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Standard Primal Groudon/Wobbuffet/Carbink Break (PRC ON)

Peter Torres

Peter Torres

Aspiring Trainer
Member
** DECK PROILE UPDATED** As of September 9th

Pokemon: 14
3 Groudon EX (Primal Clash)
3 Primal Groudon EX (Primal Clash)
3 Wobbuffet (Generations)
3 Carbink (Fates Collide)
2 Carbink Break (Fates Collide)

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 34
4 Professor Sycamore
3 N
2 Lysandre
1 Pokemon Ranger
1 Hex Maniac
1 Teammates
4 Vs seekers
3 Ultra Ball
2 Groudon Spirit Link
2 Switch
1 Escape Rope
2 Mega Turbo
1 Professor's Letter
1 Super Rod
3 Scorched Earth
1 Shrine of Memories

Energies: 12
8 Fighting Energy
4 Strong Energy

Strategy: Primal Groudon has been one of the best Mega's introduced into this game, but has not seem a whole lot of competitive play recently with the overwhelming Greninja Breaks, Yanmega Breaks, Giratina and even Mega Rayquaza deck. However, I have revamped the once old Groudon Deck and made it one of the most viable and competitive decks that can stand above the rest. A quick summary of each card should be explained first. Primal Groudon: Cannot be affected by trainer cards from your opponent. The means no crushing hammer, enhanced hammer or even lysandre himself cannot affect this monster. With a stadium card in play, Primal Groudon can hit for a grand total of 200 (excluding fighting energies). Wobbuffet: a long since combo with the deck made its appearance in 2015 Junior Worlds Championships with its ability to shut down abilities as long as it is in the active spot. This mean no shaymins draw 6 abilities, no greninja Break "giant water shurkin," and even shuts down yanmega break's ability allowing a free attack with 4 cards in hand. Last but not least the Carbink + Break duo: This card was introduced in in Fates Collide with its ability to shut down EX's. This deck actually slowed me down at a recent tournament I played at, and has made me reconsider building Primal with this in mind. Carbine's ability prevents all damage from EX's and Carbink Break makes it even better. For one energy, Carbink Break can put any 2 energies from the discard pile to any Fighting Pokemon in play. Essentially, Carbink Break is baby Landorus (Furious First) on steroids. It prevents attacks from your opponent's pokemon EX, while powering up a benched groudon in less than 2 turns. This deck has the ability lock, as well as the EX lock, with your opponent forced to chose which poison he or she rather prefer.

Matchups: This deck has a lot of adversity with its initial slow start, but this deck has a lot of potential to take down some of the hardest matchups in todays meta.

Greninja Break Matchup: in this situation, it is extremely key and vital to get out a wobbuffet as your active pokemon. This will shut down all abilities from greninja and prevent water shurkin from being done at all. With 110 hp, wobbuffet is certain to last at least 2 turns due to greninja's standard attack only being at max 80 (or 100 with giovonnii's scheme). While you slow down the greninja with your wobbuffet sitting in the active position, it is key to slowly start powering up a groudon and primal evolve it as soon as possible. Primal Groudon has the potiential to last 2 hits if stalled correctly, and even take out a greninja or two (as long as there is a stadium in play).

Yanmega Break Matchup: This is one deck that could potentially pose a problem with groudon's weakness being grass but there are ways around this. First, Yanmega's ability allows it to attack for free as long as that player has 4 cards in hand. Additionally, if your opponent's pokemon has a tool card attached to their pokemon, it does 50 damage + 70 more damage for a total of 120 or 240 with weakness. Now again, this is where wobbuffet plays a key role in this matchup. Similar to the 2015 format of Primal Groudon, Groudon never had spirit links in the deck's initial profile because no matter what Groudon took 4 energies to power up and wasting a turn to mega evolved never hurt Groudon. Wobbuffet shut down all abilities and just made a wall to your opponent and your groudons. Ideally you want the same thing to happen with wobbuffet. Wobb shuts down all abilities, as long as it is in the active position, and forces your opponent to play energies to attack with yanmega while you slowly start powering up a benched primal. Once groudon is powered up, and without a spirit link attached, it can potentially survive 2 hits before being knocked out. With the right moves, it could sweep a few yanmega and overwhelm your opponent.

