aroramage |
Why yes, a common field mouse does
manage to hit our Top 3. If that's not surprising to
you, I don't know what is...aside from maybe sand castle
ghosts eating you alive on the beach-I'M EXCITED FOR SUN
& MOON
Anyways, Rattata and Raticate both
make our list for being a noteworthy duo. ESPECIALLY
compared to their previous iterations. Let's start with
the little guy Rattata. Originally, all he had was that
1-for-20 vanilla Bite. That was it. Now the Bite's been
weakened to 10 damage but he got an amazing Ability in
Mischievous Fang. This Ability lets Rattata munch away
at all the Pokemon Tools on your opponent's Active
Pokemon when he comes into play. Played at the right
time, Rattata can easily tip things into your favor. But
then he's left pretty vulnerable at 40 HP.
So that brings us
to the card that made it onto my list at least, Raticate.
The original was a 60 HP Stage 1 that held onto that
1-for-20 vanilla Bite but also had Super Fang, which at
3 Energy dealt damage equal to half the Defending
Pokemon (aka the opponent's Active Pokemon)'s remaining
HP. Really I wouldn't have been surprised to see Super
Fang come back, it wasn't too bad an attack. Just
unpopular on what could be OHKO'd by the commonly played
Hitmonchan's Jab.
But this Raticate? This one is very
very different. First of all, Bite is upgraded to
Crunch, which carries over the 1-for-10 Bite but adds on
the neat little effect of discarding Energy from the
Active Pokemon. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. That
kind of effect normally has something like a coin flip
attached, so even at low damage it's a potent effect
that can absolutely destroy an unprepared opponent. That
being said, there is another attack with an effect that
WILL absolutely destroy an unprepared opponent, and that
is the Shadowy Bite.
Surprisingly, this attack only
costs 1 Energy. Even more surprisingly, this attack does
60 damage for every type of a specific card in your
opponent's discard. Even more surprising than that, it
targets Special Energies. Now that combination of things
may seem rather low, but consider that most people will
usually be running at least 4 of a certain kind of
Special Energy they want to be utilizing to its fullest
potential. Strong Energy, DCE, Double Dragon, these are
just a few small examples of what get used in various
decks. And remember, Raticate's Shadowy Bite does 60 for
each one for up to 240 if you only run 4.
And he's got an attack that
discards any Energy.
That's synergy right there, folks.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (I expect Raticate
decks will pop up to meddle with the natural order of
things)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (and all things
considered, he's got the right attributes - quick Stage,
cheap yet powerful attack)
Limited: 2/5 (but he thrives where
Special Energy thrives, and Rattata's a tech at best
outside of a Raticate deck)
Arora Notealus: Who would think
that Rattata and Raticate would ever hit a Top 10 list,
let alone be placed in the Top 3? It certainly says
something about their capabilities compared to their
former selves. Definitely an improvement overall, even
without Raticate getting a huge HP boost.
Next Time: Another Colorless
Pokemon strikes the Top 3!
|
Otaku |
Welcome to our first twofer as third place goes to
Rattata (XY: Evolutions 66/108) and
Raticate (XY: Evolutions 67/108)!
…
No I’m not kidding, the insanity is real. It might
seem a bit jumbled, but I’ll be reviewing the two
together as they have so much in common. I’ll also
be shaking up the order a bit because some traits
influence others a bit more than usual. Rattata
is a Basic Pokémon; this is the best Stage to be as its
minimum space and time requirements to get the card into
play, it has a natural synergy with certain effects (at
least compared to other Stages), it can serve as your
opener, and it can tape Basic Stage support. The
drawbacks are that you really do not want to open
with Rattata and there are some potent Basic
Stage counters with which it must deal. Raticate
takes an extra card and an extra turn (or no extra turns
but two extra cards, one being Wally) to hit the
field. It can tap Evolution support (and there is
even specific Stage 1 support) and it has to deal with
Evolution counters.
