In the pre-home metagame, the tier was in a fantastic state by the end of it. There was a high variety of playstyles, a variety of top tiers such as Hydreigon, Breloom, Amoonguss, Toxapex, and even Hisuian Zoroark. It was a true utopia, where skill and variety dominated and almost anything could work.
Then Home happened. Following the bans of the initial drops like Chien Pao and Regieleki, we saw an evil core rise up to destroy the metagame:
This core ravanged the metagame, where "skillful play" was determined by which player got the game winning paralysis dice rolls the most in their favor. The once beloved and cherished SV OU metagame turned into a series of 50/50 dicerolls, where game outcomes were out of the player's control, and in the hands of the RNG gods, deciding which player got the game winning paralysis. Interactions like clicking rapid spin with great tusk became a liability, as tusk would merely get paralyzed and be cheesed while Ting-Lu and Samurott-H destroyed the tier with their Spikes. Thankfully, we had Baxcalibur in this time to save the metagame and not make
completely riskless, but it nonetheless dominated the tournament scene and the ladder.
In DLC1, following the ban of Baxcalibur, Gliscor rose to the top of the metagame, being a virtually riskless pick that completely dominated matches with its ability to effortlessly set up Spikes, knock off Boots, and all around outlive every other threat in the metagame. Many of the best teams during this time needed to either be Grassy Terrain, or they would be overwhelmed by Gliscor's peerless longevity and progress making capabilities. The best counter to these gliscor teams was often your own SD Gliscor. In many ways, this metagame was refreshing compared to the paralysis spam 50/50s of the previous post-Home metagame. But here, there was a debate as to whether the cure to the problem was worse than the problem itself. Following Gliscor's ban however, the answer was evidently no.
returned with a full vengence, and without its best counter, Baxcalibur, the metagame became more focused around para dice rolls than ever before. It was pure madness, and the victims - the playerbase -realized their mistake far too late.
After seeing the dark ages of the Home and DLC1 metagames, the playerbase has had enough. We have seen the alternative to a Kyurem metagame already and WE WON"T GO BACK. Kyurem keeps many of the playstyles that dominated the past 2 formats like Gliscor balance and ZapKingLu in check. Unlike Baxcalibur, Kyurem is no where near as dominant as a Ice-type, having to rely on either mixed sets or a forced Terastalization for coverage on its DD sets, while also being vulnerable to entry hazards (due to running Loaded Dice) in a metagame where entry hazards are more difficult to remove than ever. Its special sets are quite strong especially SubTect which has been making the rounds as of late. Nonetheless, we have already began to see new counterplay emerge, whether it be Iron Crown, Psychic Noise Tera Steel Latios, Scizor, and AV Hoopa Unbound, all of which utility in checking other common Pokemon such as Hatterene, Gliscor, Roaring moon, and general strong special threats like Raging Bolt respectively, in addition to players being more proactive in setting and maintaining entry hazards, which can pressure Subtect Kyurem over the course of a game. New options like Fezandipti have also began to see usage which players are using to check Pokemon other than Kyurem, like Iron Valiant, Darkrai, and Raging Bolt.
Speaking of entry hazards, this gets me onto my next point - the support Kyurem requires. Compared to many other top tiers gamers complain about like Darkrai and Gliscor, Kyurem actually requires a lot of support to get going. Hazard removal in a gen where hazards are nearly impossible to remove, pivots to bring it in safely against the Pokemon that it supposedly farms for free, like Gliscor (where Knock + Toxic destroy its threat level), etc. For a Pokemon that's supposedly quickban worthy, a significantly higher skill ceiling & level of support is required to use Kyurem and even then, its consistency and performance still can be lesser than many of its compatriots due to teams packing many of the Pokemon that it will naturally struggle against, such as Balloon Kingambit, Balloon Gholdengo, Zamazenta, Iron Valiant, etc. Speaking from experience, there is a massive amount of fluctuation in Kyurem's usefulness in a match - Gliscor and Darkrai are generally more splashable picks and arguably have higher upside as well due to Gliscor's better defensive profile, and Darkrai's better speed tier. Kyurem's defensive utility is quite poor in general next to many of OU's best Pokemon such as Kingambit, Primarina, Gliscor, Dragapult, and Gholdengo, which have significantly more utility checking threats while also being more effective general attackers due to their inherent traits, such as Kingambit's priority, Primarina's ability to block healing & act as a psuedo special wall on HO, or Gliscor's ability to ignore passive damage. Compared to these Pokemon, Kyurem needs to select its spots more carefully, and even then, it's structures can be prone to falling up short due to their inherent limitations, typically having a general vulnerability to key threats like Gholdengo, Darkrai, Zamazenta, and Iron Valiant.
