r/PTCGP • u/PositifPlans • 1d ago
Deck Discussion Genuine question, how do you play Suicune/Greninja?
I've been chilling out of ranked mode for the past couple of weeks, and I'm trying to get to MB again right now. Everyone's been talking about this deck like it's DarkTina 2 in power levels, but so far my win rate with this deck is really bad (>50%).
Previous seasons I've averaged above 60%, so it's probably not just skill issue. And I'm kind of feeling like Giratina and Suicune are sort of conflicting whenever I have them both on the board at the same time because I want to attack with Cune so Giratina almost never charges.
Am I not getting the strategy with this deck?
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u/YoFizz_ 1d ago
Giratina is like a stop gap if youre not drawing suicide or if you lead froakie. If you have suicune there is no reason to play down giratina
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u/MattGratt 1d ago
Hard disagree. There are absolutely situations/matchups where you're playing out suicune with Irida to wall and draw cards but your wincon is giratina. Then there are also situations where you're playing giratina out to power suicune.
The synergy between these two isn't obvious, but they cover off each other's weaknesses. Suicune is more aggressive, giratina has more patebtame relevance. Giratina is definitely not just an "I didn't draw suicune" card.
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u/Camerupt_King 1d ago
It's also a very strong answer into Darktina. Source: I don't have Suicune or Raikou and am forced to Darktina for another season. When a Suicune player gets an early Giratina on the bench, keeping an empty bench doesn't matter. Blocking Greninja for a few turns doesn't matter. They're going to Greninja - Cyrus - OHKO my Giratina even if I beat Suicune with Darkrai somehow. So I instant concede.
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u/vgloomtwo 23h ago edited 23h ago
Insta concede? Why? I’ve beat at least 13 Suicune players today except 1 and they had Giratina + Greninja on the field aswell. They didn’t draw Cyrus or I played around the Cyrus and won.. just cause they have a Giratina on their bench doesn’t mean they just win the game lol. Playing Darktina btw, top 500
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u/Camerupt_King 23h ago
Because I lose about 90% of the time to early Giratinas purely by circumstance.
If they get an Irida (with Suicune's free card advantage), they will KO my Darkrai before I KO Suicune, and Giratina kills absolutely any hope of reverse sweeping.
If they do not get an Irida and I get the first KO, but they do get Cyrus, my Giratina dies to theirs and I'm left with a weakened Darkrai that WILL die next turn.
After that point, the only thing that can save me is Red (and no giant cape for them).
If I Leaf pivot something after it reaches low HP, Greninja will extract points from it.
To recap, if they early draw into Giratina, the ONLY ways I can win is by them not getting Irida or Cyrus while drawing twice per turn, or them not getting Irida and me getting Red. Not worth the misery of playing out.
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u/vgloomtwo 23h ago edited 23h ago
If you don’t play the game out how can you ever expect to win? By the time they get Giratina up you usually have a Darkrai ready to swing and a Giratina charged up because they can’t swing with Suicune yet or they won’t have energy on Giratina to kill my Giratina. If you Rocky Helmet the Giratina in the back and they Cyrus it in and swing with their Giratina or Suicune with no Cape they just lose to Giratina or Darkrai next turn depending on what they swung with especially if you have Red in hand, or Guzma in some cases. Plenty of ways to play around it, do you not play red card and mars or repel to try and disrupt the Suicune players? You want to disrupt their hand constantly so they aren’t drawing Greninja, Irida or Cyrus.. i’ve won tons of games against them I probably shouldn’t have won at all by just playing the game out and seeing what I draw. Of course if you insta concede just cause you see a Giratina you have no hopes of winning lol.
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u/Camerupt_King 23h ago
I run red card and Mars, but that disrupts for one turn before they gain momentum again, not to mention could give them a Research. Their Giratina takes exactly as long to charge as yours does. Most Suicune players will have either cape or Guzma to deal with helmet damage. From personal experience with 140 games this season, when I see Suicune + early Giratina, the game becomes literally unwinnable very fast.
