Time for yet another Fun Deck Friday! This is where I explain a deck that has a strategy that's a little different to the classic strategy of just attacking for massive amounts of damage.
While this deck may not be the most competitive deck, its a lot of fun and has a strategy that's a little different to what you may normally play. The deck this week is Raticate / Ariados.
How does the deck work?
Basically, you want to use Ariados to poison both Pokemon and then use Raticate BREAK to attack. By doing this, you'll be able to knock out ANY Pokemon with one hit! Since Raticate only leaves them with 10HP, the poison damage will do that final 10 damage meaning that it doesn't matter how much HP the defending Pokemon has, you'll always knock it out in one hit!
It's a very simple mechanic so relies a lot on just getting set up quickly.
What's good about it?
- You can knock out anything with one hit for a Double Colourless Energy (or any 2 energies)
- Running no EXs means your opponent has to knock out 6 of your Pokemon while you only have to knock out 3 EXs
- You only really need to run 4 energies (4 Double Colourless Energy), which leaves plenty of space in the deck for lots of draw cards to help you set up quickly
- You only really need 2 different evolution lines, so you can keep your Pokemon lines super simple
- Regular Raticate has an ability where it can't be affected by status conditions, so it's immune from Ariados' poison
- Before you BREAK evolve, Raticate has a fairly useful attack for one colourless energy that allows you to get rid of tools attached to the Pokemon
What's not so good about it?
- If abilities are shut off (for example, if your opponent is using Garbodor), this deck falls apart because it relies on Ariados' ability.
- With Startling Megaphone and Tool Scrapper no longer in the standard format, you will struggle to remove tools from a Garbodor. Your best bet here is to run plenty of Lysandre and knock out any Garbodor that come out as soon as possible.
- There are no very strong attackers to start with in this deck, so you'll take a few prize losses early.
- Rattata has very low HP, so is very easy to knock out on your bench
- If your opponent has immunity to poison, you can't knock them out in one hit
- If they're playing grass Pokemon, Ariados' ability won't work on them, so you'll need to find another way of doing damage. Perhaps try running something like Spiritomb to move around damage when there's enough on the board. This would require also adding in a couple of dark energies. Remember that this ability will only work on benched Pokemon, so you'll need to run lots of Lysandre and VS Seeker (to get back Lysandre) to ensure you can get their Pokemon where you want them.
What else may you want to try?
- Double Colourless Energy would be useful so you only have to attach one of these to attack
- You'll need a way to get back your Double Colourless Energy once they go to the discard pile, you'll need to run either Special Charge or Puzzle of Time.
- If you can afford them, Shaymin EX also help this deck to set up quickly
- You'll want to run lots of cards that help you to find Pokemon so you can evolve quickly. Run heaps of Ultra Ball and possibly even things like Wally.
- Forest of Giant Plants is good as a stadium. It means that you can get rid of any of your opponents stadiums, which may slow them down and also means you can evolve into Ariados in one turn.
- You'll lose a few Pokemon early, so run plenty of Super Rod and other similar cards so you can get them back
- You may want to experiment with running a few attackers that can do a little damage early for low cost. One card you may want to try is Talonflame as it has a very useful ability and the attack could help you set up quickly. Talonflame also has free retreat, so can be very handy throughout the game.
Where can I get the deck?
Ariados is from Ancient Origins and is only a rare, so should be reasonably easy to find. Raticate BREAK and the evolution line comes from Breakpoint.
Try this deck out at home or your local league to have a bit of fun. This deck can knock out ANYTHING in one hit, so it's sure to be a bit of fun!