Giratina/Darkrai or Mega Ray Matchup: This is where Carbink + Carbink Break shines with the ability to prevent attacks, including damage, from all pokemon EX's. For both matchups, it poses a big play to prevent attacks from your opponent, but also being able to power up groudon within a drop of a hat. Additionally, you could use wobbuffet to shut down shaymin's ability in the rayquaza matchup. With Carbink, you are also allowed to put ANY energy from the discard pile to your benched fighting pokemon. Which means you can put 2 strong energies on a primal groudon to help aide groudon one shot anything.

Thank you for taking the time to check out this deck profile and if you have any comments or suggestion to change this deck, let me know! Thanks again!

Primal groudon deck.jpg Primal groudon deck.jpg
 
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So one way I've been building Groudon in this new format is to actually build it like it's not a Groudon deck.

Cards like Hoopa EX and Shaymin EX are in my version of the deck, in addition to four copies of Ultra Ball.

Here's some changes that I would make.

Cut two Wobbuffet, Carbink is a much better wall to hid behind, and it powers up your attackers.

Play four Carbink. This is your ideal starter.

Your supporter line is great.

Play four Ultra Ball, this lets you really put in work with Shaymin.

I think three links are fine.

I don't play Mega Turbo in my version. But if I did, I would play one or two. So I would say cut them altogether. Diamond Gift alone will net you the energies you need.

I dont think that you need Letter without Korrina. I would cut that.

Without Wobbuffet, you can cut the float stones.

Giratina is incredibly popular now. I would cut two Scorched Earth for two Silent Lab (I know this shuts off Carbink, use it when you're about to KO a Giratina)

So I think we have 5 spaces now?

Another Carbink BREAK would be great in case you prize one and one gets knocked out. Three Trainer's Mail should also help your consistency immensely. Also, for the last addition, I would play a Pokemon Center Lady. PCL is incredible in saving a Groudon from getting knocked out. Ideally in a single game you want to get two Groudons rolling.
 
Thanks for the comments and suggestions! I appreciate it! And to add to what your saying, there are decks that run a lot of abilities (as explained earlier) and essentially this deck shuts all of that down. I actually lost to a zygard/viliplume matchup because of the insane ability viliplume had turning off items. I chose wobb to add into this matchup because it somewhat reminds me of the old seismitoad/giratina lock deck where if you weren't locked from one ability, its something else. It essentially is a basic form of Garbodor, that does not require an evolution or tool attached to shut down ability. The deck forces your opponent to go around wobb and carbink, but at the expense of burning their resources or turns using a hex maniac or lysandre. I am opposed to using hoopa because once it gets to the bench, it takes up space and it is easy lysandrable. I am forced to use a switch or escape rope, and essentially serves no purpose after its played. I could add silent labs into the deck, but wobb already does the trick with that. If i did cut the wobb and replaced them with silent labs, I could use them in this deck because once carbink turns into a Break, it is no longer affected by the silent lab's ability because it shuts down basic pokemon's ability and carbink break is a "break" and not a basic. Again thanks for your input, but i do prefer having more than one wall in this deck profile because it gives you that much more options for the deck. Carbink is good against EX decks, but in that off chance you challenge a deck that has no EX attackers, Carbink will not preform at it's best. Therefore using a wobb, could in theory, could cover more than just one option.

*On a side note*
With scorched earth, you actually have a lot of draw support ability + the amount of supporters I play makes this deck fairly consistent with draw support. With most groudon decks, its not necessary to play shaymin because like i said earlier with Hoopa it is lysandre candy. With one energy discarded, It is extremely useful with the added draw support.

*more of a side note*
Not only does groudon have to get around giratina's Mega pokemon attack ability, but giratina now has to get around my carbink's EX lock ability as well. If my opponent decides to Hex Maniac for the turn to knock out a carbink, I can then in turn bring up my Primal to knock them out because Hex last's until the end of your opponents turn.
 
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I have been testing a couple of lists for Primal Groudon-EX in the new format and, I have to say, I agree with @k0mmandant's suggestions. Groudon decks have to speed up. It's no longer the fastest 'slow deck' in the format; Greninja BREAK beats it there and, arguably, has a more fearsome 'final form' once it starts swinging.

My suggestion is to consider Olympia. It's not as bad as it seems on first reading as it gives you more consistent access to a switching card through VS Seeker; keeping your Groudon alive and Energy in play. Furthermore, Groudon is a card that always appreciates healing support.

EDIT: I can also attest to the value of Pokemon Center Lady.

