Freezing Point: SS OU Kyurem Suspect Coverage

By ausma. Released: 2021/12/26.
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Art by Kolohe

Art by Kolohe.

"The air within the cacophonous battlefield is frigid as the cascading winds briskly shiver by. Corviknight's claws grip the frosty tips of the earth, as the ever-sturdy Heatran's body wearily illuminates its allies amidst the coming storm. Scizor steps forward and extends its pincers toward the chasm of gray; the metal on its body glistens faintly. Suddenly, heavy steps ahead shake the earth. The ground crackles beneath Heatran's feet and breaks Scizor's stance. In the midst of the chaos, a shadowy, jagged silhouette closely reveals itself against the blinding, screaming storm of white. Its broken, unearthly roar was all they could hear anymore."

Historically, Kyurem has had a very rocky experience. Although its access to a chilling base 130 Special Attack rounded off with incredible stats across the board, access to instant recovery, and its great coverage has always looked superb on paper, it was always held back by numerous debilitating flaws that limited its success. Between a crucial Stealth Rock weakness limiting its breaking opportunities, an inability to consistently pressure Water-types, and a mediocre Speed tier that only grew increasingly dire as power creep swept through generations, Kyurem, prior to Generation 8, had begun to fall behind its peers in spite of its fantastic set of attributes.

However, its return to Generation 8 through Pokémon HOME changed many things for Kyurem, as it received numerous incredible gifts that addressed some of its most inhibiting factors. Freeze-Dry, amidst these, was a complete gamechanger, as Kyurem finally had a legitimately strong option to not just pressure, but outright beat standard, reliable Ice Beam checks that once blocked it from making consistent progress. Thanks to Freeze-Dry and other great bonus options in Heavy-Duty Boots and Dragon Dance, its other phenomenal attributes were further augmented, making it a bonafide, highly viable threat throughout SS OU's development. Even with power creep incrementally returning through the DLCs to test and limit its might, Kyurem stood the test of time, and has reached its peak. With an overwhelming 69% of support from qualified players in the latest tiering survey, it was finally time to face the new Kyurem head-on in a suspect test.

Popular Sets

Never-Melt Ice + 3 Attacks

Kyurem

Never-Melt Ice Kyurem was a set innovated in the later phases of Official Smogon Tournament XVII, though it peaked throughout Smogon Champions League I. As a result, Never-Melt Ice variants led to Kyurem's latest resurgence as a premier wallbreaker and were arguably what pushed it over the edge for many players. Never-Melt Ice mitigated many of the opportunity costs that came with Choice Specs, while still granting Kyurem the necessary power to beat down checks like Corviknight and Ferrothorn with Ice Beam. Thanks to Earth Power providing it with perfect neutral coverage, Kyurem has the leverage to run Roost, which can give it much more staying power than Choice Specs, requires less entry hazard removal, and has the ability to more feasibly offensively check Pokémon like Slowbro, Heatran, and Victini. Furthermore, without being locked into a Choice item, Kyurem can easily follow up against Water- and Steel-type switch-ins from Ice Beam, making its strongest move that much more spammable. At the cost of its longevity, Icicle Spear over Roost allows Kyurem to severely pressure Blissey, Assault Vest Galarian Slowking, and Reuniclus, which are used to try and check it defensively without using Volcarona or Scizor. It can also run Draco Meteor if it wishes to snipe Volcarona or opposing Kyurem that attempt to pivot into it. The viability of these options is incredibly noteworthy, as it majorly emphasizes the flexibility of Kyurem that makes it so dangerous to consistently play around, even with dedicated counterplay to already highly powerful sets.

Kyurem is still held back by its Speed tier, which leaves it ripe for revenge killing opportunities, and Stealth Rock, which limits its occasional defensive utility. Furthermore, it detests Knock Off, as it relies on Never-Melt Ice to obtain crucial rolls against its checks. Losing it can drastically reduce its threat factor. In spite of this, giving Kyurem even a single free turn to attack can lead to dangerous levels of progress against teams lacking a dedicated defensive answer.

