[Analysis] Mamoswine as an Ice and Ground-type raid attacker: Is 6*L50 Shadow Mamoswine worth it?

by | Apr 29, 2023 | Raid, Raids, Teban54 | 0 comments

Edit: I forgot to consider Zygarde raids, which are also best countered by Mamoswine. It should still be duoable by L30 regular Mamoswines with best friends, but harder than Rayquaza and Landorus. More discussions here.

TL;DR – If you want to DUO Mega Rayquaza, yes!

(Summary “infographic” below)

  • Shadow Mamoswine dominates Ice types, and is a top-tier counter against dragon and flying bosses, even though it’s often not the best (other types have better shadows and Xurkitree).
  • While most uses for ice types (Rayquaza and Landorus raids) are easy duos and only NEED L30 regular Mamoswines, having 6*L50 Shadow Mamoswines allows you to DUO MEGA Rayquaza!
  • Shadow Mamoswine is also generally the best non-mega Ground type, edging out PB Groudon in practical use. However, it fares a lot worse when compared to competitor types, being worse than their shadows and legendaries. Luckily, there are several bosses where ground is the only option.
  • While regular Mamoswine is still a top-tier non-shadow ice and one of the many great ground types, it’s no longer competitive when compared to other types, even other non-legendaries. Evolve a cheap high-level non-shadow team if you don’t have one, but all resources should go into shadows.
  • Even ice-type Shadow Mamoswine can theoretically be outclassed by Galarian Zen Darmanitan, but its implementation is uncertain.

Keep reading for:

  • Ice-type and ground-type charts
  • Pairwise comparisons involve Shadow and Regular Mamoswine
  • Details on Mega Rayquaza duo and Mega Garchomp solo with Shadow Mamoswine teams
  • Plots of Ice vs Dragon, and Ice vs Electric vs Rock
  • Selected future ice and ground attackers
  • List of my previous analyses, in Appendix

Introduction

Swinub Community Day Classic takes place on Saturday, April 29, from 2pm to 5pm.

While the CD move Ancient Power has no use in raids, Mamoswine itself has been a staple as a raid attacker ever since it was released. Regular (non-shadow) Mamoswine had been the best Ice type for years, then Shadow Mamoswine took over for another few years, and since Mamoswine received High Horsepower in December 2022 (obtainable with regular Charged TMs), it can even function as a great Ground type! Today, Shadow Mamoswine remains the #1 Ice AND Ground attacker (generally).

What are you waiting for with a top of its type? Go grind as hard as you can! Get those 2160 XLs to build 6 Level 50 Shadow Mamoswine! See ya!

You’re still reading? Of course, you know I never stop there.

Not every “#1 of its type” can win – bug and fairy are some notoriously bad examples. At the end of the day, what you use in raids are not always 6 of a single type, but rather, 6 best counters against a single boss.

Both ice and ground happen to have weaker power than alternative attacking types that you can use… Even though there are situations where you have to use them, most notably against Rayquaza.

This gives rise to the main questions that I want to address today:

  • When ice or ground is the only option, is a 6*L50 shadow team really necessary? Or can you make do with cheaper teams, even wild-caught Level 30s?
  • When ice or ground is not the only option, how does (regular/shadow) Mamoswine compare to attackers of other types? How often will you actually be using it on the field?

I’ll answer these questions with the following parts:

  • Part 1: Shadow and regular Mamoswine as Ice attackers
    • 1a: Ice-type charts
    • 1b: When is ice required, and when is ice usable but not the best?
    • 1c: Short-manning thresholds – How high do you need to power them up to?
    • 1d: Ice compared to other types: Dragon, Electric, Rock
  • Part 2: Shadow and regular Mamoswine as Ground attackers
    • 2a: Ground-type charts
    • 2b: When is ground required, and ground compared to other types
  • Part 3: Future considerations – Will Shadow Mamoswine ever be outclassed?

If you’re on desktop and want to jump to a particular part, search “Part X” or “Part 1c”. There’s also “Part X Verdict”, which are more condensed but still somewhat elaborate sections with more advice.

You can now follow me (@teban54) on Twitter!

DO NOT PURIFY!

Just in case anyone still needs it… Unless you clearly know what you’re doing, don’t purify those Shadow Swinubs. Just don’t.

