Smogon Tiers Explained: OU, UU, RU, NU, PU, Ubers, and LC

Coming from the official Pokémon games or VGC, the Smogon tier system reads like alphabet soup: OU, UU, RU, NU, PU, Ubers, LC, Anything Goes. This post walks every tier, explains why Pokémon move between them, and helps you pick the right tier for the kind of game you actually want to play.

Every format here is playable inside the Metamons team builder. Pick a tier from the format dropdown and the legal species, abilities, items, and moves all update to match.

Why tiers exist at all

The official Pokémon games don't tier anything. That means one species (Mewtwo, Kyogre, Rayquaza) can flatten competitive play while 800 other Pokémon never get a look in. Smogon, the long-running competitive community, solved that by grouping Pokémon into tiers based on usage statistics from ranked ladder games.

The short version: if a Pokémon gets used in more than a set percentage of games in a tier, it rises. Drop below the threshold and it falls. Every tier stays fresh, stays self-balancing, and stays at a defined power level.

The Smogon singles tier list, top to bottom

Anything Goes (AG)

No rules beyond what the cart physically allows. Mega-Rayquaza, Shadow Rider Calyrex, everything. Most players try AG once out of curiosity and never queue it again.

Ubers

The top competitive tier with rules. Box legendaries (Kyogre, Groudon, Calyrex) and hyper-offensive restricted Pokémon live here. Standard clauses still apply (Species, OHKO, etc.) but almost every legendary is fair game. Ubers is where you go to pilot a god-tier threat legally.

OU (OverUsed)

The most popular Smogon tier by a mile. Anything used in more than roughly 4.52% of high-ladder games lands in OU. The banlist covers Ubers plus anything the council calls "broken but not Ubers-broken" (historically: Arceus, certain Genesect sets, Zacian-C, early-meta Urshifu-SS).

When players say "Gholdengo is everywhere right now" or "they just banned Volcarona," they're almost always talking about OU.

UU (UnderUsed)

Pokémon legal in OU but used too little to matter there, plus anything banned out of OU for being too strong in UU. This is not "worse OU." The top OU threats aren't here, so teams run completely different archetypes.

RU (RarelyUsed)

One step below UU. Same logic: species underused in UU drop down, overperformers in RU get banned up. RU is the tier that most rewards creative teambuilding. The ceiling is lower, so bulky offense and stall both work.

NU (NeverUsed)

One step below RU. NU is where a lot of flavor Pokémon finally shine. Slowking, Rotom-Mow, and Whimsicott-style support all earn real slots here that they rarely see in the tiers above.

PU

The traditional floor of the standard Smogon system. Named because the players at the time genuinely couldn't decide on a letter and went with "P." PU is a full metagame, and its top picks are surprisingly strong. They just happen to be outclassed in every higher tier.

LC (Little Cup)

A bespoke format: only first-stage, level 5 Pokémon. LC has its own bans (items, abilities, species whose stats blow up the format) and plays nothing like anything else on the list. It's the most puzzle-like tier Smogon runs.

How Pokémon move between tiers

Usage-based tiering runs monthly. The pipeline looks like this:

1. Smogon's ladder servers record usage in every ranked game.
2. Monthly usage stats are published per tier.
3. Pokémon over the rise threshold in lower tiers (usage > ~4.52%) move up one.
4. Pokémon under the drop threshold in higher tiers move down one.
5. The tier council manually suspends, bans, or unbans anything that "breaks" a tier by being too strong or too centralizing. When every team ends up running the same counter, that's the sign.

The practical takeaway: the OU of six months ago isn't the OU of today. When the council drops, bans, or frees a Pokémon, the whole meta moves with it.

Pick the right tier for the game you want to play

Rough guide by preference:

• You want the most polished, most debated metagame. Pick OU in the Metamons builder. This is where the archetypes, guides, and replays are.
• You want the strongest Pokémon at full power. Ubers. Expect weather teams and Trick Room in volume.
• You want creative teambuilding without the giant-killers. UU or RU.
• You want niche Pokémon that rarely shine elsewhere. NU or PU.
• You want a totally different puzzle. LC.

Inside any tier, the Metamons Pokédex shows base stats, types, abilities, and movesets for every species, so you can line up candidates for a role side by side.

Standard clauses in every Smogon tier

Across every tier, the same standard clauses apply:

• Species Clause. No two copies of the same Pokémon on one team.
• Sleep Clause. You can't have more than one opposing Pokémon asleep at a time.
• Evasion Clause. Double Team and Minimize are banned.
• OHKO Clause. Horn Drill, Sheer Cold, and friends are banned.
• Moody Clause. The Moody ability is banned.
• Endless Battle Clause. Combos that create infinite games (Leppa Berry + Heal Pulse + Recycle) are banned.

Metamons applies every clause automatically the moment you pick a tier, and the builder flags any move or item combination that would break one.

Related Pokémon to study

Species that currently define multiple tiers. Open them in the Metamons Pokédex for stats, abilities, and competitive notes:

• Gholdengo. The OU centerpiece that reshaped Gen 9.
• Dragapult. A perennial OU offense threat.
• Slowking-Galar. The bulky pivot at the top of UU.
• Hydreigon. RU's premier special wallbreaker.
• Rotom-Mow. The pivot anchoring NU and RU.
• Mienshao. Fighting-type presence across the lower tiers.

Next steps

1. Pick a tier you're curious about in the team builder.
2. Draft a team of six that covers all 18 types.
3. Use the weakness heatmap to spot the holes.
4. If you want the doubles side of the story, read how to build a VGC team next.

Tiers aren't grades, they're balanced sandboxes. The most fun tier is the one that matches the archetype you actually enjoy piloting. Pick yours and build the six.