Primal Groudon EX Variants

asdjklghty said:
Too impracticable since you can't always rely on drawing it and if you do, it's pretty useless against other match ups except Plasma but since that deck archetype's dying, it's not worth it.
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I wouldn't write it off.

You have Korinna so you can usually draw the item that you want. Genesect EX, "Energy Crush" Leafeon and Flareon are all Team Plasma Pokemon... Silver Mirror makes P-Groudon immune to all of them. And this is essentially the list of Pokemon that can one-shot Groudon. (I guess G-Booster hits through Silver Mirror, but it would still protect you from Megalo Cannon, which one-hits you with a Muscle Band.)

It doesn't help the Night March matchup, but that is less difficult to deal with as you can take out Joltiks with Landorus FFI, it uses EXs and it has more trouble one-shotting you.
 
Silver Mirror does not work while attached to a Pokemon EX so the silver mirror in this deck deck would be useless. But you could still use weakness policy, which might actually be better.
 
Ironman131 said:
Silver Mirror does not work while attached to a Pokemon EX so the silver mirror in this deck deck would be useless. But you could still use weakness policy, which might actually be better.
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The variant of this deck that plays Silver Mirror plays both Landorus FFI and Terrakion LTR. You can attach Silver Mirror to both of these guys.
 
Yeah but they were talking about playing to attach to The primal Groudon EX not the Landorus or Terrakion.
 
So, I've been thinking a lot about hard charm vs weakness policy vs focus sash. It's actually quite a fiddly choice. My thoughts... these are somewhat lengthy. I may have missed something here... please feel free to comment/correct.

Focus sash
The advantage of focus sash is that it gives you the best all-round protection against a 1HKO of the three options. As long as Primal Groudon is fresh, every one-shot will be blocked, including G-Booster. This can be simply huge with Primal Groudon because a single attack is frequently 2 prizes. It protects against VirGen (not only G-Booster but also banded Megalo cannon) but also other potential 1HKOs like a maxed Flareon or Night March attack with a bangle. It will do the trick against Mega-Rayquaza too .

Keeping one of your one-prize attackers going for an extra turn can be huge too. It can let you really mess something up with Hawlucha or get an extra Shout of Power off.

The main disadvantage of focus sash is the obvious limitation- doesn't work if the Pokemon is damaged. So bats, sniping and so on will alll get round it. It would be a terrible shame to have this on P-Groudon but have your Groudon sniped for 20 by a Megalo Cannon. If you are serious about using focus sash you probably need Mr Mime as well.

Weakness policy
Weakness policy stops several 1HKOs, like anything with a Megalon Cannon and Leafeon's Energy Crush with 6 energy on your board. Its primary advantage over focus sash, though, is that it performs better against low/mid-range grass attacks. Eg with focus sash down, a banded emerald slash is stil la 2HKO- with weakness policy it is a 4HKO. Energy press with 5 energy on the board is a 2HKO with focus sash, but a 3HKO with weakness policy. Banded "Blockade" is a 4HKO with focus sash, but an 8HKO with weakness policy. The other big advantage is that, unlike focus sash, it still works when Primal Groudon is not fresh. If P-Groudon is sniped with megalo cannon while using focus sash, then a banded megalo cannon (or megalo cannon with Deoxys) is a 1HKO. With weakness policy, Groudon will survive the megalocannon.

A secondary advantage of weakness policy is that it is quite useful to put on Landorus in the toad matchup (if you can). Weakness policy prevents the banded quaking punch doing 100, which is important for surviving an extra turn. This mathchup comes down to whether you can get 4 energy onto a Primal Groudon (if you do, you have won, that is it). So just a single extra shout of power can make the difference.

The obvious disadvantages- being bypassed by G-Booster and not protecting against the big non-grass 1HKOs. With M-Rayquaza likely to be everywhere this soon, this seems a big deal.

Weakness policy can be huge, but if you have to chose between focus sash and weakness policy, I think you would usually go for focus sash

Hard charm
Hard charm is a bit of a sleeper in this comparison- I think it's actually a bit underrated. Hard charm will prevent a 1HKO in quite a few situations. Megalo cannon needs muscle band *and* deoxys to get there. Night March can't 1HKO a hard charmed P-Groudon- its damage cap is 240 (11 NMers in the discard and silver bangle). It's very hard for Flareon to hit 260 damage, and against Leafeon you can still have 6 energy down and not get 1HKOd. It will prevent M-Rayquaza KOing your Primal Groudon. A few things will still get round it- G-Booster and a fully pimped out Megalo Cannon.

