Mephisto Year in Review 2025

Hey MephHeads 👋

Another year has absolutely rocketed by, and looking back, 2025 has been overwhelmingly positive for the Mephisto Genetics crew, both professionally and personally. From awards and releases to travel, team growth, and some seriously exciting breeding work behind the scenes, it’s been one hell of a ride.

Awards & Recognition 

We were seriously humbled to scoop up a stack of awards this year, and huge credit goes to the growers who brought these strains to life.

At the Autoflower World Cup, Mango Runtz took 1st place for Best New Strain thanks to the stellar work of Val & Mae, who also secured 2nd place in Best Indica with Iced ’n’ Baked. 

Over at the American Autoflower Cup, Mango Runtz showed its staying power again with a 3rd place finish for Best New Strain grown by Farmer Hatbeard, while Sundae Thumper claimed the top spot as Best Auto Hybrid 2025, expertly grown by Jimbo. Seeing our work expressed at this level, across different hands and gardens, is exactly why we do what we do, and we couldn’t be more grateful to everyone involved.

Also, a huge shoutout to SmokinTehHerbz, a community member who entered L1mewire into his local cannabis cup and secured second place against a host of photoperiod growers! You can find him over on YouTube here; he's not only a fantastic grower but also an absolute sweetheart. Go and show him some love 💚. 

If you, like SmokinTehHerbz, feel like entering your Mephisto girl into a competition and you come away a winner, then let us know! A place in the Hall of Flame and a goodybag hookup are waiting for you 💚.

Seeing our work recognised like this, especially through the hands of such talented growers, never gets old. Thank you to everyone who put their trust in these genetics.

Team Highlights & Behind the Scenes

This year also marked the first time Mitch made it across the pond when he joined the crew at the American Autoflower Cup in LA, where he sampled an unhealthy (but highly recommended) amount of tater tots and cornbread 🌽🍞.

Tim has had his head firmly in the soil this year, hard at work nurturing the next generation of Mephisto releases. 

On the content front, the Mephisto Genetics YouTube channel has been steadily growing, with a bunch of brilliant videos put together by Jimbo, giving growers more insight, laughs, and real-world Mephisto content. You can check out the channel here.

Brad has been grinding away behind the scenes, constantly improving the website and dialling in the overall experience. From additions like the Hall of Flame and the Meph-Head Community Show Off on each strain page to countless smaller tweaks across the store, his work has helped make everything smoother, faster, and more enjoyable to use. With that being said, he'll never escape his weekly #firebradfriday 🤣.

Stan has been keeping Discord, Reddit and all of our other socials in check while hooking us up with clean drop materials, corralling our testers, organising grow-alongs, giveaways, along with a whole host of other things. 

We officially welcomed Farmer Hatbeard to the Mephisto team, great to have you onboard! You can check out his website and his YouTube channel for some laid-back, entertaining educational content.

We’ve also been laying groundwork on partnerships with brands like Grove Bags, Cannatrol, and BioBizz, all with the goal of improving the wider Mephisto ecosystem for growers.

Jim Connolly also joined us as an artist, delivering what is easily the best artwork we’ve ever had here at Mephisto. Every strain sticker, from 505 Headbanger through to Gelauto N°33, has been designed by Jim, bringing a whole new level of personality to the lineup. Brad was especially stoked to have him on board, having been a long-time fan of Jim’s work, so making that collaboration happen was a big moment. Jim has also put his spin on our classic Farm Friends, introducing a colourful cast of fresh new takes.

2025 Releases

As ever, we kept bringing the fire with a solid lineup of releases this year.

We started the year strong with Old School Blues, a true throwback strain built around Old School Haze from Super Sativa Seed Club, celebrating classic flavours and effects with a modern autoflower twist. That momentum carried into Schoolyard Crush in February, followed by 505 Headbanger in March, before Mango Runtz, which won an impromptu Discord poll as Mephisto's Best New Strain of 2025, rounded out the first wave of releases.

The second half of the year saw no let-up, with Beary Berry Punch and Kiwi Lime 1 adding depth and variety to the lineup, followed by the haze-forward Apollo Haze utilising the Brothers Grimm strain of the same name. We closed out the year with Gelauto N°33, a fitting finale that tied together everything we’d been working toward across the season.

