UU is even more centralised than OU is

[X-Act]

I used DougJustDoug's statistics to work out how many Pokemon are used in 75% of teams.

Note that this is different from 'used in 75% of battles'. The problem is that Doug counted not just the Pokemon that appear in a battle, but all the Pokemon that feature in a team, even if some of them end up not being used in a battle. So if a team had Metagross and it ended up not being used in a battle at all, Colin's usages list would not have counted it as a usage, whereas Doug did.

Anyway, this is what I found:

75% of OU teams select their 6 Pokemon from 42 Pokemon:

Azelf
Blissey
Breloom
Bronzong
Celebi
Cresselia
Deoxys-S
Dragonite
Dusknoir
Electivire
Forretress
Gallade
Garchomp
Gengar
Gliscor
Gyarados
Heatran
Heracross
Hippowdon
Infernape
Jirachi
Jolteon
Lucario
Machamp
Magnezone
Mamoswine
Metagross
Salamence
Scizor
Skarmory
Snorlax
Spiritomb
Starmie
Suicune
Swampert
Tentacruel
Togekiss
Tyranitar
Vaporeon
Weavile
Yanmega
Zapdos

75% of UU teams select their 6 Pokemon from 39 Pokemon:

Absol
Altaria
Blastoise
Claydol
Clefable
Drapion
Drifblim
Froslass
Gastrodon
Glaceon
Grumpig
Hitmonchan
Hitmonlee
Hitmontop
Hypno
Kabutops
Kangaskhan
Lanturn
Lapras
Leafeon
Manectric
Meganium
Nidoking
Nidoqueen
Ninetales
Omastar
Persian
Poliwrath
Primeape
Probopass
Rapidash
Rotom
Scyther
Sharpedo
Steelix
Swellow
Toxicroak
Venomoth
Vileplume

75% of Uber teams select their 6 Pokemon from 15 Pokemon:

Blissey
Darkrai
Deoxys-A
Dialga
Giratina
Groudon
Jirachi
Kyogre
Latias
Latios
Lugia
Mew
Mewtwo
Palkia
Rayquaza

That means that UU as it is now is even more centralising than OU!

 

[Hipmonlee]

I am not in the least surprised about uu.

Does that fact that you are looking at what pokemon are used in teams as opposed to used in battles affect centralisation, cause 42 is a very small OU tier.

[edit] - though to be fair, looking at the now borderline pokemon, very few of them actually really deserve standarddom. I think we might get more centralised yet, no matter what ruleset we implement.

Have a nice day.

 

[X-Act]

It would be affected, yes. Although I don't think it would be affected by that much. What I think seriously affected centralisation is Deoxys-S's sudden jump in usage.

 

[Caelum]

In the case of UU, I'm not surprised at all really. There is a large portion of the tier that most competitive UU players would never use (I'm looking at you Delibird).

 

[Evil Hamster]

Can't say I'm surprised really, though I was shocked not to see the likes of Ampharos anywhere near the top 75%.

Out of curiosity, will this 75% margin be used to seperate UU from the 'UU BL'?

EDIT: After checking the top 75% of UU I worked out yesterday, I got Relicanth in there :s I think it was slightly short of the 75% margin, but was much closer to the 75% margin with him included. With it included, you get 75.1383535%, whilst without it74.2408296%. Didn't realise it always rounded :s

 

[X-Act]

In the case of UU, I'm not surprised at all really. There is a large portion of the tier that most competitive UU players would never use (I'm looking at you Delibird).

That argument is pretty weak, as OU has an even larger portion of the tier that competitive OU players would never use... yet they use more of it!

 

[iruchii]

Seriously, Evil Hamster? I UU ladder pretty much everyday and I've only seen a couple Ampharos.

Anyway, yeah, it doesn't surprise me either. I jump in joy everytime I see a Bibarel or Illumise being us- wait, only I use Bibarel and Illumise.

 

[Caelum]

That argument is pretty weak, as OU has an even larger portion of the tier that competitive OU players would never use... yet they use more of it!

Meh, I'm really tired right now, let me elaborate a bit more so it makes some sense.

