As my local community considers banning WizardRod temporarily to try and encourage variety, I got to thinking about other options that might potentially work for this. We've seen tournaments with Limited Formats like BXL being fun and working well. Other folks have given blade specific point values, only allowing teams to be worth certain numbers, so competitors can only fit one meta combination tops on their teams.

Today, I would like to propose an alternate system similar to those seen in competitive Pokemon singles: Usage Tiers. Essentially, we would split beys and parts into several groups based on their perceived power and usage in competitive play with a goal of keeping out beys that are "too powerful" or over-centralizes the metagames they appear in. Bladers could still use any bey legal in tiers lower than the one proposed for the tournament (for example, you can use a Never Used bey in an Under Used tournament). Hopefully, this would allow players to show a bit more creativity in their builds and give homes to folks who want to use their favorite beys and parts in a tournament setting. These ratings would be updated every 30 days, with new beys and parts slowly able to be filtered in after we've had time to see their potential places in the metagame and allow for borderline tiers if certain beys still take over tiers despite their usage numbers.

I've followed Smogon's tiering system to start, mostly because with initial 30 day data, it allowed for an excellent split of beys within the data that seems to reflect the current metagame. With data from April 1st through April 30th 2026, these are the initial ranks:

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Ubers (200+ appearances in top cut):

Blades: WizardRod, Shark Scale
Ratchets: 1-60, 9-60, 
Bits: Hexa, Low Rush, Rush

Over Used (199-100 appearances in top cut):

Blades: AeroPegasus, WyvernHover, CobaltDragoon
Ratchets: 1-50, 1-70 3-60, 7-60
Bits: Elevate, Free Ball, Kick, Level

Under Used (99-10 appearances in top cut):

Blades: MeteorDragoon, PhoenixWing, SilverWolf, ClockMirage, GolemRock, Blast, TyrannoBeat, MummyCurse, Break, ScorpioSpear, KnightMail, OrochiCluster, Rage, SamuraiCalibur, Flare, Fortress
Ratchets: 1-80, 3-70, 4-50, 4-55, 5-60, 6-60, 7-55, 7-70, 8-70, 9-70
Bits: Ball, Ignition, Jolt, Low Orb, Point, Taper, Under Needle, Unite, Wedge

Rarely Used (>10 appearances in top cut):

Blades: Antler, Arc, BlackShell, Brave, Brush, CobaltDrake, CrimsonGaruda, DranBuster, DranDagger, DranSword, DranzerSpiral, Eclipse, Fang, Flame, Fort, GhostCircle, HellsChain, HellsHammer, HellsScythe, Hunt, ImpactDrake, KnightLance, KnightShield, Lightning L-Drago, Might, PheonixRudder, PhoenixFeather, PteraSwing, Reaper, RidgeTriceratops, SamuraiSaber, SharkEdge, ShelterDrake, ShinobiKnife, ShinobiShadow, SphinxCowl, StormPegasus, UnicornSting, Valkyrie, WhaleWave, WeissTiger, XenoCalibur
Ratchets: 0-60, 0-70, 0-80, 2-60, 2-70, 2-80, 3-80, 3-85, 4-60, 4-70, 5-70, 5-80, 6-70, 7-80, 9-65, 9-80
Bits: Accel, Cyclone, Dot, Flat, Gear Flat, Glide, High Taper, Low Flat, Merge, Orb, Quake, Rubber Accel, Trans Kick, Trans Point, Under Flat, Vortex, Wall Ball, Wall Wedge, Yielding, Zap

Never Used (0 appearances in top cut):

Blades: DracielShield, DriggerSlash, GillShark, LeonClaw, LeonCrest, Dark, RhinoHorn, ViperTail, StormDragoon, WizzardArrow, Rock Leone, StormSpriggan, VictoryValkyrie, 
Ratchets: 4-80, 6-80, M-85
Bits: Bound Spike, Disk Ball, Gear Ball, Gear Needle, Gear Point, Gear Rush, High Needle, Needle, Spike 

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There are three things I think need consideration in this setup. 

1. Retooled Beyblades. Currently, I am combining retools together for the list as best I can (I may have missed a few on the list). I know some retools are a bit better or worse than their originals, but the variance does not seem enough to change tiers massively. If that proved to be wrong, we can change things.

