Introduction
Kingdra stood head and shoulders above the rest of the meta in early November 2023, becoming the first Pokemon in 35Pokes history to receive a suspect test. After surviving the suspect, the mon’s dominance in the tier started to lessen as other strategies were explored, but Kingdra’s potency as a win condition never allowed it to be considered anything but top tier
Part 1: Role
Kingdra is usually thought of as a rain sweeper, which is logical since it has Swift Swim, and it played this role a bit in the November 2023 metagame, anchoring rain teams with Rain Dance Klefki and Dry Skin Heliolisk. However, it was Kingdra’s other ability which made it incredible: Sniper. With the Scope Lens or Razor Claw items and a Focus Energy, Kingdra could guarantee itself critical hits on every attack. This triggered Sniper, making it extremely powerful, and crucially allowed it to ignore the stat drops of Draco Meteor. With just Draco and Surf, Kingdra was completely unwallable, and if it had time to use Agility the game was as good as over.
Part 2: Defensive Attributes
Kingdra is not a wall by any sense of the imagination, but it does provide a bit of defensive utility for its team. Its most important defensive trait was its 4x resistance to fire, which made it the best switch-in around for Typhlosion’s vicious Eruptions. Also, Kingdra loved absorbing Will-O-Wisps for its physical attacking teammates, since the burn does not affect its damage output and actually helps it by making it immune to Klefki’s Thunder Wave.
Part 3: Counters
In the November 2023 metagame, there was always a surefire way to beat your opponent’s sweepers: sweep them first. Kingdra’s (to be clear, very minor) falloff did not come because Pokemon were discovered who could wall it, much as Purrserker and Jellicent tried. Rather, it became less ubiquitous because other devastating win conditions rose up. Kingdra is completely helpless in the face of a sweeping Scolipede or Slurpuff. Kingdra also shares its biggest enemy with the tier’s other sweepers: Thunder Wave Klefki. Being paralyzed completely neutered Kingdra as a threat since it relied heavily on OHKOing everything in its path before it could be hit.
Part 4: Sets
Sniper Kingdra had two main sets. Focus Energy, Draco Meteor, and Surf (or Hydro Pump if you’re feeling lucky) were 100% mandatory, but its fourth slot had a couple options. Agility was the most common, since it allowed Kingdra to beat the threats which naturally outspeed it, notably Scolipede and Heliolisk. Substitute was also used sometimes to take advantage of Pokemon switching out in fear of Kingdra just dropping a Draco Meteor without setting up. On Rain teams, Kingdra went a different route, using Dragon Dance and three physical attacks
Written by Carnivore04