Competitive Pokemon History - Abomasnow Quiz

Answer: Snow Warning

Snow Warning makes Abomasnow into hail teams' version of Tyranitar, Kyogre or Groudon by summoning a hailstorm onto the battlefield. In the fourth generation, these abilities brought forth their respective weathers permanently, and could only be removed by another Pokemon using a weather changing move or activating their weather inducing ability.

This meant that, while they were incredibly niche, hail teams added Abomasnow to their team by default, and for obvious reasons.

Answer: Its movepool

Abomasnow's Ice/Grass typing was nothing particularly amazing, its ability didn't innately amplify its own offenses, and it doesn't have a signature move. That leaves its movepool as the only possible correct answer. Abomasnow could make effective use of very strong moves, mainly starting off with Blizzard and Wood Hammer and venturing on into a series of other solid options, such as Focus Blast, Earthquake, Ice Shard or Hidden Power Fire if you really hated Scizor and Forretress. Blizzard was optimal on Abomasnow rather than the typical Ice Beam due to the fact that Blizzard's poor accuracy is rendered a non problem, made out to be a fully accurate move under the permanent hail Abomasnow provides itself. Due to being able to use high base power moves, Abomasnow's middling offensive stats weren't as much of a problem as they'd otherwise be.

Answer: Seven

Abomasnow was weak to Rock, Bug, Flying, Poison, Steel, Fighting and was extremely weak to Fire. All of those, bar Poison, were incredibly common on the average competitive team. Abomasnow's low Speed and iffy bulk meant safely switching it into battle was practically impossible combined with its many weaknesses, and it also meant Abomasnow was somewhat deficient against offensive teams that could mow it right over.

It had access to priority Ice Shard to at least keep them somewhat honest, but anything with good bulk or that resisted Ice could shrug it off and most likely Abomasnow back very hard.

This made it very reliant on team support to overcome these issues.

Answer: Water

Water types generally rely on Ice Beam to keep Ice-weak Grass types at bay. However, Abomasnow's Ice typing and decent enough bulk meant Ice Beam wasn't an issue. Water types also scarcely packed Fire type coverage, meaning Abomasnow didn't have to fear them too much. Strong, super effective Wood Hammers would then enable Abomasnow to thwart Water types, threatening a 2HKO at absolute worst that was often an OHKO. Thus, teams weak to defensive Water types might get some mileage out of having an Abomasnow handy.

Answer: Kyurem-W

The other three options demand weather that is entirely not hail, so they would loathe Abomasnow's presence if anything. Kyurem-W, however, becomes absolutely unstoppable if Abomasnow is paired with it on a team. The already destructive legendary Ice type becomes even harder to tame if it can replace Ice Beam with Blizzard on its offensive sets, which Abomasnow allows it to optimally do.

Moreover, chip damage induced from Abomasnow's hail means that even Ice-resistant foes, Chansey and Blissey will take a beating if they try to switch into Kyurem-W, and anything that isn't one of the pink blobs or resistant to Ice will just get annihilated.

Therefore, Abomasnow was a useful Pokemon to be paired with Kyurem-W.

Answer: Having a good matchup against other weather setters

While Groudon can switch in on Tyranitar to change the weather, Kyogre could potentially find a lane to switch in on Groudon or T-Tar, and T-Tar has a wide variety of threats it can switch in on, none of these three would ever dare try to wrestle away dominance of the skies from an active, healthy Abomasnow. Abomasnow can 2HKO Groudon with Blizzard or Wood Hammer, 2HKO Kyogre with Grass Knot or shoot for an OHKO with Wood Hammer, can 2HKO T-Tar with Wood Hammer or maybe even OHKO with Focus Blast. Kyogre conveniently lacked the tools to hit Abomasnow back particularly hard, while Groudon and T-Tar just about never ran enough Speed EVs to outspeed Abomasnow and avoid getting KOed. Thus, Abomasnow happened to be a consistent weather setter, giving it good viability in the Uber tier.

Answer: 132

Going up from a mediocre 92 to a very respectable 132, with its high base power moves, Mega Abomasnow was ready to inflict some pain. It would end up dropping to UnderUsed due to Snow Warning's hail no longer being permanent, but it was still a pretty solid Pokemon here.

Answer: 30

Mega Abomasnow's bad defensive typing and Speed could still hold it back, even with its improved bulk. This made it an asset on niche Trick Room teams, but was bad news on any other team archetype.

Answer: Alolan Ninetales

Alolan Ninetales, with a far better defensive typing and higher Speed, was a plainly superior hail setter with Snow Warning compared to Abomasnow. Its alternate Fairy typing was also quite useful for it, giving it added utility in dealing with Fighting and Dark types, the former especially being generally insurmountable for Abomasnow. Thus, its viability declined steeply, even its Mega forme.

Answer: Aurora Veil

Aurora Veil halves the damage the user and its team takes for five turns. However, it fails to do anything at all unless the weather is actively hailing, meaning that generally only Pokemon with the Snow Warning ability would be able to make any use of it. Those that did made for great offensive support Pokemon, and Abomasnow became one of such Pokemon in the eighth generation.