Again, warning, I'm very tired so try to follow it.

Of all the non-uber Pokemon available for players to use I believe (obviously I'm getting away from facts here) that there are more competitively useable Pokemon. Let's say someone wants a Banded steel Pokemon, it's plausible that the player could use either Scizor or Metagross on a team. Now, let's say someone wants a steel physical wall in UU. The majority of people are just going to pick Steelix since it's nearest comparison, Aggron, doesn't have any obvious advantages over it as a defensive steel. This is what I meant. OU has more viable options whereas UU just has more options.

 

[Evil Hamster]

Seriously, Evil Hamster? I UU ladder pretty much everyday and I've only seen a couple Ampharos.

Anyway, yeah, it doesn't surprise me either. I jump in joy everytime I see a Bibarel or Illumise being us- wait, only I use Bibarel and Illumise.

I've seen a few; certainly more than I have seen, say, Muk or Qwilfish. I was just surprised it was so low; I was thinking it would be much closer to the boundary.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Well of the pokemon not currently in OU, I think: Roselia, Rhyperior, Abomasnow, Dugtrio, Slaking, Medicham, PorygonZ and Shaymin probably will be OU at some point in the future.

Rotom, Cradily, Ambipom, Aerodactyl, Crobat, Slowbro and Slowking would be maybes, but would probably never really cement their positions.

Also if you were to combine Uxie and Mesprit which are all but identical, they could also make the cut, but the fact that there are two pokemon that similar sorta prevents either of them from making it. Regirock is probably good enough to make OU but I doubt it ever will, just because of Rhyperior and Tyranitar.

Have a nice day.

 

[Kagster123]

You forgot Alakazam. :(

#48, slowly but surely rising. >_>

 

[X-Act]

Meh, I'm really tired right now, let me elaborate a bit more so it makes some sense.

Again, warning, I'm very tired so try to follow it.

Of all the non-uber Pokemon available for players to use I believe (obviously I'm getting away from facts here) that there are more competitively useable Pokemon. Let's say someone wants a Banded steel Pokemon, it's plausible that the player could use either Scizor or Metagross on a team. Now, let's say someone wants a steel physical wall in UU. The majority of people are just going to pick Steelix since it's nearest comparison, Aggron, doesn't have any obvious advantages over it as a defensive steel. This is what I meant. OU has more viable options whereas UU just has more options.

What you're referring to, then, are more viable options, not more options.

Ubers has the most options, yet people limit themselves to 15 of them, because those are the viable options. UU has less viable options than OU, which means it is more centralised. :)

 

[Galliance]

I think the stats come out this way because about half of UU will be NU in the near future. But wait, wouldn't that limit people's options even more?

 

[Sunday]

I think the stats come out this way because about half of UU will be NU in the near future. But wait, wouldn't that limit people's options even more?

Why? What stops people from using NUs in UU?
EDIT: I'm not really surprised by these all that much - my UU team features 6 Pokemon from that very list.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

I jump in joy everytime I see a Bibarel or Illumise being us- wait, only I use Bibarel and Illumise.

Has the Simple ability been properly implemented yet? If not that may go some way to explaining the lack of Bibarel usage. As far as Illumise is concerned I don't think anything will make it a commonly used Pokemon in the near future.

I'm also not surprised by the UU stats, even though I only use four of them in my current team, being a proud user of Qwilfish and Camerupt in UU.

 

[umbarsc]

Hardly surprising. Even though UU is so huge, people will still just stay in their comfort zone and stay with the top-tier Pokemon. This is like ChouToshio's "UU - Are we really using the best?" topic a while ago, where he mentioned how centralized UU is and encouraged people to try new things. I have done so, and oftentimes they've worked better than the standard. My Reflect + Thunder Wave Granbull lead has been one of the most effective leads I've ever used, and Xatu + Probopass is so annoying to take down.

Plus, nearly every Pokemon in UU is almost entirely outclassed by something or other. "Hey, I think I'll try Crawdaunt! Nah, I might as well use Sharpedo" etc.

