Sword/Shield Ubers Metagame Primer

Composition

Ubers is the most inclusive of Smogon's tiers, aiming to allow the use of as many Pokémon as competitively possible. Ubers is not influenced by Pokémon usage in OU, UU, RU, NU, or PU, and the usage of Pokémon in Ubers has no influence on the compositions of those tiers.

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

Play Restrictions

Players must abide by the following clauses:

  • Species Clause: A player cannot have two Pokémon with the same National Pokédex number on a team.
  • Sleep Clause: If a player has already put a Pokémon on his/her opponent's side to sleep and it is still sleeping, another one can't be put to sleep.
  • Evasion Clause: A Pokémon may not have either Double Team or Minimize in its moveset.
  • OHKO Clause: A Pokémon may not have the moves Fissure, Guillotine, Horn Drill, or Sheer Cold in its moveset.
  • Endless Battle Clause: Players cannot intentionally prevent an opponent from being able to end the game without forfeiting.
  • Dynamax Clause: Players cannot use Dynamax or Gigantamax.

Players cannot use the following moves:

The Ubers Forum

Learn

The Ubers Forum Rules and General Information explain the subforum rules and give a guide to its numerous projects. A mandatory read for all prospective new users.

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

We embrace our older generations and keep an Old Gens Hub regularly updated with information on mechanics, sample teams, and viability rankings for each prior generation.

Useful information hubs related to our metagame include the Speed Tiers and our Teambuilding Compendium.

Participate

The SS Viability Rankings aims to show how well every Ubers-viable Pokemon fares in the metagame.

Our Metagame and Set Discussion thread is the ideal place to talk about the state of the current Ubers metagame.

The Ubers Analyses forum is the place to go for writing analyses. You may reserve an analysis in the Index thread or comment on analyses that are in progress.

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