Hi all,
I went through the painstaking process of collating all the Gen 3 Usage, Lead and Moveset files that Smogon provides and converting them into analysable data.
Setting up Power BI to allow it to be scalable was also a pain. This post will showcase some of the findings :)
The Rise of Slop
2025 saw the birth of Slop, created by Shitrock enjoyer and giraffefromholland . A new innovative brand of offense that is aggressive and fluid, utilising Mons that had not been in the OU spotlight for quite a long time (if at all).
Slop Guide here
Fruhdazi (a.k.a Shitrock Enjoyer) went on a fantastic run in Jimvitational 2, ending up at the Grand Finals stage. During his run, he used Slop nearly every round, incorporating heat Mons like Regirock and Machamp along the way. The audience and player base were enthralled, and that began the Slop hype wave that is still running to this day.
8 months on from the beginning of Jimvitational, Registeel, Raikou and Slop are still at the forefront of the ADV metagame. The question is, is Slop as prevalent as it seems (with numbers to back it) , or is the hype being amplified within the bubbles we talk and interact with each other in?
Even Fruhdazi seems unsure of whether Slop is as prevalent at the end of 2025..
Since there isn't a way to directly view team usage, I will use Registeel's usage to gauge if Slop is still prevalent.
The answer..
Slop's prevalence and hype is as real as it gets. Registeel's usage has been rising for months on end, and is now sitting at ~11% usage in the higher Glicko portions of the ladder. Interesting to note, Registeel is used more the Glicko increases.
Raikou also saw a notable increase in usage following Fruhdazi's Jimvitational run but has seen a drop in the last couple months. Importantly however, it has remained above the standard ~4% cut-off for OU that Smogon typically uses.
Lead Dug Mania
In Jimvitational 1, ABR made the daring decision to lead Dugtrio vs BIHI in Winner's finals. (he lead Dug twice in the Bo3). In the past, people considered Dug Lead to be a meme idea since it could start you off on the backfoot against some of the popular leads like Salamence and Zapdos. However ABR's teambuilding allowed for him to lead Dugtrio without having to worry too much about how to sequence the turns following if the opponent has lead with a problematic Mon for Dug. Lead Dugtrio enables an early trap and kill on most Tyranitar sets, allowing for Weather Reset to occur, allowing his fat team to become even more difficult to break down. Lead Dugtrio also has the bonus of OHKOing the 2 main cheese leads, Jynx and Smeargle. Lead Dugtrio is still relevant and prominent in the current metagame as of the end of 2025.
El Classico Fever
El Classico is a team that was made by Hclat in 2021/2022.
After I had started playing ADV in late 2023 , with my first games being in Revival 1, I had enjoyed some decent ladder success with some goofy self-made builds and with a Cowboy Dan team I had been generously gifted with.
However after a while, I wanted something that was more reliable and would help me break my ladder peak. I had recently seen that HClat had broken the ladder record at the time with El Classico.. So naturally, I went out of my way to grab a reverse engineered version of the team from SPFunkM (godbless).
I broke my ladder peak within 2 weeks. I was a big fan of how it was getting at least decent matchups so often and had the tools to break down basically any team.
Shortly after, I began captaining in Mushi League for the Wishing Star Jirachis , and drafted a team primarily full of non-mainers and HClat himself.
Since the team was full of non-mainers I had to pick teams for them often. It was then I decided to tell my players to spam El Classico. The team was amazing for getting at least neutral matchups so often, leaving the games to be decided by the player's skill. With some pointers and painful lessons provided, the team began spamming El Classico every week. And we won. Every week. We went on to win the tournament!
And from that point, others had taken notice to how great this team was. Everyone started using it and spamming it, and every other day someone was asking how to use it or what it was, so the ADV forum team here decided to add it to the Sample teams.. ( </3)
Now there's not a way to view teams directly so I will use the Swampert Refresh usage rate to gauge El Classico's usage. The Mushi League season where I began encouraging EC spam began in February 2024.
Refresh's usage went from ~14% in Feb-24 to ~47% by Sep-24. A 336% increase. Also it's quite funny how Refresh starts to see a sharp drop right as Slop entered the scene.
Aerodactyl also saw an explosion in usage, though that was more shortlived.
Crazy that a team that had been made years prior would come to prominence and end up playing a large role in shaping the modern metagame.
Choice Band Salamence
Not much to say on this one , sorry Salamence bros, maybe someone can provide an explanation for why this downfall has been so sharp? Or alternatively , why it was so popular in the past.
I went through the painstaking process of collating all the Gen 3 Usage, Lead and Moveset files that Smogon provides and converting them into analysable data.