As long as you care about how well they perform in raids, even a 0% Shadow Mamoswine is a much, much better raid attacker than 100% Purified Mamoswine, if they’re powered up to the same level.

Part 1: Shadow and regular Mamoswine as Ice attackers

This part should sound familiar for most veteran players, but I still aim to offer new insights with cross-type comparisons and, for the first time, short-manning threshold analyses.

Part 1a: Ice-type Charts

[Part 1a TL;DR] Shadow Mamoswine rules ice types. Regular Mamoswine is technically worse than Galarian Darmanitan now on average, but it’s more consistent and way more accessible, and still one of the top non-shadow ice attackers.

Ice attackers ranked by their average in-raid performance, using ASE, ASE with dodging, and ASTTW.

Shadow Mamoswine (Powder Snow/Avalanche) dominates this chart, and it shouldn’t be surprising. At the moment, no other ice types even come close.

Regular Mamoswine‘s place on the chart, however, may catch a few of you by surprise. It’s still among the top non-shadow ice attackers, but no longer the clear-cut #1 – Galarian Darmanitan now gives it some fierce competition. So let’s take a closer look…

Regular Mamoswine vs. Galarian Darmanitan

Mamoswine vs. Galarian Darmanitan (L40 best friends)

Galarian Darmanitan does outperform Mamoswine in the majority of situations. This should not be surprising, as it does have 2% higher ER and 9% higher DPS, despite being glassier with an arguably worse typing.

Does this mean regular Mamoswine is useless now? Absolutely not!

  • The difference between them is very small, and as you’ll see later, Mamoswine does everything G-Darmanitan does perfectly fine.
  • Mamoswine is more consistent. There are about 10% of cases where G-Darmanitan does really badly (a mix of heavy-hitting moves and typing advantages).
    • Mamoswine does face its own disadvantages (water and grass moves), but those happen less often and are usually from T3 bosses.
    • Distribution plots, or “how much better is Mamoswine in each case”, can be found here.
  • And of course, Galarian Darmanitan is way less accessible. Sure, some players may have made use of the 2021 event where Galarian Darumaka was spawning everywhere, but outside of that, the only way to get it currently is from 7km eggs, with a hatch rate of 1.2%. It’s certainly not getting a CD Classic anytime soon, for sure.

Part 1b: When is ice required?

[Part 1b TL;DR] Only 2 legendaries (Rayquaza and Landorus) NEED ice, out of 13 that are weak to ice. Outside of those and Electric/Flying (Zapdos, Thundurus), even Shadow Mamoswine falls behind other shadows.

I’ll answer this with a rehash of the summary table presented at the very beginning:

Some of you may think a lot of raid bosses are double weak to ice. In fact, once upon a time, I thought so too. But not really…

Out of many raid bosses you can use ice types against, only 2 legendaries (and 4 megas) are actually double weak to ice:

  • T5s: Rayquaza, Landorus (both forms)
  • Megas: Salamence, Sceptile, Garchomp, Rayquaza

These are the only cases where ice types are the only viable counters. 2 T5 raids, out of 13 currently released.

The main role of ice types in T5 raids is anti-Dragon and anti-Flying. But ice is never the only counter there, and in fact, it’s often weaker than most other counters. And yes, that applies to even Shadow Mamoswine – it’s weaker than shadow dragons, shadow electrics, and Xurkitree.

  • One special case where Shadow Mamoswine regains the crown is against Electric/Flying bosses, aka Zapdos and Thundurus. This is thanks to electric not being allowed, and rock having no good shadows yet.
  • Side note: Even though ice is also Super Effective against ground and grass, they’re practically meaningless here. The only mono ground-type boss we have is Groudon (non-Primal), which has Fire Blast and Solar Beam that destroy Mamoswine.

Ice does stand out better in mega raids, with the 4 bosses having both quantity and quality, especially Rayquaza. However, most people won’t be doing the non-Rayquaza mega raids more than a handful times.

Part 1c: Short-manning thresholds – How high do you need to power them up to?

[Part 1c TL;DR] L30 Regular Mamoswines already take care of T5 Rayquaza and Landorus duos. But L50 Shadow Mamoswines can DUO MEGA Rayquaza (without weather boost)! You really need XLs, though. Also, L40 Shadow Mamoswines can solo Mega Garchomp if you dodge, and duo Zekrom.

