What it does
The user and its party members are protected from attacks with original or altered priority greater than 0 made by other Pokemon, including allies, during this turn. This move modifies the same 1/X chance of being successful used by other protection moves, where X starts at 1 and triples each time this move is successfully used, but does not use the chance to check for failure. X resets to 1 if this move fails, if the user's last move used is not Baneful Bunker, Burning Bulwark, Detect, Endure, King's Shield, Max Guard, Obstruct, Protect, Quick Guard, Silk Trap, Spiky Shield, or Wide Guard, or if it was one of those moves and the user's protection was broken. Fails if the user moves last this turn or if this move is already in effect for the user's side.
Who carrys it
8 of the 282 Pokémon measured on the
Regulation M-B ladder carry Quick Guard.
The one that matters most is Kingambit,
which is on 36.8% of teams and carrys it on 0.2% of its sets.
The full list is above, ordered by how much of the format each one is.
What it hits
As a Fighting move it is super effective against Dark, Ice, Normal, Rock and Steel, resisted by Bug, Fairy, Flying, Poison and Psychic, and does nothing at all to Ghost.
12 other Fighting moves appear in this format: Close Combat, Low Kick, Detect, Aura Sphere, Focus Blast, Bulk Up and others.
Who could and does not
20 Pokémon legal in this regulation can learn Quick Guard at all,
against the 8 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 Ceruledge, Lycanroc-Dusk, Gallade, Meowstic, Scizor and Lucario — each of them measured on the ladder, each of them leaving this move on the shelf.
How concentrated it is
Across the ladder, Quick Guard accounts for an expected
0.08 of the six slots on an average team, which makes it the
58th most-brought of the 126 moves this format runs.
1% of that comes from Kingambit alone, so it is spread across the field rather than propped up by one Pokémon.
Its carriers are mostly Fighting (3), Dark (2) and Flying (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.
Kingambit
36.8%
0.2%
Sneasler
20.9%
30.4%
Talonflame
3.5%
34.7%
Kleavor
0.51%
3.1%
Scrafty
0.46%
9.6%
Sceptile
0.08%
77%
Lycanroc
0.04%
1.7%
Hawlucha
0.02%
52.9%