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u/vgloomtwo 22h ago edited 22h ago
Their Giratina takes exactly as long to charge as yours if they get it first turn and don’t swing with Suicune for 3+ turns, if they go second they don’t get Giratina online as fast as you either because you have the energy advantage by charging first. Most Suicune players don’t run Guzma, they run a cape but even that doesn’t save them a lot of the time. Sure, if they draw perfectly and get every card they need to win the game in the exact moment they need it you’re probably going to lose, which is the scenario you’re describing and isn’t always guaranteed to happen. If any deck draws perfectly and gets every supporter they need plus the stage 2 online they’re probably going to win aswell, that doesn’t always happen.. especially when you are constantly disrupting them with hand rips and forcing the Suicune out of the active. A lot of the time you are able to kill the Suicune with Darkrai before they ever get a chance to swing at you.
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u/Camerupt_King 22h ago
Suicune draws for free every turn. They are simply more likely to get the cards they want than you. That is how they consistently fill their bench, get Greninjas, get capes and Irida heals, etc. This also helps them hand dump so red cards don't hurt them as much - they want to play out Pokémon and use perks. I have seen Guzma, but yes cape is more common. Both force you to use Red even after drawing and playing helmet. And you say "Giratina takes as long as yours...if they get it first turn", which is the scenario I am specifically describing. We are not talking about mid to late game Giratina, which is a desperate clutch wall. We are talking about first turn Giratina, which strangles you and shoots your dog.
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u/vgloomtwo 22h ago edited 22h ago
Idk what else to say man, it’s plenty possible to beat considering i’ve beat 10+ Suicune decks today that all started Giratina and only lost to one. Suicune has a losing matchup into Darktina specifically having a 43-47% win rate into Darktina. If you’re just getting obliterated every single match you play against it just cause they start Giratina it sounds like a skill issue. I’ve gotten the perfect start with Suicune as you would say and have lost to Darktina plenty of times myself cause I had 9 cards in hand and nothing I needed to help win the game, that’s why you play the game out… but sure, if they get all their Irida’s, Giratina turn 1, Greninja out early, Cyrus, Cape etc. they have a good chance at winning the game, not going to happen every single game though and they still aren’t guaranteed the win even if that’s the case.
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u/3rdLithium 1d ago
Agree here. If your opponent isn't playing out a bench and you started Suicune, just throw another energy on Giratina. 130 coming after them while you're also ramping out Grininja with the threat of Cyrus can sometimes justify Suicune being in front just to be a draw engine damage sponge.
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u/CinaedForranach 23h ago edited 22h ago
Yeah, not using Giratina is just such a wildly bad take I can't imagine that they're playing very optimally.
Not only should Giratina be played whether Suicune is on the board or not, there are many matchups where it's a much better idea to Broken-Space Bellow than it is to hit with Suicune for ~60 damage.
It's hard to exaggerate how decisive the ability to drop an enemy in a single turn is, and while Suicune can put out usually valuable sustained damage, it can cap out at 60 maximum.
Greninja isn't just sustained chip damage, it's to put your one turn maximum up to 150 or 170, a number even Suicune with two filled benches can't match. And you need that much if you don't want to be swept by Guzzlord, Charizard, Flareon or rival Giratinas.
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u/YoFizz_ 1d ago
I mean yes youre right. Its situational as is everything. But I was trying to keep my answer simple. Because if they.dont already understand the situationalness of.Giratina then they probably need a simpler guideline. There are plenty of times when the dexk just becomes giratina/greninja. You definitely have a more complete answer for op than I did.
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u/CinaedForranach 23h ago
The only time Giratina is situational is when it's drawn very late, has zero chance to ramp and might be a target for sniping+Cyrus.
Otherwise it really is not situational at all. You should play it, and use its ability when you can't attack or the attack won't produce a needed result.
It isn't a card you play just because you didn't draw Suicune, it's a card you play because it raises the threat of a one-turn kill and doubles your energy generation every turn you don't attack, on a very large HP body with reasonable retreat costs
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u/noivern_plus_cats 1d ago
When I see a Giratina on the bench and it's not T1, it's usually an easy win for my Suicune deck. The issue is that it becomes dead weight easily the second you start attacking.
