Why does Candice have a Medicham?

Question

This makes no sense, Medicham isn't an Ice type Pokémon.

Comments

My guess is because there aren’t many Ice types in Sinnoh. (The same goes for Flint, have you seen his team?)

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There aren't many ice type in Kalos, too. But Wulfric does not have a non ice type.

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https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/192833/in-diamond-and-pearl-why-does-volkner-have-an-ambipom

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medicham as a fighting/psychic type covers 3/4 ice weaknesses: fighting for rock/steel & psychic for fighting, plus medicham gets access to ice punch so thats a bonus! rad empoleon made a great point about limited ice types in sinnoh and i think they made a way better decision with candice than they did with glacia whose teams 5 mons but literally only 2 evolution lines, lack of ice types in regional dex is usually why ice leaders/elite 4s often suck but they actually made a great move with candice, having a medicham makes her more challenging as you wont be able to sweep her team with a mon like infernape, lucario or some other good against ice just like that

Answer 1

BECAUSE SHE CAN

There are several cases where a Trainer or Gym Leader has Pokemon that are not "their type".
You must remember, these people are supposed to be really good trainers. It makes sense that they would have some diversity in their teams.

Here are some examples:
You could ask the same question about a handful of other trainers in that same game. Diamond and Pearl has good examples. What about Volkner? Aaron? Bertha? Flint?
Steven in Ruby and Sapphire is a STEEL-TYPE trainer, but only has three of them. His other three are Cradily (Rock/Grass), Claydol (Ground/Psychic), and Armaldo (Rock/Bug)
FireRed and LeafGreen are literally filled with examples, heck, every single elite four member has off-type Pokemon.
Sabrina, Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, and Lance are the offending trainers here.

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TL;DR.
These In-game Trainers are supposed to be strong. It makes sense that the developers would vary their team to make them more versatile, and harder for you beat.