Alt. Format post rotation gardevoir GX

[monsterenergy77]

I haven't played any gardevoir GX before but i feel like i might want to give it a try in the new season. I've only been playing salazzle GX deck and somtimes malamar/ necrozma, so the gardevoir deck is a different style I'm not quite used to and would like feed back on the list I'v put together with some of the stuff we know so far about Fairy Rise.

14 Pokemon
4 Ralts (BUS)
3 Gardevoir GX (BUS)
1 Gardevoir (Fairy Rise)
2 Alolan Vulpix (BUS)
2 Aolan Ninetails GX(Fairy Rise)
2 Tapu lele (GRI)

14 Supports
4 Cynthia (UPR)
3 Judge (FLI)
2 Sightseer (Thunderclap spark)
2 Guzma (BUS)
2 pokemon fan club (UPR)
1 Fisherman (Celestial storm)

20 items
4 Ultra Balls (SUM)
4 Rare candy (SUM)
2 Skypillar (Celestial storm)
2 Field blower (GRI)
3 Switch (SUM)
1 Rescue stretcher (GRI)
2 Choice band (GRI)
1 fairy charm psychic (Fairy rise)
1 fairy charm dragon (Fairy rise)

12 energy
8 Fairy energy
4 DCE

Not sure if pokemon fan club is that necessary since there is alot of set up potential with vulpix or sylveon or baby gardevoir, but it might be needed if you didnt start with either of them. Also depending on what is in and out of meta you could remove or add a charm or 2 if you would like kinda just have to wait and see.

 

[suraci]

Whats Sylveon GX for when u have Alolan Ninetails GX? (If you were to get rid of the eevee and sylveon GX, maybe add in one Fan Club and one switch?(for consistency).
Escape board doesnt really help so add "switch", more Guzma, or something else
Maybe u should add one ralts, delete one kirlia, and maybe replace something in order to go all in on rare candies (maybe one of the charms?)

 

[monsterenergy77]

-1 eevee
-1 sylveon
-2 escape board
-1 kirlia
-1 fairy charm fighting

+3 Switch
+1 ralts
+1 pokemon fan club
+1 rare candy

completely forgot switch was a thing so added those instead of skateboards, I origanlly had sylveon there cuz i saw it as another potential set up or back up attacker but looking at it now since set up is very easy now and reliable it makes more sense to rely on gardevoir more. Got rid of the fighting charm since i think fighting will fall off a bit after rotation with the lose of strong energy and max elixer. Another thing i saw as well is should i potentially drop a judge for a lady. Would allow to get energy out of deck very fast once secret spring is up

 

[Duo]

Plea GX is still a very viable reason to run Sylveon GX. Sylveon GX also swings naturally for 110 damage which OHKOs both Ultra Necrozma GX and Rayquaza GX without needing Choice Band. This becomes particularly important if you plan on running Fairy Charm (Dragon) against UNGX and Ray GX.

I really do not agree with the idea that Alolan Ninetales GX from Fairy Rise replaces Sylveon GX. Searching 2 items and searching 3 of anything is not in the same league at all, and their GX attacks are wildly different.

From having playtested Rayquaza GX recently, I can say for certainty that Plea GX is a very viable strategy to keeping that deck in check - you will not be beating Ray GX just by OHKOing it with Fairy Pokemon. It's not the only strategy, but it's a very good one. Ray GX gets set up much faster than any Fairy Deck, and you need something like Plea GX to crash their snowball. Plea GX is also one of your only win conditions against Metal decks like the New Solgaleo GX coming out here in a few months that can easily steamroll fairy decks with a single DCE.

Running a 2/2 line of both Sylveon and a 2/2 line of Alolan Ninetales from Fairy Rise is, in my opinion, the approach we should be taking with Gardy.

