Not much time, so this may end up being a permanent placeholder review.
Those wishing to know how to use
Raticate need to look at the game's history. This card is an update of
Base Set Raticate... which saw almost no play. Fortunately, this version has the look and Energy costs of its ancestor, but the actual output of
Weezing (
EX Deoxys 51/107). It is no where near as good as
Weezing would be (even if re-released exactly as it originally appeared), but it will do.
Those reading that
Weezing may wonder why I say it is better; it does enough damage to itself that it KOs itself! Well... at the time it came out, there were many Pokémon that placed damage counters on the Defending Pokémon while Active (via a Poké-Body, one of the precursors to Abilities).
Weezing "blew itself up" for just a single Energy, and this allowed the damage counter placing Pokémon to pop up front and finish the job between turns. Smogscreen (see the scan) was great as well.
Fast forward to the present and
Raticate;
Rattata makes this card insanely hard to play, since even if you use
Ditto, 3 damage counters prevents the combo (if you Transform, you're KOed).
Aspertia City Gym helps, as does something as simple as running
Potion. The big problem is getting that last damage counter;
Raticate is as good as gone and since it doesn't clobber itself like
Weezing did, it has to pay three times as much for the attack.
The best bet is to wait until we get the English equivalent of
Poison Hypnotic Beam. Most decks will run it. If a deck is also running
Ditto and compatible Energy acceleration, you probably won't have two slots to spare but if you do, consider
Raticate. To OHKO something in an emergency (especially for the win), obviously it is worth it. For now, you have to try to spam the correct
Amoongus and when I tested that, there was just "too much" going on.
Lastly, I see a lot of people suggesting cards like
Rocky Helmet or
Giant Cape; think carefully about that. All your opponent has to do is change out to another attacker and now you have to expend more resources for the KO.
Switch and
Skyla,
Darkrai with its "Dark Cloak" Ability, as well as
Keldeo EX with its "Rush In" Ability all see significant play.
If your opponent isn't using Pokémon-EX to attack you, odds are you aren't coming out ahead in terms of resources even if they did choose to attack;
Raticate is a Stage 1 that needs three Energy, after all. Last nail in the coffin for
Rocky Helmet: how many decks are running
Max Potion or
Super Scoop Up? The latter is much less common, but especially together I think you're more likely to encounter them than not!
You should be using
Ditto, since at least the first
Raticate needs to be something of a surprise.
Giant Cape can help there, but I would much rather use
Rescue Scarf;
Raticate does its thing, and if the opponent KOs it, I'll get a chance at bringing it back in two turns... or right away next turn if I have a second
Ditto in play.
Giant Cape on its own only bumpes
Raticate up to 80 HP, and even with
Aspertia City Gym you're only totaling 100 points of damage, in a format where most competitive decks can dish that out.
Lastly, less is more with
Raticate; this is why I favor the
Ditto/
Rescue Scarf combo; it allows you even in a deck focused upon
Raticate to run much less
Rattata;
Rattata is so bad you want to minimize how many copies you are running. When trying to build around
Raticate, shoot for a 2-2 line you can simply recycle, or even a 1-1 if you have a solid back-up strategy.