SubRoost + Dragon Dance

Kyurem

This set takes direct advantage of Kyurem's newfound access to Dragon Dance, which turns Kyurem into a dedicated sweeper. Unlike other setup wincons, however, it utilizes its infamous PP stalling abilities to win wars against Pokémon that it would otherwise struggle to beat, as well as threats that are much more necessary to PP stall such as Heatran and Slowbro. Thanks to Icicle Spear and Dragon Dance's rather generous PP pools in tandem with Pressure, it is virtually capable of PP stalling anything in the metagame, including the well-known PP overlord: Toxapex. It can boost with shocking ease, utilizing its great bulk and defensive profile to set up Substitute against bulky Water-types like Slowbro and more passive Pokémon like Blissey to begin gradually building its power. It doesn't even need to begin to accrue boosts to begin PP stalling Pokémon that can get in the way of its setup. This makes it all the more potent as it still packs the same, solid defensive utility and staying power as its standard SubRoost set that can let it passively make progress throughout the game. The sample EV spread allows Kyurem to outspeed Dragapult and Zeraora at +1 and PP stall uninvested Heatran's Flash Cannon. However, thanks to Kyurem's highly customizable base stats, other defensive investments ensure it survives or potentially even PP stalls a wide range of dangerous offensive moves in the tier such as Weavile's boosted Triple Axel. This can even make it egregious to offensively play against, as Kyurem can unexpectedly survive an attack and pick off an important wincon that has been kept in reserve to beat it even after setup. On this set, Leftovers are heavily preferred as the item, since Kyurem not only constantly generates empty turns but also thrives on them. If being used on a more offensive structure without entry hazard removal, though, then Heavy-Duty Boots can work as well in a pinch if utilizing a bulkier EV spread.

Mid- to late-game when the conditions are set and potential checks are running low on PP, getting to +6 is not at all a difficult feat. Once Kyurem is fully boosted, it can begin to overwhelm even the sturdiest of Ice-type resistances with Icicle Spear and safely win the war with just enough Substitute and Roost PP. As a result, it especially shines against bulkier balance teams that struggle to overpower it, since it is egregiously difficult to beat without powerful, super effective coverage. Steel-types in Melmetal, Ferrothorn, and the classic Scizor deal with this gameplan far more consistently upfront than Kyurem's other sets since Dragon Dance variants lack the immediate threat factor of Earth Power and the chance to freeze their foes. Volcarona can also use this set rather consistently as setup fodder. Compared to Never-Melt Ice and its specially oriented sets, Kyurem's counterplay is drastically different, given that scouting it safely is incredibly difficult, especially when considering the notable moveset overlap between its variants. In spite of this change in matchup spread, though, it can PP stall and outlast a shocking range of Pokémon–even those that pack super-effective coverage!

SubRoost + 2 Attacks

Kyurem

This set takes advantage of Kyurem's high natural bulk, longevity, access to Pressure, and perfect neutral coverage in order to consistently pressure teams lacking a Freeze-Dry check with recovery and PP stall the Pokémon it wouldn't be otherwise able to beat in a one-on-one such as Corviknight. 56 HP EVs make sure Kyurem's Substitute survives Seismic Toss from Blissey while enabling it to survive rounds of residual Stealth Rock damage. Heavy-Duty Boots is a solid option if Kyurem's team lacks reliable entry hazard removal options; however, Leftovers can provide it with passive recovery, which it can easily accumulate with the empty turns Kyurem forces and potentially offset Stealth Rock damage if it stays in long enough. 200 Special Defense EVs and a Calm nature allow Kyurem to PP stall Clefable's uninvested Moonblast. Lastly, with 176 Speed EVs, it can outspeed Adamant Rillaboom and Modest Nidoking. This is just one example of an EV spread Kyurem can viably run. Its highly malleable stat spread allows heavy investment into its bulk to a point where it can survive a wide range of dangerous offensive moves such as Kartana's Sacred Sword, Weavile's boosted Triple Axel, and Nidoking's Sludge Wave, as well as threaten to KO or fatally damage them in return.

This set's primary weaknesses lie in offensive checks, such as Infiltrator Dragapult, which is capable of threatening it out even behind a Substitute. Furthermore, Kyurem is threatened by Pokémon that have no fear of the Freeze-Dry + Earth Power combination, such as Weavile, Ferrothorn, and Galarian Slowking, as they can relentlessly attack its Substitute and force it to Roost or exploit it for setup opportunities. Even then, Kyurem, provides a very effective form of utility for teams thanks to its unique ability to directly wear down defensive pillars' ways of threatening its offensive teammates, which can nearly guarantee progress for bulkier structures on a game-to-game basis.

