06. Kingambit

Dark/Steel · Supreme Overlord (95.4%) / Defiant (4.4%) · A+ · 14.27% (2026-04) · 100/135/120/60/85/50 · The format’s defining late-game cleaner: a +1-priority Sucker Punch off a snowballing 135 Atk that hits harder every time one of your own teammates faints.

Format role

Kingambit is the metagame’s premier endgame win condition and a fixture on offense, bulky-offense, and balance alike. Supreme Overlord (95.4% — the only ability worth running) converts the natural attrition of a long game into +10% damage per fallen ally, capping at +50% with five down, so a Sucker Punch that’s a 3HKO on turn 5 becomes a kill range on turn 30 with no setup. Its job is closer: tank a hit behind chip, optionally Swords Dance, and snap necks with priority faster than the opponent can revenge a base-50 Speed mon. Its checks (Great Tusk, Zamazenta) exploit a fixed 4× Fighting weakness — an honest rock-paper-scissors. Defiant (4.4%) is a fringe pick that punishes Intimidate/Defog. At A+ / 14.27% usage it sits exactly where its role demands: a top-10 mon almost every offense wants in the back.

Sets

All sets below are drawn from the 2026-04 gen9nationaldex-1760 weighted moveset block. Note Kingambit’s real top moves: Sucker Punch 99.6% / Knock Off 85.1% / Iron Head 67.7% / Swords Dance 66.5% / Pursuit 41.6% / Low Kick 24.5% — there is no Kowtow Cleave in this format’s data.

Swords Dance (the standard cleaner)

Kingambit @ Black Glasses / Leftovers
Supreme Overlord · Adamant · 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Knock Off / Low Kick

The 252/252/0/0/4/0 bulk spread is the single most-used at 20.3%. SD 66.5%, Sucker 99.6%, Iron Head 67.7%, Knock 85.1%. Black Glasses (25.2%, ×1.2 to Dark) makes Sucker/Knock hit like a Choice item with no lock; Leftovers (20.7%) trades immediate power for the longevity to win the long game it’s built around. Max HP + max Atk is the cleaner build: eat a hit, set up or fire, snowball.

Offensive / Fast (Air Balloon or Choice Band)

Kingambit @ Air Balloon / Choice Band
Supreme Overlord · Adamant · 4 HP / 252 Atk / 0 / 0 / 0 / 252 Spe
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
- Low Kick / Swords Dance

The fast spreads (4/252/…/252 at 12.9%, 0/252/…/252 at 13.7%) max Speed to creep the mirror and slower walls (Jolly = 218 Spe, Adamant = 199). Air Balloon (14.5%) dodges Ground attacks like Headlong Rush and Earthquake from Great Tusk / Landorus-Therian, buying a free Swords Dance turn. Choice Band (14.3%) is the no-setup revenge variant — Band Sucker Punch with Supreme Overlord stacks is a turn-one kill button, at the cost of the Sucker lock-in. A Jolly max-Speed version (4.95%) exists to win the mirror outright.

Pursuit-trap / Assault Vest support

Kingambit @ Assault Vest
Supreme Overlord · Adamant · 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
- Iron Head
- Knock Off

Pursuit appears on 41.6% of sets, Assault Vest on 10.2% — a trapping role that punishes the fleeing Ghosts/Psychics Kingambit already scares (Gholdengo, Slowking-Galar). AV turns it into a special sponge that pivots cleanly and removes the opponent’s pivot before it can Future Sight or Chilly Reception away. No setup, but it answers special breakers the SD set can’t.

What it does

The standard SD set is patient. It enters on something it walls or forces out — opposing Gholdengo, Ghosts, passive special attackers — then either clicks Swords Dance on the switch or just fires priority. Sucker Punch is the engine: +1 priority out-prioritizes the whole non-priority pool, and Supreme Overlord scales it through the game for free — every teammate that faints is a +10% on the closer you saved for last. The catch is Sucker only triggers if the target uses an attacking move that turn; status moves, setup, and switches blank it. That mind-game is the central skill of piloting (and beating) Kingambit.

