Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Primal Groudon EX
Groudon
has always been one of my favourite Pokémon, and
Groudon EX DEX was the main
card in arguably my most successful ever deck. This
Primal has a lot going for it, but also a few problems
to overcome if it is going to make an impact on the
competitive scene.
Most importantly, Primal Groudon
has a Spirit Link card, so the terrible drawback of
Mega Evolution Primal Reversion can be negated. He
also has a massive 240 HP, which makes him a tank
against any Pokémon not hitting for Weakness. Perhaps
best of all, Primal Groudon
is a Fighting Type, which means he benefits from a lot
of damage-boosting support from Strong Energy and
Fighting Stadium. Korrina
works nicely too, fetching you this card plus a Spirit
Link, if needed.
Primal Groudon’s Gaia
Volcano attack does a less-than-impressive 100 damage
for a massive four Energy. Luckily, that can be boosted
to levels where everything becomes a
OHKO. If there is a Stadium in play, the damage is
doubled to 200 (enough to OHKO almost all EX Pokémon).
Add in Fighting Stadium and a Strong Energy, and even
the mightiest Mega is gone with one attack! Of course,
the obvious problem is the time it takes to get four
Energy on Primal Groudon,
especially as Fighting has no real access to
acceleration (for now anyway).
Landorus FFI, I guess, but it’s not great.
This is where Primal Groudon’s
Ancient Trait becomes a factor. Ω Barrier gives
Groudon immunity to the
effects of Trainer cards. This means he can sit on the
Bench while you build him up and not fear being dragged
active by Lysandre or having
his Energy discarded by Xerosic
or Crushing Hammer. He’s still vulnerable to Abilities
such as Genesect EX’s Red
Signal, but that could be countered by the Silent Lab
Stadium or by including Garbodor
LTR in your deck. Speaking of
Genesect, he represents a pretty good counter to
Groudon anyway, thanks to
the latter’s Grass Weakness.
Primal Groudon needs a
dedicated deck, and a fair amount of set up, but he can
reward your patience by destroying everything in his
path in the mid-to-late game. Grass decks are a worry,
and Ninetales PCR’s Stadium
denial Ability will give Groudon
nightmares, but if you can avoid these problems, Primal
Groudon can offer a very
powerful, if slow, competitive option.
Rating
Modified: 3.75 (I like Groudon.
Sue me)
Expanded: 3.5 (at least he has access to a better EX)
Limited: 4.5 (unlikely you’ll get the chance, but play
it if you do)
|
aroramage |
Where one rules over the oceans,
the other triumphs over the land, causing volcanic
eruptions to push its territory further towards the sea.
In ancient times, this Pokemon even had a Fire-typing to
work with and the power to flat-out negate Water damage
- very VERY dangerous in the video games now! Here in
the TCG, though, Primal Groudon-EX hasn't even struck
our Top 10 List.
His attack isn't that bad. Gaia
Volcano does 100 damage normally plus an extra 100
damage if there's a Stadium in play...which then gets
discarded. This is different from Heatran (PHF) and his
Steel Drop attack, where the Stadium just needs to
exist. Then again, that's the power of a primordial
being for ya.
Spirit Link's make Primal Groudon-EX
easier to deal with, but aside from forcing you to play
with a larger number of Stadiums than usual in order to
really benefit from the OHKO prowess he can provide,
he's...not that great an EX. "What?! A Primal Pokemon -
a LEGENDARY Pokemon - is terrible?!" Oh like you haven't
seen that before in the TCG.
Primal Groudon-EX does show that
Grass-type VirGen decks are gonna be more prominent -
more so because of his distant cousin and long-time
rival Primal Kyogre-EX - which is going to make playing
him more difficult in general. Throw in that Ninetales
card from earlier in the week, and you've got a real
potential problem on deck. Don't get me wrong, getting
rid of a Stadium can be good, but when it becomes the
source for more power, that's when you look at Primal
Groudon-EX and say, "Man I wish you could've been like
your cousin."
Of course, it's not all bad news!