Now that we know Mamoswine (especially regular) is more of a Rayquaza and Landorus specialist, you may recall one thing… Both of these raids are easy duos. In fact, two players using Level 30 regular Mamoswine can comfortably duo Rayquaza, both Landorus forms and Mega Salamence/Sceptile/Garchomp without friendship bonus.

This raises a question: Is powering up high-level Mamoswines really that necessary? Is my dust better spent on something else (like shadow dragons), if level 30 non-shadow Mamos seem enough?

So, for the first time in my articles, I’m running an estimate of “when do you cross the short-manning threshold”.

With best friend bonus and no weather boost, if you run 6 Mamoswines of the same kind:

  • L30 Regular -> L40 Regular gets you:
    • (Trio -> Duo) Thundurus Incarnate, Naganadel, Mega Venusaur
    • (4-man -> Trio) Latias, Latios (T5), Arceus
  • L40 Regular -> L40 Shadow gets you:
    • (Trio -> Duo) Zapdos, Giratina Origin, Thundurus Therian, Tornadus Incarnate, Zekrom, Regidrago, Galarian Articuno, Eternatus, Ultra Necrozma
    • (4-man -> Trio) Groudon (T5), Lugia
    • (5-man -> 4-man) Mega Latios
    • (6-man -> 5-man) Mega Latias
  • L40 Shadow -> L50 Shadow gets you:
    • (Duo -> “Assisted Solo”) Rayquaza, Mega Garchomp, Mega Pidgeot
      • Mega Garchomp true solo may be possible! (1.01 estimator)
    • (Trio -> Duo) Giratina Altered, Tornadus Therian, Yveltal, Galarian Zapdos, Mega Rayquaza

Bolded are bosses that are best countered by (regular/shadow) Mamoswine.

Note that these are only base on Pokebattler estimators averaged across all boss movesets. For many of them, the threshold can be crossed earlier with an easier moveset, or unable to be met with a harder movest – examples below.

Many of these shortmans can be achieved by other counters, but there are two that really stand out. Duoing Mega Rayquaza? Soloing Mega Garchomp? Sign me up!

  • One other notable case is Zekrom duo, where Shadow Mamoswine is more reliable than Shadow Salamence/Dragonite. I won’t go into details here.

Now we’ll take a slightly more detailed look into both, to see how easy they are, and whether you really need full L50 teams. TL;DR:

  • Mega Rayquaza can be duoed, but you need XLs – the threshold is close to L50.
  • Mega Garchomp can be soloed reliably at L40 if you dodge. No-dodging L40 can solo Sand Tomb, and Outrage depends on fast move; L50 solidifies these two, but can’t do Earthquake or Fire Blast without dodging.

Mega Rayquaza Duo

(I didn’t have time to run more complicated sims. Thus, the results here are not guaranteed to play out precisely as such in practice. Please check Pokebattler yourself for more accurate results.)

First, I’ll mention an important caveat. Pokebattler does have Mega Rayquaza now, but it uses unnerfed stats. Most legendaries get a 9% nerf on top of that, but Primal Kyogre and Groudon only got a 3% nerf. Regardless of how Niantic deals with Mega Rayquaza’s stats, the actual raid will likely be easier than what Pokebattler tells you.

The following table lists the Estimator values for unnerfed Mega Ray, and my own estimate of a 3% nerf (simply multiplying the estimator by 0.97).

Mamo levelUnnerfed3% nerf
L30 regular2.932.84
L40 regular2.502.43
L40 shadow2.252.18
L50 shadow1.971.91

Yes, you read that right – Mega Rayquaza is a Mega Legendary raid that CAN be duoed! But only if both of you have SIX L50 Shadow Mamoswines (and are best friends).

However, be aware if Mega Ray has Outrage. Without dodging, L50 Shadow Mamo gets you an estimator around 2.10 against the Outrage movesets (even with 3% nerf). The good news is, realistic dodging gets you back to the duo range.

Unfortunately, in this case even a L40 shadow team doesn’t make the cut. Even if you choose the easiest moveset (DT/AA) and apply 3% nerf, you still get 2.01.

The good news is a Mega Rayquaza TRIO is fairly easy! Even 3 players with L30 regular Mamoswines can defeat Mega Ray, as longa as they’re best friends and dodge Outrage.

Here’s a Pokebattler link set to L50 with best friends.

Mega Garchomp Solo

This one is actually easier, but depends on Garchomp’s moveset and your dodging.