EDIT #2: I'd also recommend a copy of Parallel City. This Stadium's versatility is fantastic. It can swing the M Rayquaza matchup in your favour and/or discard your prize liabilities (Shaymin-EX and Hoopa-EX) from your bench. Furthermore, Shrine of Memories is decent for times when you need to conserve your Stadium for a big knockout but still want to attack with Primal Groudon-EX. With Shrine of Memories in play you can go for early Rip Claws and/or Massive Rends. It's not essential but worth considering when deciding on your final Stadium mix.
 
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Hey waterskypirate! Thanks for the comments! I read what you had to say about the deck and I agree with a lot of it! To make the argument however, the deck runs exceptionally fast depending on the variant you want to play. As a stalling tactic, you have the ability to hide behind wobbuffet and power up groudon with the use of mega turbos, and energy attachments each turn. However the deck plays extremely aggressive if paired up with carbink Break because within one turn you can attach up to 2 energies to a benched groudon. Depending if your risk averse or your opponent just runs too many ability playing pokemon, you can take advantage of both ways to play the deck. The deck in some aspects is still considered a "slow deck" if you wish to play it that way, but it is also considered a fast deck if you play aggressively. I did as much as I could to not make this deck as clunky as possible, and I wish for anyone to try it out to see how they like the deck. Without carbink, the deck is a slow one because wobbuffet has only one purpose to slow down your opponent, but has extreme potential in speed if you use the card to accelerate your primals.

I have to agree 110% with parallel cities card however, because lowering you opponents benched down to 3 pokemon and potientially knocking out the active with primal groudon limits my opponent's options on what to do. If paired up against a greninja deck, I could limit their bench down to 3 and knock out their active greninja break or an annoying talonflame. An even better matchup with be mega ray as it dwindles their bench space down to 3, forcing them to frantically search for super rods to make up for the lost benched space

**I am considering dropping a card for parallel cities but am having trouble figuring out what card should be dropped.**

*Side note*

I do like the Olympia card as it is essentially is a free switch and heal to any of my groudon's, but with my two float stones (mainly for wobb or carbink) and 2 switch + 1 escape rope in the deck, I feel like it isn't that much of a card to truly add into the deck. I don't like the idea of burning a supporter to just switch, but late game could make the difference between a W or a L. But I had the card in mind when I was building the deck, just not sure what I would do to make space for it.

*another side note*

Gordon whether you have shaymins or hoopa in the deck or not, it still requires you to put 4 energies on this massive pokemon. As much of the draw support you get from shaymin and hoopa, i feel like they essentially serve no purpose but to take up bench space. I could get a lot of good cards from using shaymins and hoopa, but at the end of the day I still need to put 4 energies on groudon which isn't something I could do on turn one. The bench space those cards take up is another dilemma I have as well. Sure, I could use a parallel city to discard them from my bench, but that is one of sixty cards in my deck. Additionally Id have to go searching for parallel cities and use it on myself to drop my bench space (to reduce easy lysander candy) and I personally would would use the card on my opponent opposed to myself.

Thanks for the comments!! Again all great suggestions, and I am taking everything into consideration!!
 
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Hi there! I love your build and I'm taking some ideas for myself :) I've been testing my build and so far so good, my only worry is Yanmega that sometimes can be difficult to overcome (for Sceptile you are covered thanks to Carbink)

In the area of suggestions:

  • One more Carbink Break: It's a too damn good card and sometimes one can be prized and you have to work only with one. For consistency I run 3-3 on Carbink
  • One Ninja Boy: It such a versatile card! If you open with Groudon you can change it to Wobbuffet or Carbink, you can even tank a little with him and then change it to prevent your opponent to take 2 prizes instead of 1. On the other hand, you can have a full powered Primal out of nowhere if you start charging a Carbink or Wobbuffet in the bench, then Ninja Boy to Groudon, put a SL (if not have one already), go Primal and start wrecking everything.
  • Heavy Ball and Trainers mail (2-3 of each): without Korrina, only ultra ball can search our Groudons, and given you want them evolved by T2 or 3, heavy ball helps with that, it's basically a free Groudon/Primal in your hand. Trainers Mail add consistency, giving you a SL, a supporter or even a stadium when you need it most.
  • WastedSkyPirate already talked about it, but one Shrine of Memories and one Parallel City can help you a lot for the same reasons he explained (for example, a Primal with 2 strong energies can hit a Massive Rend for 170 killing a bunch of EX and almost everything non-EX in one hit without discarding the stadium).