Setting up Power BI to allow it to be scalable was also a pain. This post will showcase some of the findings :)
The Rise of Slop
2025 saw the birth of Slop, created by Shitrock enjoyer and giraffefromholland . A new innovative brand of offense that is aggressive and fluid, utilising Mons that had not been in the OU spotlight for quite a long time (if at all).
Slop Guide here
Fruhdazi (a.k.a Shitrock Enjoyer) went on a fantastic run in Jimvitational 2, ending up at the Grand Finals stage. During his run, he used Slop nearly every round, incorporating heat Mons like Regirock and Machamp along the way. The audience and player base were enthralled, and that began the Slop hype wave that is still running to this day.
8 months on from the beginning of Jimvitational, Registeel, Raikou and Slop are still at the forefront of the ADV metagame. The question is, is Slop as prevalent as it seems (with numbers to back it) , or is the hype being amplified within the bubbles we talk and interact with each other in?
Even Fruhdazi seems unsure of whether Slop is as prevalent at the end of 2025..
Since there isn't a way to directly view team usage, I will use Registeel's usage to gauge if Slop is still prevalent.
The answer..
Slop's prevalence and hype is as real as it gets. Registeel's usage has been rising for months on end, and is now sitting at ~11% usage in the higher Glicko portions of the ladder. Interesting to note, Registeel is used more the Glicko increases.
Raikou also saw a notable increase in usage following Fruhdazi's Jimvitational run but has seen a drop in the last couple months. Importantly however, it has remained above the standard ~4% cut-off for OU that Smogon typically uses.
Lead Dug Mania
In Jimvitational 1, ABR made the daring decision to lead Dugtrio vs BIHI in Winner's finals. (he lead Dug twice in the Bo3). In the past, people considered Dug Lead to be a meme idea since it could start you off on the backfoot against some of the popular leads like Salamence and Zapdos. However ABR's teambuilding allowed for him to lead Dugtrio without having to worry too much about how to sequence the turns following if the opponent has lead with a problematic Mon for Dug. Lead Dugtrio enables an early trap and kill on most Tyranitar sets, allowing for Weather Reset to occur, allowing his fat team to become even more difficult to break down. Lead Dugtrio also has the bonus of OHKOing the 2 main cheese leads, Jynx and Smeargle. Lead Dugtrio is still relevant and prominent in the current metagame as of the end of 2025.
El Classico Fever
El Classico is a team that was made by Hclat in 2021/2022.
After I had started playing ADV in late 2023 , with my first games being in Revival 1, I had enjoyed some decent ladder success with some goofy self-made builds and with a Cowboy Dan team I had been generously gifted with.
However after a while, I wanted something that was more reliable and would help me break my ladder peak. I had recently seen that HClat had broken the ladder record at the time with El Classico.. So naturally, I went out of my way to grab a reverse engineered version of the team from SPFunkM (godbless).
I broke my ladder peak within 2 weeks. I was a big fan of how it was getting at least decent matchups so often and had the tools to break down basically any team.
Shortly after, I began captaining in Mushi League for the Wishing Star Jirachis , and drafted a team primarily full of non-mainers and HClat himself.
Since the team was full of non-mainers I had to pick teams for them often. It was then I decided to tell my players to spam El Classico. The team was amazing for getting at least neutral matchups so often, leaving the games to be decided by the player's skill. With some pointers and painful lessons provided, the team began spamming El Classico every week. And we won. Every week. We went on to win the tournament!
And from that point, others had taken notice to how great this team was. Everyone started using it and spamming it, and every other day someone was asking how to use it or what it was, so the ADV forum team here decided to add it to the Sample teams.. ( </3)
Now there's not a way to view teams directly so I will use the Swampert Refresh usage rate to gauge El Classico's usage. The Mushi League season where I began encouraging EC spam began in February 2024.
Refresh's usage went from ~14% in Feb-24 to ~47% by Sep-24. A 336% increase. Also it's quite funny how Refresh starts to see a sharp drop right as Slop entered the scene.
Aerodactyl also saw an explosion in usage, though that was more shortlived.
Crazy that a team that had been made years prior would come to prominence and end up playing a large role in shaping the modern metagame.
Choice Band Salamence
Not much to say on this one , sorry Salamence bros, maybe someone can provide an explanation for why this downfall has been so sharp? Or alternatively , why it was so popular in the past.
Dashboard
I am making the dashboard I created available to use for you all. If you find anything interesting or funny, post it in this thread :)
Gen 3 ADV OU Dashboard
I am making the dashboard I created available to use for you all. If you find anything interesting or funny, post it in this thread :)
Gen 3 ADV OU Dashboard
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