If you dodge, a team of L40 Shadow Mamoswines can already solo all movesets.

If you don’t dodge… Earthquake and Fire Blast can’t be soloed even at L50. But Sand Tomb (the easiest) can be soloed at L40, MS/Outrage is fine at L40, and DT/Outrage barely falls out (1.03). Level 50 Shadow Mamoswines can reliably solo Outrage and Sand Tomb sets.

Here’s a Pokebattler link set to L50.

Part 1d: Ice compared to other types

[Part 1d TL;DR] Shadow Mamoswine is worse than shadow dragons and electrics, as well as Xurkitree and Zekrom. But it’s ahead of all rock types, and still a top-tier option overall (the most accessible of all these). Regular Mamoswine is worse than non-legendary dragon, rock and electric types (Dragonite, Rhyperior, Electivire/Magnezone), and is more like a filler if you don’t have 6 others.

Outside of Rayquaza and Landorus raids, ice types face quite a lot of competition in their main roles:

  • Anti-Dragon: Also done by Dragon (and Fairy) types
  • Anti-Flying: Also done by Electric and Rock types
    • Electric can’t do Zapdos and Thundurus
    • (Rock can’t do Galarian Zapdos)

In this section, we’ll compare both regular and Shadow Mamoswine to these main competitors.

Ice vs. Dragon

Ice and Dragon attackers ranked by their average in-raid performance, using ASE, ASE with dodging, and ASTTW.

Shadow Mamoswine is worse than Shadow dragons (Salamence and Dragonite), but typically better than non-shadow dragons, including Rayquaza. This is further validated with pairwise comparisons shown below.

  • L50 Shadow Mamoswine > L40 shadow dragons. This is important considering Swinub XLs are generally more common than Dratini XLs and especially Bagon XLs. Comparison plots here.

Regular Mamoswine is worse than all good non-shadow dragons, even as “low” as Dragonite, unfortunately.

Overall, Shadow Mamoswine is still a very strong anti-dragon counter and a relatively affordable one, even if technically not the best. Regular Mamoswine, however, is largely a filler option that’s best used if you don’t have 6 dedicated dragons.

Here are the comparison plots:

Shadow Mamoswine vs. Shadow Salamence, Shadow Dragonite, Rayquaza (using the best between Breaking Swipe and Outrage), and Dragonite (L40 best friends)

Ice vs. Electric vs. Rock

Ice, Electric and Rock attackers ranked by their average in-raid performance, using ASE, ASE with dodging, and ASTTW.

The order generally goes like this:

  1. Electric Legendaries & Shadows (Xurkitree, Shadow Electivire/Magnezone, FB Zekrom)
  2. Shadow Mamoswine
  3. Shadow Tyranitar, Rampardos, Rhyperior
  4. Electric Non-legendaries (Electivire, Magnezone)
  5. Mamoswine
  6. Other Rocks (Gigalith, Tyranitar)

(Tyrantrum and Terrakion are omitted on the chart for clarity, but they’re around Electivire.)

On average, when electric can be used, Shadow Mamoswine is worse than premium electric types, but above all rock types. When electric cannot be used, Shadow Mamoswine becomes the #1 counter. This applies to Zapdos and Thundurus raids.

  • L50 Shadow Mamoswine > L40 premium electrics, and Swinub XL is the most available one among those. Comparison plots here.

Regular Mamoswine still fall behind the best non-legendary options of other types, such as Rampardos and Electivire. If you lack these options, a non-shadow Mamoswine is a good filler.

  • Even L50 regular Mamoswine still falls behind L40 Rampardos and Rhyperior. Comparison plots here.

Comparisons with L40 Shadow Mamoswine:

Shadow Mamoswine vs. Shadow Electivire, Zekrom (Fusion Bolt), Shadow Tyranitar and Rampardos (L40 best friends)

I didn’t include Xurkitree and Shadow Magnezone in order to reduce the number of charts. They have similar shape as Shadow Electivire, with Xurkitree being better than it and Shadow Magnezone being worse. All three are generally still above Shadow Mamoswine.

Note that I’d consider Shadow Mamoswine vs Zekrom a draw, but more in Zekrom’s favor due to estimator.

