The 2026 Pokémon Monterrey Regional Championships were won by 2022 Indianapolis Regional Champion Stefan Mott, claiming their victory in the Video Game Championships by defeating Alexander Canseco in the finals!
This tournament was the second in-person event in the 2026 Championship Series, and used the Regulation Set H ruleset. This format bans the use of all Paradox, Legendary, and Restricted Special Pokemon. The current series concludes with the 2026 Pokémon World Championships taking place in San Francisco, California from August 28-30, 2026, with the Video Game Championships taking place in the upcoming Pokémon Champions title.
The following list shows each player that made it to Top Cut as well as the teams they used—which you can click or tap to see more information, such as each Pokémon's moves or ability—and any rewards earned. This includes Championship Points (CP), prize money in USD, and invites to the 2026 World Championships. Any team or rental code shown below can be used in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's in-person events while Regulation Set H is running from September 1 to November 30, 2025.
Results
# | Rewards | Trainer | Pokémon | |||
1st | 350 CP | $6,000 | Worlds Invite | Stefan Mott | ||
2nd | 325 CP | $4,000 | Alexander Canseco | |||
Top 4 | 300 CP | $2,000 | Justin Tang | |||
Jonathan Josue Barradas Ruiz | ||||||
Top 8 | 280 CP | $1,000 | William Brown | |||
Marcus Dion | ||||||
Brandon Davis | ||||||
Erich Schrader | ||||||
Top Cut | 200 CP | $750 | Alberto Renero Pedrajas | |||
Countless people are discussing Stefan Mott's incredibly off-meta team online, most notably referring to the appearance of Scyther and Garganacl, two incredibly uncommon Pokémon in the current format—Scyther is currently sitting at a usage rate of around 0.11% in unofficial online ladders, while Garganacl rocks a slightly higher 0.62% usage.
Mott's Garganacl, on top of being an uncommon Pokémon, makes use of an uncommon held item as well. The Maranga Berry boosts Garganacl's Special Defense stat by one stage after being hit with a special attack. With Recover and a Tera Type of Flying, Garganacl can use this stat boost to stick around for even longer while slowly dealing damage with Salt Cure and Stealth Rock. Garganacl also saw another high placement this weekend, reaching the Top 64 of the 2026 Frankfurt Regionals with trainer Rahim Farzan using the Pokémon to reach a record of 9 wins and 3 losses.
Scyther has seen a few high placements throughout Regulation Set H, being used by Vijay Sood to reach the Top 64 of the 2025 Baltimore Regionals and the Top 256 of the 2025 Sacramento Regionals, as well as 2017 Dutch Open Finalist Andres Escobosa reaching the Top 128 at the 2025 Dortmund Regionals. Scyther has an interesting niche in the current format, being a fairly bulky Pokémon thanks to the defensive boosts it gets from the Eviolite but also having access to a great defensive profile. It's immune to powerful Ground-type attacks from top threats like Garchomp and both Ursaluna forms as well as strongly resisting Fighting- and Grass-type attacks from Pokémon like Sneasler, Annihilape, and Rillaboom. As a Flying-type, it also gets access to Dual Wingbeat boosted by the Same-Type Attack Bonus (STAB), allowing it to deal huge amounts of the damage to the same Fighting- and Grass-type Pokémon whose attacks it resists.
These two Pokémon aren't the only surprising picks with high placements in this event, however, as William Brown managed to reach the Top 8 alongside Greninja only a couple of days after the Pokémon was revealed to be receiving a new Mega Evolution in next month's Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Brown would give Greninja the Loaded Dice held item and its formerly-signature attack Water Shuriken, a Water-type attack that hits up to 5 times to reach this impressive result alongside a team focused around rain, featuring Basculegion, Archaludon, and Pelipper. With Battle Bond being banned in VGC and its hidden ability Protean being nerfed going into Scarlet and Violet, it instead uses its regular ability Torrent to slightly boost the damage of Water Shuriken when its low on HP. Greninja's offensive output is unfortunately rather lacking, highlighted by its inability to knock Sneasler out with Water Shuriken in the rain with maximum investment in its Special Attack. As an incredibly fast Pokémon, Greninja is likely used to pick off targets on low health before they can move, or to deal enough damage to put its opponents in range of a more powerful attack from its teammates. It also has a small bit of utility with Rain Dance and Haze, with the latter being great against set-up sweepers like Gholdengo, Kingambit, or Dondozo.