 

[Salem1]

I agree with umbarsc.

Anyway from that list, this is what I use for my primary team:

- Absol, but I'd guess I make up a little over half of Absol's useage statistics anyway as it's my favorite Poke... anyone who has ever faced me more than once will know why. And I frankly haven't seen him much at all from other teams.

- Leafeon, for its Baton Passing abilities and because it makes a decent physical semi-wall. It simply has good mesh with the teams I tend to make.

- Rapidash, and that's because it happens to be invaluable for my Shiftry. With its speed, I can set up a Sunny Day guaranteedly, Hypnosis the counter that they'll switch in and then just switch into Shiftry who proceeds to do 1-2 Nasty Plots (depending on how much damage the current opposing Poke can do, as Shiftry has a Life Orb) and sweep with Chlorophyll (meaning it has roughly 520 Speed from Sunny Day), a whole boatload of Sp. Atk, Solarbeam, HP Fire and Dark Pulse. I think I'll swap out Rapidash now though, don't want to be using too many OU-UU's... Torkoal seems like a decent replacement :)

The other two that I use are currently Scarf Luxray and Delcatty.

 

[Soma]

I have a feeling it's possible the UU metagame could become more decentralized as time goes on. Never before have I seen UU be so popular thanks to the Smogon ladder and that will probably encourage further development and originality...hopefully.

But on a side note, this list really makes me want to try new things in UU being that most of my team is on this list.

 

[COalex]

I don't think it's fair to compare OU -which has hardly changed since the beginning of D/P- to UU, which is still under developement.

 

[cim]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's partially Steelix's fault. That thing is a monster in UU, and I'm willing to bet that the majority of the top used UUs can deal with him. Hey, let's go through the sweepers that can beat Steelix for the sake of example:

Altaria - Fire Blast and Earthquake, the latter still not doing terribly much to Steelix.
Blastoise - STAB Water moves
Claydol - STAB Special Ground moves, spins away SR that Steelix lays.
Hitmonchan Hitmonlee - STAB Fighting
Hitmontop - STAB Fighting, Spins away rocks
Kabutops - STAB Water
Kangaskhan - Commonly runs Focus Punch.
Lapras - STAB Surf
Nidoking Nidoqueen - STAB Ground attacks at the cost of a Ground weakness
Ninetales - Nasty Plot STAB Fire attacks
Omastar - STAB Water attacks
Poliwrath - STAB Water attacks
Primeape - STAB Fighting attacks
Rapidash - STAB Fire attacks
Sharpedo - STAB Water attacks
Toxicroak - STAB Fighting attacks

So of the 39 Pokémon in OU, 18 are more than equipped to handle Steelix. Now, correlation doesn't imply causation, but one must wonder if the prevalence of Fighting, Fire, and Water sweepers in the top 75% is possibly in part due to Steelix.

 

[DougJustDoug]

It will be very interesting to see the effects of the recent additions of Weezing, Venusaur, Miltank, Shedinja, Articuno and Aerodactyl to the UU tier. Will they increase the number of pokemon in the top 75% (thus decentralizing the UU metagame) or decrease it (thus causing further centralization)? I don't play UU, so I won't hazard a guess. But, it should be fun to see -- at least from a statistics-watching standpoint...

 

[Automatic]

Only 2 of my pokes are on that UU list. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

 

[the_artic_one]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's partially Steelix's fault. That thing is a monster in UU, and I'm willing to bet that the majority of the top used UUs can deal with him. Hey, let's go through the sweepers that can beat Steelix for the sake of example:

Steelix has about the same lead over claydol that garchomp has over gengar so it's quite possible that he's causing a bit of centralization in UU.

Oh and btw, I totally called it: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1359498&postcount=8

 

[Chimera]

w00t!

sorry, but I know I had posted about this without the usage statistics, and was just going on observation, seeing that the data backs my claim up is kinda nice.

 

[Bourbon]

I do not see Pikachu on that list.

pikachu's usage isn't all that high, in fact, it's in the neighborhood of Crawdaunt and Xatu, which is 550-600 usages.