Introduction:
Regice is a Mono Ice type with a Special Defense stat of Base 200 and a usable HP stat of 80. With this stat line Regice can come in on the many Special Attackers of the tier and wall them. All of the following get checked by Regice; Oriocorio-Sensu, Wigglytuff, Politoed, Galvantula, Mesprit, Rotom-Fan, Cacturne, Liligant, Farigiraf, Tatsugiri, Palossand, and Ribombee. It’s solid 100 base Special Attack allows Regice to act as a pretty aggressive Special wall and pressure Special Attacks with it’s Thunderbolt & Ice Beam coverage. However it’s coverage doesn’t stop there; Flash Cannon is solid to hit opposing Regice for decent damage but also smack the occasional Wigglytuff for even more damage. Ancient Power can hit the bug types of the tier like Pinsir, Galvantula, Ribombee, and Ninjask for super effective damage. Fire types like Oricorio, Turtonator, and Magmortar get hit for a chunk as well, notably both Ninjask and Oricorio get hit for 4x damage. Ancient Power has a secondary effect to Omni boost Regice’s stats which can turn tables on some Special Wall Mirrors.
Moveset Options:
Aside from coverage, despite the “gen 3” ass movepool, Regice surprisingly has some solid movepool options to adapt to this format.
Oricorio-Sensu is a prominent Special Attacker in the tier, so naturally Regice can check it. However an issue Regice faces when checking Oriocorio-Sensu is Quiver Dance. A lot of the time, Oricorio can sit on Regice sets and repeatedly use Quiver Dance to boost Special Defense and Roost to heal back HP and remove the ice weakness. With enough Special Attacking and Speed boosts from Quiver Dance, Oricorio-Sensu can power through Regice with Hurricane or Air Slash flinches as well as ignore Paralysis’s speed drop from Thunder Wave and not care as much about full paralysis with its added special bulk. So, how does Regice check it? Well there’s a few different options, all of which are pretty effective.
Frost Breath is a 60 base power Ice type move with 90% accuracy which always results in a critical hit. Because critical hits bypass stat raises, frost breathe can ignore Oricorio-Sensu’s Special Defense stat and consistently 2 hit KO it. Additionally oricorio cannot roost itself out of the 1 v 1, as even without it’s flying typing Frost Breathe can reliably 3 hit KO. However Frost Breath faces some minor issues. With only 90% accuracy, it misses a lot and isn’t always super reliable, however the main drawback is the overall power you lose compared to Ice Beam. Ice beam’s boosted STAB damage brings it up to 135 power, while Frost Breath only up to a measly 90 power. This huge gap in power difference makes Frost Breathe pretty mediocre outside of checking Oriocorio. You’ll mostly see Frost Breathe on Resttalk sets which can’t afford to use the third move slot on an alternative move to check Oricorio-Sensu, but it’s also not a bad check at all on it’s own.
Psych up can also check Oricorio-Sensu, arguably better. Psych up is a simple support move which copies the opposing Pokémon’s stat changes. The basic idea is you switch into an Oricorio-Sensu, let it set up, and steal its stat changes which lets you pretty easily win the 1 v 1, and threaten a good chunk of the tier. However, this is not just restricted to Oriocorio. Against Tatsugiri or Rotom-Fan, if they make a nasty plot you can steal that boost to become more threatening, though you should be careful of Tatsugiri’s Draco meteor’s Special Attack reduction. Psych up is also useful for punishing the Calm Mind spammers in the tier such as Mesprit and Farigiraf.
A simple Toxic can cripple Special Attacks and prevent them from sweeping. With enough pressure from Ice beam, Special Attackers will be prevented from sweeping and will faint. This pairs well with rest, which lets you stall for more turns further.
Thunder Wave is another solid status option to cripple faster threats and scarfers. It’s especially helpful at crippling incoming wall breakers.
Thunder is a pretty viable move over Thunderbolt. Thunder has a huge upgrade in power with 110 base Power compared to Thunderbolts 90. However because Thunder suffers from only 70% accuracy, you are only ever going to be seeing Thunder on rain teams. On slower paced sets which can afford to miss more, Regice doesn’t mind the miss chance of Thunder with no rain.
Rock Polish can help to punish switches and is a nice tool to surprise the opponent. Though regice is mostly seen as a special wall, with rock polish it can quickly turn fast and aggressive while maintaining its natural special bulk. With 152 Speed investment and a jolly nature, you can outspeed max speed Ribombee after one rock polish, from there you can invest the rest of your EV’s into special attack and HP or otherwise depending on the set you have in mind. Rock polish pairs well especially with the bolt beam coverage Regice provides, and although scarce Rock Polish sets are pretty versatile in how you want to use them. Notably, rock polish likes clear body preventing speed drops from sticky web.
There’s a few more niche moves that don’t really need a whole essay on them but are good to know of such as counter, curse, charge beam, gravity, and snowscape + Aurora veil.
EV Spreads:
Specially defensive
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
With this spread you perform your role as a special wall as efficiently as possible. Alternatively you could go for the same spread but with a modest nature instead to increase special output a little bit without sacrificing too much crucial bulk. You don’t miss out on many important relevant calcs but have a little more fire power. Similarly, you can invest the 8 points from SpA into defense and go with a bold nature to become slightly bulky on the physical side, once again it doesn’t make too big of an impact but it’s a nice choice for personal preference.
