X/Y OverUsed Metagame Primer

• Composition
• Play Restrictions
  • Ability Restrictions
  • Move Restrictions
• The OU Forum
  • Learn
  • Participate
  • Resources

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 XY era are found on the dex page.

Play Restrictions

Players cannot use Pokémon from the Uber tier.

Players must abide by the following clauses:

• Smogon-wide Clauses

Ability Restrictions

Players cannot use the following abilities:

• Arena Trap
• Shadow Tag

Move Restrictions

Players cannot use the following moves:

• Baton Pass
• Swagger

The OU Forum

Learn

The ORAS 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.

Participate

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

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

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

Resources

The OU Sample Teams gives new players common and easy to use teams to ease the learning process of OU.

The OU Checks Compendium provides players have a better understanding of how to beat a certain Pokémon.

The OU Speed Tiers gives players access to the speed tiers of commonly seen Pokémon in OU.