Smogon Tour 36 has recently come to a close. The tournament is a huge undertaking with nine weeks of live tours in three different OU tiers, culminating in a cutthroat top 16 playoffs in a best of three format. Everyone in the playoffs pitted their knowledge of SV, SS, and SM OU against each other, wielding a combination of up to date meta knowledge and the memory of recent generations. This season's winner was Empo , one of the most accomplished tournament players and now the only player to win three Smogon Tours. For this RMT, Empo agreed to showcase one of the teams he used throughout the tournament, a bulky offense team centered around an unconventional Dragon Dance Kyurem set. This team was used several times by Empo and others, and is a great example of the bulky offenses that thrived throughout the spring 2024 meta of SV OU. The RMT Staff thanks Empo for their time to showcase and explain this team, and congrats again on the win!
Kyurem @ Never-Melt Ice
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Dance
- Ice Beam
- Freeze-Dry
- Earth Power
First off we have Kyurem. The team is centered around it, it is an extremely powerful wallbreaker that in this case can bluff mixed or straight up physical variants thanks to Dragon Dance (or at least it could when the team was originally made). Nonetheless, even without this surprise factor, Kyurem’s still strong even if it lacks a Choice Specs, which is also a decent choice if you don’t want to run a modest nature (less speed means you’re worse off vs other Kyurems, etc) and you want some more power alongside its powerful stab Draco Meteor.
However in this case I opted for a Never-Melt Ice set because locking yourself into a move in this meta can be dangerous with the abundance of setup sweepers that could snowball at the first opportunity with random teras, and it’s also great to dent Kingambit to help my own Kingambit since it lacks Low Kick.
Dragon Dance over Scale Shot because it is good to 1) avoid sucker mind games (with Pressure gambit gets 4 attempts only), 2) can’t miss unlike scale, 3) avoid scenarios where the opponent can sack a mon that dies to hazards so you don’t get a speed boost w scale and finally 4) you drop your defense and get more vulnerable to priorities such as sucker or espeed.
Ice Beam, Freeze Dry and Earth Power are self explanatory and let Kyurem do great damage all around.
Overall Kyurem is a great pokemon which makes wallbreaking easier for its mates, keeps Gliscor at bay, and its natural bulk lets it become a good blanket check for various mons in the meta like Ogerpon-Wellspring.
Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Libero
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- Gunk Shot
- Low Kick
- Sucker Punch
Up next we have Cinderace, which is the fairy resist of the team, and also a very versatile pokemon whose coverage and speed are both essential to the team. I opted to run a set that isn’t very common, and dropped court change, which might seem like a very drastic change, but the team’s offensive nature lets me do that. Pyro Ball is the main stab which is needed to hit Corviknight, and tera fire lets Cinderace dent Gliscor even harder (which could be trouble later on). Gunk Shot is really good versus fairy types such as Primarina, Clefable and Hatterene, especially the former which can be very annoying and you have to play around it carefully. Sucker Punch is an amazing move making Cinderace the first pokemon to have a priority on this team, which is essential to blanket check things even after they terastallize. Finally we round up the set with Low Kick which I find to be extremely good vs Garganacl and Ting-Lu structures, and it’ll obviously also help vs pokemon like Heatran, Roaring Moon, and Kingambit (you don’t risk missing + if you click it before you resist sucker punch).
Cinderace is a very offensive pokemon and it’s an important progress maker of this team. It’s very good at creating favorable scenarios for its mates, and it’s also able to keep chipping physical threats such as Landorus-T down which will help Kingambit later on.
Iron Valiant @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Moonblast
- Knock Off
- Close Combat
- Encore
Next mon is Iron Valiant which used to be a Dragapult in the earlier version of the team. Valiant is the main speed control of the team, it is a great Kingambit check, it has Encore which is arguably one of the best moves in SV OU, being able to annoy passive structures with Garganacl to name one, and it’s able to force favorable scenarios just like Cinderace. I run max special attack here to dent Gliscor / Landorus harder, and it obviously helps against against a billion other mons since Moonblast is really spammable such as Clefable, Raging Bolt, Kingambit (since CC kills anyway w.o tera), you name it. It’s really good at chipping Slowking-Galar for Kyurem or vice versa, and with knock + encore it lets you mess with bulkier structures with Clodsire / Skeledirge / Garganacl to create favorable scenarios for Kingambit or to straight up start getting kills so gambit’s path is cleaner.
