i’ve been playing a good amount of RS-PK on tcgone for the last few months and i have had a lot of fun making new decks and seeing how they stack up against others’ creations, be they their meme/fun/gimmick decks or the more tryhard rayler/bombtar/dragtrode. i think RS-PK allows for a surprising amount of diversity since there are so many decks that can just blank the top decks in some way; the armaldo deck cuts through rayler like a hot knife through butter, any delta deck running a latios ex delta/latias delta package can have an easy matchup against arcanine, and other such tier 2 or below decks can have competitive games with a variety of powerful decks.
(un)fortunately, i believe that the ratlock deck i have worked on is able to not only be competitive with some of the best decks in the format, but also have a winning matchup against some of them. it is a surprisingly robust deck, able to out-last even rayler lists that aren’t prepared for it. i wanted to post a bit about the list i’m working with and some thoughts on the deck as a whole.
4 Rattata (TRR 72)
3 Raticate (RG 48)
2 Stantler (UF 32)
2 Holon’s Magnemite (DS 70)
1 Vaporeon Star (PK 102)
1 Unown (UF E)
4 Rocket’s Admin. (TRR 86)
4 Celio’s Network (RG 88)
3 Scott (EM 84)
2 Mr. Briney’s Compassion (POP2 8)
1 Island Hermit (DF 76)
1 Mary’s Request (UF 86)
1 Castaway (CG 72)
4 Cessation Crystal (CG 74)
4 Pow! Hand Extension (TRR 85)
4 Energy Removal 2 (RS 80)
3 Pokémon Reversal (UF 88)
2 Great Ball (RG 92)
2 Dual Ball (CG 78)
1 Swoop! Teleporter (TRR 92)
3 Team Aqua Hideout (MA 78)
3 Heal Energy (POP4 8)
2 Water Energy (PK 105)
2 Warp Energy (UF 100)
1 Cyclone Energy (PK 90)
i’ll go through the card-by-card decisionmaking now. i haven’t seen anyone else play the deck or try it out luckily, so all of the ideas were mine. i am certain this is not the most optimal list, and it’s possible that there is a better way to approach the search and draw line, along with maybe including some tech cards that could be more useful than what i have. but for now, this is what i’ve come up with as the best way to play the deck.
4 Rattata (TRR 72)
3 Raticate (RG 48)
the rattata used here is fantastic, everything you could want from a basic. 40 HP sucks, but a call for family for 1 colorless is so good and how you want to spend the majority of your opening turns. snarl having a chance to paralyze is quite nice as well, if you’re desperate. raticate is, of course, the focal point of the deck. while minun is an incredible card, raticate’s ability to manage resources and generate advantage every turn is nearly unmatched. it’s able to consistently recover lost raticates, energy cards lost from retreating, and gets your tempo back even when one goes down. thick skin is also not half bad, lets you play funny games against flariados, and quick attack having a chance to just win on turn 2 against an unsuspecting lone holon’s castform is a nice feature. weakness to fighting is frustrating as it comes up more than one might expect, but it’s not the end of the world as you’re not exactly tanking hits with it.
for the ratios: i run 4 rattata since you want to open with it, you want to swarm with it, and you don’t want to prize too many. i opt to go with 3 raticate as if they’re running through 3 of them, they probably are going to win anyways. prizing a rattata and a raticate isn’t the end of the world, but we do want to avoid that, which is why i settled on 4-3.
2 Stantler (UF 32)
the other star of the deck. stantler strips key windstorms, warp points, and counter stadiums from the opponent’s hand in the early game, and in the later portions you can poke it in at unexpected intervals, in case your opponent has a counter stadium but they’re holding it until they can draw an energy or something like that. can also confuse things in an emergency. unfortunately shares weakness with raticate, but nothing unmanageable. only thing to watch out for with stantler in this deck is that you usually have to pay 2 to retreat it. more on that later.
i run 2 since you aren’t typically attacking with it too much, but you don’t want to prize both either.
