Sword/Shield NU Metagame Primer

  • Composition
  • Play Restrictions
  • The NU Forum

    • Composition

    NU (NeverUsed) is Smogon's fourth usage-based tier. All Pokémon that are not OU, UU, or RU by usage and are not banned to Ubers, UUBL, RUBL, or NUBL can be used in NU, including Pokémon from PU. While any of the aforementioned Pokémon can be used in NU, only those Pokémon that make up at least ~4.52% of total weighted usage in the tier are designated NU. A Pokémon is truly NU if a typical competitive player is more than 50% likely to encounter that Pokémon at least once in a given day of playing (15 battles).

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

    Play Restrictions

    Players cannot use Pokémon from the Uber tier, OU, UUBL, UU, RUBL, RU, or NUBL. Players must abide by the following clauses:

    The NU Forum

    Learn

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

    The SS NU 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.

    Participate

    The SS NU Viability Rankings shows how well every NU-viable Pokémon fares in the NU tier.

    The SS NU Metagame Discussion thread allows players to discuss current trends in the NU metagame.

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

    The NU Discord server allows you to chat in real time with other Trainers about the NU tier.