The Regionals

Recife and Louisville were won by M-B teams.

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When Regulation M-C arrived on 9 September it brought 27 new Pokémon and six new Mega Stones, and the first three Regionals of the season were won by teams that used them. Then came Recife and Louisville. Both were won by teams with nothing from M-C on them, and they are almost the same team: five of the six Pokémon match. In Louisville it was not only the winner, either. The whole top four was built from M-B.

Five Play! Pokémon Regionals · doubles, Masters Division · every day-two team list: Baltimore (18 September), Brisbane and Frankfurt (26 September), Recife (3 October), Louisville (9 October 2026)

Day two only: the 539 players who made the second day of the five events — 155 in Baltimore, 47 in Brisbane, 163 in Frankfurt, 31 in Recife and 143 in Louisville.

Two winners, nothing from M-C

M-C added 27 Pokémon and six Mega Stones, and neither of these teams uses a single one of them. Every Pokémon, every Mega and every item below was already legal back in M-B.

Framed in gold: on both teams. Five of the six are the same.

The three Regionals before them were a different story. Every winner there needed something M-C had just brought:

The first three winners

Marked M-C: that Pokémon, or the stone it is holding, arrived with Regulation M-C.

The same team on two continents

Juan Salerno won Recife without losing a match, 14–0. Six days later Joseph Ugarte won Louisville with five of the same six Pokémon: Mega Charizard Y and Venusaur for the sun, Sylveon with a Fairy Feather, Incineroar, and a Garchomp holding a Choice Scarf instead of its new Z stone. Only the last slot changes: Toxapex in Recife, Farigiraf in Louisville.

The items are not quite the same either. Recife’s Venusaur held a Life Orb and Louisville’s a Focus Sash; Recife’s Incineroar a Sitrus Berry and Louisville’s a Chople Berry.

Go back further and it gets stranger. Every Pokémon, Mega and item on Ugarte’s winning team was already in the game in Regulation M-A, the day it launched. Salerno’s is the same but for one item: Life Orb, which only arrived with M-B.

For Ugarte this was his second Regional of the season. He had already won Baltimore on 18 September with sand, built around two of M-C’s new arrivals, Mega Salamence and Indeedee. None of those six came with him to Louisville: the two teams do not share a single Pokémon.

How much of day two was M-B

M-B teams were never the majority. At every event, most of day two carried at least one M-C piece. What changed was how far they got.

In Baltimore, 23 of them made day two and none reached the top eight. In Louisville there were 33, and they finished first, second, third and fourth.

Share of day-two teams built only from M-B

  1. Brisbane: 29.8% (14 of 47 · top eight: 4th, 8th)
  2. Louisville: 23.1% (33 of 143 · top eight: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th)
  3. Recife: 19.4% (6 of 31 · top eight: 1st, 4th)
  4. Baltimore: 14.8% (23 of 155 · top eight: none)
  5. Frankfurt: 10.4% (17 of 163 · top eight: 6th)

Louisville’s top four all brought their own weather: Mega Charizard Y, Pelipper or Politoed.

Garchomp, on four of the five winning teams

If one Pokémon sums up this season, it is Garchomp. It is on every winning team except Baltimore’s, and it went from under a fifth of day two in Baltimore and Brisbane to about half in Recife and Louisville.

Most players still run it as the Z Mega: 31 of the 63 in Louisville. But both winners who skipped M-C gave it a Choice Scarf, and the ranked ladder is going the same way. Garchomp finished season M-6 in sixth place with a Scarf on 9.6% of them. On 13 October it is first in M-7, and 35.6% carry one.

Share of day-two teams bringing Garchomp

  1. Recife: 51.6% (16 of 31 · 10 Mega Z, 2 Scarf)
  2. Louisville: 44.1% (63 of 143 · 31 Mega Z, 21 Scarf)
  3. Frankfurt: 25.2% (41 of 163 · 21 Mega Z, 13 Scarf)
  4. Brisbane: 19.1% (9 of 47 · 3 Mega Z, 3 Scarf)
  5. Baltimore: 18.7% (29 of 155 · 8 Mega Z, 7 Scarf)

Rillaboom, the most brought

No Pokémon turned up more often than Rillaboom: on average almost half of every day two, and more than half in Baltimore and Frankfurt. Yet it is on just one winning team, Eric Rios’s in Frankfurt, which also had Mega Garchomp Z.

In Recife and Louisville it dropped to 38.7% and 42.0%, and that is where Garchomp overtook it.

Average share of day-two teams, over the five events

  1. Rillaboom: 47.6% (won Frankfurt)
  2. Sneasler: 42.3% (won Baltimore)
  3. Incineroar: 34.4% (won Frankfurt, Recife, Louisville)
  4. Garchomp: 31.7% (won Brisbane, Frankfurt, Recife, Louisville)
  5. Kingambit: 31.6% (no win)
  6. Raichu: 25.6% (won Frankfurt)
  7. Gholdengo: 22.8% (won Frankfurt)
  8. Salamence: 20.6% (won Baltimore)

Every event counts the same, whatever its size: this is the average of five shares, not a share of all 539 teams.

Method and limits