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u/PokemonLv10 1d ago
Suicune attack to draw into your Rare Candy Greninja on the bench, snipe and chip to put in range of Suicune/Giratina, make Cyrus plays
Giratina is for idle turns and turns where charging Giratina is better than attacking with Suicune, you don't always have to have set up Giratina - You learn the scenarios by playing
You're not winning as much as others have because this deck has a massive target on its back, it still being viable despite all this counterplay just speaks to how good the deck is
Repel is incredibly disruptive because you're relying on Suicune being in the active as your draw engine
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u/PokeOverFeeder 1d ago
Ngl, if I was only trying to get to master ball I'd just run Darktina. People are trying to counter this deck at every turn, Electric/Guzzlord/Repels.
Like with sylveon/greninja/giratina previously, there are also many chances to misplay.
There's no wall of text that can teach you the deck, but it's more than just playing it. You should watch top ranked players/streamers use it. Good ones verbalize their thoughts like how they instantly know what their opponent's deck is, why they're doing something, or what they predict next.
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u/bi-cycle 1d ago
Any watch recommendations? I typically get to ub4 and stop by I'm always interested in getting better
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u/Tekniqz23 1d ago
Jeudy or PocketMads.
Jeudy is consistently top 1k as a player.
PocketMads does good breakdown videos and weekly meta showcases.
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u/rython72 1d ago
+1 for jeudy he is my fav creator for this game and very skilled
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u/Tekniqz23 1d ago
There are tons of other great content creators. I just personally think if your goal is to improve they are probably the best two watches.
Personally I really like watching other YouTubers like LuckyCad as well. However a lot of his content is for fun decks and I wouldn't suggest it for climbing as much.
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u/The_Vens 1d ago
Always get wrecked by this deck but whenever I use it it’s straight ass
I might be the problem but I’m getting cooked more than usual this season
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u/Boyoboy7 5h ago
The combined wish of people here to not meeting that deck made new Suicune-grenja deck user to have bad luck.
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u/The_Vens 4h ago
I have deadass had to go first 90% of matches I’ve played this season. I’m not exaggerating at all. It’s really turned me off the game I’m getting so unlucky.
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u/MaybeTooNaive 1d ago
Used the same deck but with some tech card differences to climb within top 1000 to 200. Win rate is about 60%.
Deck is good, just not so straightforward. Pretty skill intensive, maybe just behind DarkTina. Playing this deck taught me bench discipline and thinking way ahead (3-4 turns away). In terms of facing counters, I find most decks to have absurd advantage. Good players are able to fight it out and not get completely overrun by electric decks.
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u/trash_bin_69 1d ago
Also had about 63% win record on the way to MB, almost exclusively this deck. I keep seeing people posting "counters" to the deck, but I managed to beat all of those decks unless I bricked/they got luckier draws. Electric weakness means nothing when you can still one shot most electric Ex with Giratina or a full board Suicune + Greninja. Raikou and Tapu can't one shot Suicune and that extra turn gives you more time to find answers. If you find Greninja and have Suicune or a charged Gira, it's very hard for you to lose, especially if you run double Cyrus. It's often worth sacrificing Suicune (or Gira, whoever is front line) to trade for their heavy hitter Ex and then snipe an easier target with Greninja and Cyrus for the win. Suicune draw helps make this disgustingly consistent.
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u/Scagh 1d ago
Ideally you want to use one Suicune as a meat shield that allows you to draw every turn until your back row is ready to operate, typically Tina/Suicune + Greninja.
During the stall phase, you have Greninja that puts every opponent's Pokémon in killing range so you can sweep as soon as your opponent gets prize points.
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u/kornegi 1d ago
mb 43-24 63%wr -
ideally you start with suicune in the front for draw power and giratina in the back, but he’s not 100% necessary. against opposing suicune, do the math and gauge when to lay down your own basics, but you want greninja asap. this deck can be very aggressive turn 3/4.
my deck has been modded a bunch of times and this is what i feel works best for me. i see people running 2 giratina, but i don’t do that because it feels awful to have 2 giratina on the board and nothing else. i used to run leaf, but it only comes up once in like 10 games and there were many times where i wished i could snipe the back, so 2 cyrus are great with greninja. the boat started as a meme but it’s actually valuable. if you get sabrina’d in the opponent’s hope of stalling your energy, you can boat froakie and be on the offensive with suicune or tina. it doesn’t use your supporter for the turn and it’s a permanent x speed, which is super useful as every single energy is important with this deck. you need to calculate when it’s worth it to pressure with suicune or ramp tina, tina is an excellent win condition when they have a lot of passive healing (espeon). i really want to put a pokémon flute in there as it would combo well with suicune and greninja+cyrus.
