" Don’t do me the cold shoulder! "
-Mega Cryogonal
Hi guys, girls, oversized snowflakes and everything in-between! I have to confess something: I tend to underestimate this Pokémon. After all, we have so much BROKEN things up here, it isn’t as much of a surprise I underesitate them. Plus, Hail teams are not well known for their bulkyness and great defensive synergy. Sorry, I like weather team but this one is not my style.
Be warned, since there is no competitive usage stats avaliable, I do not have any reliable ways to accurately predict the metagame. This analysis is theoretical and does not entirely reflect a Pokémon’s viability.
Typing, Stats, Ability & Movepool
Ice
Ability: Sleet (Levitate before Mega)
Hp: 70
Atk: 50 (50)
Def: 30 (65)
SpA: 115 (95)
SpD: 150 (135)
Spe: 135 (105)
Although having a terrible sens of humour, Mega Cryogonal is a Pokémon worth keeping in mind. It can prove itself to be a strong cleaner with great Special Attack and Speed. Although its physical Bulk is comparable to Greninja, it got a high special defence stat. It would have preferred to have something else than pure ice to use this stat but I guess it can manage, right? Talking about pure ice, it gives it a very strong Blizzard to spam. Coupled with Sky high speed, that makes a speedy but frail attacker, very vulnerable to priority.
Levitate makes a great pre-mega ability to give it immunity to Spikes and Livewire and a reliable way to switch into Choice Landorus-T Earthquake or Delta Mega Medicham Earth power. Sleet Increase Hail’s damages to 20%! That’s huge! That greatly increase Hail’s stall breaking abilities as Avalugg is the only viable ice-type wall in Stall teams.
Mega Cryogonal have some nice tools at its disposal. First is a super strong Blizzard, second is Rapid Spin, Third is Haze and fourth is Recover. Also, Freeze Dry is the classic Ice type move for dealing with Water Type as it does supper effective damages on water. As such, Bulky Water are now victims instead of checks. However, outside of that, Cryogonal don’t have anything spectacular.
But remember, you have to play an Hail team.They don’t exactly sucks permafrost but could struggle here.
Suggested Set
Hail Cleaner
Cryogonal @ Cryogonalite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
Timid Nature
-Freeze-Dry
-Blizzard / Recover
-Rapid Spin / Recover
-Hidden Power [Ground] / Recover
A Standart offensive set, that could also serves as an offensive spinner. Freeze-Dry is the primary STAB, hitting Water for super effective damages. Blizzard, when under Hail, have 100% accuracy and is hard to switch into. Rapid Spin is self explanatory while Hidden Power Ground beats most opposing Fire and Steel. It also notably beat Scizor on the switch. Any of the last 3 moves could be switched to Recover to have a reliable recovery.
Substitute attacker
Cryogonal @ Cryogonalite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
Timid Nature
-Freeze-Dry
-Hidden Power [Ground]
-Substitute
-Recover
This substitute set works best against bulkyer teams. Cryogonal’s substitue is easy to break, so it would mostly annoy Stall and block their status spreading Pokémon. The key of this set is to keep yourself somewhat safe and abusing Sleet damages.
Other Options
Hidden Power Fire is a very viable alternative for Ferrothorn and Scizor on the switch plus the ability to hit opposing Ice types, but then become hopeless against Heatran.
Good Teammates
- Hail setter are mandatory. Delta Treevenant is the best one around as Abomasnow is… bad.
- Water Types resits Fire and Steel that are dangerous for Heal Team.
- Delta Scyther is a good teammate as they form a good sweeper/wallbreaking core.
- Gengar is a threatening Pokémon and pair well as a spinblocker for Hail team, also giving a reliable Landorus-T switch in most of the time. However, it amplifies the stereotype of the frail Hail team.
Checks and Counter
- Fire Typesare nightmare for Mega Cryogonal because they wall our snowflake and menace it back.
- Revenge killers like Scarf users are a hard for Cryogonal to handle.
- Delta Aggron cancel Sleet with Drought, double resist Ice, but take important Hidden Power Ground damages. Other Weather setters are also problematic.
- Priority users are a big problem for non-subtitute varient. Delta Arcanine, Delta Blaziken and Mega Delta Bisharp are the most prominent ones, but not advices much as…
- Mega Scizor shuts down Mega Cryogonal as it used sub variants at setup fodder, Pursuit trap and destroy with Bullet Punch. It also frequently uses special bulk investment to check Mega Alakasam and Latios, so Cryogonal would be much compared to these monsters. True, Hidden Power Fire behind a sub, but now Heatran wreak him/her EVEN HARDER. Even if Cryogonal freeze it, boom, Lava Plume Taw Heatran if I remember correct. If Cryogonal mess with Heatran with HP Ground,
Air Ballon is still a thing andit have the OHKO and loose to Scizor.
Overall
Mega Cryogonal is good in a niche archetype, being hail. It spots very great pros but will probably struggle in the Meta. I think it would be either UU or UUBL.
- Clefable
- Mega Diancie
- Heatran
- Landorus-T
- Mega Delta Charizard
- Others