Articuno
Freeze Pokémon
A legendary bird Pokémon. It freezes water that is contained in winter air and makes it snow.
Base Stats
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Competitive
Strategy Overview
Articuno's ability to compress roles as both a Defog user and a Heal Bell user allows it to carve a niche on stall teams as a specially bulky support Pokemon, capable of removing entry hazards against Pokemon like Hippowdon, Empoleon, and Nidoking. Pressure is also one of Articuno's most useful traits, allowing it to stall out moves like Stealth Rock and Toxic, making it hard for the opponent to spread residual damage around the team, which any bulky build would appreciate. On top of this, Articuno is able to sponge hits from very strong special attackers like Hydreigon, Mega Blastoise, and Nidoking thanks to its incredibly high Special Defense stat and overall bulk. Articuno also possesses a decent Speed tier for a bulky Pokemon, which gives it the opportunity to outspeed and potentially remove Pokemon like Crawdaunt and Primarina with the right EV investment. Despite this, Articuno's 4x weakness to Stealth Rock makes it hard for it to come into play all the time and perform its role, meaning it mandates a lot more team support than most other Pokemon. Its subpar defensive typing also holds it back, providing it with only two resistances and an immunity to Ground-type attacks, aggravating its difficulty to come into play and making it weak to common offensive threats like Scizor, Mega Aerodactyl, and Cobalion. Furthermore, Pokemon like Mega Aggron and Nihilego can easily set up Stealth Rock and prevent Articuno from coming in and using Defog as well. Although Articuno is able to compress roles by running both Defog and Heal Bell on its set, it still faces heavy competition as a Defogger from Pokemon like Moltres, which has a much better defensive typing and consequently a relatively easier time finding an opportunity to Defog. Its passive nature can also provide free turns for certain setup sweepers that are particularly threatening to defensive builds like Terrakion and Infernape.
Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc