19. Kyurem

Dragon / Ice · Pressure · VR A- · 2026-04 Usage 7.96% · base 125 / 130 / 90 / 130 / 90 / 95 (HP/Atk/Def/SpA/SpD/Spe) · a 125/130/130 mixed-attacking wallbreaker that runs two unrelated movesets (physical Dragon Dance vs. special Freeze-Dry) off one preview sprite, with Substitute + Roost longevity stapled on.

Format role

Kyurem is the format’s premier set-ambiguity breaker: the same name in team preview is either a Loaded Dice Dragon Dance sweeper or a Choice Specs / SubRoost special breaker, and you usually cannot tell which until it has already clicked something. Freeze-Dry hitting Water-types for 2× lets one move blow past the Regenerator water cores (Alomomola, Toxapex, Rotom-Wash, Pelipper) that wall most of the metagame’s Ice attackers, while Earth Power + Groundium-Z covers the Steels (Heatran, Gholdengo, Iron Treads) that would otherwise switch into Ice STAB comfortably. It’s an A- mon by VR rather than higher purely because 95 base Speed is mediocre — it does not outrun the unboosted offensive tier and needs Dragon Dance or a Scarf to be a threat in real time. Because a Water-type’s Freeze-Dry weakness is fixed, that move stays a clean 2× — which is the whole reason Kyurem remains a relevant breaker.

Sets

Pressure is the only ability (100%). All spreads/items/moves below are 2026-04 weighted (gen9nationaldex-1760).

Dragon Dance (Loaded Dice) — the most-used build Spread Adamant 252 HP / 56 Atk / 200 Spe (30.0%) — note this is the literal #1 spread; bulkier 252/160/96 (9.5%) trades Speed for power.

Kyurem @ Loaded Dice (8.5%)
Ability: Pressure
Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Atk / 200 Spe   (or 252 HP / 160 Atk / 96 Spe)
- Dragon Dance        (50.4%)
- Icicle Spear        (50.5%)   ← Loaded Dice → forced 4-5 hits, breaks Sub/Sash/Multiscale/Focus Band
- Substitute          (76.0%)
- Roost               (34.6%)   / Earthquake / Earth Power

Choice Specs Freeze-Dry — the immediate special nuke

Kyurem @ Choice Specs (8.7%)
Ability: Pressure
Timid Nature
EVs: 0 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe   (Timid 0/0/0/252/4/252, 16.7%)
- Freeze-Dry          (52.0%)
- Earth Power         (51.6%)
- Ice Beam            (13.7%)   (single-target Ice when you don't need the 2× water hit)
- Draco Meteor        (10.6%)

SubRoost + Groundium-Z — the stallbreaker/lure Spread Timid 56 HP / 200 SpA / 252 Spe (12.4%) or 52/204/252 (4.3%).

Kyurem @ Groundium-Z (7.7%)   ← Earth Power → Tectonic Rage (175 BP)
Ability: Pressure
Timid Nature
EVs: 56 HP / 200 SpA / 252 Spe
- Substitute          (76.0%)
- Roost               (34.6%)
- Freeze-Dry          (52.0%)
- Earth Power         (51.6%)

The most common item overall is Leftovers (45.2%) — that’s the Sub/Roost/DD glue item, not a damage item. Heavy-Duty Boots (16.5%) keeps the 2× Stealth Rock weakness (25% on entry) off it on hazard-heavy fields. Metronome (4.7%) appears on Icicle Spear DD variants; Choice Scarf (3.9%) is the niche revenge build (475 Spe). All legal.

What it does

The DD set is the one you fear at preview. Behind a Substitute (it has the bulk to make one and Roost to keep making them), it sets up on passive glue and then Loaded Dice Icicle Spear for a guaranteed 4-5 hits — which lets it break through Substitute, Focus Sash, Sturdy, and Multiscale Dragonite by continuing after the first hit, while crits/rolls add up across hits. At +1 it’s not blisteringly fast (≈414 Spe from the 200-Spe spread, ≈375 from the bulky 96-Spe spread), so it leans on the Sub to dodge revenge-priority reads and on Roost to reset. Earthquake or Earth Power is the common fourth move to punish the Steels and Heatran that wall Ice.