There have been claims that Kyurem is limiting many balanced staples like Corviknight, Slowking-Galar, and Alomomola. However, I find this claim to be some cap. If anything, all of these balanced staples love Kyurem's presence as a queen piece that can make the most mileage out of their pivoting talents. Slowking-Galar's Chilly Reception boost Kyurem's bulk to let it better handle threats like Ogerpon-W, while it also lures in some threats Kyurem can take advantage of, like Samurott-H and Ting-Lu. Corviknight can safely bring Kyurem in against many of the threats its suppose to check like Gliscor and help Kyurem get rid of the hazards that so devastatingly limit it. Alomomola can help Kyurem regain its health that its likely to lose from entry hazards and appreciates Kyurem's (somewhat inconsistent) defensive utility against Ogerpon-W. The fact is, many balance staples are retaining a job because of Kyurem role as a partner to them. and this is reflected by many of the best Kyurem teams having one of Corviknight, Slowking-G, Alomomola, or another defensive pivot like Moltres paired with it. How can Kyurem be limiting the usage of the very Pokemon its commonly paired up with? It doesn't make sense.
The popular mechanic of the generation, Terastalization, has done wonders to help contain Kyurem, with many commonly used Pokemon like Raging Bolt, Kingambit, Gholdengo, and Garganacl running Tera Fairy and typically smoking most sets, with Garganacl mainly struggling against sub protect. Other Pokemon like AV Hoopa can make use of Tera Steel to grant enhanced safety against sets like Mixed Kyurem. Even Tera Fairy Ting-Lu is annoying for Kyurem to face, with it Whirlwinding Sub Kyurem away and forcing it to take increased entry hazard chip damage. Other common options such as Tinkaton have also begun seeing usage as well, which is in no way niche due to its utility against other common Pokemon like Darkrai and Raging Bolt with Encore. Despite complaints about it, the metagame has adapted itself to Kyurem quite well and will continue adapting to new sets like SubProtect, where options like Tera Steel Psychic Noise Latios, alluring voice users, and old favorites like Skeledirge are being explored to curb its impact, which have many other application use cases as well.
While I appreciate the OU Council's swiftness in taking action against threats the playerbase deems to be a problem, the fact of the matter is that this suspect is far too soon after the Gouging Fire suspect. While I generally don't feel that Gouging Fire's ban affected the metagame too drastically, it noticably buffed all of Kyurem's main checks and counters like Galarian Slowking, Iron Crown, Scizor, Tinkaton, Gholdengo, and more. I feel Kyurem was one of the few Pokemon notably hurt by Gouging Fire's ban because of this and I feel more time was needed before we proceeded with this suspect to see if the rise in these Pokemon would help curb its impact.
The closest set to being broken in my eyes is the mixed DD set, which is OP vs stall specifically. To my stall friends who may consider voting ban on Kyurem due to its mixed dd set being frustrating to fight, understand they will target Gliscor next which will destroy stall (& balance) as a whole. They will be citing a "lack of Ice-type attackers" as the thing that pushes scor over the edge. We saw stall get utterly destroyed following Gliscor's ban in the last DLC. We won't make the same mistake again, and Kyurem's presence does a great job in helping Gliscor stay in the tier. Stall has tools to deal with Kyurem, like Tera Steel Cresselia (which has an amazing general defensive profile might I add) but it does not have the tools to deal with losing its best defensive piece and Knock Off absorber.
I will vote Do not ban on Kyurem.
I will try to summarize my thoughts on kyurem in this post.
I personally do not believe that kyurem is particularly broken or bannable at the moment. If you had asked me my thoughts during the first kyurem suspect, my answer would have been different.
