Pokemon Black and White spotlight: The Ice-types

In Pokemon Black and White, winter comes three times a year, during the actual months of April, August and December. But here in the real world, we only get one winter per 12 month period, and to celebrate the season of snow and chilly weather, we're highlighting all the pure Ice-types of Black and White, including an adorable ice cream cone and an aggressively-crotched polar bear. The only Ice-type we're not including is the only dual Ice-type in B&W, legendary Dragon/Ice-type Kyurem, because we'll be covering the Dragon-type trio (the other two dragons being Zekrom and Reshiram) in a later post.

Banipucchi
#088 Unova / #582 National
Type: Ice
Species classification: Fresh Snow Pokemon
Ability: Ice Body – Recovers 1/16 of max HP each turn during a hailstorm
Dream World ability: Broken Armor – Decreases defense and increases speed each time user is hit with a damaging attack
Location found (Black/White): Route 6, Freezing Container (inside warehouses south of Hodomoe City), Dragon Spiral Tower in Winter
Wild hold items: None
Egg groups: Mineral
Capture rate: 255
Gender ratio: 50/50
Effort values: 1 Special Attack
Evolution family: Banipucchi > Baniricchi at level 35 > Baibanira at level 47

Baniricchi
#089 Unova / #583 National
Type: Ice
Species classification: Ice and Snow Pokemon
Ability: Ice Body – Recovers 1/16 of max HP each turn during a hailstorm
Dream World ability: Broken Armor – Decreases defense and increases speed each time user is hit with a damaging attack
Location found (Black/White): Dragon Spiral Tower in Winter
Wild hold items: None
Egg groups: Mineral
Capture rate: 120
Gender ratio: 50/50
Effort values: 2 Special Attack
Evolution family: Banipucchi > Baniricchi at level 35 > Baibanira at level 47

Baibanira
#090 Unova / #584 National
Type: Ice
Species classification: Blizzard Pokemon
Ability: Ice Body – Recovers 1/16 of max HP each turn during a hailstorm
Dream World ability: Broken Armor – Decreases defense and increases speed each time user is hit with a damaging attack
Location found (Black/White): Evolve Baniricchi
Egg groups: Mineral
Gender ratio: 50/50
Experience at lvl 100: 1,250,000
Base stats: 71 HP / 95 Atk / 85 Def / 110 SAtk / 95 SDef / 79 Spd / 535 Total
Effort values: 3 Special Attack
Evolution family: Banipucchi > Baniricchi at level 35 > Baibanira at level 47

Look at those base stats! Pure Ice-type may not be the useful typing, but Baibanira (like Bivanilla) makes up for it with well-rounded stats, solid move options, and an awesome design. For STAB moves, Ice Beam is your safest bet, with base power 95, 100% accuracy and a 10% chance of freezing your opponent. If you're more daring though, you could go for Blizzard, which also has a 10% chance of freezing, but sacrifices accuracy (70%) for a much higher base power (120).

Broken Armor is a new ability this generation, so it might be worth checking out on one of the other 15 Pokemon that can have this ability, but for Baibanira we prefer Ice Body (although if you're not going to use Hail, you might as well go for Broken Armor instead since you won't get much use out of Ice Body). If you do go for Broken Armor, you could try pairing it with Body Purge, a new non-damaging Steel-type move that Baibanira learns through breeding – it raises Speed two stages and halves the user's weight. With those speed boosts, Baibanira makes a decent special sweeper.

Next page: An adorable baby bear and his formidable evolution, Kumashun and Tsunbear