Wonderblades – My First Level 50 Legendary

In January 2019, I caught a Groudon. It caught on the second to last Pokeball. Back then, I was only just level 30, and I didn’t have very many counters. It had also taken 5 people to beat the raid, because the best water type back then was Kyogre with Surf, and it hadn’t been available since January 2018 when it was first released, so many people didn’t have the candy to power one up to level 40. At the time, I was using stuff like Blastoise and Venusaur and whatever grass types I could get my hands on.

This Groudon turned out to have perfect IVs. I didn’t realize at the time, because back in 2019, the game didn’t explicitly tell you what a Pokemon’s IVs were. I showed the Groudon to my friends and they were all like “OMG you got the hundo!” and, back then, hundos were harder to come by because there were no Remote Raids and far fewer gyms.

Either way, I made it my goal to max out this Groudon. I named him Wonderblades, in the hopes that one day he would learn the move Precipice Blades and made him my buddy for a bit. Eventually, I swapped him out because I needed to evolve things like Eevee and Feebas for research, but I slowly poured rare candy into him (and later, my shundo Mewtwo) to level Wonderblades up. It took me a long time to get to level 40, mostly because I also spent 100 candy to give Wonderblades a second move. For ages, Wonderblades had Earthquake and Solar Beam as his two moves, but I used two Elite TMs on him to teach him Precipice Blades and Fire Punch.

When level 50 came out, I went back to walking Wonderblades for a bit. Being level 40, he had a 75% chance of getting an XL Candy every 20km. I don’t have many Poffins so I couldn’t do the “feed Poffin at 19.9km for two candies” trick that often. I also walked some of my other powered up Groudons. Wish Granted (lucky shiny), Shadowblades (shadow) and Limequake (98% shiny) were all walked to Best Buddies as well as Wonderblades, and Ultradon (a 14/15/15 Groudon) was to be Best Buddy Groudon #5. On the plus side, with so many buddies, I have over 3000 Primal Groudon energy, and Wonderblades is now a level 3 Mega, so I can basically turn him into his Primal form whenever I want.

It took way, way too long for a decent source of XL Candy to come in. When Precipice Blades was released, I did as many raids as I could but XL Candy wasn’t guaranteed and you’d only get 1-3 per raid if you were lucky. Groudon came back as Primal Groudon for GO Fest 2023 and returned in a Raid Day in February 2024. Unfortunately, everyone was hyper-focused on Primal Kyogre and Mega Rayquaza, meaning I couldn’t do as many raids as I wanted to. On the Primal Groudon Raid Day in particular, everyone buggered off after doing their 6 free raids, despite having done DOUBLE that (and used lots of premium passes) for Primal Kyogre. On top of that, Primal and Mega raids give WORSE rewards than Legendary Raids, so there was less of a chance to get Rare XL Candy too.

After that, all I could do was just do random raids and hope to get Rare XL Candy to feed to Wonderblades once more.

In the mean time, people suggested doing Routes for Rare XL Candy. Well that did fuck all. I’ve done over 7o routes and I’ve only gotten something other than berries, balls and stardust once. On my 69th route, I got 2 normal Rare Candies. I fed them to my shundo Mewtwo.

I was hoping to finish off Wonderblades on the Mega Lucario raid day. The event promised a higher chance of Rare XL Candy for in-person raids (and guaranteed rare XL if you spent €7 on a ticket – fucking everything is locked behind a ticket these days). I did 11 in-person raids and got none. Didn’t get any from the three remote raids I did with aabicus either so he could get Mega Lucario. I did get two Groudon XL candies, but only because I used a Poffin when my Ultradon (the fifth Groudon I was walking to Best Buddies) was at 19/20km walked. I’ve been using Poffins on Ultradon every 20km but it’s been too hot to walk lately. Still, I was close. So close. I only needed 1 more XL Candy.

Still, Wonderblades kicked ass in that event. The best raid was the very last remote raid I did. Sure, I got a 2* Lucario (out of 14 raids, I only got 3 3* Lucarios) but that last Mega Lucario had Thunder Punch. Wonderblades was in my third slot (because aabicus was leading with his Mega Charizard and I was using Reshiram in my first two slots) and Wonderblades lasted for about 3/4 of that raid. Thunder Punch did absolutely nothing. Really, the ONLY raids where Wonderblades suffered were the Aura Sphere raids. That move is almost impossible to dodge, and Groudon doesn’t resist fighting. Still, Wonderblades could withstand three Aura Spheres before fainting.

After the Lucario day, I wondered what was the quickest way to get that last XL candy. Sadly, ALL my Groudons were at 1-5km walked, which meant I’d have to walk 5km minimum and use a Poffin. I could have spent 100 rare candy on Groudon and turned that into a single XL Candy, but that felt like a waste and way more effort than just walking. Wonderblades had the most distance on him (4.9/20km) so I switched him back to my buddy.

The day after the Lucario Raids, I decided to go for a walk. On a whim, I did a Pawniard raid that spawned on my way home. Amazingly, this dropped a Rare XL Candy. The last one I needed. After doing 14 raids the day before and getting NOTHING, this random level 1 raid that I completed in 7 seconds gave me what I wanted.

I had to swap Wonderblades out as my buddy to power him up. As Best Buddy, he was technically already level 50, so I had to make something else my buddy, power Wonderblades up with the 40 last XL Candy and then make him my buddy again. Wonderblades is now a glorious Level 51, Perfect IVs Groudon.

At 6752 CP, a Best Buddy. 100% IVs level 51 Primal Groudon has the highest CP of ANY Pokemon in Pokemon GO, tied with an identical Primal Kyogre. The only Pokemon that go above non-Primal Groudon and Kyogre are level 50 Slaking, Mewtwo and Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings Necrozma. And Necrozma cheats by being two Pokemon at once. Mega Mewtwo’s forms will potentially be higher than Primal Groudon/Kyogre, but my shundo Mewtwo Wonderful is waiting. He’s my next goal to get to level 50.

It’s taken me 4 years nearly to get this damn far. And Wonderblades here is the ONLY Legendary I’ve gotten to level 50. Out of all my other Legendaries, the only Pokemon remotely close is Mewtwo, and I don’t really want to spend XL Candy on any non-perfect Legendary when it’s so hard to obtain. Could I have done this faster? Probably, but it would have required me spending way, way more money.

Oh well. It’s done now. I can finally take a break.