Articuno

Articuno is notorious for normally being one of the worst legendary Pokemon of all time, but Battle Spot Singles flips that notion on its head thanks to Sheer Cold being legal! Sheer Cold makes Articuno one of the most terrifying stallbreakers in the game, allowing it to run through defensive staples such as Cresselia, Suicune, Porygon2, Slowbro, and Chansey. Articuno is very bulky for an OHKO move user, and access to Roost lets it stick around longer than other users of Sheer Cold such as Lapras and Glalie. Pressure makes Articuno an effective stall Pokemon itself, making it very usable on both stall and balanced teams. Finally, Articuno has some decent STAB moves in Freeze-Dry, which also allows it to hit Water-types, and Hurricane.

Articuno sounds like it should be a Battle Spot Singles staple on paper, but in reality the only thing that makes it a rather niche Pokemon is its absolutely atrocious typing. It has a crippling 4x weakness to Rock-type attacks, severely compromising its ability to deal with physical attackers, as prominent ones such as Garchomp, Landorus-T, Breloom, Tyranitar, and Hippowdon all carry Rock-type attacks, and Stealth Rock is sometimes seen on offensive teams as well. Its additional weaknesses to Steel and Fire make it even more vulnerable to common Pokemon such as Blaziken, Talonflame, Aegislash, and Heatran. Articuno's middling Speed makes it only a bit faster than Dragonite, meaning it has to choose between being fast and compromising bulk and being outsped by Pokemon such as Breloom and Gyarados. While Sheer Cold might be Articuno's selling point, Articuno also tends to rely on it a lot, which makes Articuno deadweight if it uses up Sheer Cold's meager PP and tends to make offensive teams very problematic for Articuno due to the move's 70% miss rate.