2 Holon’s Magnemite (DS 70)
searchable energy is really good in this. you can get away with running 2 because you play briney’s, swoop, and generally don’t care too much about bench space. getting this off a dual ball or a celio’s can be clutch, and it’s so much needed that i run two. you may find the ratio to be better on one less, or even 0, but i think it’s very handy.
a fun little thing with this card is that if you pay a stantler to retreat with both a magnemite and an actual energy card, you can pickup both of those immediately, not losing any initiative.
1 Vaporeon Star (PK 102)
i put this in thinking it would be useless months ago and it’s been surprisingly good. blue ray to get something out of knockout range so you can use push away one more time is not a situation you would expect happens too often, but it comes up more than you would think. being able to heal a special condition off your active is appreciated too.
you might think that, since this is a cess deck, that this is never live. but between the briney’s and the warp energies, you can create scenarios where playing this down and getting the power off is very doable. one other use it has is that, with the water energy in the deck, you can actually beat the armaldo deck featuring groudon ex, as long as some other things go right too. still, this card isn’t exactly essential, and you could likely play something else in this slot. i’ve found that it justifies its usage most of the time.
1 Unown (UF E)
i somehow got away with not playing this for a while, until i started getting punished by people who knew how to play against this kind of deck (read: not benching anything). but this thing is really good. forces a bench sitter down, even better when it’s something like lapras (means you don’t have to worry about maintaining your stadium) or holon’s castform (wastes an energy). like with stantler, this is particularly deadly after you admin them to a decent amount. one more cool trick: while its pokepower can’t replace itself, you can use it to check your deck early on to see what’s prized, or later on in case you forget what exactly is in your deck.
that’s it for the pokemon. i find myself limited on what all i can run, since you can’t really rely on pokepowers/bodies, and you virtually never want to be using an attack other than pickup. you can probably mess around with a single copy of minun or something here.
4 Rocket’s Admin. (TRR 86)
essential to the strategy. you should almost always be able to admin for 6, and you can get your opponent down to a lower size in the late game (or even pick at their high hand size with push away or hidden power). play these early and often – make sure you’ve got at least one in the deck/hand at all times if possible, as being able to disrupt your opponent and get back into the game is mandatory for many of the games you play with ratlock.
4 Celio’s Network (RG 88)
searches all of your pokemon. really good. you want to fire these off a lot early in the game as they kind of suck to draw off admin later in the game since you should have an established board by then. you can make arguments to maybe run higher counts of, say, mentor or dual ball, but i’ve found this usually gets the job done.
3 Scott (EM 84)
ridiculous card. grabs your stadium, whatever else you need on the following turn, and something for the road. you could maybe argue to cut this down to 2, but i’ve found that even though it’s a “slow” card, you don’t mind losing a rattata or a stantler or two while you get set up, so slowly accumulating those supporters is oftentimes worth it. it also allows for playing some nice 1-of supporters, which i’ll get to in a second.
2 Mr. Briney’s Compassion (POP2 8)
i somehow was not on this for a while, which is crazy now since this card is bonkers in this deck. with 2 brineys, you can cycle between your raticates – effectively giving you an out to decks like mewtric or dragonite ex delta which would otherwise be pretty much autolosses. it also helps maneuver around your stadium, which is greatly appreciated. makes room on the bench, or helps you return a holon’s magnemite you opened with. can restore vaporeon star if need be. honestly it does everything – you could argue bumping it to 3 but it is really unhelpful to open with most of the time, and you play a ton of supporter searching so this is usually something you have access to in the mid and late game.
1 Island Hermit (DF 76)
a simple card, and a great card to play if you don’t have anything you’re really doing for that turn. draws you 2, checks prizes (very useful against decks playing electrode ex), and is searchable off scott or castaway. you could argue to cut this card, since only drawing 2 is very whatever, but it does come in handy a decent amount.
1 Mary’s Request (UF 86)
it draws 3, nothing more nothing less. a pretty good target off of scott if you’ve got a good hand that you don’t want to admin away, but you want some more stuff too. better than steven’s as if you want THAT many cards you just admin, and your opponent won’t be filling up their bench anyways, not to mention your hand size is very often at least 8. again, you could argue playing with the ratios here, feel free to test out and see what you like.