Having both means that you can search 2 items, get Gardy in play, and then Magical Ribbon with Sylveon for energy to accelerate with secret spring, Guzma to get a focused target, push your set up even further, and perhaps the fairy charms if those become particularly relevant at some point. Why pick one or the other when running both gives you the ability to search 5 cards in a single turn? At the same time, Magical Ribbon is incredibly valuable in the early game when attacking for 0 damage is perfectly acceptable on turn 1 or 2 of the game, then in the mid game when you need items like Choice Band or Rare Candy, you can have options to search those out with Alolan Ninetales GX. Sylveon GX is the better game opener, but Alolan Ninetales GX is the better mid-game searcher. Having both also means that if you miss energy for Sylveon, you can still Beacon with Alolan Vulpix and keep moving along. It's the same reasoning as when Gardevoir GX used to run 1 Alolan Vulpix and 1 Diancie. You have servicable options for when you do and do not have the energy for it.

I would personally remove Sky Pillar and the 2 Fairy Charms you have left in the deck for the time being until we have a grasp on whether or not those cards will be needed. Sky Pillar will be a very crucial stadium if Necrozma GX + Magical Swap Tapu Lele become a significant part of the meta, but we don't know that yet. The same concept applies to the Fairy Charms. The charms are only useful if a wide slice of the meta is actively using those types. I generally focus on personal deck consistency before I get spicy with tech cards and stuff like Sky Pillar that can be swapped in later. This gives you room for things like Nest Ball so that Alolan Ninetales GX can search for your basic Pokemon through Nest Ball as well as helping you set up more consistently turn 1.

I think the deck also needs to run Diantha, and Diantha can very much replace something like Fisherman. Diantha may seem unattractive due to the fairy KO requirement, but the fact that she has the ability to recover 2 of any card from your discard pile in a format where we're losing Puzzle of Time and Special Charge makes her incredibly powerful. Take for example if someone KO's your Gardevoir GX - you can Diantha and then recover a Rare Candy and a Gardevoir GX and immediately evolve up a Ralts that was sitting on the bench and have lost almost no time at all. Alternatively, you can also Diantha to recover a DCE and a fairy energy from the discard, which allows you to charge up a Gardevoir GX by 90 damage on the spot. 2 copies of Diantha is the sweet spot in my playtesting experience. If you would like to run a form of straight energy recovery, I would suggest Energy Recycle System over Fisherman, just as how the deck used to play Super Rod for energy as well.

Of course, this is just my opinion and people are bound to disagree with me. I will be playtesting Gardy with both Alolan Ninetales GX and Sylveon GX later today and report back with the results if you are interested.

 

[monsterenergy77]

Yea if you are able to play test it a bit later and report back that would be awesome.

I had sylveon in there to start cuz i saw as well that it would be a superior way to search early on only for 1 energy and as a secondary attacker since ninetales atk wont 2 shot most pokemon, also overlooked the power of the plea gx but i think thats because i haven't faced or seen the sheer power of rayquaza fist hand yet.

You make a good point to with adding tech stuff later on after you can decide what you don't need as much.

 

[Duo]

Okay, got some playtesting results.

Plea GX is not the solution. Very simply, Latias Prism Star & Shuckle. When I see Sylveon GX hit the table, I immediately hold Zeraora's GX attack and accelerate with Shuckle and Latias Prism Star instead. After getting Plea GX'd, I can just discard the handful of energy I just with Ultra Ball, Mysterious Treasure, and/or Sightseer, then go in with Zeraora's GX attack to recover in a single turn.

So now that I have hard proof, we can go ahead and remove Sylveon GX from the deck. Plea GX was the one saving grace I thought it would be worth running for, but it can be easily played around. To compensate for this, I think increasing the count of non-GX Gardevoir to 2 is something the deck might need to consider. I think playing top end heaving and doing 4 Ralts, 3 Gardevoir GX, 2 Gardevoir might be where this deck is going. We don't need Magical Ribbon on a separate Pokemon line when we can access the same feature via non-GX Gardevoir, but how badly we even need that search is to be determined.

This deck needs at least 1 copy of Lady. 1 copy of Lady means you can search an Ultra Ball with Alolan Ninetales GX and then grab Lele to find Lady for 4 Fairy energy. I just had a game with 3 Gardevoir GX set up and a single DCE on one of them because I bricked on energy even after playing Cynthia with 2 cards in hand. You can't let that happen.

