With the completion of Season 2 of Rating Battles on the Pokemon Global Link, the rankings of the top twelve most used Pokemon in each format have been released, as well as extensive data about each individual Pokemon. While simply getting accurate data about the usage of the top 12 Pokemon on Special Battle Spot, as well as the type of data on all Pokemon we received last generation would have been helpful in its own right, these statistics are by far the most detailed I have ever seen in Pokemon. Each Pokemon is listed with its most common moves, ability, items, and natures, as they were in Generation 5′s Global Link. What is new is that each Pokemon is now also listed with their ten most common teammates instead of six, as well as a bunch of new information on two totally new tabs. One tab includes the 10 moves each Pokemon used most frequently to score knock outs (rather than in matches it won like the text suggests, judging by the lack of non-attacking moves) and the 10 enemy Pokemon the Pokemon in question defeated most frequently, while the other new tab shows the Pokemon who most frequently defeated the Pokemon in question and the 10 moves they cumulatively used most commonly to do so.
I think this information should be really valuable to players when teambuilding because it offers a lot of relatively objective data about what is happening in rated battles. What Pokemon are successfully countering common threats? What enemy Pokemon are players selecting common Pokemon to counter for them? What items, moves, abilities, and natures are players using on their Pokemon? These questions are all answered by this data. There’s far too much to export into an article, so I encourage players to check out the data themselves on the Pokemon Global Link website by logging in, clicking Rating Battles, changing the drop-down menu option to Season 2, clicking Special Battles, and viewing the data on the bottom of the page.
One thing that is easy to present in an article are the 12 most common Pokemon in last season’s Special Battle Spot competition:
#1 Garchomp
#2 Rotom-Wash
#3 Kangaskhan
#4 Talonflame
#5 Salamence
#6 Mawile
#7 Tyranitar
#8 Aegislash
#9 Charizard
#10 Gardevoir
#11 Meowstic
#12 Manectric
Expect a more detailed write-up from me in the near future comparing these stats with the data from Winter Regionals top cut and Showdown’s usage stats, but here are some fun bonus facts from the data for now:
- The top 12 features seven Pokemon capable of Mega Evolving. Four of those Pokemon are generally considered by most players to be the game’s strongest Mega Evolutions in the cases of Kangaskhan, Mawile, Charizard, and Manectric, all of which held Mega Stones over 95% of the time they were used. The other three Pokemon who can Mega Evolve from the top 12 — Tyranitar, Gardevoir, and Garchomp — are much more frequently seen using other items, with Tyranitar having only a 14.3% chance of holding Tyranitarite, and Garchomp and Gardevoir combining for less than a 10% rate of holding their respective Mega Stones.
- As you might expect compared to the data from North American Regionals, the data here has some Pokemon that tend to be more common in Japan at a much higher rate of usage. Given that Japan is by far the region with the most players participating in Battle Spot, especially at high ratings, I don’t think this is very surprising. Obvious beneficiaries include Aegislash, Gardevoir, Meowstic, and Mawile, with Amoonguss finishing meaningfully higher in North America than it did here. It’ll be interesting to see how data from European Nationals looks in comparison to the isolated North American data and the heavily Japanese-biased Battle Spot data.
- With that said, the top of the data is incredibly similar. #1 on both lists is Garchomp, #2 is Rotom-W, #3 is Kangaskhan, #4 is Talonflame, #5 is Salamence, and Tyranitar is #6 in North America and #7 in the Battle Spot stats, so the top of the metagame seems to be pretty well defined, with regional preferences filling out the slots below, at least for now.
- It shouldn’t be surprising at this point, but 88.3% of Garchomp used Rough Skin. It’s funny to think back that only a year and a half ago at 2012 Worlds, most of us thought Sejun was crazy for using it over Sand Veil…
- What may be more interesting about VGC 14′s most common Pokemon is that no item on Garchomp reached 20% usage, with five different items finishing between 9% and 19% usage. Flexibility is clearly something players value in an environment with item clause, especially now that the type gems aren’t available.
- Talonflame is a Pokemon that a lot of players have strong opinions about. While we’ll continue to debate its usefulness, getting objective data on the way people are using it will be helpful for team building. Unsurprisingly, Life Orb and Adamant are both the most common choices of Talonflame players, though Choice Band is at a respectable (and probably underplayed) 23.5%. What is a little more surprising is Sharp Beak and Sky Plate combining for 12.1%…
- I feel like most people would guess that Gardevoir’s most common item — probably by far — would be Choice Scarf. That assumption is apparently incorrect, with Choice Specs being used 34.2% of the time and Choice Scarf being used only 29.9% of the time. This doesn’t feel reflective of my experiences to me, at least with the players I was playing with at the end of the season, but I guess I’ll have to start questioning my assumptions about Gardevoir a little. Sitrus Berry was next at 20.0%.
- The data does a pretty good job of suggesting counters. The top 4 Pokemon who defeated Mawile? Garchomp, Rotom-W, Charizard, and Talonflame. For Kangaskhan, the top 5 includes Garchomp, Mawile, Aegislash, Talonflame, and …other Kangaskhan. The data doesn’t lie in this case. If anyone reading this finds themselves struggling with specific Pokemon, look at the stats under the “When you lost” tab.
- If I would have told you while I was casting in Vancouver that Tyranitar’s second, third, and fourth most common attacking moves in generation 6 would be Dark Pulse, Fire Blast, and Ice Beam, I might have been thrown off the stage, but here we are. It’s really interesting to me how some of the most powerful Pokemon can adapt to new metagames. In the case of Tyranitar, adapting to use its coverage instead of power to get around Intimidate and the buffed Will-o-Wisp.
- Smeargle’s most common item was Focus Sash at 75.9%. Choice Scarf was only used 18.4% of the time. While I think almost everyone thinks Dark Void should have stayed banned, it’s fun to see Transform at its 5th most used move.
- Meowstic’s second most common move at 63.9%? Swagger. Swagger is god.
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