CCIc3 Boreas

Hello, folks! I am Boreas, and I am a long-time lover of the ice type and the proud victor of the most recent Ice Core Laddering Challenge. Having used ice almost religiously for a fairly long time (roughly two years), I've used most every Pokemon in the type at some point or another. Shortly after I started using ice (this was in like July of 2013, just a few months before Gen VI began) I realized that I needed some way to check banded scizor. As this was before the weather nerf, and hail stall was still undoubtedly the easiest way to succeed with ice, walrein's Stallrein set was being used on my team, and it never occurred to me that perhaps running a water/ice type with HP fire would be a good way to check scizor, because the best bulky water/ice type at that point (walrein) was already being used as my ace in every other match up, and I was totally against using cloyster because everyone used it (ignore the hypocrisy of that, in hind sight I realize that more people were using Stallrein yet I still opted to use that). I ended up running a messed up bulky LO glaceon set with HP fire as a laughable attempt to check scizor. It lived exactly one banded bullet punch (I don't think it lived all of the time) and OHKO'd in return with HP fire. I had entirely given up on checking scizor by the end of Gen V and basically decided that I should just accept a loss if I see it on the opposition's team. Some time into Gen VI (I'd say around February '14), I realized that I could check scizor (and to a lesser extent, mega scizor) by running a bulky specs set on a water/ice type. Specsrein (with an absolutely ridiculous EV spread) was born and remained on my team for months. I ended up leaving Pokemon Showdown for about five months from June '14 until the release of ORAS. When I returned I had lost my team and had to rebuild it. I took this as an opportunity to make some changes to the way I checked certain mons, and I replaced Specsrein for Specs Rotom-Frost (I always had issues against water, and Specsrein was absolutely useless in that matchup) for a short period of time, but I quickly ended up missing the fire resist that Thick Fat walrein brought to my team. Deciding to go for middle ground, I started running Specs Lapras because it was bulky enough to take scizor's bullet punches and most fire hits, just strong enough to OHKO offensive mega scizor with Specs HP fire (though it takes almost full special attack investment, unlike with walrein), and it can actually damage water types because it was blessed with freeze dry, a move I forgot existed for the longest time. I have used lapras since. When I saw that the third Ice Core Laddering Challenge had lapras in it, I was pumped until I saw that it also had cloyster. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with cloyster. The shell smash set certainly rips some types apart, but it basically turns the game into making certain the opponent can't keep hazards up, because if cloyster's sash is broken it is almost useless in most match ups. Another problem I have with cloyster is the simple fact that ice already has enough trouble trying to cover everything with 6 mons and cloyster's role is easily covered by the rest of most ice teams, making it more than a little redundant. This Core Challenge made that problem even more obvious by making me run it alongside lapras, forcing me to forgo either mamoswine and any chance of beating steel or weavile and any chance of beating psychic (banded mamoswine's superpower can hurt normal, so weavile really is not all that much more useful against normal than mamoswine is).

Tl;dr: I have experience using both lapras and cloyster, but they're useful in two entirely different play styles and I think cloyster is burdensome on the style of ice I run and made this challenge unnecessarily difficult for me. On to the actual team!

Closer to the beginning of the challenge I was using a team consisting of sashed mamoswine for rocks, cryogonal for a fast spin (it was my first time using cryogonal for any real period of time since before the beginning of ORAS, I was very impressed with it), LO weavile because...I just run LO on it if I feel my current team has too many choice items, Scarfed Kyurem-B because I needed some way to beat some certain fighting threats (namely mega medicham, scarfed outrage spam does wonders to fighting once terrakion is dead and cobalion is weakened) and mega charizard-Y, Specs Lapras because I never build a team without it (and Lapras was required for the core challenge), and the standard sashed shell smash cloyster set. I peaked at 1499 with that team, got angry and gave up for a week. The Thursday before the conclusion of the challenge, a friend of mine convinced me to try it again. I decided to take a different approach from before, going with a bulkier sort of ice team I'm more used to over the excessively offensive ice team I was using before.
Here's the team:

Piloswine @ Eviolite
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 248 HP / 100 Def / 152 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard

Lapras @ Choice Specs
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 180 HP / 180 SpA / 148 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Freeze-Dry
- Frost Breath
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Surf

Cloyster @ Focus Sash
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear
- Rock Blast

Nyx (Weavile) (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pickpocket
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Low Kick
- Icicle Crash
- Ice Shard
- Knock Off

Thimo (Avalugg) (M) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 200 Def / 60 SpD
Impish Nature
- Avalanche
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Recover

Kyurem-Black @ Life Orb
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Ice Beam
- Fusion Bolt
- Rock Slide
- Earth Power

I know the intro was excessively long, so I'd like to spare you from a long conclusion. If you have ANY questions for me at all about how the team runs, what the threats to the team are, or even about the type in general, please feel free to contact me! I'm in the Monotype room almost every single day, if you can't find me anywhere on the user list, just highlight Boreas in the chat and if I'm on I'll PM you. Thanks for reading!