More Competitive: Kyogre or Groudon?

Freezerbern

Freezerbern

Aspiring Trainer
Member
So, Primal Kyogre EX and Primal Groudon EX are coming up in Primal Clash as I'm sure you all know. Anyway, I've been debating over which will be more competitive. Does the support that Groudon gets from the FFI set outweigh the Alpha Growth Trait that Kyogre has?
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I think they both are good, but I feel that Kyogre is a bit better for the current format. It has a lot of advantages that Primal Groudon doesn't.

The first is a more reliable attack. Even though Groudon is stronger, it's harder to use. What if you run out of Stadiums? What if your opponent is running Ninetales from Primal Clash? Without the Stadiums, Primal Groudon is left with just 100, or more with Fighting Support.

On the other hand, Kyogre does 150 no matter what, moves Energy to the bench, and snipes EX's for 30. This is better because it sets up Benched Pokemon for One-Shots, and because of how useful Energy movement can be. Shifting Energy to the bench allows you to be able to power up a Type Advantage attacker for the rare instance where you are up against a Grass variant. It also helps against cards that do more damage based on Energy attached, like Mewtwo-EX and Yveltal-EX.

Kyogre also gets help from Blastoise and Archie's Trump Card (yes, I know it's called Ace In The Hole but srsly that name sucks) as a way to reliably set up Energy on a Kyogre before it Primal Reverts and gains A Growth. I know Groudon does get access to Hidden Trick, but I feel that Korrina is the better option because of how it avoids risk.

Kyogre also has a better Basic form, though not by much. The attack is better by doing more damage and recalling Energy to something else you might need to power up.
 
GadgetJax said:
I think they both are good, but I feel that Kyogre is a bit better for the current format. It has a lot of advantages that Primal Groudon doesn't.

The first is a more reliable attack. Even though Groudon is stronger, it's harder to use. What if you run out of Stadiums? What if your opponent is running Ninetales from Primal Clash? Without the Stadiums, Primal Groudon is left with just 100, or more with Fighting Support.

On the other hand, Kyogre does 150 no matter what, moves Energy to the bench, and snipes EX's for 30. This is better because it sets up Benched Pokemon for One-Shots, and because of how useful Energy movement can be. Shifting Energy to the bench allows you to be able to power up a Type Advantage attacker for the rare instance where you are up against a Grass variant. It also helps against cards that do more damage based on Energy attached, like Mewtwo-EX and Yveltal-EX.

Kyogre also gets help from Blastoise and Archie's Trump Card (yes, I know it's called Ace In The Hole but srsly that name sucks) as a way to reliably set up Energy on a Kyogre before it Primal Reverts and gains A Growth. I know Groudon does get access to Hidden Trick, but I feel that Korrina is the better option because of how it avoids risk.

Kyogre also has a better Basic form, though not by much. The attack is better by doing more damage and recalling Energy to something else you might need to power up.
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While I do agree with most of that, I was just thinking that the Groudon would be quicker to set up (Korrina for Primal Groudon and Spirit Link) and you can boost damage, but it is indeed true that it's easier to OHKO most things with Kyogre in many scenarios.
 
Both are very very strong imo.

Primal Groudon does a 100, or a 100 more if there's a Stadium in play. With the rise of Stadium use and the Stadiums coming out, this thing will almost always hit for 200, effectively Knocking Out absolutely any non-mega EX (bar Wailord). However, with all the Fighting support there is atm, I see this being A LOT better than Kyogre. With one Strong Energy/Muscle Bad and Fighting Stadium, it Knocks Out absolutely everything (except Wailord and Safeguarders.) It also is very easy to get out T2, since you can search for normal Groudon T1 and use Korrina T2 to grab the Spirit Link and the Primal. This one is the best of them imo.

Primal Kyogre does 150 to Active and 30 to all opp's EX Benched Pokémon, and it doesn't take a genius to realize that takes out any non-mega EX after the first hit (besides Wailord, which shouldn't see any play outside of Donphan or maybe Gengar), and then it moves 2 Energy from you to your Bench. With a-Growth, as long as you have 2 Energy in hand, you will be 1HKOing EXs after the first attack, turn after turn. However, I don't see it being as good as Primal Groudon, mainly because it's harder to keep attacking with it, not to mention that Primal Groudon is slightly easier to get out. Also, this can't OHKO ViriGen, which may be critical even with Weakness Policy.

TL;DR: Primal Groudon is best for offense and Primal Kyogre is best for set-up. My pick between the two: Primal Groudon. Better damage output, consistency, and match-ups.
 
Of the two I think Kyogre is better, but it has some serious faults.