Physically defensive
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
On top of regice’s massive special defense stat, it also has a really good 100 base physical defense stat. With a 252 Def invested bold nature, Regice can handle a vast majority of physical attacks much better than a non physically invested spread. Sometimes Regice can even swap into some unboosted physical attackers and answer them, though not as effectively as it can to special attackers. This set does suffer from the knock off users in the tier, as Regice will almost always want to keep its item whether it’s Leftovers, Heavy-Duty Boots, or any other item of such. And taking a 120 power move isn’t exactly something any special wall would want to take.
Offensive
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
It may seem weird to invest Special Attack into a wall, however unlike many walls, Regice is not passive. Regice really loves being able to smack things around, and with a max SpA modest nature it can do that to an even higher ability than before. More aggressive sets like substitute, rock polish, some sleep talk, and even just non gimmick sets all appreciate this spread. This spread works especially well on more aggressive teams who need a special wall without killing momentum.
Sets
Standard Special Wall
Regice @ Heavy-Duty Boots/Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam/Frost Breath
- Thunderbolt/Thunder
- Thunder Wave/Toxic/Psych up
- Rest
This set is pretty flexible and can be adapted to fit a team's needs. Frost breath and Psych up are solid checks to quiver dance sweepers, Thunder is nice to use on a Rain team, Thunder wave cripples speedy boys, and Toxic cripples everything ever. Rest is Regice’s only real form of healing, but Regice does still appreciate the status curing and full HP restore. Burning rest turns shouldn’t be too difficult when you can switch into half the tier.
Resttalk
Regice @ Heavy-Duty Boots/Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam/Frost Breath
- Thunder/Thunderbolt
- Sleep Talk
- Rest
While you do have to sacrifice diverse customization on this set, you make up for it in sleep talk. Having to burn rest turns to act can be very risky, and can give your opponent opportunities to take advantage of you. If you want to go in a more aggressive direction, a modest spread also works well here.
Fringe Sets
Satanice
Regice @ Leftovers/Icy Rock
Ability: Ice Body
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blizzard/Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt/Substitute/Rest
- Snowscape
- Aurora Veil
This is a very gimmicky set, but regardless it’s still seen play and success so I’m shoving it on here. With Snowscape you can make Aurora Veil live and with physical investment on top of natural special bulk with healing from ice body and potentially left overs you are very hard to kill for the turns Aurora Veil is up. Snowscape also enables Blizzard to up its 70% accuracy to 100%. Ice beam is nice to use over blizzard sometimes if you don’t expect to get up Aurora veil all the time and still want a somewhat consistent function as a special wall. Sub is just a nice option to have and while rest has its inconsistencies with this set it can still function nicely. Using icy rock extends your valuable Aurora Veil turns but also sacks the potential 6% heal from leftovers every turn that would normally stack with ice bodys 6%. Icy rock is relevant if you want teammates to take advantage of Aurora Veil’s turns, though some alternative screen setters are arguably better.
Assault Vest
Regice @ Assault Vest
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Ancient Power
Assault Vest Regice has been experimented with since pretty much the start of the tier. Despite that it’s never been quite cracked, but it definitely has potential. Once again the concept is straightforward, you already have a fatass SpD stat so why not make it even fatter. The huge special bulk lets you invest in full special attack with a modest nature with pretty much no consequences in that regard. However this set faces quite a few issues. For one, Regice is a very splashable Pokémon but the Assault Vest set requires a lot of support to make it work which takes away from part of what makes Regice so good. In the context of why it needs support; it’s crippling stealth rock weakness absolutely destroys its longevity, and while stealth rocks aren’t on every team, when you do face it, they make it very difficult to effectively use Regice. To counteract this, you can simply use one of the many hazard removal options in the tier. Another weakness this set has is Regice losing out on rest, which on a wall is something you really hate. Now to be fair, pretty much every Assault Vest user faces this issue to an extent, swampert in particular is often used on teams which appreciate its short term ability to check majority of the special threats in the tier, if not that then it’s paired with a wish passer like Farigiraf to get more long term value out of it. While you can do the same for Regice, it becomes increasingly difficult with it’s stealth rock weakness. Stealth rock really is the bane of existence for this set, but if you do remove them then you can go ham with Regice.
Choice Specs
Regice @ Choice Specs
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon/Focus Blast
- Ancient Power/Focus Blast
Choice specs can catch opponents off guard snag some crucial damage and kills. With specs and regice’s solid special stat, you become a pretty effective wall breaker. Some teams best regice switch in is regice itself, which can be broken through with this Regice set. Essentially, the idea is you bait in switch ins and smack them for a ton. This set pairs well with hazards, mostly and nearly only stealth rocks.
Checks & Counters
Wallbreakers like pinsir, specs politoed, Oricorio Base, Gem Ninjask, Swampert, Scrafty, Magmortar, Sirfetched, Primeape, Dugtrio-Alola, Specs tatsugiri, and Pidgeot all threaten big damage to Regice. Fortunately there is counter play with in coming status as well as damage, but you should still be careful of breakers especially with how important Regice is to a good majority of teams.
Knock off users give Regice a hard time. Regardless of your set, Regice’s item almost always has a huge impact in it’s viability, value, and prolonged longevity in the game. Not only do you take a fat 120 dark type move, but you also lose your Leftovers, Heavy-Duty Boots, Assault Vest, Specs, and icy rock. Knock off is almost always paired with Stealth Rocks, and when you lose boots you become vulnerable to the 24% damage on every entry. Losing assault vest and specs pretty much cripples that entire set’s purpose, and losing icy rock makes Regice lose a good chunk of it’s value.
Written by Essence