In the past, kyurem used to break teams with its boots set and fish for freezes on its traditional counters, before tearing through the rest of the team with its absurd coverage. This was a very unhealthy and problematic breaking pattern that would leave people frustrated and feeling like they were cheated or lucked out of the game. In the modern era however, this pattern is simply too slow and the teams that boots kyurem thrived on have been phased out of the meta, forcing it to switch to other sets. In my opinion, although it does have a variety of very viable sets, I don't believe that any of them are broken enough to warrant a ban, nor that the sum of the sets is broken enough either.
Let's start with the common complaint about kyurem: It is simply too good at breaking balances with some of its sets. I implore anyone who believes this to be the case to watch this week's OLT games. Let’s just say, there was a staggering amount of balance on display, far more than you would expect from a playstyle that is so effortlessly killed by kyurem. In fact, SD gliscor and iron press zama were FAR more potent sweepers of both balance AND offense. Seriously, watch those games and tell me you still think that kyurem is a more effective breaker than gambit/zama/gliscor. Because from my experience, it really doesn't.
On top of that, the mon is pretty flawed generally. Its utility into offense is not amazing, and it struggles to do much when most pokemon on the enemy team are faster and hit it super effectively. It also limits building to a pretty heavy degree, and only fits on a pretty narrow array of structures. Compare that with something like raging bolt/kingambit who can fit on pretty much every offense and a lot of balances and have a lot more general utility into offense while retaining a similar amount of breaking power AND also have much more defense utility, and kyurem really can’t be called broken in comparison.
I also think the set variety issue is quite overblown. Many of the different sets are obvious from the team structure and there is pretty clear counterplay to every set(unless you're playing stall vs the mixed set… in which case you're playing stall why are you complaining about stall breakers that auto win those are always gonna exist). In fact, I will go so far as to say that kyurem isn’t even the most egregious example of set variety making counterplay hard. Kingambit is a pokemon that can viably run lefties/balloon/lum/glasses and can tera dark/fire/ghost/fairy and can run any 2 of low kick/iron head/fairy blast/ kowtow cleave. All of these sets have vastly different answers and pokemon you need to reserve to keep them answered. Sack your burn guy to keep your ironpresser? tough luck it's tera ghost. Sack your zama to keep your moltres for gambit? tera fire/lum. Ok, maybe keep zama oh its tera fairy blast. Kyurem set variety really just pales in comparison and the set is mostly a lot more obvious than something like a gambit, which is a usually complete wild card until it finally reveals what it is.
Anyway, I outright dont see how kyurem is broken compared to at least 5 other mons that do what it does but better. Skibidi sigma rizz
(spoiler alert: I'll probably vote no ban if I do the suspect)
I might be a bit of the odd one out in this thread. While I generally prefer metagames that are slightly less power-creeped, I believe we're under the misconception that removing certain wallbreakers automatically improves the tier and makes it more playable. But is that really the case? Let's try to figure it out together.
I think it's worth rewinding and examining the meta from the point where, at least in my personal and humble opinion, one of the worst tiering decisions was made: suspect testing Volcarona, which resulted in its ban.
It's in the nature of SV OU to have variance as a key element of the metagame, especially with the presence of a mechanic like Tera, which promotes it. Kyurem isn't all that different from Volcarona in that it has many viable sets, but none of them are invincible or without counterplay. While it might limit team-building to some extent (which threat in SV doesn't?), its presence in the meta doesn't invalidate more defensive and less offensive playstyles as often claimed. It also functions as a check to many offensive threats, like Ogerpon-Water or Raging Bolt.
It's no surprise that the removal of certain wallbreakers makes others even stronger. The same thing happened with Volcarona. While it was centralizing, it also managed to keep in check other threats that later became even more dangerous as the meta evolved. I find the traditional approach to tiering to be quite rudimentary when it comes to managing a metagame like SV. I don’t think banning Kyurem just because it has a few viable sets that require more effort to handle, or because it doesn’t have perfect switch-ins, is the right solution: this is an issue that applies to almost all wallbreakers in the meta.