Choice Specs Wallbreaker

Kyurem

Choice Specs Kyurem was a popular pick in the early days of HOME and Isle of Armor metagames that emphasized Kyurem's highly powerful STAB-boosted Ice Beam alongside its phenomenal coverage and secondary STAB attack in Draco Meteor. However, thanks to Freeze-Dry, all else Kyurem truly needs for coverage is a move to pressure Steel-types. Earth Power safely batters Steel-types like Heatran and Melmetal that are tasked upon to pivot into its Ice-type moves, and Focus Blast has the ability to snipe standard Blissey, Tyranitar, and Ferrothorn while still having a generally good option to take out most Steel-types at the cost of accuracy. If the Kyurem user prefers to only have one or the other, Draco Meteor provides Kyurem with an added, all-out nuclear STAB move that can dismantle Volcarona. Due to its sheer power and effectively perfect neutral coverage, Choice Specs Kyurem infamously picked apart fatter structures nearly effortlessly throughout the generation, and even up to its eventual suspect test.

However, in spite of how powerful it is, it is held back crucially by the Choice lock and a debilitating Stealth Rock weakness that limits its wallbreaking opportunities. This often led to teams needing to provide it with intense entry hazard removal support as well as pivoting support to position it safely. Even then, this cost is often well worth it, as it can consistently break holes into teams–thanks to how universally effective its Ice-type STAB is–and open up a commanding endgame for Pokémon like Weavile and Dragapult.

Choice Scarf

Kyurem

Although lacking the same nuclear wallbreaking potential as its Choice Specs variant, Choice Scarf instead transforms Kyurem into a speed demon that turns the tables against offensive checks like Dragapult and Kartana and makes it a top notch revenge killer with a STAB Draco Meteor that more assuredly picks off healthier neutral targets. While this is a gigantic appeal in of itself, running a Choice Scarf also grants Kyurem with extreme cleaning potential and a surprise factor able to take unexpected KOs. When standard defensive Kyurem counterplay is residually worn down through means such as status, Knock Off, entry hazards, or Kyurem itself, its Ice-type STAB moves become highly powerful cleaning tools. Kyurem's lack of offensive counterplay can also put further pressure upon Steel-types to keep themselves out of range of its Ice Beam and Freeze-Dry in the late game. Most prominently, though, this means holding a Choice Scarf can turn its normally mediocre offense matchup into a highly dominating one. These interactions further drive home the idea that Kyurem can more readily adapt to otherwise standard counterplay, even those that seem unrealistic in most circumstances.

Despite these positive attributes, it experiences similarly debilitating issues as its Choice Specs variant, with limited switch-ins via Stealth Rock forcing it to be built around more acutely deliberate positioning. What's more is its prediction-reliant nature, which makes cleaning much more difficult against teams packing healthier Ice-type answers. These major weaknesses can limit potential revenge killing and cleaning opportunities. Furthermore, with the limited entry and level of wallbreaking power its other offensive variants boast, it can also lose value against bulkier teams.

Other Options

A Weakness Policy + Dragon Dance variant is fairly rare, but it gives Kyurem the winning power of its standard Dragon Dance variant in tandem with the potent breaking power of its specially-oriented sets; this set's inherently volatile nature makes it a decent fixture on hyper offense structures. Lastly, Rock Slide is a highly niche, but option that Kyurem variants can run to snipe Volcarona. While it may not be the most useful and practical option at its disposal, this option's viability reinforces the notion that Kyurem's wide set versatility allows it to handpick its checks.

Ban Reasoning

Kyurem's ban reasoning is far less overtly obvious than many of the generation's past suspects. This is hugely because of the way that it operates as a Pokémon, between the unique combination of mechanisms that it uses to beat standard checks in the long run to simply overwhelming bulkier teams with its sheer power.

With this in context, by far one of the prevalent pro-ban reasons is its vast set customizability and ability to very easily pick-and-choose its counterplay. Between its highly versatile base stats, efficient PP stalling mechanisms in Pressure and Roost, and superb movepool, Kyurem is a Pokémon that can shift violently between a bulky sweeper, disruptive PP staller, and boisterous threat with devastating immediate power. Not only does this highly polarize Kyurem's matchup spread, it also makes it very dangerous to scout without several flexible checks with reactionary options. For example, Pokémon like Blissey and Galarian Slowking can give Choice Specs and Never-Melt Ice variants a run for their money, but lose to Substitute variants over the course of the game. Both of the mentioned examples in particular can even be setup fodder for opposing Kyurem packing Dragon Dance. Steel-types like Melmetal and Heatran, which are serviceable countermeasures for Dragon Dance sets and decent Ice-type move pivots, risk Earth Power from other variants and also actively risk being frozen from repeated Ice-type moves by Never-Melt Ice and standard SubRoost. Even then, if Heatran lacks a Steel-type STAB move, it can lose to Dragon Dance.