Pokemon x17

Gardevoir GX x3
Gardevoir x2
Ralts x4
Alolan Ninetales GX (Fairy) x2
Alolan Vulpix x3
Tapu Lele GX x3
Tapu Lele x1

Supporter x15

Cynthia x4
Sightseer x3
Guzma x3
Diantha x2
Pokemon Fan Club x2
Lady x1

Item x16

Ultra Ball x4
Rare Candy x4
Nest Ball x3
Switch x3
Choice Band x2

Energy x12

Fairy Energy x8
Double Colorless Energy x4

This is what I'm looking at right now after the testing results.

Tapu Lele GX up to 3 copies because this deck is highly dependant on Fan Club and with the addition of Lady to super boost your Gardy GX, you're going to need another Lele to search her out. Consider cutting the 3rd Lele for 2nd non-GX Gardevoir. I don't think I want to run 2/2 GX/nonGX, because if one of your GX is prized then you are are basically screwed in my opinion.

The non-GX Tapu Lele is here for Magical Swap. Now that we're going to have access to some spread damage with Alolan Ninetales GX (Fairy), we can take an energy efficient 2 hit KO game that stacks damage all over the field and closes with Magical Swap at the end. Haven't managed to pull it off yet, but it's only 1 card that could go a long way.

I'll test this version of the list when I have time another day.

 

[Dark Espeon]

Hi Duo and monsterenergy77,

Not sure that I would want to increase the number of Pokémon GX in this deck. Similar to Sylveon GX all Pokémon GX are within ohko range for most decks at the moment. Since one needs to take the burdon to use a setup deck to achieve ohkos I would rather use Gardevoir GX for the acceleration and focus on non-GX attackers able to ohko. Combined with recycle potential with Diantha and Gardevoir GX this could be worth the effort associated with a setup deck. What do you guys think about this idea?

 

[monsterenergy77]

yea i kinda agree with espeons statement. the meta is heavy into accelerating and trading kills making it a who can accel their bench/ back up attacker faster. Might be worth thinking about using baby gardevoir as the main attacker with gx gardy as a accelerator against decks in the 190hp range with a choice band on and anything higher you will have to look at gardy gx as the primary attacker. the issue with this route becomes you will probably always be trading baby gardys life due to low hp, this is fine for prizes but becomes rough on resources as you will b loosing 3 energy a ralts gardy choice band and rare candy. Not sure if you were to go this route maybe increase diantha count by 1 or 2 and choice band maybe that way you can get rare candys back or dce or the gardy back and not worry about the choice band. Not to sure, everything is so variable, play testing is the only answer realy then collaborating in trying to adjust.

I do think going 3 gx and 2 baby gardys is probably best, its important to have at least 2 secret springs in play to accelerate and match other decks speed.

 

[Duo]

Hi Duo and monsterenergy77,

Not sure that I would want to increase the number of Pokémon GX in this deck. Similar to Sylveon GX all Pokémon GX are within ohko range for most decks at the moment. Since one needs to take the burdon to use a setup deck to achieve ohkos I would rather use Gardevoir GX for the acceleration and focus on non-GX attackers able to ohko. Combined with recycle potential with Diantha and Gardevoir GX this could be worth the effort associated with a setup deck. What do you guys think about this idea?

My issue with this is that I feel you need Gardevoir GX in order to compete. Gardevoir non-GX is capable of taking solid KO's choice banded, but it's not a universal solution and can't handle anything with over 200 HP...including itself.

If you were up against a Gardy mirror, perhaps due to the increase in Gardy being played due to Dragon, you yourself need the ability to OHKO anything you'll come up against. Gardevoir GX is the only way Fairy can currently achieve OHKO potential on anything above 190 HP, so you simply have to include a count of them that won't let you get outplayed strictly due to a card shortage. 2 Gardy GX will simply be outgunned by 3 Gardy GX in most situations, and that's just simply how it's going to be.

