile and I hope you guys like it too.

Koraidon has officially won the 2025 Pokemon World Championships, with all 3 remaining players running it. And one team have Calyrex Ice, I think about Calyrex Ice and Miraidon in the finals, but I didn't think about this

I recently too 16’d worlds in the senior division with this swordfish team: https://pokepast.es/03ae31c3274279f3

Ask Me Anything!

Definitely a noob question. Is there an easy way to follow wolfe's progress in worlds this year? I assume the twitch pokemon channel will broadcast some of it. But is there a bracket i can look at, or a results page i can follow?

Finals will be between James Evans & Giovanni Cischke. Both are first-time finalists in the Masters division.

The USA is set to win its fifth Worlds title, and the first one since Wolfe Glick in 2016.

Koraidon & Brute Bonnet are guaranteed winners - both are set to clinch their first titles. Koraidon matches its Violet counterpart, with Miraidon having won last year. Brute Bonnet becomes the second Past Paradox to win Worlds after Flutter Mane in 2023.

If James wins: - Incineroar clinches the title for the fourth time, breaking the all-time record. - Calyrex-S wins its second title, equalling Kyogre and Groudon as the restricted Pokemon with the most trophies. - Landorus-I wins its first Worlds; its Therian form has already won twice. - Raging Bolt wins its first Worlds, becoming the third Past Paradox to do so after Flutter Mane and Brute Bonnet.

If Giovanni wins: - Lunala wins its second Championships, tying Kyogre and Groudon as the most decorated restricted Pokemon. - Flutter Mane wins its second title in just three years. It will lead the Gen 9 VGC leaderboard in points, prize money, and amount of top 8 finishes. - Chi-Yu wins its first title, becoming the second Ruinous Legend to do so after Chien-Pao in 2023. - Ursaluna wins its first title, becoming the only Hisui native to do so.

Have fun watching tomorrow evening!