He's got the Ancient Trait Omega Barrier, which keeps
your opponent's Trainer cards from affecting him with
their effects (and now you also know how to use "affect"
and "effect"). That's good to know he can't be HTL so
easily! And with the Fighting support still hanging
around like Strong Energy and Fighting Stadium and such,
he can still dish out a solid 140-160 with Muscle Band
(of course he hits 180 with all 4 Strong Energy, but why
put them all on one right?).
So while Primal Groudon-EX isn't
the better of the two titans, he's not that bad because
of the support he's got. Spirit Links, Fighting Support,
the Omega Barrier trait - if anything, it's probably a
GOOD thing they didn't power his attack to higher
levels, cause this guy would be even crazier than
before!
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (with Fighting
support on his side, he should be able to have something
work out for him)
Expanded: 3.5/5 (you also get
access to the older Groudon-EX from DEX, something to
note with Primal Kyogre-EX here as well)
Limited: 5/5 (if you've got the
Spirit Link and such, this guy is perfect for that +38
deck; 100 damage may not look like much, but compared to
most everything else it's a lot!)
Arora Notealus: If nothing else, at
least the artwork looks really cool! Just wish they'd
thrown on some kind of resistance, you know? Same thing
with Primal Kyogre-EX!! They could've been almost
complimentary in terms of resistance, but nooooo, Typing
trumps flavor any day.
Next Time: I swear I've seen this
one before...
|
Otaku |
Today we cover
a card that you might have been surprised didn’t make
our actual Top 10 list: Primal Groudon-EX (XY:
Primal Clash 86/160, 151/160). Should it have made
the Top 10? Should it even be a part of our Runners-Up
Week? Let us take a look at what it has going for and
against it. To begin with, it is a Fighting-Type and
that’s awesome: I don’t think a single Type is better
supported, at least overall. Direct support includes
Korrina, Fighting Stadium and Strong
Energy. Indirect support includes a field of
excellent attackers like Hawlucha and Landorus-EX.
Fighting Weakness is the norm on Colorless-Types,
Darkness-Types and Lightning-Types, though it isn’t
universal. It is true that Fighting Resistance is one
of the most common as well (in fact you find examples of
it in each of three Types I just mentioned for
Weakness), but no Resistance is far more common so it
still is a minor concern that will mostly be an issue
when you forget about it.
Being a Mega
Evolution is… not good. The Primal Reversion rule means
you not only need a turn to Mega Evolve (Primal Revert?)
from Primal Groudon-EX, but when you do it your
turn ends, delaying your attack for another turn. Yes,
you can (and most definitely should) use
Groudon Spirit Link to get around this, but that
does eat up your valuable Pokémon Tool slot. In fact
we’ll get to an aspect of this card that makes that slot
even more valuable than normal. Right now being an
Evolution at all is a drawback and I am honestly not
sure if being a Stage 2 is better or worse than being a
Mega Evolution. Being a Mega Evolution also means being
a Pokémon-EX, and that too has a lot of inherent
drawbacks. No matter what the designers decide, unless
they take pains to specifically counteract it,
Pokémon-EX are worth an extra Prize when KOed, can’t
access certain (rarely used) support and is vulnerable
to certain counter-cards (which are often used).
Now Primal
Groudon-EX does seem to cash in on being a Mega
Evolution; a magnificent 240 HP that makes it about as
hard to OHKO as you could hope for a Pokémon to be. Wailord-EX
is bigger, but nothing else is without buffs; its enough
to have a chance of being a 3HKO. Not against its
Grass-Type Weakness, of course; the good news is the
main concerns are still Virizion-EX and
Genesect-EX. There are others and people have been
looking for them as not only did we get a couple high
profile, Grass Weak Pokémon this set, but exploiting
this Weakness has been a big deal, at least on and off
for a while now. Past examples where it was desirable
include Keldeo-EX as well as Seismitoad-EX.
Primal Groudon-EX lacks a Resistance, but that
is unsurprising and such a common thing I won’t hold it
against the card. That four Energy Retreat Cost is
quite relevant though; most decks are going to pack at
least one (and preferably two) options for dealing with
a massive Retreat Cost, but Primal Groudon-EX is
going to be especially dependent upon whatever the
choices end up being.
