Ice Type in Pokemon Go: Present and Future

The Ice type is the one of the oldest Pokémon types in the games, as it was introduced in the very first games, Pokémon Red and Blue. It isn’t a very good attacking or defending type but boasts the second highest HP stat by type in the game (due to the likes of Lapras, Walrein and the upcoming Kyurem.) Ice type moves used to be regarded as ‘dragon killers’ in the main series games, that is, until the Fairy typing came along. As of gen 7 there are 36 Ice type Pokémon, making it the smallest type. So how do these Ice types size up in Pokémon Go?

There are plenty of ice types that are not yet released in Go, as a steady amount of Ice types were released throughout each generation, generally about 4-6 per generation apart from Gen 7 which added only 1 new Ice type: Crabominable but also added the Alola variants of Kanto Pokemon which added some flair to the Ice typing gaining Vulpix, Ninetails, Sandshrew and Sandslash.

Below is a list of more Pokémon in generations 1-7 in Pokémon Go, but do not make it in the top 10 (in terms of Max CP).

Discussion and Move Predictions

Now for a very interesting topic: Move predictions. Some of these Pokémon will be very competitively viable in the game, especially the legendary Pokémon Kyurem at the top of the list. There are currently 3 Ice type fast moves in the game and 6 charge moves. We expect to see more moves come out as future generations are released.

In the table below, we will look at some potential Ice type moves (and some other type moves) for a select amount upcoming Pokemon.

Take these movesets with a grain of salt, but it is interesting to see what combinations can be made!

As you can see, plenty of the above Pokemon could potentially learn double Ice movesets but only a handful of them will be relevant in the Meta.

Ice Types in the Meta

Ice types are an underwhelming type in the game, normally only being added to teams for those who do not have proper counters to Dragon types.

• The pure Ice type resists: no other type moves but Ice type moves are not very effective.
• Adversely, the pure Ice type is weak to Fire, Rock, Steel and Fighting type moves.

Ice type moves used by these Pokémon will be super effective against Dragon, Flying, Ground and Grass types, so be sure to use these Pokémon against opponents of these types!

The Ice type is boosted in Snow weather, so in that weather you can expect to see more wild spawns of Ice types, as well as their Ice type attacks doing more damage in raids and gym battles. However, for most of the year, Snow type weather is fairly rare for most parts of the globe.

They do not dominate a single stat, as their ATK and DEF stats vary widely between the different variety of Ice types, but they do boast the second highest STA stat amongst all types.

History of the Ice Type

Although the Ice type was released as one of the original types in the very first games, it still has very limited use. As mentioned above, only features in teams that do not have optimal counters against Dragon types. Hopefully with the introduction of future generations (and hopefully a wider move-pool) or the shortly upcoming Alolan forms of Kanto Pokemon we will see some more use of this type in gyms and raids.