It Gets Better and Better — Gardevoir ex after Paldea Evolved
Hello all PokeBeach readers! Here is Gabriel Semedo again with another Pokémon TCG article and this time I’m going to talk about the success of Gardevoir ex and how this deck gets even better with the arrival of the new Paldea Evolved set.
Gardevoir ex in the Paldea Evolved Format
Usually, at the end of the format, we are already tired of always playing with the same decks, encountering the same game situations, and losing or winning for the same reasons, however, in this specific format I didn’t even see time pass and I felt the game was interesting every time sat at the table to play. One of the big factors in this was Gardevoir ex — from the moment I played with the deck for the first time, I enjoyed its gameplay, and at the same time, I realized that I would have a lot to learn to master the deck.
Three months after its release, I still enjoy playing Gardevoir ex as if it was a brand new deck, and the best part is that in the Paldea Evolved format the deck will be even stronger and more consistent.
One of the things I like about Gardevoir ex in the format is that unlike Lugia VSTAR last season, the deck is not simply superior to the others, on the contrary, if you look at the results, Gardevoir ex is not even in the top 3 most successful decks of the format, however, it is a deck that manages to win tournaments in the hands of skilled players. Gardevoir ex is a deck that stands out much more for its complex and fun gameplay than for its strength and consistency.
I’m seriously enjoying playing Gardevoir ex, and because of that I end up talking to many players and friends about the subject, and one of these subjects gave me the idea to write today’s article. Some of the players I coach came to me asking the same thing; learning to play Gardevoir ex in the Paldea Evolved format. In all cases these players would have liked to have learned to play Gardevoir from the past format, but because of the complexity and calendar of tournaments preferred to focus on decks with established gameplay, such as Lugia VSTAR and Mew VMAX. Bearing that in mind, I believe that everyone could benefit from picking the deck up in this format, so if you want a good opportunity to start playing Gardevoir ex, this article can help you.
In addition, I will do a new analysis of the Gardevoir ex deck and review new and old concepts and ideas that can be incorporated into the deck. Remember that Kirlia with the Mirage Step attack that searches for other Kirlia? In Japan, it has been used again and with success. What about the impact of the new Iono and Super Rod cards to the deck? These and several other cards will be reviewed below, as well as revealing the list I’m currently using with Paldea Evolved.
Gardevoir is Winning in Japan
The starting point to understand how Gardevoir ex is performing in the format with Paldea Evolved is, as always, looking at Japan. =Gardevoir won a tournament of 2750 people out there and also made the final at the Japan Nationals with 1960 people.
The success in these big and expressive tournaments is a big factor in showing that yes, Gardevoir ex remains one of the best decks in the format. You can see Yoshiyuki’s Championship-winning list below:
Yoshiyuki’s Gardevoir ex List
Yoshiyuki’s list has similarities with the list I used to make Top 64 at Santiago Regionals in Chile, obviously without Iono and Super Rod, but I was already playing without Lumineon V and with three Rare Candy.
With no doubt, this Gardevoir ex list is good and will be a reference for the Gardevoir ex lists that will be used in the Worlds Championships.
Back to the Start
We already have a good reference for Paldea Evolved Gardevoir ex, and we also have a good track record of Gardevoir ex in western tournaments, so I realized that now was the time to gather and calmly organize all this information. To begin with, it’s important to define the skeleton list of Gardevoir ex you intend to use, to know what can change and what not at all. Next is to analyze all the options available and define the last spots of the list…
Gardevoir ex Skeleton List
Free Spots: 4
Analysis of Options
One 60 HP ‘Memory Skip’ Ralts
The benefit of this attack is that it can be useful in an unexpected situation, but I confess that these situations have never happened to me and I’ve been using the deck for months, however, it is a fact that this attack has real potential to be good against Arceus VSTAR, which have few switching cards.
The bad part of using this Ralts is its 10 fewer HP, something that makes a slight difference in the matchups against Lost Box. It is possible to avoid this drawback by benching this Ralts early to not take damage from Sableye, and later the idea is to take this Ralts out of the discard with Super Rod so that the opponent cannot bring it back with an eventual Echoing Horn. In the mirror match, there is also the disadvantage that the opponent’s Cresselia needs one fewer Energy attachment from Gardevoir ex to KO it.
Generally speaking, it is difficult to say that I lost games because of Ralts’s 60 HP, maybe I never lost, but it is a fact that in one game or another, those 10 fewer HP facilitated the Knock Out of my opponent. I have seen some games where this Ralts won otherwise losing games, and because of that I prefer to keep it in my list, but I completely understand if you prefer to use only 70 HP Ralts — I believe that both cases are correct.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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