Speed Creep: One Number Wins TournamentsURL copied
Tournaments with prize pools in the thousands of dollars have been decided by training a Pokémon to be one speed stat point faster than the opponent's Pokémon.
Why? If a Pokémon is knocked out before it can act, its move never executes. Speed is not just "act sooner" - it is the gating condition on whether you get to play at all.
$$
\text{Final Speed} = \left\lfloor \text{BaseStat} \times \frac{\text{Nature}}{1} \times \frac{2 \times \text{IV} + \text{EV}/4 + \text{Base} \times 2 + 5}{100 + 5} \right\rfloor
$$
A single EV allocation decision - 4 EVs is 1 stat point - can flip an entire matchup. Every speed tier in the metagame is a known threshold, and players deliberately park their Pokémon one point above the most common benchmarks.