Competitive Pokémon Battling: Tiers and Metagames

The main metagames descend as follows (according to Smogon):

• Ubers
• OU
• BL
• UU
• BL2
• RU
• NU
• NFE
• LC

Alternatively, there are also VGCs, which are divided by year (each year has a new set of rules and new Pokémon or moves, generally).

Ubers

Ubers serves as a banlist for OU – Pokémon that are too powerful to be used competitively or make the competitive metagame of OU stale. Pokémon that exist in Ubers cannot be used in OU. Pokémon in Ubers generally include powerful legendaries such as Mewtwo, Rayquaza, Kyogre, and Groudon, just to name a few. Other Pokémon such as Garchomp, Thundurus, and Excadrill have all found their way into Ubers after massive amounts of playtesting and voting finally determined that they made OU centralized around them, stale, or were just too damn powerful. It should be noted that the banning of these Pokémon are controversial in many Pokémon communities, and many communities do not choose to follow them.

OverUsed

OU is considered the most competitive tier in the competitive Pokémon community due to the large amount of people that play it. Pokémon in OU have to have approximately 3.4% usage to stay OU. Tiers are updated by Smogon every three months, and anything below that cut-off rate is dropped into UU. OU does not determine whether a Pokémon is NU or RU. It only directly affects the viability of certain UU Pokémon. UU usage does not affect OU Pokémon. Pokémon in OU are generally considered superior to Pokémon in lower tiers because people tend to use them more, generally due to reasons such as the fact that they often outclass other Pokémon in lower tiers that perform a similar role. For example, Jellicent is generally considered more often as a SpinBlocker than Dusclops is. While Dusclops has much more formidable bulk on both sides of the spectrum, Jellicent has a solid recovery move as well as access to a modestly speedy Taunt to shut down opposing Stall Pokémon. While Dusclops outshines Jellicent in certain fields, Jellicent has greater overall appeal. However, all Pokémon can be OU if they are used enough. For example, Gastrodon and Dugtrio both jumped all the way from NU to OU in a single tier change, the reasons being that Gastrodon was one of the best counters to rain while Dugtrio could easily eliminate many weather starters. To quote Hyouki, “OU is a constantly changing metagame, so there is no true way to define it.”

Border Line

BL is the banlist of UU, similar to how Ubers is to OU. BL Pokémon are deemed too powerful for UU, but don’t have high enough usage for OU. However, a few BL Pokémon, such as Hippowdon, Hippopotas, Abomasnow (which is currently low OU with Hippowdon), and Snover are there because Hail and Sand have been banned from BL, not because the Pokémon themselves were too powerful for BL. The other BL Pokémon include ones such as Staraptor and Kyurem, both of whom were deemed too powerful for the tier.

Under Used

This tier is directly affected by usage in OU. Pokémon below the 4.3% cut-off rate are dropped into UU when tiers are updated again every three months. Pokémon in UU are generally deemed outclassed by certain Pokémon in OU, such as the Dusclops vs Jellicent example posted earlier. However, this by all means does not mean that UU Pokémon are bad and cannot succeed when used in OU. The UU metagame bears some resemblance to 4th gen OU, after the introduction of many new Pokémon, moves, items, and abilities have drawn the spotlight away from the once OU Pokémon of 4th gen.

Border Line 2

Whatever’s uber for RU. Currently few Pokémon reside here.

Rarely Used and Never Used

RU and NU are directly affected by UU. Pokémon with a usage below a certain percentage point in UU are tossed into either RU or NU. RU and NU have a lot more diversity in teams and Pokémon by comparison to OU, despite OU having access to more Pokémon. The sheer number of Pokémon that are viable in these tiers makes it more fun and diverse as opposed to competitive.

Not Fully Evolved

Basically, if it’s not fully evolved, you can use it. No one really plays this metagame, though.

Little Cup

Little Cup is a very popular metagame for many reasons. For Wi-Fi players, it’s much tougher to get the correct movesets, and it pays off more. The EV system is also thrown off course when it comes to Little Cup. The main difference with Little Cup and other metagames is that it is more offensively oriented than any other. You’re not going to find many Pokémon in Little Cup that can stall. Not only that, but in Little Cup, boosts are much deadlier. A Drilbur in Sandstorm at +2 will tear teams apart, or even a Scraggy at +1. Few Pokémon work with bulk besides Bronzor. It’s difficult to adjust from OU to Little Cup because the pre-evolutions of many OU Pokémon probably don’t do well in Little Cup with the same job as their evolutions. The diversity tends to be greater here, however, as many Pokémon do well in Little Cup, so it allows for diversity similar to RU or NU.

Dream World tiers

Dream World is the same thing as all the other tiers, with the exception that unreleased Pokémon and Dream World abilities are allowed. All previously banned Pokémon that were not originally Uber are also allowed in this tier, meaning Garchomp, Excadrill, and Thundurus are allowed. However, Blaziken was later tested and deemed broken, so it’s back to Ubers. Due to the presence of powerful offensive Pokémon, among which include Genesect and DW Breloom, DW OU is very different from WiFi OU. Games are much more fast-paced, and stall is rare in DW OU. In addition, powerful threats like DW Chandelure haunt the tier, threatening a number of Pokémon, namely Skarmory, to run Shed Shell. Another major difference between DW OU and WiFi OU is the lack of Team Preview in DW OU at the moment of writing.

Video Game Championship

The VGC is a worldwide tournament held every year. The rules are always Doubles with Item Clause activated, and you can bring a team of 6 Pokémon but can use only 4 in each battle. The rule changes are usually the banlist (such as 2010’s set allowing two Pokémon from a specific “Restricted” list). The only Pokémon that are banned every year are Pokémon species available by events only. Pokémon with special event moves such as Eruption Heatran or Wish Blissey are not banned.

What really sets VGC apart from standard competitive play is that the metagame is almost flipped from OU. Many viable strategies in VGC would hardly ever happen in standard singles, and a playstyle like Stall will usually do terribly in VGC. The most prominent strategies of VGC are Trick Room and Tailwind. There are occasionally teams called “Goodstuffs” that function without either, and these are very difficult to make for most people.