Substitute

Transfers ¼ of the user's max HP into a doll, protecting the user from further damage or status changes until it breaks.

The user sacrifices 25% of its maximum HP to create a decoy with the same amount of HP that was used to create it.
Substitute fails under any of these conditions:

• There is already a decoy in place.
• Using this move would cause the user to faint.
• Shedinja can not use this move as it only has 1 HP

All damage taken by the user is transferred to the decoy as long as it is has HP remaining.
The decoy does not protect the user from damage not directly caused by damaging moves (e.g. recoil damage from moves like Struggle or damage dealt by status effects like poison ).
The decoy will disappear if the user leaves battle or it loses all remaining HP.
The decoy can be passed to another Pokémon through Baton Pass with its original HP and stats .
Tidy Up will remove all substitutes from battle.
Snatch will steal the decoy if used.
Substitute will fail if user is already Dynamaxed and if the user Dynamaxes while the decoy is active, it will disappear.

Substitute will also protect the user from a wide range of effects including:

• negative stat changes.
• all major status conditions
• flinching
• trapping effects
• any interaction with the user's held item.
• most moves and abilities
  A full list of moves not protected by Substitute is listed below.
• Most notably, Substitute does not protect from all sound-based moves such as Growl and Roar

A Pokémon with the ability Infiltrator can bypass the decoy except when using Transform or Sky Drop.
Substitute will free the user from binding effects such as Bind but does not remove any status effects already in place.
(A drowsy Pokémon may still fall asleep while behind a Substitute and poison still damages the user every turn.)
Substitute does not protect the user from negative effects caused by the user itself.
Aguav Berry (and other berries that cause confusion) will still confuse the owner.
Moves that hit the Substitute will not trigger damage-reducing berries such as Colbur Berry .
if a multi-strike move such as Fury Attack break the decoy before the last hit, the remaining hits will continue to hit the user.
If an enemy breaks the decoy with a damaging move that also switches the attacker out (such as U-Turn) and the Pokémon that switches in has the ability Intimidate, the Substitute will block the ability's effect before disappreaing.
Substitute also blocks the damage done by Pursuit before disappreaing.

• In Gen 1 there was a bug that rounded the sacrificed HP up. If the user creates a Substitute at exactly 25% maximum HP, the user will create the decoy and then immediately faint.
  In this generation Substitute does not protect from any sleep effects and indirect paralysis effects (Sun Spore, Thunder Wave, Glare)
  or against any indirect confusion effects (Psybeam, Confusion)
  It does protect against poison , burn , freeze and direct confusion and paralysis.
  Bide and Counter do count towards their effects.
  If the decoy is broken by any of the following moves the additional effect is skipped:
  • Hyper Beam: no recharge is required
  • Self-Destruct or Explosion: the user's sprite disappears but it will not lose HP or faint
  • Recoil moves such as Submission: no recoil damage is taken
  • Pay Day: no money is scattered to the ground
  • HP-draining moves such Leech Life: will not restore HP
  • Confusion and Psybeam: cannot confuse target
  • Multi-strike moves such as Fury Attack: ends immediately after the substitute breaks
  There is also a bug in Gen 1 that causes self-inflicted damage done by confusion to be taken by the target's Substitute instead.
  (If the target has no substitute no damage will be done)
  
• In Gen 2 the moves Protect, Detect and Endure fail is used while the user has an active Substitute.
  Also, Mean Look and Spider Web can still trap a Pokémon behind a Substitute.
  The flinch effect caused by King's Rock can still affect a Pokémon if the move also breaks the Substitute (will be ignored otherwise).
  If a recoil move such as Submission hits a Substitute the recoil damage will only be 1 HP .
  This is because the recoil effect is calculated by how much damage the target took and not the Substitute (which is 0 if the Substitute did not break).
• In Gen 1-2 the damage done by Rage to a Substitute counted towards its effect.
• In Gen 4 Shell Bell does not count damage done to a Substitute and berries that cause confusion will not confuse the holder if the holder is behind a decoy.
• In Gen 5 the ability Infiltrator does not ignore a target's Substitute
• There is a bug in Black 2White 2 that causes the the user of Substitute to faint when the target hits the decoy while having the ability Rough Skin or wearing a Rocky Helmet

The following list of moves is not affected by Substitute in the listed generations:

Move	Generation
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Acupressure				❌	❌	❌	❌
After You					✔️	✔️	✔️
Aromatherapy			✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	❌
Aromatic Mist						✔️	✔️
Attract	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Bestow					❌	✔️	✔️
Boomburst						✔️	✔️
Bug Buzz				❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Chatter				❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Clanging Scales							✔️
Clangorous Soulblaze							✔️
Confide						✔️	✔️
Conversion 2		❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️
Curse		❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️
Defog				✔️	❌	❌	❌
Disable	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Disarming Voice						✔️	✔️
Echoed Voice					❌	✔️	✔️
Eerie Spell							✔️
Encore	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Fairy Lock						✔️	✔️
Foresight	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Gear Up							✔️
Grass Whistle			❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Growl	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Guard Swap				✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Haze	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Heal Bell		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Heart Swap				✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Helping Hand			✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Hold Hands						✔️	✔️
Hyperspace Fury						✔️	✔️
Hyperspace Hole						✔️	✔️
Hyper Voice			❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Imprison			✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Instruct							✔️
Leech Seed	✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Magnetic Flux						✔️	✔️
Mean Look		✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Me First				✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Metal Sound			❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Mimic	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️
Miracle Eye				✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Noble Roar						✔️	✔️
Odor Sleuth			✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Overdrive							✔️
Pay Day	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Parting Shot						✔️	✔️
Perish Song		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Play Nice						✔️	✔️
Powder						✔️	✔️
Power Swap				✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Psych Up		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Reflect Type					✔️	✔️	✔️
Relic Song					❌	✔️	✔️
Roar		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Role Play			✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Round					❌	✔️	✔️
Screech	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Sing	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Sketch		❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️
Skill Swap			✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Snarl					❌	✔️	✔️
Snore		❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Sparkling Aria							✔️
Spectral Thief							✔️
Speed Swap							✔️
Spider Web		✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Spite		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Supersonic	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Swagger		✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Taunt			✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Tickle			✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌
Torment			✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Transform	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	❌	❌
Uproar			❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Whirlwind		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️

❌ means that the move will fail if a Substitute is active. Note that Acupressure will fail even is used by the Pokémon behind the decoy.
✔️ means that the move completely ignores the Substitute. Note that Swagger does not confuse the target.