RAMBO (TCG)

RAMBO


Blaziken and Team Aqua's Manectric

Types used

Major cards	Blaziken, Blaziken ex, Team Aqua's Manectric, Rayquaza ex, Delcatty, and Dunsparce

Era	2004

RAMBO was a Pokémon Trading Card Game deck archetype that saw success during the 2003-2004 season. Its name is derived from important components of the deck (Rayquaza ex, Team Aqua's Manectric, Blaziken) and its strategy (OHKO). Prior to the release of EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua in March of 2004, the deck was known as BAR. The deck functioned identically, but with Ampharos from Expedition serving the function of the not-yet released Team Aqua's Manectric, and a higher Rayquaza ex count compensating for the lack of Blaziken ex. BAR stood for Blaziken Ampharos Rayquaza. Though Rambo saw less play toward the end of the season due to the release of Gorebyss, Walrein, and others in the EX Hidden Legends expansion, Chris Fulop piloted a variant of RAMBO (which he called Blaziken Tech) to the finals of the 2004 World Championships.

Strategy

Delcatty

RAMBO's strategy employed a number of components, with the end goal being utilizing Blaziken ex's Volcanic Ash and Rayquaza ex's Spiral Growth attacks to take six prize cards as quickly as possible. Though both of these were very strong attacks in isolation, they each required significant Energy discards, which necessitated a form of Energy acceleration from the discard pile. Coincidentally (given that Blaziken ex already required Combusken and Torchic), Blaziken's Firestarter met that demand perfectly. However, given that Firestarter could only attach to Benched Pokémon meant that the deck needed a way to either move that Pokémon active or a way to move the Energy to the Active Pokémon. Some variants of the deck decided to go the former route and included heavy counts of cards like Switch and Warp Point. The list shown, though, uses Team Aqua's Manectric to move the Energy from Firestarter back to the Active Pokémon via its Power Shift Poké-POWER.

Because RAMBO relied on so many different cards to function, it required a lot of room devoted to consistency cards. Dunsparce's Strike and Run attack was imperative to getting the necessary Evolution cards in play early in the game. From there, the player would typically seek to evolve Skitty into Delcatty and Torchic into Combusken (or directly into Blaziken via Rare Candy). Getting Team Aqua's Manectric into play was typically less urgent, because it was not necessary until the player was consistently attacking for damage with Rayquaza ex or Blaziken ex. Delcatty's Energy Draw, particularly in combination with Oracle, helped the player get the Evolutions and Energy he or she needed after getting Basic Pokémon into play with Dunsparce. Other Supporter cards such as {{TCG|Steven's Advice} and Copycat further helped with consistency.

Key cards

Blaziken - Blaziken's Firestarter Poké-POWER, which allowed the user to attach a Energy from the discard to one of his or her benched Pokémon, provided a way to charge up both Blaziken ex and Rayquaza ex easily. Since both of their attacks, along with Delcatty's Energy Draw, discarded Energy, Firestarter was critical to maintaining a steady stream of attacks. Blaziken also served as a decent attacker in a pinch, or against decks utilizing Pokémon such as Wobbuffet with the Safeguard Poké-BODY.
Delcatty - Delcatty's Energy Draw Poké-POWER provided consistency, with the added effect of placing Energy in the discard for retrieval via Firestarter.
Team Aqua's Manectric - Firestarter only allowed the user to attach Energy to a Benched Pokémon; by attaching that Energy to Team Aqua's Manectric, the RAMBO player could then use Team Aqua's Manectric's Power Shift to move the Energy to an active Blaziken ex or Rayquaza ex and continue attacking.
Blaziken ex - Blaziken ex's Volcanic Ash attack was extremely powerful at the time; for a cost of , Volcanic Ash could hit any Pokémon on the opponent's field for 100 damage. Though it required the user to discard two Fire Energy attached to Blaziken ex, those Energy could be reused with Firestarter and moved back to Blaziken ex with Power Shift, allowing for consecutive uses of Volcanic Ash.
Rayquaza ex - Rayquaza's Spiral Growth attack, similar to Volcanic Ash, was very strong but required the discard of Energy to be effective. Again, Firestarter and Power Shift made it possible to use Spiral Growth for large damage repeatedly.
Dunsparce - Because the deck was reliant on a number of different Evolution lines, Dunsparce's Strike and Run attack was critical to get the necessary Basic Pokémon in play early in the game.
Oracle - When used in conjunction with Delcatty's Energy Draw Poké-POWER, Oracle effectively allowed the user to search his or her deck for any two cards and add them to his or her hand. Because RAMBO relied on so many different parts to function, this provided a valuable boost to consistency.

Typical decklist

The deck list appearing below is not official; it is meant to represent an average build of the archetype, not specifically constructed for any regional metagame. Being that this is merely an archetype, a player may wish to change any part of this deck when building his or her own version. The list shown assumes an Expedition through EX Hidden Legends format. Potential later additions may be listed in the Possible tech cards section.

Quantity	Card	Type	Rarity
3×	Blaziken
2×	Blaziken ex
3×	Combusken
4×	Torchic
2×	Delcatty
2×	Skitty
1×	Team Aqua's Manectric
1×	Team Aqua's Electrike
2×	Rayquaza ex
4×	Dunsparce
4×	Oracle	Su
3×	Steven's Advice	Su
3×	Copycat	Su
3×	TV Reporter	Su
3×	Rare Candy	T
1×	Warp Point	T
1×	Switch	T
1×	Ancient Technical Machine [Rock]	T
1×	High Pressure System	St
3×	Multi Energy	E
11×	Fire Energy	E	—
2×	Lightning Energy	E	—