Swinub
As part of the Pokémon GO Holidays 2021 event, Swinub will be available in raids as a Tier 1 raid boss in Pokémon GO. In case you’re wondering, yes it can be shiny.
Swinub can be caught with the following CP values:
- 384 – 423 CP at Level 20, no weather boost
- 480 – 529 CP at Level 25 with Sunny or Snow weather boost
It is an Ice & Ground type, which makes it weak to Fighting, Fire, Grass, Steel and Water type moves.
Swinub Raid Counters
Whenever the shadow variant of a Pokémon listed below is available in the game, it is strongly recommended to use it over its regular/purified counterpart. However, since Shadow Pokémon are extremely expensive to power up and require specific events to TM away Frustration, they will NOT be listed as raid counters in this article.
Swinub’s best raid counters are listed below:
| Supreme Counters | ||
|---|---|---|
Charizard (Mega Y)
|
Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Charizard (Mega X)
|
Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Blastoise (Mega)
|
Water Gun Water | Hydro Cannon* Water |
Houndoom (Mega)
|
Fire Fang Fire | Flamethrower Fire |
Gyarados (Mega)
|
Waterfall Water | Hydro Pump Water |
Abomasnow (Mega)
|
Razor Leaf Grass | Energy Ball Grass |
| Great Counters | ||
Venusaur (Mega)
|
Vine Whip Grass | Frenzy Plant* Grass |
Reshiram
|
Fire Fang Fire | Overheat Fire |
Lucario
|
Counter Fighting | Aura Sphere Fighting |
Chandelure
|
Incinerate Fire | Overheat Fire |
Lopunny (Mega)
|
Low Kick Fighting | Focus Blast Fighting |
Metagross
|
Bullet Punch Steel | Meteor Mash* Steel |
Darmanitan
|
Fire Fang Fire | Overheat Fire |
Zarude
|
Vine Whip Grass | Power Whip Grass |
Blaziken
|
Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Moltres
|
Fire Spin Fire | Overheat Fire |
Conkeldurr
|
Counter Fighting | Dynamic Punch Fighting |
Kyogre
|
Waterfall Water | Surf Water |
Kingler
|
Bubble Water | Crabhammer Water |
Machamp
|
Counter Fighting | Dynamic Punch Fighting |
Entei
|
Fire Fang Fire | Flamethrower Fire or Overheat Fire |
Breloom
|
Counter Fighting | Grass Knot* Grass or Dynamic Punch Fighting |
Heatran
|
Fire Spin Fire | Flamethrower Fire |
* marks a legacy move
Swinub has so many weaknesses that the list could go on forever. If you don’t have any of the Pokémon listed above powered up, you can always use:
- “Generalist” Pokémon such as Psycho Cut + Shadow Ball Mewtwo or Mega Gengar
- Other heavy-hitting or weather boosted Megas
- Eevolutions such as Flareon or Vaporeon (with full fire and water type movesets, respectively)
- Emboar, Infernape, Typhlosion or Empoleon (with their respective CD movesets)
Always keep an eye out for event-boosted Megas (i.e. Mega Abomasnow). Whenever a specific Mega Pokémon (from the ones listed above) is featured during an event, it instantly becomes a S+ tier counter. The temporary boost is too good to pass up, as it instantly pushes that Pokémon to level 55 once mega evolved.
Stats and Max CP
|
Swinub
IceGround
|
|||||
| Max CP at Level 40 741 | Max CP at Level 50 837 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATK 90 | DEF 69 | STA 137 | |||
| Weak to | Strong Against | ||||
| Fighting Fire Grass Steel Water | Dragon Grass Ground | ||||
Moveset
| Fast Moves | Charge Moves |
|---|---|
|
|
Swinub’s only use is in PvP Little Cups. In fact, it was one of the top picks in the Little Jungle Cup, thanks to its spammy Powder Snow + Icy Wind/Body Slam moveset. It even has some type coverage thanks to Rock Slide.
Aside from that, the best thing you can do with a Swinub is to evolve it into Mamoswine. Mamoswine is the ultimate dragon/flying slayer thanks to its great ice type moveset Powder Snow + Avalanche. It’s not as dominant as it used to be since Galarian Darmanitan took its #1 spot as an ice type attacker, but it’s still a top-tier choice vs. Pokémon that have a 4x weakness to ice type attacks, such as Rayquaza, Dragonite, Landorus or Garchomp.
We hope you found this raid guide useful!