Rattata
has 40 HP, just 10 above the minimum printed on actual
Pokémon (as opposed to Trainers played as Pokémon) while
Raticate only adds 20 to that for a meager 60;
these are either going to be glass cannons,
Bench-sitters, otherwise expendable, or we’ll need some
potent protective effects. Both are Fighting Weak,
which is pretty dangerous, but the significance is
diminished by the low HP; it still matters, but instead
of massive swings it just means Fighting Types have an
even more reliable OHKO since they just have to do 20 or
30 damage (respectively). No Resistance is typical
and with the low HP scores, probably wouldn’t have made
a significant difference. The Retreat Cost of [C]
is low, easy both to pay and recover from having paid,
but with cards like these, I tend to expect a free
Retreat. That doesn’t make it bad per se, but when
past iterations have really benefitted from it, that
means these two really need to bring it.
Both are Colorless Types; we aren’t dealing with
Unlimited play so nothing is Colorless Weak or
Resistant. The Type does have its own bit of
support in the form of cards like Altaria (XY:
Roaring Skies 74/108, XY: Black Star Promos
XY46), Aspertia City Gym, and Winona and
actual hard counters in the form of Exeggcutor (XY:
Roaring Skies 2/108) and Haxorus (BW:
Dragon Vault 16/20). Why cover Type now after
HP? I just mentioned how the low HP means Weakness
is just mades a bad situation a tiny bit worse, and how
without a massive bit of protection, the HP scores are
so low: Altaria and Aspertia City Gym are
going to go to waste unless you can stack massive HP
bonuses, damage reduction, etc. on top of them.
The good news is that Exeggcutor and Haxorus
weren’t seeing competitive play even when there
was a strong Colorless presence dominating the metagame;
I mean even with M Rayquaza-EX (XY: Roaring
Skies 76/108, 105/108) up front in many decks and
Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108,
106/108) on almost every Bench! Only Winona
might matter for explicit Type support… which brings us
to implicit Type support: most Colorless Pokémon enjoy
Winona (just aren’t abundant enough in a deck to
justify her inclusion) as three-for-one with only Type
restriction is a solid deal for a Supporter, and while
many Pokémon have [C] Energy requirements (and not just
most Colorless Types), we have enough Special Energy
like Double Colorless Energy to consider that a
benefit as well.
Rattata
has an Ability and an attack. When you Bench Raticate
from hand, its “Mischievous Fang” Ability triggers and
you’ve got the opportunity to discard all Pokémon
Tools from your opponent’s Active. This is a good,
solid Ability; not great as it only affects the Active
and obviously Ability lock still blocks it, but on the
rare instance you face something with multiple Tools
attached it nails all of them, and in general it should
be handy for pitching your opponent’s Fighting Fury
Belt. Regrettably, the attack is pure filler -
“Bite” for [C] doing 10 damage - but at least it isn’t
too badly overpriced and can at least finish off
something that has nearly been KO’d. I’d prefer a
useful effect instead, but again we work with what we
have… so what about Raticate? Two attacks,
both for [C]. First is “Crunch” which does 10 and
allows you to discard an Energy attached to the
opponent’s Active while the next is “Shadowy Bite” which
does 60 damage times the number of Special Energy cards
in your opponent’s discard pile. It sounds like
nitpicking, but I’d really like Crunch to have hit for
20 or 30 damage, but it still seems like a solid enough
attack, especially when it helps set up for Shadowy
Bite. Shadowy Bite is the main attraction, as with
just three Special Energy in your opponent’s discard
pile, its scoring a OHKO against most of the card pool.
Rattata and Raticate even have some
natural synergy as discarding Fighting Fury Belt
can bring something into OHKO range of Shadowy Bite,
while discarding a Spirit Link can prevent
something from easily Mega Evolving the next turn out
of the range of said attack.
So what about the other Rattata and Raticate?
Raticate BREAK? All are Colorless Pokémon
with no Ancient Trait, and everything but Raticate
BREAK - as it uses the bottom stats of the
Raticate from which it BREAK Evolved - are Fighting
Weak with no Resistance, just like today’s Rattata
and Raticate. Specifically we have BW:
Boundaries Crossed 104/149, BW: Plasma Freeze
87/116, and XY: BREAKpoint 87/122 for Rattata
while we have BW: Boundaries Crossed 105/149,
BW: Plasma Freeze 88/116, and XY: BREAKpoint
88/122. There is only one Raticate BREAK,
XY: BREAKpoint 88/122. All three Rattata
have Retreat Cost [C], no Ability, and just one attack.