Hope that helps ;)
 
I build this deck too and it's really scary how similar our decklists are.
I like this build very much! The Hoopa/Shaymin build is just to vulnerable and like you said, you need 4 energies anyway. I also included one Ace Trainer into my deck list, because it's supposed to lose at the beginning.

I don't think heavy ball is that good in the deck, it only searches for groudon... sure you need them, but you have 4 Ultra Balls too so IDK.

I considered Zygarde 50% (I guess?) set nr. 53 as a tech card for this deck.
It helps to stall with it's first attack (lysandre stall) or even prevents your opponents dark or fairy type from attacking. especially fright night yveltal could be a pain for this deck.

I guess you could easily cut the 2 switches for 1 olympia and 1 Parallel City, maybe ninja boy is the even better option then olympia since they can't lysandre stall with your primal groudon anyway.

I definitly will include ninja boy into my decklist, so thank you for your post! It helped me.
 
Hey @Ratpool, Thanks for the comments on the deck, and I actually did run a single copy of heavy ball in this deck profile when I initially started play testing. I ran into some issues with the card, because as a pro it is benefical to getting your groudon and primal out quickly, but the con is it can only grab those and not a wobbuffet or carbink. It reminds me of the Korina card that allowed you to search for an item and fighting pokemon. Because heavy ball is limited to just retreat costing pokemon of 3 or higher and wobb and carbink + carbink break are excluded from that. So in order to be able to search for whatever I needed at any time, I chose 3 ultra balls. Additionally it is very useful to getting out energies to the discard pile to assist with carbine's attack which allows me to put 2 energies to a benched fighting pokemon. I am going to include 1 shrine of memories and drop one scorched earth for this card. It becomes extremely crucial in a greninja matchup or any pokemon with 170 hp because with 2 strong energies, I can hit 170 to knock greninja out.

Hello @Yumikora, and thanks for the comments as well. I hate searching hours and hours on the internet finding a "decent" deck profiles for new decks. So I do have fun posting deck lists here as you guys can help in constructing some of the best decks that I use at my local tournaments. I WISH I had room for 4 ultra balls, but the deck is as jam packed as it is right now. 3 ultra balls do the job, but it is not extremely crucial. Same with the carbink break cards, I don't necessarily need more than 2 carbink breaks in my opinion because it is not as important to me as just getting it out turn one. I have a super rod to compensate if I am forced to discard a primal or if a carbink break dies early game but thats my take on it. In my opinion it is more beneficial to incorporate switches than the Olympia because like i said earlier, id hate burning a supporter to just switch a pokemon because I have 2 float stones, 2 switches, and an escape rope if needed. You are like the 3rd person to recommend using Ninja boy as a tech for the deck and honestly, it would not be that bad of a card to include. I will be including this in my build, but i need help considering what to drop for that.

Cards I want to include for the deck:
1 Ninja Boy
1 Shrine of Memories

Cards to exclude from the deck:
1 ???
1 Scorched earth


*Side Note*

As making this deck an even more problem to deal with, I was considering adding bursting balloons because all my wobbuffet can do is stand in the active position with a float stone attached to it doing nothing but taking a few hits every turn. If I incorporated bursting balloons to wobb or even carbink, it makes it that more challenging for my opponent to get around it. It has been a thought of mine, because in the greninja matchup, it is impossible to one shot an active wobb even with the right cards because it shuts down all abilities. Your opponent is forced to 2 shot a wobb, but at the expense of possibly doing 6 damage counts back at the attacking card. This card would not be only used for the greninja matchup, but for any matchup going against wobb ability. But this is something I've been thinking of recently, so I am not sure if this is going to be in the final build. Just food for thought.

Thanks again for all the comments, they are being implemented into my build for this deck!
 
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@Peter Torres in order to open room for Ninja Boy you can drop a SL, given most of the times you will have a Wobbu stalling without attacking so you can afford to lose one turn to evolve your Groudon. Another option is to drop a basic energy, you have letter to search them or carbink to recover them, so there would not be such a hit to drop one.

