About

General presentation

This website is designed as a visual learning and teambuilding resource for the Smogon OverUsed tier across every generation. Its goal is to provide a quick way and accessible way to learn a tier and become familiar with its trends as efficiently as possible. When discovering a new generation, understanding how a Pokémon is commonly played usually requires repeatedly facing it in battle, browsing Pokémon Showdown’s rather inconvenient usage stats pages, or reading through lengthy Smogon Pokédex analyses. This process can quickly become overwhelming, especially for newer players.

Writing analyses like the ones found on Smogon represents a tremendous amount of work, and keeping them up to date is an even greater challenge. Every time a Pokémon gets banned or unbanned, entire analyses often need to be rewritten in order to adapt to the new metagame. For instance, when Latias was reintroduced into DPP OU, a large number of pages had to account for its presence, as it immediately became a top-tier threat. This updating process can easily take months.

The website’s main feature consists of tables (such as the one shown below) for each Pokémon, gathering its most common and effective sets along with its counters, best checks, and ideal teammates for every generation in which the Pokémon is both playable and viable. These tables were built using both high ladder usage stats and data from major Smogon tournaments such as Smogon Classic, the World Cup of Pokémon, and the Smogon Premier League. As a result, the sets displayed are not meant to cover every possible option, but rather to highlight the most likely to be encountered at a high competitive level.

For each generation, you will also have access to:

• the complete banlist, along with a banlist history.
• the speed tiers at +0 (displaying speeds at +1 and +2 would unnecessarily clutter the page, as they can easily be inferred from the base values).
• a list of moves used by at least one viable Pokémon in the metagame.
• a role compendium.
• a selection of good teams to help you get started in the tier.

Hidden information within Pokémon tables

Here is an example with Tyranitar in ADV. Clicking on Tyranitar’s abilities, items, or moves will display their effects. You can also easily navigate between tables from the same generation by clicking on Pokémon listed in the counters, checks, and teammates sections:

Tyranitar	Item	Ability	Nature	HP	Atk	Def	SpA	SpD	Spe	Moveset
HP: 100 Atk: 134 Def: 110 SpA: 95 SpD: 100 Spe: 61 x4: x2: x1/2: x0:		Sand Stream	Jolly		252		-	4	252+	- Dragon Dance - Rock Slide - Earthquake - HP Bug / HP Grass / Ice Beam / Taunt
			Adamant	248	252+		-		8	- Rock Slide - Earthquake - Focus Punch - HP Bug / HP Grass
			Modest	248	-		252+		8	- Crunch - Pursuit - Fire Blast / Flamethrower / Ice Beam - Brick Break / HP Grass / Roar
			Naive (Rash)		4		252(+)	-	252+	- Fire Blast - Ice Beam / Rock Slide - HP Grass - Brick Break
Common Counters
Unusual Counters
Checks - RK
Ideal Teammates
Back to ADV index >>

If you are using a PC, you can access even more information by hovering over certain elements (feel free to give it a try on the table above):

• the Pokémon's base stats over its own sprite.
• the Pokémon's weaknesses and resistances over its typing.
• the Pokémon's speed at +0 over its speed EV spread. For Pokémon using a Choice Scarf or a speed-boosting move or ability, Speed values at +1 and +2 are also displayed.

Most importantly:

• hovering over the counters will display the minimum requirements for a Pokémon to be considered a true counter [this feature is currently available for ADV and DPP tables only]. Depending on the matchup, this may consist of a single move or an entire set, including the item, ability, nature, EV spread, and moveset, selected from a pool of viable options. The goal is not to suggest gimmicky or suboptimal options to create counters out of nowhere. While this approach is necessarily theoretical, it helps understand why a given Pokémon can reliably counter another. Bracketed elements (as seen with Suicune, Heracross and Vaporeon) indicate that hax has a significant chance of preventing the Pokémon from successfully countering its target, even though it should still win the one-on-one matchup most of the time.
• hovering over the checks & RK will display the advantages those Pokémon have against the Pokémon in question, listed in the following order: Types immunities and/or (double) resistances - Speed advantage - Speed Tie - Walling capability - Wallbreaking capability - Ability - Moves [this feature is currently available for ADV tables only].

Although metagames are constantly evolving, the most effective checks and counters are generally found on the left side of the table, with more niche options as you move to the right side. The same principle applies to sets (and moves): the most common ones are listed on the top (from left to right for the moves).

Difference between Checks and Counters

As this Smogon article explains it quite well, and to keep it as simple as possible, a check is a Pokémon able to come in on a safe switch (after a KO or after the use of a move such as U-turn or Volt Switch) and win the duel against the opposing Pokémon; a counter, on the other hand, can switch into any move the opposing Pokémon may use and still be able to win the duel afterwards. This definition does not take hax into account for obvious reasons, such as critical hits and moves' secondary effects (paralysis, burn, flinch, confusion etc.). As for damage rolls, they should always be considered at their maximum when the check or counter is on the receiving end, and at their minimum when the check or counter is the one attacking.

If a Pokémon is listed as a counter in the table, this means that at least one variant of that Pokémon is able to counter every listed sets. Of course, counters to a Pokémon that has access to a sleep-inducing move (Hypnosis, Lovely Kiss, Sing, Sleep Powder, Spore) should only be considered if another member in the team has already been put to sleep. In other words, Sleep Clause is always considered to be active. Moves such as Explosion and Self-Destruct have not been taken into account when establishing the counters lists. From generation 3 onward, the Unusual Counters category works exactly like the Common Counters category, the only difference being that it includes lower-tier Pokémon.

If a Pokémon is listed in the Checks - RK category, this means that at least one variant of that Pokémon is a good check to at least one of the listed sets, or that it can, in one way or another, function as a good Revenge Killer against this Pokémon. A Pokémon in this category may also, under certain circumstances, be a counter to one or several sets.

Most common moves' pages

Clicking on each row in the Most common moves' pages will display the most common users of the selected move in the metagame. Hovering over a row will provide information on what is new and what has been changed compared to the previous generation. Here are a few examples using some Generation 8 moves:

Name	Cat.	Contact	Power	Accuracy	PP	Description/Effects
Body Press		x	80	100	16	Takes the user's Defense stat instead of its Attack stat into account for the damage calculation.
/
Thunderbolt			90	100	24	10% chance to paralyse the target.
/ //
Defog			-	-	24	Removes Entry Hazards on both sides of the field. Removes the terrain, the screens on the opposing side of the field and lowers the target's Evasion stat by 1 stage.
/
Rapid Spin		x	50	100	64	Boosts the user's Speed stat by 1 stage. Removes Spikes on the user's side only and frees it from the effect of Leech Seed.
/

To sum up:

• a green row means the move is new in this generation.
• a grey row or box means that no changes have occured.
• an orange box means that the move’s name, category, contact status, or effect has changed.
• a green box means that one of the move's numerical values (Power, Accuracy or PP) has been increased.
• a red box means that one of the move's numerical values (Power, Accuracy or PP) has been lowered.

If Pokémon appear after a "/", this means they are not commonly used in the metagame. If they appear after a "//", they are currently banned. The same applies to Pokémon that appear after "/" or "//" in the Roles Compendium's sections or in Ability.

How to Contact me?

You noticed a mistake? You've got a question? You found a broken link? You have any suggestions to improve the website? Feel free to reach me out on Overstrat's Discord server, or directly by sending me a PM : redshreder.

Since the website is constantly evolving, the Discord server is the right place to be if you want to be aware of new updates.