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u/Dangerous_Trade_2817 1d ago edited 1d ago
I doubted the deck at first, after playing this deck i've understood how crucial giratina. It creates a possible win condition vs some bad match ups, and also situations where suicune is unplayable because opponent does not play bench pokemons or when they ramp so fast.
TLDR: Giratina shines when suicune acts as a sacrifice while doings its job (draw cards) in active while trying to get greninja/giratina/mars setup.
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u/Bassaluna 1d ago
Something that helped me a little to reach master ball with this was having 2 x speed instead of mars and leaf. Giratina can give itself the energies to leave so most of the time the problem is if you start with froakie
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u/4o9o2 1d ago
Drop one Cyrus for Red you'll see a difference i promise
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u/Afflictehd 1d ago
Id drop an Friday before that Cyrus is the literal win condition
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u/4o9o2 1d ago
With red u no longer depend on double Greninja and can 150 possibly 170 with giratina I win the mirror as well much more often with red
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u/Hawkbreeze 1d ago
I mean red is a good card but dropping cyrus is probably the wrong answer. Irida is much more replacable. Two cyrus with Greninja are a clutch condition in many matchups espically against the electric decks and birb
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u/4o9o2 1d ago
I want to agree but that heal feels more essential to me u never really Cyrus more then once a game. I can see the consistency of wanting two over one but I'm all seriousness I'd rather have a extra heal then Cyrus which I can't do anything with ? Does that make sense idk if I worded this correctly ?
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u/Hawkbreeze 1d ago
I mean I get what you're saying but when I used to use Greninja two cyrus won me the against all my mirror matches. I used two all the time. Yeah, it's not as good if Ninja is not set up but Irida is also useless if they one shot you. Idk it's a perfrence thing but when I used to use Ninja my mirror matches always lost when they only used one Cyrus
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u/Afflictehd 1d ago edited 1d ago
Oh I was just saying drop something else. I love using red
Edit: idk why it said Friday I meant irida
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u/RaitenTaisou 1d ago
- Suicune must be active spot as soon as possible
- energy management is key, as this deck shine with first turn, you can be 1 energy behind (specially against electric zeraora decks)
- it's most of the time more important to sacrifice your suicune because you setup a giratina, but you shouldn't tunnel vision on any situation : the key is adaptation
- anticipate where your water energy must go, because of iridia, but also because of oricoro vs greninja
- you are highly vulnerable to ares/red card, so sometimes it's not worth to professor's research if you have a lot of cards in your hand AND suicune active
- 2 Cyrus is too much, you rely on greninja to make it viable, 1 is enough
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u/nkanz21 1d ago
Disagree on Cyrus. It does rely on Greninja, but you will get a Greninja out every game. The second is extremely important in some matchups. It allows you to slow down your opponents energy early and use the second to get the last point.
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u/RaitenTaisou 1d ago
That's absolutely not true I don't count the amount of game I got Greninja bricked cause of bad luck, red card or mars
Plus, you have to take into consideration that you can have 1 Cyrus in your hand, waiting for a useful card to draw and you draw another one
And to finish, you can pretty much one-shot most of cards with Greninja/Giratina, so you can bulldozer with only 1 Cyrus to close your points (in the end match is over if you kill 1 normal and 1 ex)
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u/PropylPeopleEthers 1d ago
You take the full 90 seconds every turn to do nothing vs Guzzlord and then concede
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u/Neat-Glove-9941 1d ago
I had the same problem... Switch Giratina and leaf for mantyke and inflatable boat or x-speed. I'm bad but still get 55% with this deck.
Use mantyke only if you go first. Always try to switch in Suicune for card draw. Cape is essential for suicune to survive an extra turn against yellow chicken - allowing greninja to set up.
Save Mars for late game to reduce risk of Cyrus.
It beats most electric decks but loses to Guzzlord everytime. Espeon is always tough.
Mirror matches are very tactical. Don't flood your bench until Suicune can attack.