1 Castaway (CG 72)
perhaps controversial, but i don’t think you need to play this in high counts. you rarely need energy that bad, and while it is nice to search cess, you primarily want to be drawing into cess and searching out other things instead. still, it is a great card, and you should go to 2 before you go to 0. being searchable off of scott and being able to search scott, two supporters that generate you massive advantage, is very handy for the deck.
4 Cessation Crystal (CG 74)
4 Pow! Hand Extension (TRR 85)
4 Energy Removal 2 (RS 80)
3 Pokémon Reversal (UF 88)
the broken suite of disruption cards. 4 cess and 4 pow are non-negotiable – you want to draw into these often, especially off of admins. the ER2 and reversals you could consider cutting down – i’ve found they are useful in early game situations for disruption, but i’m down to 3 reversals as i just don’t think relying on it is very appealing. pow and cess are both cards you should be looping, but you often want to keep one pow in the discard, in case you or your opponent play admin and you don’t draw into any then you can pick up to grab one.
2 Great Ball (RG 92)
2 Dual Ball (CG 78)
the search component of the deck. i sometimes find myself wanting more of these, and sometimes find myself being satisfied. you can kind of get away with not running as many since rattata is itself a searcher. like with celio, you want to play these early and get them out of your deck in case of late-game admins.
1 Swoop! Teleporter (TRR 92)
kind of a meme slot. you can do cute things like play vaporeon star, blue ray, then swoop it out for a rattata, then pickup the vaporeon star. it also acts like a poorman’s searcher since it can replace an unown or a holon’s magnemite with a rattata or a stantler. but you can feel free to take this one out – maybe add in another dual ball.
3 Team Aqua Hideout (MA 78)
this is the real reason the deck works. with raticate active with a cess and hideout in the stadium slot, you can repeatedly lock something in the active and give your opponent very few outs to getting it out, letting you slowly pickup every turn, admining a million times, and eventually winning by deckout. your opponent may play counter stadiums and windstorms, but so long as you can maintain this lock after they get a knockout and not let them take 6 prize cards, you will win.
this card is very important, so it’s critical that you are able to get a push away on a desert ruins or a windstorm to set your opponent back a resource as that will be critical when you star to establish the lock.
i play 3 of these since i want to draw into them often, and i can often get them off of a scott easily enough. you don’t want to run less than 3 as having one be prized sucks as you don’t want to be using pickup too much to get this back, but running 4 is likely excessive since you CAN pickup and get them back. but maybe i’ll mess around with a 4th copy soon.
3 Heal Energy (POP4 8)
2 Water Energy (PK 105)
2 Warp Energy (UF 100)
1 Cyclone Energy (PK 90)
a light energy lineup rounds out the deck. heal energy is really funny in this deck – if you have a raticate active with hideout up, you can attach heal to remove a damage counter up, retreat to your other raticate, pickup to get the heal energy back, and repeat the process next turn. don’t sleep on heal energy in this – you’re rarely tanking hits, but helping to stem the bleeding against a spread deck is a situation that will come up in your games.
2 waters since they’re targets off of castaway. you can also attach them to vaporeon star if you need to knock out a lone groudon ex.
2 warp energy is sometimes annoying as you just want a regular energy…but on the other hand, being able to maneuver around hideout IS really nice, since your opponent probably isn’t able to.
1 cyclone can probably be cut, but there are times where it’s effectively a pow if your opponent is playing with a small bench. you can swap this out for an extra copy of any of the above energies though.
and that is the deck. it is very good at beating most decks, but some things just roll it. a single mew star in deltabox, a very well played or lucky rayler, or a quick hariyama ex pretty much shuts off your chances of winning, and you don’t really have a plan B beyond “lock something in the active and win by deckout.” yet i have found it has a pretty fantastic winrate, to the extent that i think it should probably be addressed if good players begin playing it as the mirror seems like an absolute nightmare.
core enforcer 