Bursting balloon is a good idea, is an amazing card but the problem is that it takes 4 spaces in your deck (5 if you run eco arm) so it can't fit in all decks, and Primal Groudon is as thight as it gets, so I don't see how you can make room for it :confused:

@Yumikora I was thinking to add Teammates (I use it in my old build for the last format) or Ace Trainer, because you are right, normally you will be always one or two prizes behind until you get your Primal ready. But I don't see what I can take out in order to make room for it.

Another good stadium that can help is Silent Lab, it helps against Giratina and it doesn't affect your Carbink if it is already Break. I normally run 5 stadiums, right now I have 3 Scorched earth, 1 Shrine of Memories and 1 Silent Lab. I woul like to add Parallel City but I don't like to drop another Scorched earth and I don't know if change it for the Silent or Shrine stadiums (my meta is full of Giratina, that's why I run Silent Lab)
 
Thanks for the great insight again @Ratpool, and thats what I have been thinking of doing while play testing is that I could afford to drop a spirit link for Ninja Boy. Ill test it in my build but I'm still on the fence about it. Early game it might be good, but late game I'm not too sure it will be as effective. Usually what happens is once I get a benched primal groudon and it takes a few hits or two, I'm struggling getting the second primal out onto the bench without using a spirit link wasting a turn. I don't like wasting a turn, because I have to skip a turn of using Carbink's Diamond Gift attack. The other issue I also get is sometimes I have to primal and my opponent will usually take an early prize card by knocking out wobb or carbink. So in this instance, dropping the spirit link for the ace trainer might be for my advantage as during the meta of the game, I might run into complications. Not sure. Scorched earth has been my favorite stadium in this format though. To me, my scorched earths are like my shaymins because it is my only other draw support i get that doesn't involve me benching anything for a free 2 card draw. Before PRC on, I actually ran baby landorus/groudon with silent labs and it allowed me to attack giratina right away, but the main issue was not being able to knock out giratina because once it got off the attack, I couldn't play any more silent labs. In that matchup, with this current deck, all I would have to do is wait until my opponent hex maniac's my carbink and I could follow up with a full knockout on that giratina with my primal. Additionally, I have hex manic as well to take them down if I didn't have an already ready primal to attack with. So many options this deck can go to, but I might actually go with the Ace Trainer to see how it does for the deck. I have a 3-3-3 lineup of each pokemon, so I'm not too worried on the start. The switches and float stones make it that much easier to switch an active wobb for a carbink or vise versa. An N or Sycamore and I usually draw into another pokemon or an ultra ball to get anything I need.

- 1 Spirit Link
+ Ace Trainer

Thanks again for all the inputs you guys!!
 
@LiftoffLizard, Yes it can pick up any 2 energies and attach it to a fighting pokemon. That is why it is a potentially good combo with primal groudon as it requires 4 energies to power it up.
 
@Peter Torres I would also suggest to test Teammates instead of Ace Trainer. Both are really good cards for this deck but I feel that Teammates can has more advantage because it can bring you that stadium/letter/Carbink Break/SL/Primal/Lysandre/etc you were looking for.
 
@Ratpool, I actually did test it against a greninja deck both teammates and ace trainer and I surprisingly enough liked the teammates over the ace trainer. I personally rolled over greninja early game, but late game I was struggling because even though I had 3 prizes left, my opponent had 4 and I wasn't able to use it until the last minute of the game. Again, I am testing this out with each variant until I am 110% content with this decks outcome.

-1 Ace Trainer
+ Teammates
 
That's great!! Keep us posted when you have that 110% build you are looking for ;)

I will probably test my build this Saturday in a small tournament in my local store. I will write you here how it went :D
 
After playing the deck, I tested it three separate times against greninja. The reasoning on testing for greninja is due to the fact that it is still a deck that is widely competitive that requires no EXs whatsoever to do massive amounts of damage. I strongly advise against using Parallel City because in various situations, I played it thinking I was going to reduce the amounts of greninja my opponent had on the field but this is wrong. They use the active frogadier to get 3 more onto the bench. It became useless because they didn't have to discard any frogs in play. Additionally, I even tried reducing the attack from my opponent by 20 with the flip side of parallel city, but that ended up reducing my bench to only 3 and I couldn't play my wobbuffet i had gotten from an N. Essentially that cards screwed me up more than my opponent. I am against parrellel and found that It useful using a scorched earth. I didn't like teammates in the deck either. Id rather not play it in the deck as I use other supporters to change my hand to something else. I will keep posting if there is anything i would change or change back.
 
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