How does Smogon determine which Pokemon are in which tier?

…and why is the number 3.41% significant in the way competitors tend to use Pokemon?

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

The tiers as of such do not qualify the Pokemon as “strong” or “weak”, but rather how much people use them. It indirectly shows the viability of the Pokemon as a good Pokemon will always be opted over a weaker one. Smogon as such only has a semi-control over these tiers.

The Smogon tier system classifies Pokemon into how much they are used. If they ever turn out to be too highly used (or too strong in layman’s language) then they step it up one tier. For example Mega Mawile was considered too strong for the OU tier, so it was banned to the Uber realm. Mega Rayquaza was too strong even for the Uber tier, so they banned it to “Anything Goes”.

The reason why these Smogon tiers are so popular among trainers is because it was one of the first systems to actually rank Pokemon as per their strengths accurately enough. It standardized competitive play in a way the official system did not, promoting fair-play in battles.

You like legendary Pokemon (in a competitive sense unlike some newbies)? Try the Uber tier, and eat your fill against others with your opinion. Like strong Pokemon, but avoid all those hot shot legendaries? The OU (and maybe UU) is filled with it. Like using those underwhelmed Pokemon but don’t want it to get crushed by the strong ones? Try RU/NU or even PU. People get a huge amount of choice like this, and get attracted to it.

And then there’s also those novices that want to look like the other experts, and they think Smogon is for the cool gang.

Hope I helped!