Hello hat lovers!

We have decided to greatly exceed our quota by posting a second time in 2025. This is a brief guide on the top teams that have populated grassroots tours and the ladder, Showdown ladder of course because we do not have an in game ladder because Big Pikachu wasn’t feeling very festive, including notes about variations of these archetypes. Sample pastes are provided to practice with or against, as well as a very brief overview of how each team functions. In some cases, some players who placed highly at major tournaments with these archetypes have also released their pastes publicly, which will be provided when available. These teams are what I would consider to be the teams that you should be most familiar with when preparing for this format, at least at present.

A quick note on the sample pastes: a lot of these sets are recreations, either by me, taken from other publicly available teams, or from other players who have provided similar guides online. I wish I could credit every single person who contributed those spreads, but I placed them in a personal compendium, and the pastes from this post were taken from that compendium, with the original source often being lost in the process. Just know that if you have publicly provided guides that were well informed, I have probably seen it, and those ideas may have made their way into this post as well. Thank you all for the work that you do, truly! 🫡

The F in Regulation F Stands for Fake Out Fake Out Fake Out Parting Shot U-turn Protect Fake Out Fake Out Fake Out

Japan Balance (sample paste)

Stefano Greppi VR (sample paste)

These two teams are what have defined Reg F: Incineroar, Urshifu Rapid Strike, Rillaboom to form a Fire/Water/Grass core, standing with the Reg F boogeyman in Calm Mind Raging Bolt. Chien-Pao and Landorus-I as the last two is a team known as Japan Balance, once seen as the top threat in this format. This team, however, has declined in popularity lately as players have instead mostly preferred a version with Ogerpon Hearthflame over Chien-Pao, the version that won the first large grassroots tournament in Reg F 2.0. This team is boring, soulless, and is the VGC equivalent of unseasoned chicken, but might forever remain the biggest threat of this format.

Other Variations:
After the Fire/Water/Grass + Bolt core, any two of Landorus-I, Chien-Pao, Flutter Mane, Amoonguss, Ogerpon Hearthflame could realistically round them out to form a team, with Hearthflame sometimes outright replacing either Incineroar or Rillaboom.

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