2. Assist Blades. These don't fit the current number system for appearances, purely because CX beys aren't showing up as much in the higher tiers as is. However, it still might be solid to put something like Heavy in Ubers (as it is clearly the most used) and Wheel in Over Used with current use. This would be more vibe based though than pure numbers, so I wasn't sure about this. other parts do not show up significantly enough to really tier, there's clear dominance in choices right now.

3. Operate and Turbo. The data for these isn't kept up much by places, but also they aren't used as much. Still, they might be oddly powerful in the lower tiers they'd be found in. Operate would be found in Rarely Used with Turbo being in Never Used. This would end up needing testing to see if they needed to be in a borderline tier of some kind.


I do think it's possible I'm missing a few parts in Never Used as I was working with the wiki and memory, if anyone does notice certain pieces missing let me know! I'm curious to see what people think about such a format or what strengths/weaknesses with it you can see with its current setup. If there is interest, I would be happy to maintain the usage lists monthly for people to run things with.

I think this is an interesting idea. I can definitely see an under used or rarely used event being pretty fun. I like that it includes ratchets and bits, which aren't usually included in limited formats.

I would suggest that since there arent too many parts and to simplify things it might make sense to combine to Ubers and OU tiers and the RU and NU tiers. Though when it comes to ubers I can see how even just removing those parts from the game would change things up significantly. However I can't see much purpose for NU unless someone wants to run a really gimmicky tournament, since many people likely wouldn't have the parts for it, and as it stand currently you'd need to use the three specific ratchets that are available.

That being said as much as I like the idea I don't think I could fit it in to the way I currently run my tournaments.

It's not a bad idea in theory, but there's at least a couple underlying issues I can see.

To start: Top cut appearances lose accuracy for ranking purposes with the less appearances there are. Consider the changes (or, clarifications) noted here: 

"Winning Combinations have changed to mean Beys that have battled at least once."

Wherein an appearance on the Winning Combos list does not inherently indicate good performance, simply that it was used in a deck. Top Cut appearances also fluctuate based on how many tournaments occur in a given month/year, how long a part stays meta relevant, and when a part was released. Granted, some of these factors are partially mitigated by this being a month-to-month ranking, but constantly keeping an ever-changing dataset like this accurate and up-to-date would be quite the time investment.

You can see these inaccuracies in your own data, particularly RU, where blades like Whale Wave, Dran Buster, Impact Drake, Might, Eclipse, and Shark Edge are ranked in the same tier as Ghost Circle, Black Shell, Shinobi Shadow, Shelter Drake, Sphinx Cowl, Phoenix Feather, etc.

Including Ratchets and Bits in this ranking sounds interesting on its face, but you quickly lose access to viable Ratchets when you need them most: on mediocre Blades and Bits. The same goes for viable Bits being unusable on Mediocre Blades and Ratchets. For example, anything you might run on Hexa in UU or RU loses that option since it's at the top of the pile; and Blades with large ratchet gaps which would appreciate the minimalism of 9-60 or 7-60 wouldn't have access to them for the same reason.

I do agree with keeping retools in the same tier as their original blade, though. I never understood the argument that a blade based on something like Shark Edge, with similar weight and shape to Shark Edge, doesn't count as Shark Edge just because the blade has different detailing features and a different name.
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To end this off, I'm not sure that a Smogon approach works for Beyblade because we only have two hard data points to go off; weight and usage. Pokemon on the other hand has many different factors, with differing degrees of importance and measurability; such as: Stats, Base Stat Totals (BST), EVs/IVs, Usage, Typings/Type Coverage, Gimmicks (Mega Evolution/Z Moves/Dynamax/Terastal), Movesets, Abilities, Held Items, etc. At least most of which are either a direct number, a mathematical equation, or part of a mathematical equation to get a usable number. Outside of % chance effects (random crits, status effects, moves with secondary effects, certain abilities, etc), matchups and various damage/speed/HP thresholds are predictable and calculable. Beyblade, on the other hand, inherently isn't; at least not nearly to the same degree or precision as Pokemon. 
Edit:

Spoiler (Click to View)

Pokemon also has, like, an absolutely massive roster to choose from, across every generation. Which makes for incredibly fleshed-out tiers with dozens, if not hundreds of options each. You can't do cross-generational play with Beyblade, so your options are limited to whatever came out during the generation that you're competing in.

I personally believe that the Limited Format structure is the better way to go, and the people enjoying tournaments with custom rulesets and banlists should be encouraging the development of Limited Formats, as we have done for prior generations, and pushing for them to become official WBO tournament formats.