Play Rough

Play Rough
Type	Fairy
Category	Physical
Base power	90
Accuracy	90%
PP	10
Priority	0

What it does

Has a 10% chance to lower the target's Attack by 1 stage.

At 90 base power it is the 13th strongest of the 39 damaging physical moves that appear in this format.

Who carrys it

15 of the 277 Pokémon measured on the Regulation M-B ladder carry Play Rough. The one that matters most is Mega Mawile, which is on 3.3% of teams and carrys it on 99.3% of its sets. The full list is above, ordered by how much of the format each one is.

What it hits

As a Fairy move it is super effective against Dark, Dragon and Fighting, resisted by Fire, Poison and Steel. 4 other Fairy moves appear in this format: Moonblast, Dazzling Gleam, Charm, Draining Kiss.

Who could and does not

38 Pokémon legal in this regulation can learn Play Rough at all, against the 15 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 Whimsicott, Sylveon, Grimmsnarl, Ninetales-Alola, Maushold and Primarina — each of them measured on the ladder, each of them leaving this move on the shelf.

How concentrated it is

Across the ladder, Play Rough accounts for an expected 0.05 of the six slots on an average team, which makes it the 75th most-brought of the 121 moves this format runs. 63% of that comes from Mega Mawile alone, so it is really one Pokémon’s move rather than the format’s. Its carriers are mostly Fairy (5), Steel (2) and Rock (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.