What it does
Each active Pokemon receives a perish count of 4 if it doesn't already have a perish count. At the end of each turn including the turn used, the perish count of all active Pokemon lowers by 1 and Pokemon faint if the number reaches 0. The perish count is removed from Pokemon that switch out. If a Pokemon uses Baton Pass while it has a perish count, the replacement will gain the perish count and continue to count down.
Who carrys it
6 of the 277 Pokémon measured on the
Regulation M-B ladder carry Perish Song.
The one that matters most is Mega Gengar,
which is on 6.4% of teams and carrys it on 55.5% of its sets.
The full list is above, ordered by how much of the format each one is.
What it hits
As a Normal move it is super effective against nothing, resisted by Rock and Steel, and does nothing at all to Ghost.
16 other Normal moves appear in this format: Protect, Fake Out, Weather Ball, Encore, Hyper Voice, Swords Dance and others.
Who could and does not
7 Pokémon legal in this regulation can learn Perish Song at all,
against the 6 that actually bring it. The gap is the interesting number: it is
the set of Pokémon that have the option and decline it.
The most-played of those are Chimecho — each of them measured on the ladder, each of them leaving this move on the shelf.
How concentrated it is
Across the ladder, Perish Song accounts for an expected
0.06 of the six slots on an average team, which makes it the
69th most-brought of the 121 moves this format runs.
56% of that comes from Mega Gengar alone, so it is really one Pokémon’s move rather than the format’s.
Its carriers are mostly Water (3) and Fairy (2).
Where these numbers come from
Usage is Smogon's published statistics for the Regulation M-B VGC ladder, and the description is
the one shipped in the Pokémon Showdown data set. Both are regenerated on every build rather than
written by hand, so this page follows the format instead of trailing it. Take any of it to the
team builder or the damage calculator.
Mega Gengar
6.4%
55.5%
Politoed
3.5%
71.4%
Primarina
3.1%
2.2%
Azumarill
0.77%
0.8%
Altaria
0.42%
43.8%
Absol
0.01%
1.2%