Hard charm helps with bench damage, which is very nice. Not from bats of course, but regular sniping like Hammerhead, Overrun and Megalo cannon. Reducing bench damage by 20 is a big deal. Two hammerheads turn your delicious, super-hard-to-kill 240 monster into a regular 180 HP big guy. Hard charm makes that 220.

The other main advantage is that hard charm helps in most matchups and most situations. While focus sash and weakness policy are mainly about big hitters and decks that hit for weakness, hard charm is for every matchup. The value of it is easy to miss, but the math is such that you often turn a 3HKO into a 4HKO or a 2HKO into a 3HKO. E.g. if Hawlucha is hitting for 120, that's a 2HKO without hard charm and a 3HKO with. If Donphan is hitting for 80, that's a 4HKO without hard charm and a 5HKO with. It's great for getting the damage to cross those lines- 120, 80, 60. And of course it doesn't have the annoying drawbacks that focus sash and weakness policy have (only protecting against grass, or only protecting a fresh Groudon).

Right now I am very tempted to just play spiritomb and hard charm as my only item. Just because it does almost the same work as focus sash or weakness policy, but is just more useful in more situations. If I happen to play VirGen and they have deoxys, well, congratulations to them. I would still actually like to run weakness policy still (because of the Toad matchup) buy in my build there is not very much space for items, and I would like to run enough hard charms to get it consistently.
 
Been tinkering with the deck now Mega-Turbo is available.

One of my main observations is that you need to run battle compressor. Otherwise it can be hard to discard enough fighting energy. Obviously you can get some into the discard pile, but you assume you are getting out one a turn with Shout of Power too. So unless you are discarding quite aggressively you can miss the opportunity to use the Mega Turbo.

Another observation is that sometimes you won't get to use Mega Turbo to set up your first Primal Groudon, but it can definitely help to set up the second. And that can be pretty big.

In terms of deck-building, adding battle compressor and mega turbo forced me to get rid of tool remover and hard charms, which made me sad. I think the resulting deck is better, although testing is at early days.

And something I picked up from another board- super potion is interesting in this deck. Healing 60 and discarding an energy is often worth it, as between Mega Turbo and shout of power the energy often goes right back on. And the 60 healing can give you another turn of attacking, which is usually a good thing.
 
Talkingcat said:
Been tinkering with the deck now Mega-Turbo is available.

One of my main observations is that you need to run battle compressor. Otherwise it can be hard to discard enough fighting energy. Obviously you can get some into the discard pile, but you assume you are getting out one a turn with Shout of Power too. So unless you are discarding quite aggressively you can miss the opportunity to use the Mega Turbo.

Another observation is that sometimes you won't get to use Mega Turbo to set up your first Primal Groudon, but it can definitely help to set up the second. And that can be pretty big.

In terms of deck-building, adding battle compressor and mega turbo forced me to get rid of tool remover and hard charms, which made me sad. I think the resulting deck is better, although testing is at early days.

And something I picked up from another board- super potion is interesting in this deck. Healing 60 and discarding an energy is often worth it, as between Mega Turbo and shout of power the energy often goes right back on. And the 60 healing can give you another turn of attacking, which is usually a good thing.
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I was thinking about the viability of a deck like Toad/PGroudon. PGroudon decks are a master class in stalling, and the traditional reason to use Lando was the energy acceleration. If Mega Turbo could fulfill that role effectively, would a combination of the ultimate stalling Pokemon and the ultimate set up Pokemon be possible?
 
Talkingcat said:
Been tinkering with the deck now Mega-Turbo is available.

One of my main observations is that you need to run battle compressor. Otherwise it can be hard to discard enough fighting energy. Obviously you can get some into the discard pile, but you assume you are getting out one a turn with Shout of Power too. So unless you are discarding quite aggressively you can miss the opportunity to use the Mega Turbo.

Another observation is that sometimes you won't get to use Mega Turbo to set up your first Primal Groudon, but it can definitely help to set up the second. And that can be pretty big.