Tera steel helps to resist Moonblast and Acrobatics (Roaring Moon) mainly, as well as being immune to Toxic (vs stall mainly, can also help vs Clodsire sometimes).
Kingambit @ Leftovers
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Kowtow Cleave
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
Kingambit is the main win condition of the team. Gambit is arguably one of the best mons in the tier since it’s able to pretty much reverse sweep most games thanks to its insanely busted ability. There’s nothing much to say here other than bulk is good since with lefties you get so much out of this mon and you can also switch it early on vs things like specs Kyurem / Dragapult if deemed necessary. I opted for tera ghost here since Zamazenta is just so broken and it’s also great to prevent Rapid Spin. It resists most types and it’s great to be immune to Low Kick as well. Best piece of advice here is to usually keep it for late-game scenarios and try to force your way through with your other breakers first.
Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Static
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hurricane
- Thunder Wave
- Roost
Zapdos is the main bulky mon of the team which is needed to take care of various threats such as Zamazenta, Iron Valiant, Cinderace, Kingambit (you want to t-wave it), Great Tusk, Landorus, Roaring moon, Ogerpon (grass and wellspring), Gouging Fire, and so on.
It has great synergy with all of Kyurem, Cinderace and Iron Valiant since most of those chip Slowking-Galar and Zapdos appreciates this so much. The set is pretty self explanatory with Volt Switch being great for momentum and getting my threats in, Hurricane is so great when it doesn’t miss, Thunder Wave is necessary to slow mons down and to blanket check things generally, and finally Roost is Roost. Tera water helps against water type and ice type mons mainly, can also be used to check Ogerpon-Wellspring offensively since the oger user doesn’t really want to get static’d and they might straight up want to nuke the zap with tera, so tera + t-wave works just as fine (or volt -> breaker). It’s also great when you’re in a pinch against like Great Tusk or Dragonite which can be quite annoying because of Ice Spinner, and vs Weavile.
Landorus-Therian @ Earth Plate
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Taunt
Last but not least we have Landorus-Therian, the guy whose job is to get them up and do much more. I’m running an offensive set here which is great to simply do damage. Wraps up the offensive core so nicely offering also defensive utilities such as checking Raging Bolt (will OHKO it too) and having access to Intimidate which is so good at again checking offensive powerhouses like Roaring Moon, Kingambit, Gouging Fire, etc.. Stone Edge is great to mess with Moltres and also tera Flying targets such as Roaring Moon. Taunt is needed to prevent Gliscor from clicking Spikes mainly, otherwise it’d be a threat (it still is, gotta play the team offensively). Tera water is good for rain, Greninja, Gouging Fire, Walking Wake, Iron Moth, etc.
Threats:
Stall: you gotta play the team really offensively and try to taunt and up asap with Landorus, tera steel val will most likely help vs toxapex and can knock off a bunch of mons (and encore them).
Bulky Gholdengo: it stops Valiant and you need to switch it out or it can get out of hand. Luckily it does force it to click recover most of the time so you get that “free switch” but you gotta be wary of thunder wave sets too, going hard lando helps. Otherwise Cinderace is good, and then you go from there.
Iron Moth: can get annoying if it gets fiery dance boosts, it might be necessary to tera Kingambit and just Kowtow (and then it’ll be too low for Substitute mindgames) or tera the Landorus and OHKO it.
Clodsire: can get annoying with spikes / toxic, usually since its earthquake is very weak you can go kingambit (they’re likely to toxic with lando in the back) and try to double out and make progress that way. Also encore + knock Valiant helps.
paste:
Example Replay: Top 16 vs We Three Kings
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Congratulations again to Empo for the amazing run, and we hope you enjoy this Featured RMT!
Tournament highlights is something we have been wanting to do for a while and this is the perfect example of a top level team in the meta.
team by: Empo
introduction and editing by: Duck Chris
incredible art by: RavioliQueen
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