Competitive Pokémon History - Kyurem Quiz

Answer: UnderUsed's banned list

In standard play, Kyurem was completely outmatched and was basically never worth the team slot. It was outgunned as a wallbreaker, its typing and bulk weren't good enough for any sort of defensive role, and as a stallbreaker, it cannot break through Chansey or Blissey whatsoever. As a result, Kyurem was a hopeless, terrible Pokémon who never saw any appreciable use.

In UU, Kyurem was overwhelming to the max. The only check it had was Blissey, and teams without Blissey crumpled to it. This blatant overcentralization made it an easy ban candidate.

Answer: Pressure

The three incorrect answers represent abilities which would have been way, way more broadly useful and appreciated than Pressure. Still, Pressure meshes well with Substitute and can make Pokémon chew up PP a bit more when taking Kyurem down.

Answer: 130

Unfortunately, Kyurem's Attack stat went to waste due to its unusable physical movepool. It had just enough specially offensive options to make use of its Special Attack, however, so it could threaten Pokémon who weren't particularly bulky, did not resist Ice, and/or lacked recovery options.

Answer: Higher Special Attack

Sharing the same Speed and being far behind Kyurem-B in Attack, Kyurem's ten point advantage in Special Attack was actually more significant than it might seem. With Clefable, Slowbro and Mega Scizor raising to prominence this generation, Kyurem could actually handle them far more easily than Kyurem-B due to its advantage in Special Attack giving it a stronger Ice Beam to utilize. With Choice Specs, maximum investment and a Timid nature, Kyurem can 2HKO Clefable with Ice Beam, 2HKO Slowbro and Slowking with Draco Meteor, and has an excellent chance to 2HKO Mega Scizor with Focus Blast. Kyurem-B cannot threaten these Pokémon anywhere near as much, and they were very important Pokémon to account for.

This gave Kyurem a solid niche in standard play, as a wallbreaker who could handle specific threats better than anything else.

Answer: Bronzong

Bronzong resisted both Ice and Dragon, could use Levitate to ignore Earth Power, and thus totally walled Kyurem infinitely. It could potentially fire back with powerful super effective Gyro Ball as well. As such, Kyurem had no way of beating Escavalier or Bronzong and would need the support of its team to overcome them.

Answer: Toxapex

Chansey and Blissey were still tough to tackle for Kyurem, but this time around, Kyurem could at least attempt contend with them in a 1v1. The combination of Protect, Substitute and Roost with the Pressure ability could allow Kyurem to try and win attrition with the pink blobs. However, it all falls apart if Kyurem switches in to them as they use Thunder Wave or Toxic, meaning it does not counter them consistently.

Magearna is tricky for Kyurem to deal with as well, but can also be plausibly engaged with the aforementioned move set. Unfortunately, Magearna's Fleur Cannon will totally annihilate Kyurem and Flash Cannon will hurt a lot as well, meaning Kyurem definitely cannot afford to switch into Magearna and win.

Toxapex is quite a bit more passive, never used Toxic or any move that could really threaten Kyurem. Kyurem could switch into it pretty easily and proceed to PP stall it without any real trouble. Toxapex was a top five Pokémon in standard play, but it's specific shortcomings were ripe for Kyurem to take advantage of. This was highly valuable for teams lacking a good Toxapex answer.

Answer: Increase a move's power upon successive use

Ice gets solid neutral coverage, and a complimentary Earth Power covers just about everything that resists Ice. Kyurem's power was quite good, but with power level bringing forth bulkier threats to accompany it, particularly tanky threats could often be just out of reach for Kyurem to 2 or 3HKO them.

Choice Specs was an option, but was a bit too risky given Kyurem's weakness to Stealth Rock. Life Orb was also unwieldy due to Kyurem's tendency to use HP putting up a Substitute, causing it to get worn down too quickly and resort to using Roost more than it would like.

Metronome was the middle ground approach, with no particular drawbacks as well as giving the potential to give Kyurem that small power boost it needed to overcome various defensive threats. For example, with Metronome, Celesteela, Clefable, Ferrothorn and Toxapex are all 3HKOed by Ice Beam for the former three and Earth Power for the latter. With Leftovers instead of Metronome, Kyurem misses these benchmarks completely. As such, Kyurem became one of few Pokémon to commonly use Metronome for its held item.

Answer: 125

125 along with 56 HP EVs and the maximum 32 HP IVs means Kyurem's Substitute is guaranteed to survive a single use of fixed damage dealing moves such as Seismic Toss and Night Shade. This gave it the edge it needed to prevail against Pokémon who use these moves, which was pretty much Chansey and Blissey for the most part- given how prominent these two threats have been, though, this was still a big deal.

Answer: Freeze-Dry

Freeze-Dry is a 70 Base Power Ice type attack. It's niche is that it is able to hit Water types super effectively unlike other Ice moves, which Water resists.

At first glance, a 70 base power move hardly seems overbearing. However, up to this point, only Water and Steel could defensively deal with Kyurem- the existence of Freeze-Dry completely invalidated any Water type Pokémon who attempted to check Kyurem. Earth Power and Focus Blast would then cover opposing Steel types, leaving Chansey and Blissey as the only Pokémon who could try and deal with Kyurem defensively. Much like fifth generation UU, this overcentralization was the catalyst for Kyurem's eventual dismissal from standard play, allowing it to join the big boys in Ubers.

Answer: Heavy Duty Boots

Heavy Duty Boots render the user completely immune to entry hazards. Historically, Kyurem's weakness to Stealth Rock and extreme weakness to Toxic Spikes have made it a defensive liability. With Heavy Duty Boots, Kyurem no longer needed to worry about these things, and could thereby turn itself into a defensive asset with its solid bulk and Ice/Dragon typing. With unparalleled offensive potential and an excellent defensive profile, Kyurem became oppressive to deal with offensively or defensively.

As a result, Heavy Duty Boots was largely responsible for Kyurem getting banned to Ubers in the eighth generation.