Even if a Pokémon may have a strong matchup one way or another, several of its sets, even those with drastically different counterplay, can overlap in move choice. For example, several sets feature options such as Roost and Substitute. Even if Kyurem starts applying pressure, opponents still may not even know what set it is using, which can be especially dangerous considering how easily Kyurem can make progress against unprepared teams. This can also be worsened with its sets' high flexibility in other options that can make it even harder to determine the set until it does anything else, since there is even further overlap in options like Icicle Spear and Draco Meteor.

In spite of these otherwise seemingly volatile set options, it's because of Pressure and Kyurem's great stat spread that numerous of its sets that appear rather poor at making progress are massively dangerous in the long term, and allow it to beat numerous Pokémon such as Heatran and Blissey that one wouldn't expect it to be able to muscle past. When these attributes are compounded with how blatantly effective its wallbreaking variants are, truly finding consistent Kyurem answers is highly difficult to do without stacking checks.

However, among these, Scizor and Volcarona are often cited as being among Kyurem's strongest, self-sufficient answers for their ability to blanket check most of Kyurem's sets throughout the game. On the other hand, these two Pokémon are also equally as renowned for being inconsistent and exploitable. Scizor often struggles to make progress against Corviknight, Ferrothorn, Toxapex, and Heatran structures, which are very widespread for their ability to blanket check a wide variety of dangerous offensive threats such as Dragapult and Weavile. Furthermore, if Scizor is burned by Kyurem partners like Flame Body Heatran, its Bullet Punch loses a lot of threat factor against Kyurem and can more feasibly be PP stalled if it isn't running Swords Dance. Volcarona is an incredibly potent setup sweeper and can exploit Kyurem for setup opportunities. Though, at the same time, Volcarona is an extremely polarized Pokémon that often struggles to accomplish anything in matchups where it is consistently walled by Pokémon like Heatran, which is often paired with Kyurem, or any of its other numerous natural checks like Victini or Garchomp. Furthermore, if Volcarona is hit with Toxic or is at risk of a revealed Draco Meteor, its ability to check wallbreaking variants of Kyurem is greatly diminished. With this in mind, the above argument mostly explores how being forced into using these two Pokémon for the sake of blanket checking Kyurem is an inherent danger to teambuilding especially considering how they can be complete dead weight in several common matchups.

Lastly, another very popular pro-ban reason against Kyurem is freeze. The freeze status by itself is debilitating, rendering potential answers into an entirely lost matchup and making them reliant on getting lucky with 20% chances to have a shot at pressuring Kyurem again. While to many this seems like a very strange point to make, especially considering how many options to freeze opposing Pokémon exist in the metagame such as Ice-type coverage, Kyurem's interaction with the status is exceedingly unique. Since Kyurem is not using Ice-type moves for coverage and instead for the intended purpose of utilizing a powerful STAB, freeze becomes a potentially gamechanging byproduct of Kyurem simply doing what it was there to do to begin with. When compounded with Kyurem's insane staying power on SubRoost variants and Never-Melt Ice to a lesser extent, as well as it often not needing to predict without a Choice item, Kyurem's odds of freezing the opposing Pokémon become entirely plausible. Most infamously, using three Ice Beams or Freeze-Dries is equivalent to a 27% chance to freeze, approximately around the odds of a Scald burn. In longer games, these odds grow steadily greater and increasingly more probable, occasionally to the point where Kyurem inflicting freeze can be inevitable. In tandem with every other aspect that makes Kyurem so powerful, freeze is often argued by the pro-ban side as the final straw.

Anti-Ban Reasoning

Kyurem has been an aspect of the SS OU metagame for a long time, giving the metagame around it ample room to adapt to its kit and build optimal counterplay. So, naturally, there are many active variables to consider that arguably hold it back from potential brokenness.

