For the ultimate article for the Ice-types, we continue on with more categories! It’s been a blast doing these, so brace yourselves for the final part! If you are ready to check the awards out, let’s get on with the show!
Most Useful in Real Life
Delibird
Delibird may not be a strong Pokémon, but it is one that would be helpful outside of battling. It has the ability to store food, which it could use to help out the needy. Being a Christmas-themed Pokémon, one could use it for present delivery, even if it is not necessarily the most reliable gift-giver (with the occasional explosive gift).
Runner-ups: Rotom (Frost), Avalugg, Lapras
Most Improved Battler
Piloswine
Perhaps the most improved Pokémon in battling is Piloswine. In the beginning, Piloswine’s Ice STAB did not mix well with its low Special Attack, meaning that it had no chance to use its powerful STAB combination. In Generation 4, it has an evolution to help extend its life, as well as getting a Physical Ice STAB. Generation 5 introduced Icicle Crash, a powerful Physical Ice attack, and upped the power of Icicle Spear. Not only that, Eviolite allowed Piloswine to take more hits since it’s not fully evolved. Last but not least, it earned Thick Fat to reduce super-effective Fire attacks and take half damage from Ice attacks. Based on this, I’d say Piloswine improved the most out of any Ice-type.
Runner-ups: Cloyster, Glalie, Weavile
Best in VG Competitive
Kyurem
Ice-types that function well in battle require that they are powerful offensively, since any defensive abilities are undermined by their disadvantageous matchups. Its forms have a lot of power that makes them a real force to be reckoned with. Its Black form has high Attack, while its White form has high Special Attack. The latter is generally better since it has a wider range of Special attacks, though the original do have use defensively, for Pressure could waste the opponent’s moves fairly fast.
Runner-ups: Mamoswine, Weavile
Best Move
Ice Beam
Ice Beam is the quintessential Ice attack. It is learned by several Pokémon, including most Water-types and some general attackers. The coverage it provides is very essential, covering the powerful Dragon-types and the useful Flying-types. It is so useful and easy to include in a team that it’s no wonder Ice Beam is the best Ice-type move. Though Freeze-Dry has a much better type coverage, it is not as powerful as Ice Beam, not is it as easily available (on the plus side, it gives players a reason to use actual Ice-types).
Runner-ups: Freeze-Dry, Icicle Crash, Blizzard
Least Resembled
Jynx
Quite a few Ice-types don’t look like Ice-types. Usually, Ice-types would have some icy body or is an animal associated with Ice. Some Pokémon have Ice as a secondary typing, which makes them more like their primary type than the other. However, Jynx is an Ice-type first, Psychic-type second, but it doesn’t look like either! Any player looking at Jynx might not have guessed that Jynx is an Ice-type especially, since it does not have any characteristics commonly found on Ice-types.
Runner-ups: Sneasel, Dewgong
Best Specialist
Brycen
With six specialists, there is a lot to choose from. For this one, I went with Brycen because he is the most developed of them all, having roles as not only a Gym Leader, but also having roles in the PokéStar movies. His influence is felt in the X & Y games by Wulfric. While not the strongest specialists we have, he is a cool dude.
Runner-ups: Wulfric, Candice
Most Original
Snorunt line
The family consisting of Snorunt, Glalie and Froslass is perhaps the most original Ice-type. The reason is that the final evolutions are essentially monsters, and scary ones at that. Snorunt is more benevolent in comparison, which makes the change more noticeable. Also, each of the members originated from a different monster, so their differences are tied together into one Pokémon family.
Runner-ups: Abomasnow, Vanilluxe line
Least Original
Cryogonal
Perhaps the least original Ice-types are icy in appearance, since the name of the type already denotes something that looks like ice. While I do like Cryogonal, I have to agree that Cryogonal is not quite an original Ice-type. Being a snowflake, its basis is very simple, just that it’s a bigger version of one.
Runner-ups: Glaceon, Regice
Least Favourite
Dewgong
Perhaps my least favourite Ice-type is Dewgong. It is a rather bland Pokémon with a generic cute face in my eyes, and it stood out the least among the Ice-types, unless you count standing out as a bland Ice-type. It doesn’t look too much like an Ice-type that even if it’s not an Ice-type, it would not be unusual. Walrein is the better Ice-type pinniped, since it made sense for it to be an Ice-type, and it even looks quite imposing.
Runner-ups: Smoochum
Most Favourite
Cryogonal
Choosing favourites is, for me, harder than choosing least-favourites since the former group tends to be a more crowded affair than the latter. There are several fantastic Ice-types so far, which makes it so difficult in the first place. As you can see, I picked Cryogonal in the end. Yes, it’s not the most original concept, as I had mentioned earlier, but the concept of a sentient snowflake is quite endearing to me.
Runner-ups: Mamoswine, Abomasnow
With that, we are officially done with the Ice-type articles. Completing these is harder than I have anticipated, since spending time on each section could take longer, especially when it comes to thinking twice about what to put. Because of that, I hope you enjoyed reading these articles as much as I have writing them.
I appreciate it.
