It's important to note that these Online Competitions function much differently to other VGC events. The Online Competitions use a best-of-1 format with Closed Team Sheets, or CTS, meaning that nothing is known about the opponent's team apart from which Pokemon they have brought. VGC events such as Local, Regional, International, and World Championships use a best-of-3 format with Open Team Sheets, or OTS. This allows players to not only know which Pokemon their opponents have brought, but their Tera Types, abilities, held items, and moves. Players with lots of experience in classic OTS formats may not perform as well in these Online Competitions, but that doesn't diminish their skill.
The online tournament was won by Nick Navarre, also known by their username Nails. Previously, Nails won first place in the 2017 Roanoke Regional Championships, as well as the 2019 Dallas Regional Championships, played in the Pokémon Sun & Moon and Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon titles respectively.
Their team consisted of popular picks in Incineroar, Dragapult, Porygon2, Amoonguss, Sneasler, and Bloodmoon Ursaluna. Overall, they won 30 games throughout the competition, losing only 3. The tweet above also teases a team report for the team being released "relatively soon", so it's important to keep an eye on that if you're following Pokemon Scarlet and Violet VGC.
2nd place was taken by Fevzi Özkan, another long-time player who has taken Top 8 placements in many Regional Championships. They also won the Champions Cup tournament, run by Wolfe Glick and content creator aDrive in 2020. Unfortunately, as of this article being written, this player is yet to share their team.
As stated earlier, there has been no official placements revealed yet, so there will be many gaps in placements going forward!
Smith won their placement with a team of Sneasler, Gholdengo, Dragapult, Rillaboom, Clefable, and Incineroar. Their Sneasler uses a set that has been building in popularity recently, holding the Focus Sash item to make up for its lack of health or defenses. With the Poison Touch ability, each time Sneasler makes contact with an opponent, there's a 30% chance the target gets poisoned. Not only does this Sneasler use the priority move Fake Out to take advantage of this, but it also has its signature move Dire Claw, which has a 50% chance of leaving the opponent poisoned, paralyzed, or asleep. The remaining Pokemon use fairly common sets, including a Life Orb Gholdengo with Nasty Plot, Choice Band Dragapult with Dragon Darts and Phantom Force, Assault Vest Rillaboom, Sitrus Berry Clefable with the ability Unaware, and Safety Goggles Incineroar.
14th place was won by Kylan Van Severen, a player who placed in the Top 16 in the 2024 Pokémon World Championships. This placement was won with an impressive run of 24 wins and only 1 loss.
Their team consisted of a popular core in Dondozo holding Leftovers, and Choice Scarf Tatsugiri with its signature ability Commander. The other members of the team include Focus Sash Glimmora, Choice Band Dragonite, Safety Goggles Kingambit, as well as another set picking up in popularity, Archaludon holding the Power Herb item. With this item, Archaludon's signature move Electro Shot activates in only one turn instead of two, giving the user an immediate boost to their Special Attack stat.
17th place was won by Joan Garcia, who has previously won a Top 64 placement in the 2023 Utrecht Special Event, as well as a Top 32 placement in the 2023 Torino Special Event.
This team was also used by Carlos Caño, who won a Top 64 placement in the 2024 Bologna Special Event. They placed 198th overall in the Grand Challenge.
21st place was won by 2020 Portland Regional Champion and 2023 Portland Regional Champion Joseph Ugarte.
While they used some popular Pokemon such as Life Orb Garchomp, Tera Normal Dragonite with Extreme Speed, Power Herb Archaludon, and Primarina, this team also features a few interesting Pokemon. For example, Vivillon appears on this team with the Focus Sash item. With its ability Compound Eyes, its less accurate moves such as Sleep Powderand Hurricaneare given an accuracy boost of 1.3x, giving Sleep Powder an accuracy of 97.5% and Hurricane an accuracy of 91%. Orthwormfeatures on this team as well, using a set with Iron Defenseand Body Press, more commonly found on Pokemon such as Kommo-o. The upside to using Orthworm, however, is that it gets access to the new move Shed Tail, which was introduced in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. This move sets up a Substitute, then switches the user out, gifting the Substitute to the next Pokemon that switches in.
30th place was won by Joji Kaieda, who has previously placed in the Top 56 of the 2022 Pokémon World Championships, as well as winning 2nd place at the 2024 Stockholm Regional Championships. Their team was also not shared.
32nd place was won by Frederik Høj Nielsen, a player who has won multiple Top 8 placements, namely the Bremen Regionals in 2018, Gdańsk Regionals in 2024, and Stockholm Regionals in 2024. While their team wasn't published, they did share that they had used Bloodmoon Ursaluna to reach this achievement.
As more information is revealed about the results for the first Grand Challenge of the 2025 VGC season, more articles will be posted here on Bulbagarden, so make sure to stay tuned!