After its HP
score, the next big bonus is an Ancient Trait; in this
case it is Ω Barrier provides protection against any
Trainers your opponent plays except Stadiums and
Pokémon Tools. Specifically it applies to the effects
done to Primal Groudon-EX, so an Active Primal
Groudon-EX isn’t sent to the Bench by Escape Rope
but one on the Bench could be (and if it were your only
Benched Pokémon, must be) promoted. Lysandre
targets the Pokémon being promoted, so this is blocked
and Pokémon is a bit odd in that an effect that discards
a Pokémon’s attached cards (like Energy or Pokémon
Tools) has to “go through” that Pokémon: so Primal
Groudon-EX doesn’t need to fear Enhanced Hammer,
Xerosic, Startling Megaphone, etc. The
final card its protected from that is well worth
mentioning is Hypnotoxic Laser; none Trainer
effects can still Poison Primal Groudon-EX, but
an Item like Hypnotoxic Laser is going to be
blocked because it isn’t a Pokémon Tool or Stadium.
Other than its Ancient Trait, Primal Groudon-EX
is like most Mega Evolutions in that it has a single
attack: requiring [FFFC], Gaia Volcano does 100 damage,
plus an additional 100 if a Stadium is in play, which
the attack then discards. The Stadium is discarded
after doing damage, which ends up making for some
nice combos for Primal Groudon-EX; a Fighting
Stadium still grants its damage bonus before being
discarded, a Silent Lab still has Abilities shut
down until the moment it is discarded, etc. The Energy
cost is the only drawback, and it is a significant one…
but not insurmountable.
Before diving
into how to make use of Gaia Volcano, we should look at
Groudon-EX as unless we want to rely solely on
Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick (we don’t) then we’ll need
Groudon-EX to get Primal Groudon-EX into
play. We only have one Standard legal option:
Groudon-EX (XY: Primal Clash 85/160,150/160;
XY Black Star Promo XY42). A Basic Pokémon-EX
with the same Type, Weakness, lack of Resistance and
Retreat Cost as Primal Groudon-EX, it performs
similarly in those areas. No Ancient Trait or Ability,
but it does have two attacks. For [FC] you can use Rip
Claw to hit for 30, plus flip a coin to see if you
discard an Energy attached to the opponent’s Active
Pokémon. For the same massive [FFFC] as Gaia Volcano,
Groudon-EX can use Massive Rend for a flat 130.
As a stand alone Pokémon-EX the attacks would be a bit
underwhelming but if you insisted on running the card,
you could do some decent things with it; discarding
Energy can vary from pointless to painful (even when its
flippy) while Fighting-Types have enough buffs that
Massive Rend into a OHKO attack against almost
everything, though with racking up enough damage and
getting round problematic protective effects requires a
deck built around such a thing and a lot of luck.
Handling most non-Mega Evolutions doesn’t require much
though. All in all, a solid option.
Expanded gives
us an additional choice to consider: Groudon-EX (BW:
Dark Explorers 54/108, 106/108). It has the same
attributes as the other Groudon-EX except
Water Weakness instead of Grass Weakness and Lightning
Resistance instead of no Resistance. Its two attacks
are Tromp for [FC] and Giant for [FFC]; the former does
20 to the opponent’s Active plus 10 to each of the
opponent’s Benched Pokémon while Giant Claw does
80 with an additional 40 if the Defending Pokémon has at
least two damage counters already on it. This card
actually saw some successful play in formats past, plus
changing up Weakness (and enjoying Resistance) can be
useful. I’m also partial to spread even if Mountain
Ring and Mr. Mime (BW: Plasma Freeze
47/116) can block it and Fresh Water Set or
Rough Seas might heal it before it can really
accumulate. If you don’t have to deal with any of
those, the attacks on this card make for a half-decent
fall back strategy. I am not sure if they are better
than the more recent versions, but I am thinking running
both could be useful… and to amend something I mentioned
earlier, Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick is also worth
including if the build already had the other components
necessary to use it well, but I don’t recommend it as
your primary means of getting a Primal Groudon-EX
into play in a deck focused on the beast.