A proper mix of nostalgia, new-school flavour, and utility strains. Your passion for each of these strains has been incredible to witness. Seeing our work getting out there and feeling the love for them truly warms the cockles of our hearts.

What’s Coming in 2026 👀

We’re constantly pushing the envelope with our breeding work, and 2026 is shaping up to be a big one. We’ll be kicking off the OGKB x Mephisto Genetics trilogy with Butters’ Breath early next year, which we’re incredibly excited about. We’ve also got in the line-up:

Guava Fig - Guava Fig [Fig Farms] x Double Grape
Bear Force 1 - Sour Power OG [Karma Genetics] x 3 Bears OG
Butters’ Breath - Peanutbutter Breath [Thug Pug Genetics] x Creme de la Chem
Rainbow Sundae #11 - RS-11 [Deep East Oakland] x Sundae Thumper

Others we have in the works and close to release are:
Platinum Gelato (final name TBD) - Platinum Gelato [In-House Genetics] x Forum Stomper
Rootbeer (final name TBD) - GMO Rootbeer [Skunktek x MeanGenefromMendocino] x Toof Decay
Mimosa (final name TBD) - Mimosa [Symbiotic Genetics] x Double Grape

Alongside these, we’ve got a second drop of O’z F1s on the way. This will be our first community-led F1 project, shaped by a huge tournament over on Discord where the Meph Heads voted on which strains made the cut. We’ve also got some classic strains lined up for a long-awaited return to the catalogue, alongside a few rarer gems coming back into rotation. And, of course, a big restock of our most-loved strains is right around the corner.

As for future plans, in the background, we’ve been slowly and carefully developing MAC V2 (Capulator) and Pineapple Gummies (Trichome Jungle Seeds), alongside a whole host of other projects that will reveal themselves in due time.

Not to mention big changes on the horizon, with new packaging in the works, paired with a re-organisation of the catalogue and product lines, which should make navigating the Mephisto range cleaner and more intuitive going forward.

Events & Travel ✈️

A big contingent of the Meph crew and I will be heading back to LA at the end of January for the American Autoflower Cup 2026, with hopes of scooping a few awards and definitely eating more cornbread. Later in the year, you’ll be able to catch us at Mary Jane Berlin. If you see us out and about at any show, come up and make sure to say hello; it’s always a pleasure to meet Meph Heads out in the wild. 

The Unsung Heroes 💪

A massive thank you to the often lesser-mentioned but absolutely vital background heroes of MG. Jerome and the legendary MG packing minions, who are kept on their toes daily but always knock it out of the park. Terrance, who holds down the fort in Canada amidst postal service strikes. Tammy, who keeps everything running smoothly in the EU and our customer service department ticking. And Sonja, our organisational queen, who works tirelessly behind the scenes while navigating motherhood with two new babies in her family, alongside her two adult babies, Brad and me.

We truly couldn’t do this without you.

Community & Thanks 🩷

If you haven’t already, please consider submitting an online vote for us in the AAC Best Breeder category. Every vote genuinely means a lot to us, the show of support you give us each and every year is overwhelming.

Our Mephisto Discord continues to grow into a brilliant place for banter, knowledge-sharing, and supporting fellow growmies. Earlier this year, we ran a playoff-style vote for a fresh set of MephistO’z crosses, and those community-picked strains will be dropping in 2026.

A huge thank you to our tester squad, whose photos and reports of each and every strain we’ve released this year have built an incredible pre-release knowledge base for every Meph Head to make the most informed choice possible for their next grow.

And finally, a thank you to the entire team, everyone showing love on socials, and to you for reading this. Every order, big or small, helps keep the dream alive and allows us to keep forging ahead and doing what we love. We still have to pinch ourselves that we started growing in a cupboard in our student house and now we’re here. Thank you.

Hope everyone had a productive 2025. Kick back with your loved ones over the festive period, and we wish you all a happy, healthy, and super prosperous 2026.

Love,

Mitch & the Mephisto Genetics Team 🩷