Part 1 Verdict: Ice Mamoswine

Mamoswine (and later its shadow) as an ice type have always been regarded as hugely meta-relevant since Day 1, and among ice types alone, it truly deserves it. It’s the best Rayquaza and Landorus slayer by definition, and 6 XL Shadow Mamoswines can even enable a MEGA Rayquaza duo (plus Mega Garchomp solo and Zekrom duo). Outside of its type, Shadow Mamoswine remains a top-tier anti-Dragon and anti-Flying counter, even though not #1.

However, there are several downsides that are not frequently recognized, especially for regular Mamoswine. Within its own type, Galarian Darmanitan now slightly edges it out. When compared to others, even non-legendaries like Dragonite, Rampardos/Rhyperior and Electivire/Magnezone come on top, sometimes by a lot. The Rayquaza and Landorus duos, which do require ice, are so easy that even L30 regular Mamoswine teams do the job.

I do think everyone should have a team of wild-caught L30-35 regular Mamoswine at the minimum. But if you’re investing stardust and especially XL candies today, all resources should go into the shadow.

Multiple Shadow Mamoswines can be appealing for many different types of players, whether you want the theoretical goal of 6 best of each type, or practical investments that can help you in a large number of raids, even if they’re not the best. In fact, building a Shadow Mamoswine team is likely a more practical and cheaper option than a shadow dragon team AND a shadow electric team.

Ultimately, you don’t NEED to invest heavily into L50 Shadow Mamoswine teams, but there are indeed many good reasons for powering them up.

Part 2: Shadow and regular Mamoswine as Ground attackers

Now this is the part that a lot of you may not be familiar with. Historically, Mamoswine had been stuck with Bulldoze for most of its time in PoGo, and the move is terrible in both PvE and PvP. It was only less than half a year ago when Mamoswine received High Horsepower as a permanent move pool addition during a GBL update, and it has made major impacts in various battle formats. For raids, in particular…

Part 2a: Ground-type Charts

[Part 2a TL;DR] Shadow Mamoswine is generally the best non-mega ground, being slightly ahead of Precipice Blades Groudon in most practical cases, but it has some notable typing disadvantages. Regular Mamoswine is far behind Groudon, but within a whole pack of very similar ground types below that (Landorus-T, Garchomp, Excadrill, Mamoswine itself, Rhyperior).

Ground attackers ranked by their average in-raid performance, using ASE, ASE with dodging, and ASTTW.

“Groudon better than Shadow Mamoswine in Estimator?” Actually, no. From a closer look that I’ll present below, Shadow Mamoswine is a better ground attacker than Precipice Blades Groudon in most practical situations. This means it is the best non-“mega” ground type.

  • Fact: Mud-Slap/High Horsepower is currently the best non-exclusive ground-type moveset, as illustrated by u/Elastic_Space‘s metric, Moveset Specific Power (MSP). Yes, it’s better than Earth Power.

Regular Mamoswine also got a huge boon with High Horsepower. Even though it’s still way behind PB Groudon, it now joins the “pack” of 5 ground types with similar performance: Landorus (Therian), Garchomp, Excadrill, Mamoswine itself, and Rhyperior. All of them are perfectly great at fulfilling ground-type duties.

  • The order I gave is a bit different from the chart, for several reasons. See sections below.

It’s important to note that due to its ice subtyping, both forms of Mamoswine have a systematic typing disadvantage against types that you expect a ground attacker to counter (Fire, Steel, Rock, plus Fighting coverage moves). This point is elaborated in this analysis (excerpt screenshot). It’s one of the “problems” that hamper Shadow Mamoswine’s performance as a ground attacker below its theoretical ER/DPS values.

Shadow Mamoswine vs. Groudon

I first did this comparison when writing my Primal Groudon analysis. In fact, I’ll present the same comparison chart and the same explanations as last time:

Groudon vs. Shadow Mamoswine (L40 best friends)

Detailed explanations are in the Primal Groudon analysis (here’s an excerpt screenshot if you don’t want to read the full article). I’ll copy over the TL;DR:

Shadow Mamoswine is basically better. It performs the “traditional” duty of a ground attacker better than Groudon does. Other than that, sometimes it does really badly due to typing disadvantages, but then Groudon isn’t the top counter either.

  • Here is a line chart that shows all ground attackers, but only when ground is the best attacking type against the boss (mostly electrics and double weaknesses). In this chart, Shadow Mamoswine clearly comes out ahead of Groudon.

It should be noted that the difference is not huge – typically 5%, or sometimes less.