Rattata (BW: Boundaries Crossed 104/149)
is an Expanded-only option, has 30 HP, and the attack
“Paralyzing Gaze” for [C] which has you flip a coin to
Paralyze the opponent’s Active. Rattata (BW:
Plasma Freeze 87/116) is also an Expanded-only
option, but has 40 HP with the attack “Lunge” requiring
[CC] and doing 30 damage on a successful coin flip
(“tails” does nothing). Rattata (XY:
BREAKpoint 87/122) is Standard or Expanded legal,
has 30 HP, and the attack “Dangerous Suspicion” for [C]
which allows you to draw a card and then switch
Rattata with one of your Benched Pokémon. None
of these have been reviewed before, and you can see why;
highlights are (in order) the chance of Paralysis giving
it a better chance of surviving to Evolve, +10 HP over
the others (but tied with today) giving it a better
chance to survive, and an attack that draws then hides
it on your chance giving it a better chance of surviving
while helping general setup. Go with today’s
Rattata (XY: Evolutions 66/108.
Raticate
(BW: Boundaries Crossed 105/149) has 60 HP, a
free Retreat Cost, and two attacks. The first is
“Gnaw Through” which costs [C] and discards a Tool from
your opponent’s Active, while the second is “Super Fang”
for [CCC] which places damage counters on the Defending
Pokémon until it has just 10 HP remaining. The
CotD crew looked at it
here
and got it about right; people made decks around it, but
those decks weren’t truly competitive. While Gnaw
Through was a poor and attack and is even worse now,
Super Fang had a decent enough combo with Hypnotoxic
Laser for a OHKO provided nothing was being negated.
The Energy cost and Evolution cost just proved to be too
much though. Raticate (BW: Plasma Freeze
88/116) is a Team Plasma Pokémon with 70 HP, and against
a free Retreat Cost with two attacks. For [C] it
can use “Transfer Junk” to add a Team Plasma Pokémon,
Team Plasma Trainer card, and Team Plasma Energy card
from your discard pile to your hand. For [CC] it
can use Bite to do 30 damage. Even having the most
HP of any contemporary Raticate, a perfect
Retreat Cost, and being a piece of Team Plasma support
which could take advantage of other Team Plasma support
wasn’t enough to get this card played, though the crew
still reviewed it
here.
Both are still legal in Expanded.
Raticate
(XY: BREAKpoint 88/122) also has 70 HP and that
beautiful free Retreat Cost, but this time it has an
Ability and an attack. The Ability is
“Antibodies”, which protects this Raticate from
being affected by Special Conditions. It also
removes them, not because you need to intentionally use
this Ability but in case Raticate was affected by
a Special Condition while Antibodies was shut down by
another effect, but then turns back “on”. The
attack is “Dirty Shock” costs [C], Poisons the
opponent’s Active, and then discards all Tools attached
to it. Both of these are good traits to have, but
seem odd on Raticate… until you see Raticate
BREAK. It has 110 HP, which is low considering
its a pseudo-Stage 2. Its attack is Super Fang
again, but this time for just [CC] allowing it to be
completely fueled by Double Colorless Energy.
It still places damage counters on the opponent’s Active
until it has only 10 HP remaining. This meant the
two together could setup for a 2HKO of anything,
provided attack effects weren’t blocked and the damage
counters placed or Poison weren’t removed before during
that time. Oh, and of course assuming your
opponent didn’t just change his or her Active. Ariados
(XY: Ancient Origins 6/98) was used with these
two to form a deck; instead of two turns, you rushed out
your Raticate BREAK, used the Ability on
Ariados to Poison the opponent’s Active (assuming it
wasn’t a Grass Type) without Poisoning your own
Raticate BREAK (because of Antibodies on the
underlying Raticate). We looked at
Raticate BREAK
here
and I think we got it right; it creates a functional
deck but not one that has a history of winning.
So… should you use any other Raticate or
Raticate BREAK with today’s Rattata and
Raticate? Raticate (XY: BREAKpoint
88/122) with Raticate BREAK or just Raticate
BREAK seem plausible. The idea is that
Rattata is just handy in general while today’s
Raticate punishes decks that use more than a few
Special Energy and/or can’t get their Special Energy out
of the discard pile quickly enough, and Raticate
BREAK provides an alternate strategy for the decks
that do eschew Special Energy or rarely leave it long in
the discard pile. Raticate (XY: BREAKpoint
88/122) is probably optional. If you want to focus
more on Super Fang, you probably have Ariados,
but with just 70 or 110 HP, Antibodies is niche
protection (you’ll be KO’d regardless of Special
Conditions). You include one, maybe two for the
free Retreat Cost and in case Special Energy in the
opponent’s discard pile is scarce and Abilities
are down so it’s the 2HKO or no KO. The one that
really ought to see play however is just
Rattata (XY: Evolutions 66/108).