A highly popular anti-ban reason is that, while Kyurem may force added prep in teambuilding, stacking checks for Kyurem is not really a sign of its brokenness, as the Pokémon that often come to check Kyurem have a wide variety of other highly practical applications in the metagame, and often pair well anyway. Dual Steel-type cores, which can provide fantastic reinforcement against Kyurem, also handle a great range of other dangerous Pokémon such as Weavile, Arctozolt, Dragapult, and Kartana. Furthermore, these cores can feature a range of different Steel-types like Ferrothorn, Heatran, Corviknight, Melmetal, and Scizor due to how reliably the tier's Steel-types reliably answer each other's checks. Even without dual Steel-type cores, other checks like Galarian Slowking and the aforementioned Volcarona can provide extra, multifaceted counterplay to Kyurem that also provides some kick to teams in need, and can even pair nicely alongside teams reinforced with Steel-types. In essence, it can be argued that the effect that Kyurem exerts on teambuilding is not inherently a bad thing, and in some ways can even be healthy for how certain builds actively provide answers for many other metagame threats.

Another fairly popular anti-ban reason is how susceptible Kyurem is to revenge killing, and in some cases, how teams can position a revenge killer against Kyurem and threaten it out without a sacrificial KO being necessary. Kyurem's Speed tier, while quite serviceable, can be exploited, as it is outsped by a wide variety of dangerous offensive Pokémon like Urshifu-R, Galarian Zapdos, Kartana, Dragapult, Victini, and Tapu Koko. Dragapult is capable of bypassing Kyurem's Substitute and exploiting non-Dragon Dance Kyurem for a wallbreaking opportunity. For these reasons, Kyurem can have a much harder time making progress against more offensively dedicated structures which gives it very little room to breathe and can even make its PP stalling services of lower value. While several of these Pokémon all may have trouble against Dragon Dance variants and can even be PP stalled, oftentimes these Pokémon are naturally paired with Steel-types that can threaten Dragon Dance Kyurem by themselves anyway. Furthermore, Steel-types like Scizor that pack momentum can even safely position revenge killers to force it out and limit collateral damage.

Lastly, Kyurem's Ice-type also gives it a crucial Stealth Rock weakness. While this can be mitigated with the advent of Heavy-Duty Boots, it has been discovered in recent times that Kyurem's PP stalling and wallbreaking opportunities are maximized by items like Leftovers or damage-boosting items like Choice Specs and Never-Melt Ice. Kyurem's weakness to Stealth Rock means several things; for starters, entry hazard removal becomes non-negotiable, which can limit a Kyurem user's options in teambuilding, instead of allowing those that could further amplify Kyurem's strength through status-spreading or hazard stacking. The cost of not running hazard removal–or simply not utilizing it–actively ruptures Kyurem's staying power, which can greatly mitigate the wallbreaking opportunities of Choice Specs and damage Kyurem's effective bulk on non-Choice variants. This can make doing its job as a wallbreaker or a PP staller considerably harder for Kyurem and situationally reduce its value. This issue can also compound with its distaste of pivoting into Knock Off and detrimental status such as Toxic, which can stifle its longevity and make it difficult to accomplish its goals in the long run. Residual damage has, historically, limited Kyurem greatly, and has always given bulkier structures options to pressure it while attempting to pivot around it.

Suspect Conclusion

The test required at least 60% of the votes–a supermajority–to be in favor of banning Kyurem. With the suspect's conclusion, Kyurem was officially banned from SS OU with a 65.25% supermajority from 141 qualified voters in a closely winded vote; in fact, the closest in SS OU's history. Kyurem's presence in the tier has seen great polarity in the playerbase in a poetic fashion akin to its presence in the tier. Many people wanted it to leave, though many also felt it was worth keeping around. It may have had a long history of polarity, even among the playerbase, but it has finally reached a conclusion.

The consequences of this ban are not entirely concrete, as Kyurem's impact on teambuilding and defensive counterplay was not as black and white as prior SS OU suspects. However, its influence on Steel-types was indisputable. Going forward, it is likely that teams will feature less compounded Steel-types and free usage of bulky Water-types, opening up a much wider array of defensive options for balance and bulky offense teams alike.

"The mighty, blinding storm from beyond begins to wind down, with patches of blue in the sky shining amidst the dissipating clouds. The beast before Scizor lets off one last, exhausted roar as it collapsed decisively into the snow. Beams of sunlight begin to pierce past the holes in the weary, cloudy storm and shine down upon the Steel-types. They all look down at the defeated beast as the light reveals its glistening coat of icy scales and melts away the snowy terrain.

As the sun grows ever more apparent, a detached voice from beyond echoes, 'Kyurem has fainted!'"

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