In terms of deck-building, adding battle compressor and mega turbo forced me to get rid of tool remover and hard charms, which made me sad. I think the resulting deck is better, although testing is at early days.

And something I picked up from another board- super potion is interesting in this deck. Healing 60 and discarding an energy is often worth it, as between Mega Turbo and shout of power the energy often goes right back on. And the 60 healing can give you another turn of attacking, which is usually a good thing.
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I've been trying out Mega Turbo and it works perfectly. But I don't run any compressors. I put them in the discard with either ultra ball or Sycamore. Sometimes I purposely play Professors Letter to get an extra energy into my hand before playing Sycamore, just to be able to play Mega Turbo later on. And the thing I find important with Mega Turbo, at least in my deck, is to use it not as a main-accelerator, but rather a way to accelerate my second P Groudon. Therefor I also often discard Mega Turbo when playing Sycamore, just to later on get it back with trump card if I need to.

And the combination with Super Potion is probably the main reason to play Mega Turbo, imo! It does incredibly much to keep Groudon alive and is a real gamechanger sometimes.
 
I've been testing this deck with Wobbuffet lately and it is really good. You basically play 4 Wobbuffet and a 3-3 or 3-2 Groudon. Wobbuffet helps against a lot of the metagame. I'm fairly certain that this is the direction that this deck will start to go in. The things that beat it (specifically Donphan) die down with the release of Roaring Skies. I think this deck is a very good choice for the upcoming BCR-ROS Regionals.
 
TheStrictNein said:
I was thinking about the viability of a deck like Toad/PGroudon. PGroudon decks are a master class in stalling, and the traditional reason to use Lando was the energy acceleration. If Mega Turbo could fulfill that role effectively, would a combination of the ultimate stalling Pokemon and the ultimate set up Pokemon be possible?
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I can't quite see it. Toad really needs DCE to work, and putting DCE in the deck would make it quite clunky.

Would be happy to be proved wrong.
 
Camoclone said:
I've been testing this deck with Wobbuffet lately and it is really good. You basically play 4 Wobbuffet and a 3-3 or 3-2 Groudon. Wobbuffet helps against a lot of the metagame. I'm fairly certain that this is the direction that this deck will start to go in. The things that beat it (specifically Donphan) die down with the release of Roaring Skies. I think this deck is a very good choice for the upcoming BCR-ROS Regionals.
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Yeah, it's funny how people turn around on a card and abilities. Even before Shaymin EX this disrupted Slurpuff's Tasting, VirGen, Egg Propagation, Mew EX Versatile- abilities that are very important in the top decks immediately before rotation (and also in two of the decks that gave Groudon the worst time).

I'm reluctant to dump Landorus from the deck because it's good to accelerate onto Groudon and not just Primal Groudon- but I might experiment.
 
Talkingcat said:
Yeah, it's funny how people turn around on a card and abilities. Even before Shaymin EX this disrupted Slurpuff's Tasting, VirGen, Egg Propagation, Mew EX Versatile- abilities that are very important in the top decks immediately before rotation (and also in two of the decks that gave Groudon the worst time).

I'm reluctant to dump Landorus from the deck because it's good to accelerate onto Groudon and not just Primal Groudon- but I might experiment.
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Mew EX is Psychic type so can still use Versitile, but otherwise yeah
 
TheStrictNein said:
Mew EX is Psychic type so can still use Versitile, but otherwise yeah
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I use Silent Lab to take care of Mew, and Wobbuffet to take care of everything else. Also Silent Lab is good to take care of most of the other ability-pokémons in the meta. But then, Mew isn't much of a treat to Groudon most of the time anyways.
I agree on Wobbuffet being a good matchup with Groudon, been playing it alot now and it's just as tanky as Landorus (if not more) but without Toad-weakness. And there are other ways to accelerate Groudon than Landorus. So Wobbuffet is a neat choice.
 
TheStrictNein said:
Anyone have a preliminary or even Skeleton list for Wobbuffet/PGroudon?
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2druuxt.jpg

This is Daniel Altavilla's (9th Worlds last year) list. I like it and tested it with some changes, but I don't plan on playing it anytime soon.
 
