#14: Cubchoo & Beartic

Hell yeah. Just be prepard for a freezing cold cuteness overload, because at number 14 in my list of favorite Pokémon are both Cubchoo and Beartic. Let's start with Cubchoo. Just look at it and you know exactly why it is one of my favorite Pokémon: it's... just... freaking... ADORABLE!!! Its cute look, its snotty nose and its shy pose just make it the most adorable Pokémon ever! And you'd say that Cubchoo has a cold because the mucus from his nose is constantly running, but that's actually its strength: when Cubchoo attacks, it inhales the mucus and uses it for its ice-type attacks. Kind of gross, I agree, but I forgive Cubchoo. Now, Beartic is quite another story. It looks like the snot of Cubchoo's nose has frozen into a beard of icicles. Lovely. Well, Beartic does look cool, actually. It's also very strong in the video games, as opposed to Cubchoo: this little cub Pokémon's attack stat is not bad, but it just doesn't learn the right moves to make good use of that. Upon evolving, Beartic learns Icicle Crash; that's by far its best move, so definitely keep it around. Unfortunately, Beartic is not really a diverse Pokémon. It learns Thrash and Shadow Claw for a very strong and a reasonably strong move, but that's about it. Thrash is a normal-type attack, but it just does normal damage on anything that is not steel, ghost or rock. Dig is an option, but you'll probably have a powerful Pokémon with Earthquake handy. If not, be my guest. Beartic's special attack is just too low to make use of Ice Beam or Blizzard, you'll find that Icicle Crash is much more powerful. Those are letdowns, together with its low speed stat. Beartic has quite some acceptable defenses, but nothing to write home about, although it's a strong Pokémon to use. I personally don't use it, but Beartic and especially Cubchoo are definitely two of my favorite Pokémon to date. Also, this evolution line of Cubchoo and Beartic (polar bears) and the coming X and Y evolution line of Pancham and Pangoro (panda bears) are also seen as ice- and fighting-type alternatives to Teddiursa and Ursaring (probably based on grizzly bears). Yeah, I can't help but to agree a little...