It's no wonder that Kyurem is becoming stronger than usual when, in the first place, a Pokémon that kept it in check (Volcarona) was banned, and only recently another offensive check, Gouging Fire, that could have helped contain it was removed (though its ban was justified).
If Kyurem gets banned, I don’t expect any specific improvement to the tier. Other wallbreakers will emerge, taking advantage of moveset variance and Tera, centralizing the meta and exploiting Kyurem’s absence. Some examples? Gliscor, Raging Bolt, Ogerpon-Water, and many others. Even in the lower tiers of SV, which have a more limited pool of Pokémon compared to OU, it’s evident that certain wallbreakers are able to leverage Tera and moveset variance to dominate their respective tier.
Kyurem’s ban could also lead to disastrous consequences, like a potential ban of Gliscor, a completely fair and balanced Pokémon, that has revived more defensive archetypes by giving them the viability and vitality needed to keep the meta from devolving into a state where only offensive teams can perform well.
I fear that banning Kyurem could trigger a series of changes that would cause the meta to revert to something similar to late DLC1, where offensive threats that were already strong become even more centralizing, and eventually, more defensive threats like Zapdos could begin to dominate the tier, relying on strategies like Static or Thunder Wave.
As an additional point I'd find crazy that Kyurem can potentially go away before Pokemon that when are virtually on the field they can always win the game (
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-775174 ) or before mons like Darkrai that just need to roll the dice to win the game. Also, there's no single Kyurem set that can 6-0 alone every archetype, and picking a set over another leads to drawbacks for sure.
No flame, I respect your opinion and I can see a bit the vision behind it but I don't see how Typhlosion-Hisui, Grafaiai, Brute Bonnet and unmons argument is relevant in this conversation, fishing MUs has always been a thing in official tournaments, does not mean they're always reliable strategies. Saying also that Zapdos Ting Lu Galarking core was not common in August 2023 is not true at all since there were a lot of players that got into playoffs of OLT with just using these 3 in a mono heavy duty boots archetype. In DLC1 it started to be a thing again after Gliscor removal from the tier.
I don't necessary think that balanced will be insane because SV has always been a tier for offensive teams but playing stuff like zapdos will surely require less drawback and I can see easily static gameplay/gambling being a thing and also it seems you are assuming certain mons will still be in the tier to check the core you were talking about when we all know for example that stuff like Gliscor is on the radar.
While I do think kyurem is a very powerful threat in the overused tier, I personally find its counterplay able to be able to defend against it. I will be mainly focusing on DD dice and sub tect instead of others as they seem to be the main issues people have with kyurem.
DD DICE.
I want to start out with the issues mainly arising from the loaded dice dd sets. There are a few different spread like dd mixed or dd sub terablast but these all have issues with hazards, priority from scizor, kingambit. Struggle with mons like air balloon tinkaton. Mixed sets will always have a weak attack in either stat whether that be unboosted special moves like the weak freeze dry which misses on important kos or sacrificing the strong loaded dice physical attacks for special attacks . Earthpower is a non stab that can have most steels live and be able to revenge. It does have a strong icicle spear/scale shot but those are easily abusable by mons like scizor who can revenge kill, kingambit who can take one+earthpower if its a bulky set or threaten a kill with sucker if kyurem is weakened and faster mons after +1. To me where dd kyurem becomes annoying is the dd tera blast sets not the dd mixed sets. Tera blast elec/ground/fire can be very annoying to scout but kyurem becomes tera reliant. With elec its barely able to hit steels hard outside a weak earthpower or a tera blast unable to ohko. Fire/Ground while better into the steel mu makes it weaker to mons depending on the 4th move. It also has used tera making the opponent’s tera a valid trade off that isn't disadvantaged for them. And is still slower than booster moth, booster val, booster boulder, scarf meow, scarf darkrai who can all revenge kill a weakened kyurem. While it is by no means a bad set up mon, The counterplay to it is hardly unique with zama, booster/scarf, priority, defensive tera, mons that can naturally live a hit and revenge being how you answer any set up mon in SV. DD tera blast sets while annoying to me point towards an issue with tera blast instead of kyurem and rarely end up being able to steal games from me or for me, though i do enjoy using them.
SUB-TECT.