Include a TecH copy and just use it to delay that key
Mega Evolution, get rid of Fighting Fury Belt for
the KO, mess up Exp. Share shenanigans, etc. Raticate
(XY: Evolutions 67/108) is then the TecH attacker
so you can exploit Special Energy heavy decks, space and
need permitting.
Decks with Ninja Boy will be able to better use
Rattata, as it is so vulnerable even on the
Bench; at least it will usually take two Bench hits and
not one. Decks that want to fill their Bench like
M Gardevoir-EX (XY: Steam Siege 79/114,
112/114) and M Rayquaza-EX builds will have a
place for it as well. At least in Standard play;
Expanded brings useful tricks to help Rattata but
clearly superior competition in the form of Startling
Megaphone, Tool Scrapper, and
Xerosic. Oh and remember, this is not a
proper Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122);
you’d have to tag a Trubbish you forced Active
before it Evolves… and you should just be scoring a OHKO
against that with your deck’s main attacker instead.
For Limited play, the set has Double Colorless Energy
and multiple Spirit Link cards, which is just
enough for me to enjoy having a Rattata and
Raticate along for the ride.
A quick history lesson… this Rattata is loosely
based on Rattata (Base Set 61/102; Base
Set 2 89/130, Legendary Collection 89/110),
with multiple other Rattata since resembling it.
The original was a Colorless Basic Pokémon with 30 HP,
Fighting Weakness x2, Psychic Resistance -30, a free
Retreat Cost, and for [C] could use Bite to do 20
damage. Even though it was so fragile at the time,
the combination of a free Retreat Cost and doing 20 for
one of any Energy actually proved useful. Not for
long, mind you, but when it first released and perhaps a
short time after its final re-release. Oh and some
used it to counter Ditto (Fossil 3/62,
18/62). It is great they added an Ability, but why
nerf the Retreat Cost? I understand not upping the
HP by enough to really scale, losing the Resistance, and
dropping the damage, but oh would a free Retreat Cost be
handy. Amazingly, the original Rattata has
a
review!
Today’s Raticate has a similar ancestor,
Raticate (Base Set 62/102; Base Set 2
90/130, Legendary Collection 90/110). A
Stage 1 Colorless Type with 60 HP, Fighting Weakness x2,
Psychic Resistance -30, Retreat Cost [C], Bite for [C]
doing 20, and Super Fang for [CCC] but the original did
damage equal to half the Defending Pokémon’s remaining
HP (rounded up). While that meant Super
Fang could eventually score an out and out KO, it never
paid off back in the day, at least when facing
competitive decks. Happy to get the two
sort-of-new attacks (other Pokémon have similar
attacks), again understand losing Resistance, but
leaving the HP and Retreat Cost alone is disappointing.
Ratings
Rattata
Standard:
3.5/5
Expanded:
2.5/5
Limited:
3/5
Raticate
Standard:
3.25/5
Expanded:
3.25/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary:
Rattata is a solid general use card that also has
some specific usage elevating its score; do not
think it is a 3.5/5 in all Standard decks but instead
it’s handy in most and vital to some (admittedly
unproven) builds. In Expanded it remains the best
Rattata but it’s outperformed by Trainer cards
for general usage. Raticate is in a similar
boat, but with less of a general application. In
Standard it rides on the coattails of Rattata as
a 1-1 line to discard a problem Tool and punish Special
Energy heavy decks isn’t too demanding. What keeps
its score the same in Expanded is that it there is
because I believe the format has a more favorable place
for it, even though Rattata isn’t so hot here.
As a duo, Rattata and Raticate managed 15
voting points, four ahead of
yesterday’s
fourth place finisher but three behind our second place
pick. The pair was my fourth place pick, where
they received nearly half of those points, so no qualms
about it taking third relative to our options from this
set. Compared to sets I would consider at least
“average”, however, these two probably ought to be much
lower, maybe even missing out on the top 10. So it
is up to either first or second place to finally wow us.
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