Yesterday, Pokémon GO players experienced a brief moment when Black Kyurem and White Kyurem, two highly anticipated legendary Pokémon, were accidentally released as rewards in the game’s GO Battle League (GBL).
This unexpected occurrence, which was not previously announced by Niantic, led to an expected flurry of excitement and confusion within the Pokémon GO community. As one might imagine, this excitement was short-lived.
Niantic soon addressed the situation through their official channels, clarifying that the appearance of Black Kyurem and White Kyurem in the GBL was unintentional. Consequently, both Pokémon were removed from the GBL rewards, and they are currently no longer available.
Trainers, we were experiencing issues with Black Kyurem and White Kyurem being rewarded in GBL. These two Pokémon were unintended, and the issue is now fixed, so these two Pokémon are currently no longer available.
— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) December 16, 2023
As you might expect, word spread rapidly across social media platforms and many players rushed to participate in the GBL, hoping to secure these super rare Pokémon. Screenshots and videos of successful captures began circulating, and if you missed the hype, here’s how it all looked like:
A Japanese Trainer even posted a video of White Kyurem in action, confirming that this indeed happened, and that we got ourself a couple of unintended Pokémon in the wild. Silly as may it look, here’s a White Kyurem in-game:
Hey pic.twitter.com/Ah4ysq1qff
— くらしょー🐼 (@9Ra9panDA) December 16, 2023
Now the question is, what will Niantic do about these Pokémon? There has been no official word on whether or not these Pokémon will be removed from players’ accounts, or maybe converted into regular Kyurem. We certainly do not expect a widespread release as of today.
How good are White Kyurem and Black Kyurem?
The potential that Black Kyurem has is what makes this release even more exciting, as it is one of the best Legendary Pokémon in the game. Black Kyurem is a Dragon and Ice type Pokémon, and it’s a monster through and through.
With 5206 Max CP, 310 Attack, 245 Stamina, and 183 Defense, Black Kyurem is the highest DPS non-Mega Dragon type in the game, topping even Rayquaza in its non mega-evolved form. Think of Black Kyurem as if Rayquaza was on steroids, but was not able to Mega Evolve.
The story is even better if we take a look at Black Kyurem as an Ice-type attacker. Black Kyurem is the best Ice-type in the game, bar none, followed by White Kyurem, Galarian Zen Darmanitan, and then regular Kyurem.
You think Shadow Mamoswine is good? Black Kyurem has higher DPS and almost 40% better survivability than Mamoswine, making it the king of Ice types throughout all currently known Pokémon in Pokémon GO.
White Kyurem is overall slightly weaker than Black Kyurem, despite both of them having the exact same stats. The difference comes down to move sets, as White Kyurem got significantly worse moves in our opinion. Here’s how their fast and charge moves stack up:
Kyurem (Black)
|
Kyurem (White)
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Fast moves | Dragon Tail Dragon | Dragon Breath Dragon |
| Shadow Claw Ghost | Steel Wing Steel | |
| Charge moves | Outrage Dragon | Dragon Pulse Dragon |
| Blizzard Ice | Blizzard Ice | |
| Stone Edge Rock | Ancient Power Rock | |
| Iron Head Steel | Focus Blast Fighting |
It goes without saying, but White Kyurem really got the short end of the stick here, at least for Gyms and Raids:
- Dragon Pulse has worse DPS than Outrage by 12%
- Ancient Power has literary half the DPS of Stone Edge
- Focus Blast is an odd Fighting type that we don’t understand why you would run
For PvP, the jury is still out, but Master League meta is wild anyway, so we don’t really know what will happen there.