When this emerged during olt, I think there was an initial panic as teams weren’t prepared for it. This combined with the low pp of most attackers moves, decent speed tier, and importance of olt for a lot of players led to premature complaints about sub tect kyurem. First as does Dice kyurem, it shared a hazard weakness, meaning for it to be able to abuse this set fully, you need solid support with mons like ace, defog corv+tusk, treads. This immediately limits its ability to come into the game as while it does not mind hazards as much as dice due to lefties+protect, the ease to set up hazards in this meta heavily limits its ability to preform as broken as it should be on paper. The meta has also naturally shifted to be able to answer this set. Mons like Spedef Gliscor who can tera, Tera ice glowking, Av crown, Tera ice skele as seen by Storm Zone, cm alluring voice clef that leng loi came up with. Tera ice rest lu which I don't recall who came up with it. Spedef roar molt, Weav+mola teams, spedef zama. There is obviously more nicher sets, like tera ice curse 2 attacks clod that can beat it, tera fairy alluring voice av mola, tera ice curse garg, ou forum mains favorite mon cm alluring voice glaceon that also shares the powerful 130
Base special attack stat making it so that I might even use over it tbh and more. There might be an immediate reaction of the need to tera to answer this on more fat teams, but I do not find that a kyurem issue. These teams outside of using amoongus+good removal often need to use tera for ogerpon, use tera for tera dark gambit, use tera for hex pult with scor. Part of using fat balance teams this gen is having to adapt to the meta and use defensive tera’s to answer threats. Offensive teams on the other end have little issue with sub tect kyurem due to the natural pressure, av crown, and fast strong hitting mons.
There are a few other good sets like specs, dd 3 special attacks, sub nmi, and sub dd dtail i will not go into detail on because the above 2 sets fell like the main argument for a kyurem ban and these 3 feel a bit too mu fishy to be viewed as ban worthy. If I do get reqs I’m pretty mixed but I don’t see this as specifically an issue compared to the other offensive threats we currently have in the tier.
Now, I want to go over common arguments people have made for Kyurem staying. Just like with the Volcarona suspect, a lot of DNB arguments have come forward, and most of them are really bad, although there’s a few really important ones i think need tackling.
Fearmongering
By far the worst of the DNB arguments have involved heavy, heavy fearmongering, feat. Magcargo and Pais among other, sillier alternatives (re: that one dude who hates ground types for some weird reason). I hate to call out Magcargo, no flame, he’s a cool guy, but his arguments citing ZapKingLu are atrocious and don't belong in this thread. ZapKingLu fear-mongering has been stupid since January, and that he’s pulling this out now as if its some cringe-ass fable is nuts. “We saw an evil core rise up” Bro, stop cooking. Not only is this frankly pure speculation, as we do not know if the meta will return to ZKL dominance at any point in time, its also disingenuous: it certainly won’t return to it after just a kyurem ban, considering that gliscor is still in the tier and we have other options that can stop it. And frankly, even if it was a possibility in the distant future, that’s something that the tier can combat then, and not now. On a pure balance of probabilities, its unlikely that the tier will ever return to that, and if it does, it can certainly be amended, but Kyurem is in the tier right now, causing problems right now. ZapKingLu bullshit and fearmongering in general does not belong in these threads, and the fact that the dnb side is resorting to this is hilariously damning. Similarly, with people talking about gliscor being broken without Kyurem; I’m open to a gliscor suspect, and it would be the dumbest shit ever if we kept somehting broken in the tier to keep gliscor in check adn then it gets banned. This literally happened last time and was a big reason as to why Kyruem wasn’t banned. It would be very silly to let this keep happening. Credit to Ruft, who points out the insane range of fearmongering made in the post, where Magcargo fearmongers about balance being too strong if Kyurem leaves, i.e, balance will both be dominant if Kyurem is banned because ZapKingLu but will also be destroyed because Gliscor will be banned. THESE ARE NOT ARGUMENTS; Magcargo is straight up making shit up about what COULD happen and claiming that it definitely will and therefore, we should make decisions about a known quality that’s unhealthy because of his ramblings. It is incredibly disingenuous to make these arguments when you have no fucking idea what’s going to happen. If you think Kyurem is legitimately not broken, argue for that and not fearmongering, because the more you fearmonger, the more you functionally admit that Kyurem actually is broken and you need to result to this bullshit. It’s actually shamefully bad argumentation, and functionally, it’s because there’s not much of substance there for the dnb side.
