I’m Luke Summerhayes, and I love Kyurem.
When we talked about Reshiram and Zekrom, we talked about the yin and yang, the duality of all things, and various dichotomies like light and dark, male and female, truth and ideals. This concept makes a lot of intuitive sense for people, but there is a third option which is much harder for people to accept and comprehend: nothingness.
The word in Japanese and Korean is Mu, in Chinese Wu. I remember seeing the kanji as a large spread in Death Note when Light finally dies and there is nothing afterwards. An old Buddhist riddle involves a master asking the apprentice “Does a dog have a Buddha nature or not?” and the answer is “Mu”. It un-asks the question, or answers neither – all things have a buddha nature, so the answer is yes, but the dog could never be aware of it, so the answer is no. The point is to remove yourself from analytical thinking with binary answers.
The embodiment of this nothingness is Kyurem, an ice and dragon Pokémon found in the post-game of Pokémon Black and White and on the box of Black 2 and White 2. Reshiram incudes the Japanese word Shiro, or white, while Zekrom includes the Japanese word Kuro, or black, but while Kyurem’s name sounds a little like the English word grey, the Japanese words it incorporates are rei, or zero, and Mu, nothingness.
This is because Kyurem is the husk, the nothing, left behind when the original dragon split to form Reshiram and Zekrom. It’s ice typing is a testament to the lack of heat or energy, the absolute zero.
Black
It generates a powerful, freezing energy inside itself, but its body became frozen when the energy leaked out.
White
It can produce ultracold air. Its body is frozen.

Kyurem has an immensely high physical and special attack, which along with the interesting dragon and ice typing made it an unpredictable competitive battler which, appropriately, wasn’t one answer or another.
The concept of yin and yang is often treated as a mysterious, foreign thing in Western media and culture. Of course, China is not another planet, and even the Roman empire was aware of the Chinese one. For millennia, goods and knowledge have been traded along the silk road, and European alchemy was inspired by Asian medicine and science.
So we had the three essentials of Salt, mercury and sulphur. Mercury and Sulphur were represented by a fluffy white dragon and a scaly black one, while Salt, which combined with those other two, was represented by a three-headed dragon. Some Pokémon fans argue whether the Tao trio are based on Asian yin and yang or European alchemy, but separating the two is as artificial as trying to decide if a dog has a Buddha nature or not.
Similarly, Kyurem separated from Reshiram and Zekrom but that doesn’t mean they are permanently separate.
In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, Kyurem can combine with Reshiram to form White Kyurem, or Zekrom to form Black Kyurem.
Black 2
This legendary ice Pokémon waits for a hero to fill in the missing parts of its body with truth or ideals.
White 2

White Kyurem jumps Kyurem’s special attack up to genuinely preposterous levels. It has Reshiram’s Ability Turboblaze, letting it ignore abilities which would weaken it, and learns the moves Fusion Flare and Ice Burn by leveling up, adding fire to the already mighty dragon and ice attacks it could use.
Sword
The sameness of Reshiram's and Kyurem's genes allowed Kyurem to absorb Reshiram. Kyurem can now use the power of both fire and ice.*
Shield
It has foreseen that a world of truth will arrive for people and Pokémon. It strives to protect that future.*

Black Kyurem, on the other hand, has Zekrom’s Ability Teravolt and learns the moves Fusion Bolt and Freeze Shock by leveling up. Rather than a boosted special attack, its physical attack is pumped up. Like Kyurem white, it was a beast to fight against but there weren’t quite as many nice physical moves to use as there were special.

Sword
It's said that this Pokémon battles in order to protect the ideal world that will exist in the future for people and Pokémon.*
Shield
The sameness of Zekrom's and Kyurem's genes allowed Kyurem to absorb Zekrom. Kyurem can now use the power of both electricity and ice.*
Kyurem also, like Reshiram and Zekrom, had a big role in the trading card game, as friend of the show mikey from Pokemon Crossroads got in touch to tell me about.
Get ready to see what the K in TDK means!

During the Thunderus episode, I mentioned how Thunderus EX in the TDK deck won a few World Championship titles. Though, that is because it had a powerful partner on the bench that helped clean up games. That partner’s name was Kyurem. In this case, we are talking about the Kyurem with the Team Plasma label from Plasma Freeze.

This Kyurem card had a two energy attack called Frost Spear. It did 30 damage to the active plus 30 damage to one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon. If you were stuck going first with Kyurem in the active then all you had to do was use Colress Machine to attach a Plasma Energy from your deck and then a Water Energy from your hand to do some damage. It was sort of a Landorus EX’s Hammerhead at home that could do more damage thanks to Deoxys EX’s Power Connect ability plus other damage modifiers.