Knock Off (85.1%) is the reliable non-Sucker button when the opponent might go non-attacking, and it strips items — huge against Leftovers / Eviolite / Heavy-Duty Boots walls. Iron Head (67.7%) is mandatory Fairy coverage: Sucker is resisted 0.25× by the Fairy/Fighting Iron Valiant and is only neutral into the Psychic/Fairy Tapu Lele, so super-effective Iron Head is the button that actually threatens both. Low Kick (24.5%) is the dedicated mirror / Great Tusk / heavy-Steel breaker (4× on the Kingambit mirror, big on Heatran/Tyranitar). Pursuit (41.6%) traps the Ghosts and Slowking-Galar that try to pivot out.

Key interactions: Kingambit is immune to poison and to Psychic-type damage via its Dark typing, walls Gholdengo and most Ghosts, and is unbothered by Good as Gold since it isn’t clicking status-category moves. Future Sight from Slowking-Galar is the cleanest break only when it pressures the switch sequence around Kingambit, not Kingambit itself. Hazards cut both ways: rocks chip its switch-ins, but Kingambit doesn’t care about its own HP because Supreme Overlord scales off fallen allies, not its own bar.

Load-bearing calcs

Calcs via _research/dmgcalc.py, Adamant 252 Atk = 405. Black Glasses = ×1.2 on Dark. Targets are 0 HP / 0 Def neutral unless noted; ranges are min–max of the 16-roll spread (±1 vs @smogon/calc; OHKO conclusions robust).

+0 Black Glasses Sucker Punch vs 0/0 Gholdengo: 324–384 (102.9–121.9%, 16/16 OHKO) — clean priority kill if Gholdengo attacks; Kingambit punishes most Gholdengo lines once it enters safely. (Knock Off, item, is 142.2–168.9% if it’d rather strip the item first.)
+0 Iron Head vs 0/0 Tapu Lele: 374–444 (133.1–158.0%, OHKO) — the reason Iron Head is non-negotiable. Sucker is a joke into Fairy/Fighting (BG Sucker vs Iron Valiant is 14.5–17.3% at 0.25×), so Iron Head is your only button into Tapu Lele; vs Iron Valiant, +0 Iron Head is 324–384 (112.1–132.9%, a clean OHKO at +0 — no setup needed).
SO +20% Black Glasses Sucker Punch vs 0/0 Kyurem: 232–276 (59.3–70.6%) — two fallen allies and priority alone 2HKO a key offensive Kyurem, no setup; at +50% it’s 74.4–88.2%, a kill range with rocks.
SO +30%→+50% Black Glasses Sucker Punch vs 0/0 Landorus-Therian: 69.3–81.8% (+30%) up to 79.9–94.4% (+50%, not a guaranteed OHKO — max roll 94.4%) — the endgame snowball in one line: three-to-five down turns a priority hit into a near-kill on offensive Landorus-Therian that rocks chip finishes, and a Choice Band SO+20% Sucker does 79.3–94.0% (same near-kill range — Band×SO and Black Glasses×SO land in the same place; they don’t stack).
Great Tusk Adamant Close Combat vs 252/0 Kingambit: 744–876 (184.2–216.8%, OHKO) — the hard stop; Zamazenta Jolly CC (636–748, 157.4–185.1%) also OHKOs the bulkiest spread. But both are slower than a Sucker Punch and must enter clean — neither safely revenges a healthy +0 Kingambit. In return, +0 BG Sucker into Zamazenta is 20.9–24.9% (Dark 0.5× on Fighting): Kingambit can’t break them back without Low Kick.
+0 Low Kick (120 BP) vs 252/0 Kingambit (mirror): 504–596 (124.8–147.5%, OHKO) — a faster Low Kick variant wins the mirror; the slower one trades Sucker and loses the priority war.

Checks & counters

Grounded in the source block’s Checks & Counters (weighted): Skarmory 65.1 (86.0% switch-in success), Iron Valiant 64.1, Great Tusk 59.6, Zamazenta 57.8. The %s are how reliably that mon survived the encounter.

Hard: the dedicated Fighting answers that come in clean — Zamazenta and Great Tusk both 4×-OHKO it with Close Combat (calcs above) and provide Iron Defense / Rapid Spin support; both top the block at ~58–60. Skarmory is the #1 listed answer (65.1, only 13.6% KOed): it walls the physical set behind Sturdy/Roost and isn’t 2HKOed by +0 Sucker/Iron Head — though it hates losing its item to Knock and folds to a +2 Low Kick.