This is similarly seen with Pais’ post, although it’s not as bad. However, it’s almost funny how Pais continually mentions Kyurem as being like Volcarona, except he keeps saying that Volcarona isn’t broken adn that the tier was worse without it, which is just ridiculous. The tier absolutely got better when Volcarona was banned, because Volc was cancer and if it got lucky it just won the game. It was banned with a very large majority, and it is not helping your case when you cite Volcarona as being some totally fair mon that Kyurem happens to be similar to, because they’re both broken, surprise. Like Magcargo, this argument also mainly revolves around the negative effects of banning Kyurem, although not all of it, to its credit. He continually talks about Kyurem’s ban leading to disastrous consequences like banning gliscor, when there is literally NO basis for whether or not gliscor will be banned, adn I guarantee him that it is not only Kyurem that is keeping gliscor in check, especially considering that there are numerous people who already do not like gliscor being in the tier, even with Kyurem being dominant. Similarly, like Magcargo, he similarly fearmongers about ZapKingLu (please stop). As far as I’m concerned, Pais can compare Kyurem to Volcarona as much as he wants, because Volcarona was broken as hell and Kyurem is to.
This similarly goes for people like Pais and other, less notable commenters worried about continually banning things. I’m sorry, but if banning something creates a better metagame, we should ban it. It is not good to hold off on banning because of this ‘cycle of bans’ bullshit, because sometimes, shit is broken and we need to ban it. No one ever claims that “this one ban will solve the meta”, they claim it will make it even slightly better, which is a win.
Now, actual real arguments:
Kyu weak to entry hazards and needs support:
Boohoo, so did gouging and chi-yu and chien pao, that literally means nothing as to whether a mon is broken. This is also forgetting that despite defog being gutted, we do have good removers like Tusk who actually CAN keep rocks off, or Cinderace. Worse, this has not stopped it. A popular teamstyle in OLT was literally a CTC team with Cinderace, Defog Corv, Gking, hazardless Ting Lu + subtect kyurem and a final mon. Sure, Kyurem likes the support from ace and defog, and you could certainly look at it as being held back by its rocks weakness, which it doesn’t like, but you also need to ask why this teamstyle (which often dropped entry hazards btw, something unheard of) saw success despite Kyurem needing so much support.
…
The obvious answer is that Kyurem is worth the support because of how it destroys defensive counterplay. The fact that we’ve seen teams rise up that aim to support Kyurem’s multitude of flaws should be concerning, especially given that even single removal is hard enough to fit onto teams. That Kyurem justifies having double removal should signal that its strong enough to do so. It’s also just not hard to slot Ace and Tusk on offense because they’re extremely good mons. It requires support, sure, but these mons are very good anyways and it more then makes up for it; if hazards are kept off for Kyurem, then its over.
There’s also more bullshit in this answer about Kyurem “limiting balanced staples” and Magcargo calls it cap because it also can fit on balance sometimes. I don’t know how Kyurem ever fits on a team with Mola, but regardless, this is blatantly just saying that Kyurem is actually fine because it fits on balance sometimes. Please ignore the fact that it also has zero defensive counterplay. As in, it’s a non-argument. If something has no defensive counterplay outside of blissey, it is going to make balance worse. This is basically non-negotiable, and its very disingenuous for Magcargo to argue that it’s actually good for balance because it’s paired with GKing.