Regular Mamoswine vs. other Ground attackers

(Skippable in the interest of time)

Non-shadow Mamoswine obviously can’t touch its own shadow self nor Precipice Blades Groudon (though it’s quite comparable to Earthquake Groudon, which we’ll omit here). But it’s very similar to most other prominent ground attackers: Landorus (Therian), Garchomp, Excadrill, Mamoswine itself, and Rhyperior. How does Mamoswine compare to each of them?

Mamoswine vs. Landorus (Therian), Garchomp, Excadrill and Rhyperior (L40 best friends)

FWIW, the ER and DPS numbers of all these options are shown here.

Impressions:

  • Landorus-T seem to be just better than Mamoswine (it also has higher DPS and TDO).
  • Garchomp‘s main advantage is its bulk and good typing (especially against fire). It actually has lower DPS than Mamoswine, though higher ER. I’d still consider Garchomp better overall, but the cases where it shines are where you typically don’t want to use ground types to begin with.
  • Excadrill is a glass-cannon version of Mamoswine, with the same ER, higher DPS, and even some of the same drawbacks that Mamoswine face. While its steel typing provides some nice resistances, it suffers from a similar amount of typing disadvantage as Mamoswine (fire, fighting, ground). Most of my simulation plots show them as very close, for a good reason.
  • Rhyperior has the lowest raw power, and relies on its bulk even more than Garchomp does. I’d say it’s the “worst” of the group, but still perfectly functional with only a small difference.
  • Note that Mamoswine’s typing disadvantage shows up in all of them except Excadrill. In 10% of all cases, Mamoswine just collapses.

Overall, if I need to come up with a ranking, I’d say: Landorus-T ≈ Garchomp >= Excadrill ≈ Mamoswine > Rhyperior.

Part 2b: When is ground required?

[Part 2b TL;DR] 6 legendaries can only be countered by ground (electrics and double weaknesses), a surprisingly high number – almost half of ground’s use cases. However, whenever another type can be used, Shadow Mamoswine falls behind other shadows and legendaries, while regular Mamoswine becomes worse than even many budget options.

Now let’s look at the second half of the summary table:

Believe it or not, there are actually much more “must use ground” cases than “must use ice” – 6 legendaries. Two double weaknesses (Heatran, Nihilego), but the rest are all electric bosses that can (almost) only be countered by ground: Raikou, Regieleki, Tapu Koko, Xurkitree, Mega Manectric.

  • I was actually surprised to see this number is almost as much as other current T5 bosses weak to ground (8). In other words, nearly half the time when you can bring out ground types at all, it’s the only option! Wow. I’m really surprised.

Here is a line chart that shows all ground attackers, but only when ground is the best attacking type against the boss (mostly electrics and double weaknesses). In this scenario, Shadow Mamoswine clearly comes out ahead of Groudon. There are also minor changes in the scores of other ground attackers, most notably Garchomp getting worse and regular Mamoswine getting somewhat better.

Ground compared to other types

Ground attacks do have wide coverage, being able to hit 5 types for Super Effective damage. However, against the 4 types other than electric, other attacking types are much stronger than ground types (even Shadow Mamoswine).

The main enemies that ground types faces are Fighting and Water, followed by Fire, Steel and Rock in some cases.

In this case, Shadow Mamoswine does even worse than it did as an ice type earlier, as stuff that outclass it now include:

  • Shadows (Machamp, Moltres/Blaziken, Swampert)
  • Top legendaries (Terrakion, Reshiram, Kyogre)
  • Even some non-legendaries (Metagross, Rampardos, Rhyperior)

The closest comparisons are Lucario/Conkeldurr (top non-legendary fighting), and Shadow Charizard (“lesser” shadow fire). Shadow Mamoswine is still better than many non-legendaries like Machamp and Chandelure, but that’s not what you’d expect from a shadow, right?

Overall, outside of the “must use ground” cases, Shadow Mamoswine is usually a “tier 2” counter when compared to other types, generally sitting between their top shadow/legendary options and non-legendaries. The strength alone is a bit underwhelming for a shadow.

Regular Mamoswine… Honestly disappoints, just like most other ground types. Being worse than Machamp, Gyarados, Blaziken and non-shadow SD Tyranitar is just too bad in this day and age. Unless you lack a team of several other types, ground types other than Shadow Mamoswine and Groudon are simply “must use ground” specialists and team fillers.

