Safe swap

Also known as "safe switch", the Safe Swap is a pokemon you can safely swap to when you have a bad lead.

Characteristics of good safe swaps are:

• soft counters the lead you're swapping out of, pressuring them to swap out too
• cannot be hard countered and has "neutral" matchups against the meta
• can win shield or switch advantage with a slight energy lead
• can be used to catch charged moves that hurt your lead
• is spammy enough to stall the clock with charged moves so it can switch out with energy before getting KO'd
• can bait out a hard counter to your closer
• if it loses, it lowers the opponent's HP enough to be farmed down by fast moves (optionally applying debuffs)

A good safe swap threatens the lead of your opponent and pressures them to swap out. As they swap out, your safe swap is able to gain a few turns of energy advantage. The slower your opponent swaps out, the more farm you get.

Examples of safe swaps:

• Great League
  • Sableye
  • Trevenant
  • Shadow Nidoqueen
• Ultra League
  • Shadow Walrein
  • Shadow Drapion
  • Trevenant
  • Registeel
  • Talonflame
• Master League
  • Lugia
  • Dialga