Sun/Moon OverUsed Metagame Primer

Composition

OU (OverUsed) is Smogon's fundamental usage-based tier. With the exception of Pokémon banished to the Uber tier, every Pokémon can be used in OU, including Pokémon from UU, RU, NU, and PU. While all non-Uber Pokémon can be used in OU, only those Pokémon that make up at least ~3.41% of total weighted usage in the tier are designated OU. A Pokémon is truly OU if a typical competitive player is more than 50% likely to encounter that Pokémon at least once in a given day of playing (20 battles).

A list of the current OU Pokémon and those with OU analyses for the SM era are found on the dex page.

Tiering

Smogon's OU tiering is ruled by a council of five high-level players. The purpose of this thread is to introduce the OU senators to the public and to explain how they handle the tiering process for the OU tier in Pokémon Sun and Moon.

Play Restrictions

Players cannot use Pokémon from the Uber tier.

Players must abide by the following clauses:

Players cannot use the following abilities:

Players cannot use the following moves:

The OU Forum

Learn

The Simple Questions, Simple Answers thread is a great place to ask any simple questions you might have relating to the OU metagame. Do not make new threads for questions that could be answered here.

The USM OU Analyses forum is the place to go for writing analyses to be uploaded to the official Smogon Dex. You may reserve an analysis in the Index or comment on analyses that are a WIP.

Participate

The USM OU Viability Rankings shows how well every OU-viable Pokémon fares in the OU tier.

The USM OU Metagame Discussion thread allows players to discuss current trends in the OU metagame.

The USM OU Teambuilding Competition gives a core or idea for members to build the best possible teams in order to win in a community vote.

You can help contribute to Smogon's social media pages by writing USM OU Pokémon Spotlights for the Facebook and Twitter pages.

Resources

The SM Battle Mechanics Research thread is the prime hub for learning about all of the mechanics changes from Generation 6 to Generation 7.

The USM OU Good Cores thread is a compendium of the strongest/most resilent cores in the current metagame.

The USM OU Speed Tiers thread offers useful information regarding how the speeds of threats in the SM OU metagame compare.