On the plus side, 150 + 30 from a snipe will take out non-Mega Pokemon-EX. The attack also moves energy away from Kyogre, perhaps to a second one on the bench. Combo with Keldeo or something, and you can cycle between them to move energy off the Pokemon that's about to get damaged, and thus keep your cards in play. Alpha Growth also lets you drop more energy each turn, which through Tidal Storm you can accelerate onto other attacks. 240 HP is also cool, as it keeps you out of reach of the stray Black Kyurem-EX, or even P-Groudon's attack.

But... we can't ignore the big problems that the card has. The Grass weakness means VirGen will do a serious number on it. A Genesect with a Muscle Band (no G-Booster required) can one-shot it, and even Vizirion will take away more than half of its HP. Leafeon will also hit it hard. Then... four energy is a very hefty attack cost. Yveltal and Mewtwo will to serious damage. And that's not even considering the turns neded to power Kyogre up. Even with Alpha Growth and a Spirit Link, it will take three turns to go from Kyogre-EX to P-Kyogore-EX. And speaking of four energy... that's also the retreat cost. If you're going to build a deck with this, be sure to add lots of Switch cards or Keldeo / Float Stone.

Groudon is just a glorified version of Donphan's Wreck.... and you can't even use a DCE to power it up faster. Gaia Volcano is solid if you can get energy on (Landorus FFI perhaps?) and have a Stadium to discard, but that's still wishful thinking. And again, we've got that Grass weakness and a massive retreat cost.

With either of these, they will have to be the centerpiece of a deck given the resources needed to get them going, and a Grass weakness really isn't acceptable for that investment at this time. Perhaps when VirGen rotates these cards will have a chance to be competitive, but until then that's a major obstacle.
 
Both are really good IMO. If you're worried about weakness just use a couple Weakness Policies. (I don't see many megaphones as often as I do now) You can swap those tools using tool retriever. I use 3 Escape rope in my planned Kyogre build. This allows a second Kyogre on the bench to come up already fully powered (easy to power up and the 2 energy from the previous Tidal Storm) and the oppenent has to switch with one of their bench. If they have a small bench they could bring up something really nice to OHKO with the help of the snipe from the turn before. I was also thinking a bulky healing version of this deck which could be good. I use Kyurem LT and PLF to help spread damage on the bench which sets Primal Kyogre up for OHKOs.

I can see this deck becoming really strong.
 
This is a very tough question. Right now, I lean toward Groudon because it's fighting. Attack isn't that great (other than for taking out megas) but you can get around that by using the 130 attack of the basic through Celebi EX or the Memory Shrine Stadium. A couple of strong energies lets you hit for 170, which can be further increased by Muscle Band or Fighting Stadium. From there, you have a 240HP mega that can't be affected by lasers and hammers (keeping the strong energy safe).

But Kyogre seems pretty darn good too. When the scans are finally uploaded to playtcg, I'm testing a deck using Kyogre, Keldeo, Energy Retrieval, and Masquarain (PLB) to move tools and energy around while doing huge amounts of damage. If it works out, you can cover a lot of bases (retreating, energy acceleration, spirit linking) for a small number of cards. Should be a lot of fun.
 
Tough question for sure. Both need decks centered around them and have different benefits and weaknesses.

Primal Kyogre Ex

Pros:
Not liable to Yveltal and Mewtwo since it is a HP 240 tank with only two energies attached at the end of the turn.
Moves half of its energies to the bench and allows one to swarm with them.
Hits all benched Pokémon Ex and allows for ohkos afterwards.
Can effectively use Silent Lab and Head Noiser/Jamming Net.
Can easily recover from a Primal being ohkoed.
Built in acceleration with Alpha Growth.

Cons:
Cannot score ohkos without the defending Pokémon being already damaged.
Weakness to Grass and protective tools can be easily removed.
Needs three turns to set up.

Primal Groundon Ex:

Pros:
Has a lot of support in Landorus and Scorching Earth in addition to Strong Energy, Korrina and Fighting Stadium which makes him real consistent.
With one Strong Energy and Fighting Stadium it can even ohko Mega Pokémon Ex (ad a second Strong Energy for the unviable Wailord Ex).
Omega Barrier disables the effect of opposing trainer cards which protects tools and energies.
Can effectively use Weakness Policy to cancel its weakness.

Cons:
Relies entirely on the availability of stadium cards to ohko the defender which will take up a lot of deck space.
Relies on Scorching Earth and a stable flow of basic energies to get running.
Cannot easily recover from a Primal Groundon being ohkoed.
Can be stalled by Safe Guard decks.
 
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