Elbow said:
This is Daniel Altavilla's (9th Worlds last year) list. I like it and tested it with some changes, but I don't plan on playing it anytime soon.
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This is quite similar to a list I have been working on. A few differences I have

  • I have 3-3 Groudon and a 2-2 split between Landorus and Wobbafet
  • I have 6 stadiums, 3 scorched earth and 3 silent lab (you just need silent lab a lot in the current meta, not just for Shaymin but also because Safeguarders are enjoying a resurgence)
  • I have 13 energy- sometimes you just really need that fighting energy in your hand so that you can discard it with scorched earth
  • I haven't been able to find space for Colress or max potion; I only have space for 1 switch I think (but scramble switch does the job too)
Some similarities of note
  • I do think that tool retriever is needed- not just so you can put a different tool on P-Groudon but also to take off team flare hyper gear; also to recycle the spirit link. Although if you are up against grass it can be worth putting down focus charm or weakness policy right away and evolving without a spirit link.
  • Obviously, I think having both Landorus and Wobbafet is important. I've tried Wobbbafet only, and it can be effective there are too many situations where you just get shut down and it is useless.
  • I strongly agree with battle compressor. Getting extra energy into the discard and possibly the right supporter to access via VS seeker smooths out your setup and is helpful almost every single time you get it.
 
I personally believe( being a primal groudon player), that when the rotation happens, this will rise to become a tier 1 deck.i found that playing 4 mega turbos over landorus is better, since landorus is basically the same as lucario( theoretically good but just ends up taking up space). robo sub is really good and so is wobbuffet. here's my list:
Pokémon- 9
Groudon-EX x3
Primal Groudon-EX x 3
Wobbuffet x2
Hawlucha x1

Trainers- 40
Scramble Switch x1
Sycamore x3
N x2
Birch x1
Colress x1
Korrina x2
Lysandre x1

Fighting Stadium x2
Silent Lab x2
Scorched Earth x2
Groudon Spirit Link x2
Muscle Band x1
Ultra Ball x2
Trainers' Mail x3
VS Seeker x4
Mega Turbo x4
Max Potion x1
'Profs Letter x1
Robo Sub x2
Switch x1
Escape Rope x1
Battle Compressor x1

Energy:11
Strong x4
Fighting x7

Anyway, this list works really great for me and in case you knuckleheads haven't noticed, there are a lot of megas being played, and that's why I chose to play Fighting Stadium I may even add a third. it's not to mention that your own opponent will supply you with stadiums. really, in the XY- on format the only thing that will be a hard thing to beat will be the new truth( Giratina/ Vileplume). And wobbuffet lets you play items, while robosub stalls out, then just use hawlucha. eventually, they'll just deck out( I've been play testing against that matchup a lot).
 
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DevinTheWelf said:
My current build of the deck runs RoboSub, Hawlucha, and Terrakion. I had Lucario EX in there for awhile, but I found that Lucario EX was pretty pointless and overall just not a good addition for the deck. I currently run 1 Hawlucha, but I'm actually thinking of adding another. Hawlucha is VERY good with this deck. With escape rope you can manipulate your field very well, and when you're main attack has a 4 retreat cost, that's something you want. Mew EX was another thing I was considering... in my mind I thought that with 1 rainbow and 1 Mew EX tech'd in, I could take advantage of MegaMan decks, but that isn't really that big of a threat to deserve a risk like a 120hp EX being put on the bench. I can't wait for the next format switch. Mega Turbo and no Virgen or Plasma Leafeon? Yes please.

Has anyone though of a Garbo variant for this deck? With bats being so popular in so many decks, it might be with a 2-2 line, but I haven't really tested it at all.
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I've already tried, it is not very good. like... at all...
 
Camoclone said:
The deck has a bad Night March, Flareon, Exeggutor, and Donphan matchup. While it has quite a few good matchups a deck really can't afford to take losses to that many decks (with the current tournament structure). Tournament result wise it is sitting at the bottom of tier 2 / the top of tier 3 (13th in power rankings). Personally I don't feel like the 13th best deck deserves Tier 2 even when the format is this diverse.

The Exeggutor matchup depends on a lot of factors. If they play Genesect then they can just Red Signal Groudon up. If not then they can power up an Exeggutor or two so they can use Stomp. The matchup isn't good but like any Exeggutor matchup you can win if you get a godlike turn 1 or draw incredibly well.
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Which of all is getting rotated, aside from night march, which, let's face it, will suck after rotation. and against vespiquen, just stall for deck out.
 
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