aroramage |
Well now, a shorter week comes
rolling by, so it looks like we might be running into
some more BREAK Evos! And now we've got one that's
probably on the more controversial end of things,
Raticate BREAK!
On one hand, he's nothing
particularly special. I mean, Raticate isn't a hard
Pokemon to really deal with, and his BREAK Evo's not too
much worse than that. Sure, he gains a few extra HP
bringing it up to 110, the highest score of any Raticate
printed, but he's still not that bad. Add on top of that
that he's going to inherit a Fighting Weakness but also
usually a free Retreat Cost, and even then he doesn't
seem like much more than a pest.
On the other hand, it depends what
Raticate you BREAK Evolve him from, and when you do, you
get to add on Raticate BREAK's version of Super Fang, a
popular Raticate attack! This one costs only 2 Energy
and lets you put down counters on the opponent's Active
Pokemon until they've got 10 HP remaining. We've seen
this sort of thing on Raticate as late as Boundaries
Crossed, though that version has only 60 HP, and it
costs 3 Energy to use his Super Fang.
Speaking of other versions of
Raticate, that does beg the question of which Raticate
would be the most useful with Raticate BREAK? In
Expanded, there's Raticate (BCR) for sure, who basically
just gets a large upgrade of +50 HP and a better Super
Fang, but it doesn't really add much otherwise. Gnaw
Through will still cripple the opponent's Tools, but
aside from that, Raticate (BCR) doesn't really do
damage. On the other hand, the Raticate from Plasma
Freeze (PLF) does have a damaging attack, albeit it
being a vanilla Bite at 2-for-30, but at least it does
damage! Not to mention he works well in the Plasma
Engine from back in the day, so he'll be able to use
that in combination with BREAK!
But then there's Raticate (BKP),
and this one actually works pretty well with Raticate
BREAK. He gives Raticate BREAK Antibodies, meaning he
can't be affected by pesky Special Conditions like
Confusion, Poison, Sleep (...PREPARE TO BE THE VICTIM OF
MY SINISTER TECHNIQUE FWAHAHAHAHA) and the like. On top
of that, he's got Dirty Shock to not only Poison your
opponent's Pokemon but even get rid of their Tools
attached to them - already an improvement over (BCR)'s
Gnaw Through.
So is this Raticate BREAK
competitive? Well, with the unique Raticate (BKP),
there's a little bit of a hefty deck that could
potentially, with the right mix of cards in it, break
into the metagame. My thought: combine him with Ariados.
It'd be tough to run solely Raticate BREAK/Ariados, but
the combo is simple enough:
1) evolve a Rattata to Raticate
(BKP) and a Spinarak to Ariados (AOR)
2) evolve to Raticate BREAK
3) Poison both Active Pokemon with
Ariados on your Bench (it won't poison your Raticate
cause of the Antibodies)
4) Super Fang with Raticate BREAK
5) Wait for your opponent to switch
Pokemon, as the Poison KO's that 10 remaining HP
It's a bit bulky with all the
evolutions, but I imagine there will be some play based
around it! Try it out yourself and see, but don't expect
to always come out on top - you may be proud of KO'ing
Megas, but that doesn't mean Raticate BREAK will stick
around very long...110 HP only gets you so far these
days...
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (I'd say there's
enough of a combination of cards to make him viable, and
besides, having the ability to reduce a Pokemon's HP to
10? That leaves it all kinds of vulnerable!)
Expanded: 2/5 (Poison damage, Burn
damage, Confusion damage, sniping if they try and get
back to the Bench...)
Limited: 3.5/5 (I mean, that's
pretty good! right?)
Arora Notealus: I actually had
Raticate BREAK almost make my own Top 10 list, just
shooting under at 11. The reasoning's about as flimsy as
Slowbro's was, to be fair - unique cards with big power
plays behind them that could definitely make things
worth it, at least in a casual sense. Competitively
viable? Depends on the card, and there would be a couple
more cards that made my own list that didn't quite make
it in...
Next Time:...this is just so
happens to be one of those cards.
|
Otaku |
We begin our week
with Raticate BREAK (XY: BREAKpoint
89/122). Being a BREAK Evolution for a Stage 1
means it is similar to a Stage 2, but without the actual
perks of being a Stage 2; can’t use Rare Candy,
trigger the damage bonus clause in “Powerful Friends”
that is found on Miltank (XY: Flashfire
83/106), etc. Nothing specifically references
BREAK Evolutions themselves, though. As a
Colorless-Type there is support available, like
Winona though not a huge amount of it, though
fortunately for Colorless-Types the Type specific
counters against them are lackluster and as such not
worth using in competitive play. There is no
Colorless Resistance which is handy, but the lack of
Colorless Weakness may potentially rob you of some
important, favorable match-ups (and yes in Unlimited
both Colorless Weakness and Resistance is a thing).
For all the cards you’re investing into Raticate
BREAK, it only has 110 HP, within OHKO range for the
stereotypical attacker (as opposed to the harder hitting
decks). Fighting-Types should barely break a sweat
as they just need to rack up 60 damage before Weakness
for a OHKO, which for a card like Landorus-EX is
a Strong Energy and either Muscle Band or
Fighting Fury Belt. The last thing
Raticate BREAK provides is an attack, “Super Fang”.
We’ve seen this before, and this version costs [CC] and
places damage counters on your opponent’s Active until
it has 10 HP remaining. At a glance this can seem
worthless or wonderful, and it is really neither.
On its own it can’t ever score a KO, but with the right
combo it provides an incredibly hard to prevent OHKO.
