The winners and the results from this year's Club Nationals contests.
November 4, 2025 by Keith Raynor in Fantasy
With the 2025 USA Ultimate Club Championships in the book, the Beat Charlie Challenge and #TheGame are all wrapped up. We picked the winners, guessed the props, and tried to find the upsets and which favorites to target. Hopefully, following along was fun. We keep trying to improve the mechanics to make it as fun as possible!
#TheGame
The Winners
First place went to Leo McGaraghan, with an impressive 404 points with a lineup of Denver Molly Brown, Atlanta Chain Lightning, Denver Mile High Trash, Boston Brute Squad, and Ann Arbor Hybrid, plus 29 points from the bonus questions. Brute Squad, the highest scoring team with 170 points, was a must have, while both champions Revolver and Hybrid were the third highest scoring teams in their divisions. Chain Lightning and MHT provide some of the best point-per-dollar (2o) you could get for $2 or less.
Leo wins a free month of All-Access subscription and an Ultiworld shirt.
Faegan Critchfield took the second place spot with 402 points, with only one team in common with our winner: Boston Brute Squad. The rest of the lineup was Chicago Machine, Durham Toro, Minneapolis Sub Zero, and Denver Molly Brown. The towering Boston score carried the weight, but Toro quietly earned 80 points, while both Machine and Molly Brown exceeded 40 points and 20 points-per-dollar and Sub Zero tossed in 15 points for $1.
Third place went to Myles P with 387. Once again, it is Boston Brute Squad and four new teams: Denver Johnny Bravo, Boston Slow, Raleigh Ring of Fire, and Boston Sprocket. We’ll come back to this theme later. I’m surprised this is our only Bravo buyer in the top 3, as they were the highest scoring team at $2 or less with 60 points (though Lawless matched their 30 points-per-dollar).
Faegan and Myles P each win a free month of Standard subscription.
Top Teams
Top 5 Women’s Division Teams
- Boston Brute Squad – 170 points (4.7% selection rate)
- Washington DC Scandal – 85 points (3.4%)
- New York BENT – 80 points (6.8%)
- San Francisco Fury – 75 points (77%)
- Portland Schwa – 60 points (3.8%)
- Raleigh Phoenix – 60 points (4.3%)
Fury and Molly Brown (31%) really ate up a lot of the women’s division slots, earning every other team a sub-10% bonus. The next highest team in selection rate was 6ixers with 9.4%, so it really wasn’t close. And neither were bad picks; it would be tough to put together two of this top six at their prices.
Top 5 Men’s Division Teams
- New York PoNY – 105 points (3.8%)
- Portland Rhino Slam – 105 points (7.2%)
- San Francisco Revolver – 100 points (23%)
- Chicago Machine – 65 points (47.2%)
- Denver Johnny Bravo – 60 points (15.7%)
Three of the four most popular teams made the list (the other being Sub Zero at 16.6%), but obviously getting on the triple-digit scorers was the right move.
Top 5 Mixed Division Teams
- New York XIST – 135 points (1.3%)
- Fort Collins shame. – 105 points (0.4%)
- Ann Arbor Hybrid – 100 points (37%)
- Durham Toro – 80 points (1.7%)
- Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust – 65 points (17%)
What are we doing here, people? The no.2 seed at 1.3%? Shame at under 1%! Hybrid was a favorite and a smart pick, but these are lower numbers than the comparable challengers in other divisions. Most people were lured by Sprocket and Tower (both over 20%), while Lawless and Mixtape also broke 10%. Maybe since people were using their value picks in the mixed division to save up for Fury, Revolver, and Machine, they didn’t get some of these top seeds.
The Perfect Lineup…?
Boston Brute Squad ($4)
New York XIST ($4)
Chicago Machine ($3)
Denver Johnny Bravo ($2)
Arizona Lawless ($1)
This is the highest scoring combination I could come up with 460 points. With max 43 bonus points, that’s 503 points.
The Bonuses
The average total bonus was just under 25 points, with 7 entrants earning the maximum 43 points. Two entrants took home 0 points for their trouble.
Will one or more of the day one showcase stream matches go to universe? (11 pts)
A whopping 80% of entrants said there would be and we cleared this in the first round! Might need a tweak on this one next year, too.
How many teams from the Northeast region will reach semifinals? (11 pts)
This one I clearly should have moved the line to 2 or fewer and made 3 a single option and 4+ as the third. 55% went for 3 or fewer and that is exactly what we got, despite some NE teams falling in quarters.
Will there be a completed greatest, callahan, or ejection during the semifinals? (7 pts)
To be honest, I had no idea how people would pick on this. It is a lot of variables — three unique events, six games. But the answer was none and 73% of entries got it. Won’t be reusing this question.
How many pot two teams will reach semifinals? (9 pts)
Machine was a popular pick to reach semifinals, and Molly Brown came from pot 3 to semifinals. The only other team from that group was Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust, so two was the correct answer. About 38% of entries selected that, about the same as “1 or none.” And with no close quarterfinals, this one was no sweat.
Which of the 12 pot four teams will have the best point differential in pool play? (5 pts)
Despite losing by 8 in their opening game of the tournament, Sub Zero managed to earn a -1 thanks to spanking RDU. Most other bottom seeds to win a game suffered blowout losses elsewhere that tanked their margin. Sub Zero was the most popular pick with 28%, while Mixtape (23%) and Lawless (22%) narrowly trailed. Nobody else exceeded 6%.
Beat Charlie Challenge
But let’s see how Charlie did and announce the winners for this round of the BCC.
Charlie’s Picks
About one-third of the entries beat Charlie this time, as he ended up in the 65th percentile with 54 points.
Charlie’s Most Recent Result: 67th percentile (D-I College Championships 2025)
Charlie’s All-Time High: 97th percentile (D-I Championships 2021)
Charlie’s All Time Low : 47th percentile (Club 2023)
Charlie’s top division was mixed, where he scored 19 (vs. 16.3 average) and got all of the semifinalists right. But he made up for that by scoring only 12 in the men’s division (vs. 15 average). He added 15 in the women’s division, about i line with the average. He had 3 Fantasy points and 5 bonus points, both above the average.
The Winners
A pair of top scorers this time, with the same name! Josh Leister and JoshK both gained 66 points. If only they had seen Brute Squad over Fury coming!
By random draw, Micah Arenstein wins a free month of Standard subscription and an Ultiworld shirt.
Alex Yu and Wade were randomly selected players who outscored Charlie who will both also receive a free month of Standard subscription. Also, top scorer Josh Leister was randomly drawn to win a Standard subscription. Actually, let’s give JoshK one, too.
Feedback Welcome!
Did you play? Did you not play? Why or why not? What rules would be fun to play with? What tweaks can be made?
Well, we tried something new with #TheGame, and obviously it needs some tweaks. Clearly the bonus was too loose, and while we could let the market correct here, I think we can make earning the bonus quite a bit stricter. I also need a new mechanism for giving the bonus points. I didn’t want to give a flat-rate bonus, as picking a team with a low selection rate that didn’t really win any games should not be rewarding. But giving points for every win is perhaps too aggressive and leads to what we got here: a team or two that simply overpowered the field. If you had Brute Squad, you just had to not screw up. Maybe the answer is just fewer bonus points per win. Those combination of changes I think will produce a more fun environment to play in.
We want the Beat Charlie Challenge and #TheGame to be fun and have different strategies be viable without being too complicated for lots of people to enter. You can contact me by emailing [email protected].