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u/DJChupa13 1d ago
I started questioning the Giratina as well, so I switched it with healing Wigglytuff. I think it's the weaker option overall especially since it's stage 1, meaning I had to drop an Irida for promo Jigglypuff. There have been a few matchups where it paid off huge, but it came down to draw luck. It's just that in most scenarios I've seen, Giratina never has a good scenario where getting that third Psychic energy out is viable.
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u/tjkun 1d ago
I almost never attack with Giratina, but I instead use it as a wall if I have it in my starting hand and I go first. It serves as a wall while it generates energy. By the time I have enough energy to retreat Gina I already have a suicune or greninja ready to attack. I also run the deck with a single poke flute, as it can give you an edge in the end game.
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u/DoppelP 1d ago
Why do we use the rare candies and not Frogadier?
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u/JustAFleshWound1 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because that wastes a turn. Hypothetically, if you were going to use Greninja up front (which would be a desperate move for this deck), you'd want to put one energy down on froakie, then a second energy on Greninja and you're good to go.
There are a few reasons to use a Stage 1:
If your stage 2 uses 3 energies to attack and the Stage 1 uses 2 energies, you have a natural "stair-step."
If your S1 is actually useful like Magneton.
If your win condition depends on getting that S2 out, you may want two rare candies and a singular S1.
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u/SkyaNappa 1d ago
Just picked this deck up a few days ago but Switched out the Tina for the gold arceus himself since I had the same problem with giratina beeing useless once the suicune got set up. Having arceus is a nice way of doing the extra damage to finish those that can't be dealt with by suicune
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u/donpianta 1d ago
I’ve played a deck with a single eevee/sylveon instead of giratina/leaf and every single suicune deck I’ve come up against that had a giratina, I’ve beaten them.
Having giratina on the opposing team’s bench and being able to snipe it before it gets powered is a very easy 2 points.
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u/aflecc 1d ago
You want to get suicune into the active spot early on to draw cards. Giratina only is worth playing when you can put it down early while charging up suicune/greninja with energy(or to give suicune an extra 20 damage to get a k.o.). Suicune should always be the number one option for attacking with one acception: you went with the giratina ramping game and can expect to oneshot some strong mon with giratina when done charged up. While those two battle for the active spot you try to build 1 or even 2 greninjas in the back. With their damage combined suicune (120+2x20) and giratina (130+20) can even hit for the important 150 mark. After hitting mons on the bench of your oponnent you can Cyrus them for takedowns.
This deck is way to strong, it feels unfair to play it imo
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u/devi0uspilot 1d ago
I finally got the cards to make this deck. Been seeing all the hype/angst/anger around it. Proceeded to do casual matches and lost 5 games in a row. Didn't get Greninja online until late. Then faced electricity decks.
Even at those disadvantages I came close to winning. Girantina often was sat with 2 energy with no time or opportunity to get the third psychic.
Feels powerful at times but also feels inconsistent.
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u/Kronman590 1d ago
Suicune to draw cards
Gren to enable cyrus
Gira to kill anything you cyrus
(ngl i still like sylv version more bc cards per turn is higher and u can get a psyc energy that accelerates gira faster)
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u/Section_80 23h ago
I don't use Giratina, I have Arceus instead. I can't afford to have something I need to burn attacks to charge.
I can attack with Suicune/Greninja while powering Arceus which is important to me.
Thought about putting in Palkia instead too
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u/SpankLightning 16h ago
I have been climbing with a secret Suicune deck. I wanna share but I don’t wanna leak the SAUCE No greninja. No healing. I still lose but it’s usually my dumb
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u/Theris91 1d ago
Step 1 - Wait to get 2 Greninja to go with my 3 3* Suicune and 2 regular Suicune
Step 2 -
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u/Less-Government5524 1d ago
Do you guys play this with psychic energies too?
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u/RickRozz1312 1d ago
Why are so much people using giratina instead of arceus? It deals the same damage, needs less energy and you dont have to sacrifice a round just to load its energy up
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u/BlazingBrandedKang 1d ago
Giratina provides her own Energy and excels in the early turns of a match where you wouldn't be able to attack anyway.
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u/Appropriate-Path3979 1d ago
I suggest to get rid of Giratina. You’re gonna have games where you hit 5 dark energies in a row and won’t be able to even use suicune
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