We cannot put
Raticate BREAK into play on its own, nor can we skip
its Stage 1, so let us cover the options for these
cards. For Rattata you only have XY:
BREAKpoint 87/122 in Standard, but in Expanded you
also have the older BW: Boundaries Crossed
104/149 and BW: Plasma Freeze 87/116. All
three are Basic Colorless-Type Pokémon with Fighting
Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [C], no Ancient
Traits, no Abilities, and just a single attack. BW:
Boundaries Crossed 104/149 is the oldest so we’ll
start with it: 30 HP and “Paralyzing Gaze”, which
requires [C] and Paralyzes the opponent’s Active with a
successful coin toss (“tails” does nothing). BW:
Plasma Freeze 87/116 jumps it to 40 HP plus needs
[CC] for its attack, “Lunge”, which is also a “tails
fails” attack but this time it is for 30 damage. XY:
BREAKpoint 87/122 is back down to 30 HP and for [C]
can use “Dangerous Suspicion” which has you draw a card
and then (if you want) swap Rattata with one of
your Benched Pokémon. Dangerous Suspicion is the
best of the attacks, but attacks that hit the Bench for
30 are just common enough I would still favor BW:
Plasma Freeze 87/116 for Expanded.
Three options as
well for Raticate: BW: Boundaries Crossed
105/149, BW: Plasma Freeze 88/116, and XY:
BREAKpoint 88/122. All are Stage 1
Colorless-Types with Fighting Weakness, no Resistance,
no Retreat Cost and no Ancient Trait. BW: Boundaries
Crossed 105/149 has 60 HP and two attacks; for [C]
it can use “Gnaw Through” to discard a Pokémon Tool
attached to the Defending Pokémon, while for [CCC] it
also sports a slightly more expensive version of Super
Fang, but it works the exact same as it does on
Raticate BREAK (it reads a bit different due to
attack template changes). It was reviewed
here and the
reviews didn’t expect too much and that was what we got:
not much. Many of us kept trying to make it work
but in the end while the OHKO was amazing it was too
slow and Rattata made it too fragile. BW:
Plasma Freeze 88/116 has 70 HP and is a Team Plasma
Pokémon. For [C] it can use “Transfer Junk” to up
to three cards from your discard pile to your hand: one
Team Plasma Pokémon, one Team Plasma Trainer, and one
Team Plasma Energy card. For that last one, the
only option is Plasma Energy but you have a
little more variety for the Trainers and a lot
for the Pokémon. It can also use “Bite” for 30 at
a cost of [CC]. The first attack would be amazing
on a Basic (even a not-so-great one), but Bite is filler
and Raticate is not a good Stage 1: you can see
our site review of it
here.
This leaves XY:
BREAKpoint 88/122, which has 70 HP, an Ability and
one attack. The Ability is “Antibodies”, which
prevents Raticate from being affected by Special
Conditions. It also states that any Special
Conditions that happen anyway (for example if Abilities
were turned off but then switch back on), Antibodies
will remove the Special Condition(s). While not
super vital (with its HP Special Conditions aren’t
likely an issue), it is far better than nothing and
might even have a specific use. The attack costs
[C] and is called “Dirty Shock”; it Poisons the
opponent’s Active and then discards all Pokémon Tools
attached to it. It is a shame the effects occur in
that order; I believe a Sparkling Robe would
block Poison before it was discarded (for example),
though this is unlikely to be a major issue.
Discarding all Tools attached to the opponent’s Active
may be quite useful, unless the waxing and waning of
Pokémon Tools versus counters is already at the point
where Tool usage decreases. Otherwise this can
strip up to four Pokémon Tools away from Sigilyph
(BW: Plasma Blast 41/101) or two from a Pokémon
with Θ Double like Entei (XY: Ancient Origins
15/98). It isn’t brilliant, but this is the one to
go with; after you at least can finish something off
with Dirty Shock via the Poison damage.
So how do you run
Raticate BREAK? In Expanded you try to rush
it into play, drop a Double Colorless Energy, use
a Hypnotoxic Laser, and take the opponent’s
Active out in one hit. Additional support would
likely be disruption based, to avoid the various cards
that can otherwise block part of the combo. In
Standard you don’t have Hypnotoxic Laser, but
against anything that is not a Grass-Type, you can use
Ariados (XY: Ancient Origins 6/98) and its
“Poisonous Nest” Ability. Thanks to Antibodies,
you won’t poison your Raticate BREAK, though with
just 110 HP it isn’t long for this world anyway.
When taking out Pokémon-EX or targets that are difficult
to re-ready (like Evolutions or the Energy heavy that
don’t have reusable Energy acceleration), this is a
powerhouse combo, but against something like Night
March, you’ll desperately want something simpler to fall
back upon. It is possible a competitive deck could
be built around this card, but so far I haven’t seen
one. Too much can go wrong for what otherwise
seems like an obvious killer deck. Raticate BREAK
is good for Limited pay, though, assuming you can get
the entire line and get it onto the field. You’ll
have to shoot for 2HKOs, but it is a good threat to have
on your Bench.
Ratings
Standard:
1.9/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
I actually have long been fond of this kind of OHKO
combo, since the days of Weezing (EX: Deoxys
51/107) 11 years ago, and am wondering if I should be
giving Gourgeist (XY 57/146) another shot
thanks to recent support, but Raticate BREAK
feels (and more importantly, actually resembles)
Raticate (BW: Boundaries Crossed 105/149) too
much for me to really recommend it. The main flaw
is that being a pseudo-Stage 2 is both too slow and
resource intensive; even if used indirectly like with
Mew-EX (the normal consideration for this kind of
card), Raticate BREAK remains the weakest link.
Raticate BREAK
didn’t make my list, but on the collective list it was
our 18th place finisher with five voting points.
There actually was a tie between it and the 17th place
pick; there was also a tie (at four voting points
apiece) for the 19th and 20th places. Raticate BREAK
could easily have jumped up or down to places based on a
single voting point difference.
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