Though, the real breadwinner attack was Kyurem’s Blizzard Burn attack. This attack cost three energy and did 120 damage. The only downside was that Kyurem couldn’t attack next turn.

Though, Kyurem from Plasma Freeze wasn’t the only good card Kyurem got. After all, it did have some forms that inspired one more great card. Enter Black Kyurem EX from Plasma Storm.

This 180 HP Pokemon had the powerful Black Ballista attack that did 200 damage. At the time, this attack could wipe any Pokemon off the board. And it did!

There were just two downsides. The first was that you needed two Water, Lightning and Colorless energy. That is four Energy to perform Black Ballista! The other downside was that after you use this attack then you need to discard three energy.

The solution? Blastoise from Boundaries Crossed.

Blastoise from Boundaries Crossed had the Deluge ability. This ability allows you to attach as much Water energy from your hand as many times as you want during your turn. That way you can power up Black Kyurem EX’s Black Ballista attack quickly. Then to counter the loss of your energy, all you had to do was play Superior Energy Retrieval to get your energy back. Rinse and repeat until you win the game.

Black Kyurem EX was seen as the top Blastoise partner in decks due to the fact it could take out anything in the game. While Black Kyurem EX doesn’t have any World Championships under it’s belt, it was a terror on the Regional and local scene.

The next time Kyurem would see any remotely good card would be during the Sword and Shield era as Kyurem VMAX from Lost Origin.

Kyurem VMAX had a massive 330 HP and would cost you three Prize cards if knocked out. Though, it had potential to do heavy damage!

This Kyurem didn’t see any World Championship wins but it saw lots of success in local and Regional level events.

Still, if you want another Kyurem that won a World Championship then let's take a look at Kyurem from 2024’s Shrouded Fable set.

This Kyurem had 130 HP and some interesting tools to make it useful in today’s meta. The first tool in its arsenal is the Triforst attack. This attack cost two Water, two Metal and one Colorless energy. There was one more cost which was discarding all energy attached to Kyurem upon using it. Though, you did get to do 110 damage to three of your opponent’s Pokemon.

That attack may sound horrible but luckily Kyurem had an ability to make using this attack a little bit easier. This ability? Plasma Bane.

Plasma Bane states that if your opponent had any cards with Colress in the name, the Triforst can be used for a single Colorless energy.

The Lost Box deck took wins on all levels in every division. It even won the 2023 World Championships with more wins on the Regional Level. With multiple top 8 spots. Sometimes within the same Regional.

So, a solution had to be made to counter Lost Box. That is where Kyurem comes into play. It had an ability that would be activated upon use of a cornerstone card within Lost Box, Colress Experiment. An attack that can take out the multiple low HP Single Prize Pokemon that Lost Box used. This card alone was made to counter Lost Box.

They even made a new Colress card, Colress’s Tenacity, as an excuse to print Kyurem with its ability so it could see use once Lost Box potentially rotates in 2025.

Kyurem was released in Shrouded Fable just in time to be legal to play for the 2024 Pokemon World Championships. Because of Kyurem, Lost Box went from a deck that would always see at least one top 8 placing to seeing none placing top 8 at Worlds and only one top 8 placing at a Regional since then. Though, also because of Kyurem we now see it being played in almost every Regidrago VSTAR deck as a way to take several prizes and a World Championship win in the Senior Division for Evan Pavelski.

Even Kyurem has found ways to shape the meta in its own unique way.

Kyurem is hardly mentioned in the Pokémon movies black and white, two versions of the same film with the starring monsters swapped between Zekrom and Reshiram, but it did appear in its own movie, Kyurem and Sword of Justice. In this movie, Kyurem is basically just a grumpasaurus in a cave which Keldeo decides to fight as a way to prove itseld, like a classic dragon-slaying hero, but like Gawain and the Green Knight, Keldeo must honour this duel even though Kyurem will destroy it.
Tied to a world of Asian philosophy which I am barely scratching the surface of when I talk about it here, and also invoking classic European tales of Knights, the Tao trio are very cool monsters but . . . they are an odd choice of mascots for a region based on New York. With Team Plasma also dressing as knights and inhabiting castles, it might seem the team at Game Freak were not yet fully committed to basing Pokémon regions on real places the way they would be in the 3D era. On the other hand, perhaps a melting pot of Asian and European influences all coming together to represent a place torn between the truth of it and its ideals is actually perfect for Pokémon’s first American region.
Original music for Luke Loves Pokémon is by Jonathan Cromie. Artwork is by Katie Groves. Funding is provided by listeners at Patreon. If you enjoy this podcast and want to check out other shows by me and my friends, head to podcastiopodcastius.org.
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