Discussion Partners for BUS Raticate

[DarkMatterGaming]

Ever since I saw it, I see some potential in BUS Raticate; a no energy attack that has potential to swing from 60 - 90 seems pretty decent for a one prize attacker. So I started playing around with it and... I've hit a brick wall.

My first thought was pair it with the AOR Eeveelutions to make some match-ups better.

In theory it makes the Volcanion match-up better since, with Choice Band and Water weakness, you can one shot Volcanion-EX provided no Muscle Band and Baby Volcanion with the aforementioned + Kukui.

In practice, however, I've found that in most match-ups I fall short of the 2HKO by less than 20 HP very frequently.

So my current theories are:
* Throw Owls at the problem (provided I had any...)
* Play Po Town + Max Potion since I'm not going to using any energy to begin with
* Promo Tapu Koko (maybe, I've only got one copy of it right now)
* Play Expanded and try BatRats.

Those are all I've got though. I'm thinking of scrapping the Eeveelution route since the theoretical advantage isn't nearly as beneficial as taking overall advantages.

So with that, what do you guys think?

 

[Otaku]

Hmm...

I hadn't thought of combining the Alolan Raticate (BUS) with the AOR Eeveelutions. I've been wondering what the fuss was about; yes, you can do 90 damage to a Pokémon-GX for no Energy (but with a Choice Band)... but you're doing it by attacking with a glass cannon Stage 1. You'll need to make good use of the slots it frees up in your deck because, by all rights, your opponent should be OHKOing an Alolan Raticate each turn, or whatever looks most threatening on your Bench. So you need to either reliably 2HKO them and (sooner or later) pull ahead in Prizes, or you need to find a way to score OHKOs.

If you only need +20 damage, you might consider Golbat; while Crobat (PHF) rotated a year ago, Golbat was reprinted in Generations. That said, now you're still needing the Eeveelutions, so I don't think there is room.