After a dominant finals match, Kingambit took the throne and proved to be the king of Dark types at a major Pokémon Scarlet and Violet tournament this past weekend in Fresno, California.
With the Regulation C format defined by the addition of four new Dark types—Ting-Lu, Chi-Yu, Chien-Pao, and (not so much) Wo-Chien—Kingambit had fallen off a bit in usage in the recent tournaments. Even at June 11’s Fresno Regionals, Kingambit was nowhere to be found among the top 12 Pokémon in usage.
But despite its fall in popularity, champion Emilio Forbes showed just how threatening the Dark/Steel samurai can be in the current meta. Together, Forbes and Kingambit proved you don’t need one of the Treasures of Ruin to win a Regulation C tournament.
This specific Kingambit set was all about offense, running Swords Dance and a Dark Tera Type with the Black Glasses. Between the Tera Type and Black Glasses, Kingambit could already dish out a lot of damage with its signature move Kowtow Cleave or Sucker Punch for priority, but Swords Dance gave it the extra boost it needed to tear through teams. He credited fellow player Luka Trejgut for the set.
Related: Treasures of Ruin: How to use 4 of Scarlet and Violet’s strongest Pokémon
More impressive than Kingambit’s strength was Forbes’ ability to keep the samurai safe from all the Fairy and Fighting types who can hit it for super-effective damage, namely Flutter Mane and Iron Hands. In fact, he had games in the semifinals and finals where his Kingambit didn’t take a single hit while setting up and getting huge knockouts.
Aside from Kingambit, Forbes also impressed everyone with a timely side Will-O-Wisp on his own Flutter Mane to protect it from falling asleep from Amoonguss’ Spore in game two of the finals. This is a fun anti-Amoonguss strategy that has popped up several times throughout the season, but the huge first turn set Forbes up to win the whole event.
This marked Forbes’ third win at a regional tournament and earned him an invitation to the Pokemon World Championships 2023 in Yokohama, Japan—set to begin Aug. 11.