I think a post I need to talk about is helieone’s, because it actually has some of the most convincing arguments made thus far, and they don’t actually resort to insane arguments like his other posters. I still disagree with them, but I think they are certainly better arguments then others right now. This post has 4 main points: balance is good (and Kyurem isn’t the best balance breaker in the tier), Kyurem is flawed, and that its set diversity has clear counterplay, and alternatively, that even if it doesn’t there are other mons who are more unhealthy that share this problem (really the main point of this post)
These points all have problems. Balance being not garbage doesn’t mean that Kyurem isn’t unhealthy, it just means that balance is making a resurgence. Balance doesn’t have to be borderline useless for Kyurem to be broken, the point is that balance, as long as a balance breaker as good as Kyurem is in the tier, is a fundamentally flawed archetype, which isn’t a hot take. Similarly, Kyurem being difficult to build with on some teams also is sort of not true -- Yes, Kyurem can want hazard control, but that’s not hard to bring on offense and teams have repeatedly shown it is a sacrifice they are willing to make to have an unwallable breaker on the team. Sure, Kingambit doesn’t need hazard control, but we’re not talking about kingambit here. Similarly, its utility into offense not being amazing isn’t necessarily true -- its frequently cited as a waterpon check, which seems to bring some offensive utility, but no one is going to say the offense matchup is the reason why Kyurem is broken, nor do they need to: the reason why Kyurem is broken is the balance/fat matchup and its distinct lack of defensive counterplay. This has always been what people have claimed, and the matchup into offense isn’t really as important to the ban argument, because something without defensive counterplay is functionally not healthy for the tier.
Similarly, the main point of this post is that Kyurem just isn’t as good as other mons, adn I have more problems with this. Not only does this not fundamentally matter, as in, if these mons are unhealthy (as Gliscor and Kingambit have gotten higher survey scores then previously), that doesn’t preclude Kyurem from being unhealthy. The problem here, though, is that there’s a claim that “many of the different sets are obvious from team structure adn there’s clear counterplay to every set” and that’s frankly just not true on its face. The only times I confidently knew the Kyurem set was when it was the CTC subtect Kyurem team that was getting spammed in OLT, and even then I had been proven wrong at some points and had Kyurem pull out DD. It is not easy to know the Kyurem set considering that there’s 5 and they all have distinct variations like with Dragon Dance’s many tera types. However, the argument that actually kingambit and zamazenta have worse set variation is just omn its face not true considering that zamazenta functionally always has the exact same 3 moves on it with room for only 1 malleable slot. Similarly, Kingambit (which I do think is potentially unhealthy as well) most of the time has its exact standard moveset and outside of air balloon, its items don’t change its counterplay at all. Even then, only 2 extra variations have been cited for Kingambit in terms of moveslots, whereas Kyurem has way more sets and moveslots it can run. I’m sorry, but this argument doesn’t work.
Similarly, Espathra Dreaming has some good arguments as well, although I feel like they fall pretty short. Namely, literally the majority of the counterplay he cites for Subtect when he’s talking about how the meta has adapted is tera ice defensive mons, which should be damning in and of itself because of how garbage ice is as a defensive typing. The fact that you’re using your tera type to be ice on your wall, and blowing your tera in game to make a mon turn into the worst defensive typing in the game to stop Kyurem is not only a massive opportunity cost, its also a sign that Kyurem is too strong on these teams. The mons that do not need tera ice, such as spdef zama and spdef roar molt, are also extremely susceptible to getting freeze dried because of how often kyurem is going to be clicking it, and again, if your check to Kyurem gets frozen, you are in a much worse game state and likely lose. Similarly DD is cited as having flaws such as needing to tera to use tera blast, which doesn’t mean anything because the last two mons we banned were banned because of how they abused tera and tera blast, so that’s not an argument against kyu. However, the problem more comes in the counterplay he cites: booster mons, scarf mons, zama, “mons that can live a hit and revenge”. I’ll give you a bit of time to see the problem here.
…
Yes, booster and scarf mons are offense-relegated, so balance cannot use those, which again, is Kyurem’s unhealthy matchup. “Mons that can live a hit and revenge” is also very vague, when, looking at my list from before, there are basically no defensive mons that are actually good into DD Kyurem, especially after a tera, so this point is non-existent. Literally the only mon that fits on balance I’d count here is Zamazenta, and it’s not fair for balance teams to rely on literally one mon to stop Kyurem, but similarly, if you get the Kyurem guessing game wrong, then Zamazenta is going to have a much harder time stopping Kyurem, meaning Kyurem is just going to blow past it and win, especially if you happen to need zamazenta (the thing that softchecks half the tier) for other matchups with Kyurem’s other teammates.
Ban kyu
& 
Spanish passports
