How to read usage stats without fooling yourself
Usage percentage is the most quoted and least understood number in competitive Pokemon. Here is what the ladder cutoffs mean and which numbers are worth building around.
Usage stats answer one question well — what are people bringing — and are routinely used to answer a different question they cannot answer at all: what is good.
The cutoff is the whole picture
The same month of data is published at four rating cutoffs. A Pokemon at 20% usage in the 1500 pool and 6% at 1825 is not a strong pick that fell off — it is a pick that is easy to use and stops working against players who know the matchup. The gap between cutoffs is more informative than either number on its own.
| Cutoff | Who is in the pool | What the number tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 1500 | Everyone | Popularity and familiarity |
| 1630 | Regular ladder players | What works when played reasonably |
| 1760 | Strong ladder | Metagame consensus |
| 1825 | Top ladder | What survives being prepared for |
Numbers that survive scrutiny
- Move usage on a specific Pokemon — this is a near-direct readout of what the set does. Reliable.
- Teammate correlation — shows structures, not preferences. This is where cores come from.
- Item spread — the clearest signal that a Pokemon has two distinct roles rather than one.
- Raw usage across the whole tier — the weakest signal of all, and the one most often quoted.
Every strategy page on this site is built from the cutoff data rather than tournament reports, which is why the same Pokemon can look completely different between rating brackets.
- Compare cutoffs; the slope matters more than the value.
- Usage is rating-weighted, not a headcount.
- Per-Pokemon move and item spreads are trustworthy. Tier-wide usage rankings are not.