The Specs set is pure immediate pressure: Timid 252/252 hits 317 Speed (winning the 95-Speed mirror but still losing to base-100s) and fires Freeze-Dry to 2HKO the water walls on the switch, with Earth Power as the Steel-punishing second button. The cost is the usual Choice lock — once it clicks Freeze-Dry, a Steel or a faster Dragon-resist can pivot in if it reads correctly.

The SubRoost Groundium-Z build is the stallbreaker. Sub up on a wall, Roost off chip, and use the one-time Tectonic Rage (175 BP) to remove Heatran or punish a grounded Steel/Fire pivot the rest of the team can’t break; it chunks Toxapex but does not delete it outright. Freeze-Dry still handles the water side. Pressure is live-relevant here: behind a Sub, Kyurem stalls PP out of single-coverage walls (a Heatran with one Earth Power, a defensive mon’s recovery) and Roost-stalls the rest. It does not get Good-as-Gold or Regenerator interactions of its own — its longevity is entirely Sub + Roost + Leftovers, so hazard chip (especially its 2× SR weakness) is the clock you run it against.

Load-bearing calcs

Kyurem SpA (Timid 252) = 359; Choice Specs → 538. Atk (Adamant 252) = 394; +1 DD → 591. Speeds: Timid 252 = 317, Scarf = 475, +1 DD = 414 (200-Spe) / 375 (96-Spe).

• Specs Freeze-Dry vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex (Water → 2×): 194–230 (63.8–75.7%) — 2HKO. One STAB move breaks the format’s premier status sponge; this is the calc that makes Kyurem a real answer to fat water cores.
• Specs Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex (Poison → 2×): 166–196 (54.6–64.5%) — also a 2HKO; against Pex you can click either button.
• Specs Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Heatran (4×): 564–664 (146–172%) — clean OHKO. Heatran is not a Kyurem switch-in; it eats Earth Power.
• Groundium-Z Tectonic Rage (175) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Heatran (4×): 724–856 (188–222%) — OHKO even without Specs, from the SubRoost set. Once Heatran is grounded, the Z-nuke is your one-time answer to the Steel that walls your Ice.
• Specs Ice Beam vs. 252 HP Landorus-T (Ground/Flying → 4×): 808–952 (212–249%) — OHKO. Lando-T cannot pivot in on Kyurem at all; this is why Kyurem punishes lazy Lando-T switches.
• +1 Icicle Spear (Loaded Dice) vs. 0 HP Iron Valiant: 75–88 per hit (26–30%) — at the common 4-5 hits that’s ~300–440 (104–152%), an OHKO through. Once Kyurem is +1, its premier revenge-killer usually can’t switch in to the multi-hit.

Checks & counters

HARD / sturdy checks: very few switch-ins cover and beat both sets — that’s the point of the set ambiguity. The closest is a fast Dragon/Fairy that revenges before setup: the block’s top three are all revenge checks, not pivots. Steel-types that aren’t Heatran/Gholdengo — Scizor-Mega, Corviknight — resist both Ice and Dragon and aren’t OHKO’d, but they fear Earth Power/Earthquake and Corviknight is 2HKO’d by Specs Freeze-Dry after chip. Blissey/Chansey wall the special sets but get worn down by Sub + repeated Earth Power/Freeze-Dry and lose the PP war to Pressure.

SOFT (checks / revenge — the real answers, per the block):

• Iron Valiant (52.4%, top check) — faster (116 base, Booster-Speed even faster), revenge-kills with Moonblast/priority before a DD, but as shown it cannot switch into +1 Icicle Spear and dies to a clean Specs read.
• Diancie-Mega (52.1%) — Rock/Fairy is neutral to Ice but immune to Dragon, Magic Bounce can punish hazard support around Kyurem, and 110 Speed lets it revenge; but it is OHKO’d by Earth Power if it stays in.
• Zamazenta (51.2%) — 138 base Speed (the 412 wall) revenge-kills both sets; the bulky DD spread’s +1 Icicle Spear is only a slow 2HKO into defensive Zama, so Zama outpaces and clicks back.