Soft (checks/revenge): Iron Valiant (64.1, but 34.6% KOed — a trade, not a wall: it eats Iron Head, hits back with CC, and dies if already chipped); anything that breaks the Sucker mind-game — Future Sight users (Slowking-Galar), Will-O-Wisp burns (beaten by a Lum variant), fast Ground/Fighting/Fire coverage that doesn’t have to click into Sucker. Crucially, faster attackers do not safely revenge it: clicking an attack feeds Sucker Punch, so switching is the only clean answer once Supreme Overlord is stacked. The reliable line is keeping a healthy 4× Fighting answer and not feeding it fallen allies.

★ Offense angle

On aggressive offense Kingambit is your designated closer — build the team to save it for last. Because Supreme Overlord scales off your own fallen mons, a fast, trade-happy offense is the ideal shell: the more your sacrificial leads and wallbreakers go down forcing chip, the harder your endgame Kingambit hits. Lead with hazard-setters and pivots that trade, hold Kingambit in the back, and bring it in on the cleanup turn when the opponent’s Fighting answer is already chipped or gone.

Concrete lines:

Sequence to a stacked Sucker Punch + Stealth Rock, not always a Swords Dance. By mid-game you’re often two-to-three allies down; that priority hit 2HKOs offensive base-89-to-125 HP mons (Kyurem 59.3–70.6%, Lando-T 69.3–81.8% at +30% above), and at +50% with rocks down it kills them outright. You often don’t need to set up — you need fallen teammates and hazard chip. This is why Kingambit wants to come in late, and why your hazard game directly powers its damage.
Remove its checks before it cleans. Your job is to pressure Great Tusk / Zamazenta / Skarmory first — hazard chip plus a Fire or Flying breaker that forces them out makes Kingambit’s eventual switch-in unanswerable. Knock Off pre-removing Skarmory’s item or a teammate’s boots compounds the hazard pressure.
Air Balloon flips the matchup vs Ground checks. If your team is weak to Tusk/Lando-T, Balloon Kingambit can blank their Earthquake or Headlong Rush and threaten SD, but it still has to respect Fighting coverage, U-turn, or Knock Off from those checks.
Choice Band is the offense-tax revenge tool. No setup window needed; a Band Supreme Overlord Sucker (CB SO+20% = 79.3–94.0% on Lando-T, a near-kill that rocks chip finishes) is a turn-one revenge button against opposing fast cleaners, at the cost of the lock.
Pivot synergy: pair with a slow pivot (Volt/U-turn or Teleport) to drag Kingambit in safely on the turn the opponent’s revenge killer is locked or dead.

Breaking their Kingambit on your offense: never click attacks into it when it’s the last threat (Sucker punishes the obvious play); pivot to a healthy 4× Fighting answer, use Future Sight to break the live-and-Sucker plan, or out-speed it with your own Jolly/Choice Band Kingambit — Low Kick is 4× and wins the mirror.

Top teammates & cores

From the block’s Teammates (top-10, weighted): Zamazenta 33.4%, Alomomola 27.4%, Raging Bolt 26.1%, Slowking-Galar 22.5%, Ogerpon-Wellspring 22.3%, Landorus-Therian 21.7%, Diancie-Mega 18.0%, Great Tusk 17.5%, Corviknight 17.4%, Iron Valiant 17.1%.

Kingambit + Zamazenta (33.4%) is the #1 pairing and the format’s premier physical-spam backbone. Zamazenta’s Body Press / Iron Defense and 412-Speed presence force the bulky Ground/Fighting mons that wall Kingambit, while Kingambit’s priority cleans the Ghosts and faster threats Zamazenta can’t catch. They share almost no checks — the Fightings that beat Kingambit are exactly what Zamazenta sets up on.
Kingambit + Slowking-Galar (22.5%) is the engine offense wants most: Slowking’s Future Sight + Chilly Reception is a tempo-positive slow pivot that drags Kingambit in and stacks delayed Psychic damage to break the bulky mons (forcing the trades that feed Supreme Overlord). This is the “delayed-damage offense” core (see common cores).
Alomomola (27.4%) rounds it out as Wish/pivot glue that keeps Kingambit healthy through the long game, and Raging Bolt (26.1%) adds a priority-Thunderclap special breaker that shares no checks with the physical cleaner.