Part 2 Verdict: Ground Mamoswine

The way I see it, ground attackers are very clearly divided into two tiers: Shadow Mamoswine leads the “Tier 1 Ground” (with Groudon being the only contender – aka shadows and legendaries), while regular Mamoswine is part of the many “Tier 2 Ground”s (aka non-legendaries).

The problem is that ground types really don’t live up the competition with other types. Whenever alternatives can be used, Shadow Mamoswine ends up worse than other types’ Tier 1 shadows and legendaries, while regular Mamoswine becomes well below other types’ Tier 2s.

Fortunately, there are a good number of “must use ground” raids to justify their value somewhat – almost half of ground’s use cases currently. Shadow Mamoswine is #1 or #2 when that happens.

Outside of those, people who will find the most value in Shadow Mamoswine (Ground) and Groudon likely:

  • Don’t have too many dedicated top-tier teams built;
  • Prefer to use unique counters;
  • Get sunny weather boost a lot; OR
  • Can coordinate with a friend to run a Primal Groudon in the party (which provides the 30% mega boost even if it’s not currently on the field)

The elephant in the room is that you don’t have to build a Shadow Mamoswine solely as a ground attacker! Once you build it as an ice type, you can unlock a second charged move or use Charged TMs to get yourself a top ground attacker for free! It might have been harder to justify the investment as a ground type alone, but treating it as a “ground-type bonus” from a top ice attacker makes this sound like a no-brainer.

Part 3: Future considerations – Will Shadow Mamoswine ever be outclassed?

Possibly yes!

[Part 3 TL;DR] The biggest and most realistic threat to ice-type Shadow Mamoswine is Galarian Darmanitan Zen, which will be straight up better if it keeps the current GM moveset, but there’s a lot of uncertainty in implementation. On the ground side, many shadows can surpass Shadow Mamoswine, as well as Landorus-T with a future signature move.

Future and speculative Ice-type attackers

Future and speculative Ice attackers ranked by ASE, ASE with dodging, and ASTTW.

I did a detailed look on future ice types in the Kyurem analysis, so in this article, I’ll just mention those that have the potential to dethrone shadow or regular Mamoswine.

Galarian Darmanitan (Zen Mode) has the greatest potential, by far. It has higher base attack than Mewtwo, and is already assigned Ice Fang/Avalanche in the current Game Master. Obviously that can change, but if it stays… We have a new ice king on our hands, immediately outclassing Shadow Mamoswine by quite a bit.

  • Another uncertainty is how the form is implemented: permanent form or an in-battle form change? So a lot of uncertainty surrounding this one.

The other possible options involve even more uncertainty: Kyurem and/or Black Kyurem with new moves.

  • Note that there’s only one single ice-type move in Kyurem’s MSG moveset that can still become a fast move: Freeze-Dry, and that’s a rather unlikely outcome. But theoretically possible.
  • Between Shadow Mamoswine and regular Mamoswine: Kyurem with ice fast move, and Black Kyurem with its current GM moveset.
  • Similar to Shadow Mamoswine: Black Kyurem with ice fast move.
  • Better than Shadow Mamoswine: Black Kyurem with ice fast move and signature charged move.

Overall, I really can’t say if Shadow Mamoswine is or is not future-proof yet, because it all depends on how Zen Mode Darmanitans are implemented. But we might know the answer soon-ish…?

Future and speculative Ground-type attackers

Future and speculative Ground attackers ranked by ASE, ASE with dodging, and ASTTW.

(This is basically a rehash of the section in Primal Groudon analysis)

On the ground side, Shadow Mamoswine is a lot less future-proof. Several good shadows in the future – Shadow Groudon, Shadow Garchomp, Shadow Excadrill and Shadow Rhyperior – will be equal or better. Aside from Shadow Groudon, the differences with the rest are small enough that I wouldn’t worry too much about them.

Landorus-T may also challenge it with its signature move, Sandsear Storm, if it becomes OP enough.

Articles coming up next

  • Volcarona, Kleavor and Mega Pinsir: All of them as bug types, Volcarona as fire, and possibly Kleavor as rock depending on moveset. Will likely only start working once Kleavor has been added to GM and thus Pokebattler.
  • Quick analysis on Blast Burn Delphox for May CD, assuming leaks are true.

Appendix: Past analyses on other types

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