Mamoswine.
Like many early Pokémon, it was Swinub's final evolution, which had gone undiscovered for so long that scientists had once believed it extinct.
However, thanks to Professor Rowan's research in Sinnoh, researchers finally uncovered the secrets of the move Ancient Power.
Learning this move seemed to awaken the savage power within certain ancient Pokémon, allowing them to evolve into the forms they had possessed at their peak.
Mamoswine was one of them, evolving from certain exceptionally gifted Piloswine.
(Mamoswine)
As Qingyu had mentioned before, the Ice type itself really wasn't very good. It excelled at offense but fell short on defense.
Even the Steel type, widely recognized as the strongest defensive type, couldn't rescue Ice's defenses the way it did for the Bug/Steel combination. Instead, it created two glaring quadruple weaknesses, making the trade-off hardly worthwhile...
So what if you took a different approach, abandoned defense entirely, and pushed its excellent offensive capabilities to their limit?
A glass-cannon speedster like Weavile, which completely sacrificed defense, was certainly one option. It had once earned Weavile the fearsome title of "Dragon Slayer," with countless Dragon-type Pokémon falling to its blade.
Mamoswine, meanwhile, represented a different approach.
The Ice/Ground combination still wasn't particularly good for switching defensively. Its weaknesses were too obvious.
But the offensive capabilities of that combination were absurdly strong.
Apart from a tiny handful of type combinations and certain Pokémon with Levitate, it theoretically had almost no gaps in its offensive coverage.
And the Ground type posed a considerable threat to the Fire type Pokémon that formed the core of the Sunny Day Team.
Thus, the moment he saw Mamoswine appear on the screen, Qingyu decisively ordered Torkoal back without hesitation.
"Mamoswine poses a huge threat to our team, so we need to switch in another Pokémon promptly to