There is logic in your statement that if you KO with a non-GX, then you might as well just KO with a non-GX. This would be a match up based decision, but at the end of the day you can't short change your win conditions. We're talking about having a passable win rate against ALL decks, not just "most" decks.

If I may be a bit pressumptious, I assume a portion of your decision to focus on less GX Pokemon also has to do with Necrozma GX + Tapu Lele combo becoming a thing? Both your Gardy & Sceptile lists posted earlier today both focused heavily on making a fighting chance without using as many GX Pokemon, and if that were to be the case, might I simply suggest you run Garchomp/Lucario who can swing for 250 damage with a choice band, Cynthia, and Diancie Prism Star on the bench and only loses 1 prize when KO'd and has built in search functions with Lucario and consistency from Brooklet Hill?

Not to take this thread off topic, but while we are debating a non-GX focus for the deck, I've actually been thinking about this deck as something that might become Tier 1/Tier 2 simply due to being the Greninja BREAK of the meta - a 1 prize deck that simply hits hard enough to get the job done before your opponent takes 6 prizes.

My issue with non-GX Gardevoir is that it is very squishy and getting it reset up will give your opponent a window to simply go after Leles and Alolan Ninetales GX for those juicy 2 prize KOs anyway. I think a non-GX focus needs to be either a Basic or a Stage 1. It's a bit tricky when Basic GXs can just streamline KOs on Stage 2 non-GXs and halt their momentum regardless of the prize disadvantage (which is also a potential weakness of Garchomp/Lucario. Can you outspeed a basic deck like Rayquaza GX in recovery and set up?)

 

[Dark Espeon]

If I may be a bit pressumptious, I assume a portion of your decision to focus on less GX Pokemon also has to do with Necrozma GX + Tapu Lele combo becoming a thing? Both your Gardy & Sceptile lists posted earlier today both focused heavily on making a fighting chance without using as many GX Pokemon, and if that were to be the case, might I simply suggest you run Garchomp/Lucario who can swing for 250 damage with a choice band, Cynthia, and Diancie Prism Star on the bench and only loses 1 prize when KO'd and has built in search functions with Lucario and consistency from Brooklet Hill?

That is not the case since this combo is limited to one or two decks at most. The main concern is that some of these fast decks can even ohko stage 2 Pokémon GX while being faster and more consistent. This raises the question on what we gain from the effort to run a setup deck. My logic was that we may get access to better prize trades while being able to recover sufficiently fast but I see the logic behind the argument that Gardevoir non-GX may have issues to recover and reset the board fast enough. At the moment I am looking for a stage 1 non-GX deck the Psychic section of the new set seems to have promise in that regard.

 

[Matthew the Fairy Lover]

Plea GX is still a very viable reason to run Sylveon GX. Sylveon GX also swings naturally for 110 damage which OHKOs both Ultra Necrozma GX and Rayquaza GX without needing Choice Band. This becomes particularly important if you plan on running Fairy Charm (Dragon) against UNGX and Ray GX.

I really do not agree with the idea that Alolan Ninetales GX from Fairy Rise replaces Sylveon GX. Searching 2 items and searching 3 of anything is not in the same league at all, and their GX attacks are wildly different.

From having playtested Rayquaza GX recently, I can say for certainty that Plea GX is a very viable strategy to keeping that deck in check - you will not be beating Ray GX just by OHKOing it with Fairy Pokemon. It's not the only strategy, but it's a very good one. Ray GX gets set up much faster than any Fairy Deck, and you need something like Plea GX to crash their snowball. Plea GX is also one of your only win conditions against Metal decks like the New Solgaleo GX coming out here in a few months that can easily steamroll fairy decks with a single DCE.

Running a 2/2 line of both Sylveon and a 2/2 line of Alolan Ninetales from Fairy Rise is, in my opinion, the approach we should be taking with Gardy.