The throughline: Kyurem is revenged, not walled. Anything that survives a hit and outspeeds beats it; anything slower that “checks” one set folds to the other. Its job is to extract a kill or a Sub before the revenge arrives.

★ Offense angle

For an aggressive-Offense builder Kyurem is a second wallbreaker that shares no checks with your physical core — exactly the “two breakers, disjoint answers” axis offense is built on. The single best use is the Specs / Groundium-Z special set as your fat-water and Steel answer: it 2HKOs Toxapex, heavily pressures non-AV Alomomola with Freeze-Dry, and OHKOs Heatran, the precise walls that brick a physical breaker like Garchomp, Kingambit, or Zamazenta. Run Kyurem to punch the hole, then send the physical cleaner into the gap.

Concrete sequencing for offense:

• Pair it with hazards you control. Kyurem’s 2× Stealth Rock weakness means you either run it on a Heavy-Duty Boots variant, or — better for offense — keep your side clean and stack hazards on theirs. Spikes + the Specs set turns every forced switch (and Pressure-stalled wall) into a body. A Ting-Lu / Landorus-T lead feeds it the chip that turns 2HKOs into OHKOs.
• Use it to enable the DD set late. If you’ve removed the opponent’s faster Dragon/Fairy revenge (their Iron Valiant, their Diancie-Mega), the bulky 252/160/96 DD + Sub set becomes a genuine wincon: Sub on the slowed field, +1, and Loaded Dice through anything trying to Sub/Sash-stall you.
• As the opponent’s Kyurem, your offense beats it by speed and priority before it boosts: Iron Valiant, a Choice Scarf user, or Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch (Ice-frail Kyurem hates priority after Sub breaks) all revenge it. Do not try to wall it — keep Stealth Rock up and force it to commit, then revenge. Diancie-Mega on your side both deters the hazard chip Kyurem wants and revenges it.

The mistake to avoid: running Kyurem as a “safe” pivot. It isn’t one — 90/90 defenses behind a 2× SR weakness and no Regenerator means it trades, it doesn’t tank. Treat it as a glass cannon with a panic-button Sub.

Top teammates & cores

2026-04 teammates (top-10): Zamazenta 47.4%, Scizor-Mega 40.1%, Terapagos 35.4%, Toxapex 34.1%, Gliscor 32.9%, Alomomola 26.9%, Landorus-Therian 21.1%, Zapdos 17.7%, Clefable 13.8%, Gholdengo 12.7%.

• Kyurem + Zamazenta (47.4%) — the strongest core and the one offense should copy. They split the metagame’s defensive answers cleanly: Zamazenta breaks the physical walls and the Steels that body Ice STAB, Kyurem’s Freeze-Dry/Earth Power pressures the bulky waters and removes Heatran, which wall Zama, and both punish the same forced switches. Zamazenta’s 412 Speed also covers Kyurem’s biggest weakness (revenge from faster Dragons). This is a textbook dual-breaker core (see common cores).
• Kyurem + Scizor-Mega (40.1%) — pairs the breaker with the format’s premier priority. Scizor-Mega’s Bullet Punch cleans up the fast Fairies/Dragons that revenge Kyurem (and OHKOs a chipped Iron Valiant / Diancie-Mega), while Kyurem breaks the Steels/fires Scizor can’t. It does cost you the single Mega slot — budget for it before anything else.
• The defensive teammates (Gliscor, Alomomola, Toxapex, Landorus-T) are the balance/BO shell Kyurem most often lives on; for aggressive offense, lean on the Zamazenta and Scizor-Mega cores above and treat the fat-water partners as opponents’ glue your Kyurem is built to break.