So how do you
run Primal Groudon-EX? I have to agree with the
tactic demonstrated by Pooka in
one of his Youtube videos.
If you don’t feel like watching the link, I suggest you
change your mind but the short of it is that thanks to Ω
Barrier, it is much easier to build a Primal Groudon-EX
on the Bench than most other Pokémon-EX. This allows
you to throw up an Energy accelerating attacker like
Landorus (XY: Furious Fists 58/111) - which
Pooka used - or even just an inexpensive attacker,
especially if it can survive a hit so that even your
manual Energy attachments are coming out ahead of how
fast they are getting discarded. I recently saw some
folks trying out Victini-EX again and honestly,
it might be plausible as it hits Grass-Types for
Weakness (re: VirGen match-up) and while it is a
probably OHKO for your opponent, as long as it does
speed up Primal Groudon-EX you stand a decent
chance of catching up, if not pulling ahead. Being a
240 HP that hits for 200 points of damage can do that.
With such a massive damage output you aren’t likely to
need a lot of damage boosting effects; as long as there
is a Stadium in play, Gaia Volcano is usually going to
be enough. Still if you know you’re facing
something that can soak damage abnormally well or simply
has massive HP, a few buffs should still result in a
OHKO. You should probably run your deck a little
Stadium heavy; even if you’ve got a means of recycling
them, you want to draw into them easily. You can also
take advantage of your opponent’s Stadiums to fuel Gaia
Volcano (generating even more advantage for yourself)
but if Primal Groudon-EX is still turns away from
attacking and you need to get rid of a Stadium now,
you’ll have to burn your own sooner rather than later.
The main threat
to Primal Groudon-EX (that does not apply
to just about everything) is its Grass Weakness (granted
that applies to nearly all decks). VirGen, Leafeon
(BW: Plasma Freeze 11/116) and a few other
attackers can be problematic, and especially VirGen
decks make you understand why people are trying to make
Victini-EX work. Silent Lab can be useful
as well, as it prevents Genesect-EX from using
Red Signal to force a Primal Groudon-EX Active.
It also is useful when on the offensive as it cancels
out protective Abilities like Safeguard. Like
everything else, you’ll need to remember there are
Pokémon that can still score the OHKO (whether through
raw damage or attack effects and combo) and as you’re
going with a slow start, you really need Primal
Groudon-EX to live long enough to attack twice. I
would also expect a few other hiccups: the one I noticed
is Ninetales (XY: Primal Clash 21/160) as
once its in play you can’t play a Stadium, so if there
is one in play you get just one more “big” hit out of
Gaia Volcano. Otherwise its a pretty simple concept,
mostly made difficult by the need for patience; feeling
out your opponent’s strategy while calmly building, even
though you’re getting farther and farther behind on
Prizes, can be quite difficult!
Ratings
Standard: 3.75/5 - Yes, I’m actually scoring it
the same as I did Primal Kyogre-EX. It might
simply be that I had lower expectations for Primal
Groudon-EX and because it surpassed those, I’m more
impressed with it than I should be. If you can get used
to slow starts, this massive OHKO-machine is a fearsome
sight for the opposing player. Usually. Even though I
understand the slow start, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a
risk or that I would find it easy.
Expanded: 3.75/5 - Not thinking of anything
major that combos with it; originally the older
Groudon-EX looked really good to me but now I’m not
so sure. Still there are the usual suspects like
Tropical Beach (since this is a bit slower of a
deck) so that in the end, I think it all evens out.
Limited: 5/5 - If you pull a Groudon-EX,
it really does seem suited for a +39 deck and if you
pull both it and its Mega Evolution, you run it as even
if it is unlikely to help, it also isn’t likely to hurt:
just don’t Mega Evolve if you can’t spare the turn.
Summary: Primal Groudon-EX has great
Typing, HP and support. It has a good Ancient Trait and
attack. Its got a dangerous Weakness though and is slow
starting. Even if I’m wrong about how good it is, be
prepared for it because as a “new toy” its going to see
its share of play… and you do not want to be on the
receiving end of a 200 damage assault.
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