Having both means that you can search 2 items, get Gardy in play, and then Magical Ribbon with Sylveon for energy to accelerate with secret spring, Guzma to get a focused target, push your set up even further, and perhaps the fairy charms if those become particularly relevant at some point. Why pick one or the other when running both gives you the ability to search 5 cards in a single turn? At the same time, Magical Ribbon is incredibly valuable in the early game when attacking for 0 damage is perfectly acceptable on turn 1 or 2 of the game, then in the mid game when you need items like Choice Band or Rare Candy, you can have options to search those out with Alolan Ninetales GX. Sylveon GX is the better game opener, but Alolan Ninetales GX is the better mid-game searcher. Having both also means that if you miss energy for Sylveon, you can still Beacon with Alolan Vulpix and keep moving along. It's the same reasoning as when Gardevoir GX used to run 1 Alolan Vulpix and 1 Diancie. You have servicable options for when you do and do not have the energy for it.

I would personally remove Sky Pillar and the 2 Fairy Charms you have left in the deck for the time being until we have a grasp on whether or not those cards will be needed. Sky Pillar will be a very crucial stadium if Necrozma GX + Magical Swap Tapu Lele become a significant part of the meta, but we don't know that yet. The same concept applies to the Fairy Charms. The charms are only useful if a wide slice of the meta is actively using those types. I generally focus on personal deck consistency before I get spicy with tech cards and stuff like Sky Pillar that can be swapped in later. This gives you room for things like Nest Ball so that Alolan Ninetales GX can search for your basic Pokemon through Nest Ball as well as helping you set up more consistently turn 1.

I think the deck also needs to run Diantha, and Diantha can very much replace something like Fisherman. Diantha may seem unattractive due to the fairy KO requirement, but the fact that she has the ability to recover 2 of any card from your discard pile in a format where we're losing Puzzle of Time and Special Charge makes her incredibly powerful. Take for example if someone KO's your Gardevoir GX - you can Diantha and then recover a Rare Candy and a Gardevoir GX and immediately evolve up a Ralts that was sitting on the bench and have lost almost no time at all. Alternatively, you can also Diantha to recover a DCE and a fairy energy from the discard, which allows you to charge up a Gardevoir GX by 90 damage on the spot. 2 copies of Diantha is the sweet spot in my playtesting experience. If you would like to run a form of straight energy recovery, I would suggest Energy Recycle System over Fisherman, just as how the deck used to play Super Rod for energy as well.

Of course, this is just my opinion and people are bound to disagree with me. I will be playtesting Gardy with both Alolan Ninetales GX and Sylveon GX later today and report back with the results if you are interested.

But Gardevoir-GX can one hit-KO Rayquaza-GX with a single Fairy Energy as long as they have 3 Energy attached with weakness, which is going to happen more often than not.

And while yes, searching any 3 cards is different than searching for 2 Item cards yet you seemed to have missed one important detail, if I am not mistaken. Colourful Ribbon is an attack yet Mysterious Guidance (the new Alolan Ninetales-GX's ability) is an ability. For Colourful Ribbon to be useful you would need to get the Sylveon-GX into the active and with a Fairy Energy attached. And yes it isn't hard to do, but you cannot use the cards you searched immediately which is a big downside. With the risk of having Judge or the Psychic Marshadow being played against you, which the latter saw a surprisingly lot of play during the World Championships this year, you risk losing the cards you searched. And when testing Gardevoir/Sylveon myself I found myself not using Sylveon not as much as I though as either I didn't get it out turn 1 to use Colourful Ribbon or I got out multiple Gardevoirs without using Sylveon at all, and that big 2 retreat can be quite a pain and forcing a use out of a Guzma or wasting a Secret Spring to retreat is not appealing as I may need that Guzma or Energy later in the game as when I play I like to make sure a lot of options for plays is open to me.

But with the new Alolan Ninetales-GX though, I adore. With the Beacon Alolan Vulpix you can easily search out the Gardevoirs and with the Alolan Ninetales-GX you can search the Rare Candies or Ultra/Timer Balls. Sounds more efficient, does it not?

But we need to talk about the elephant in the room. How does Gardevoir-GX decks handle and deal with the new Solgaleo-GX, which is coming out next month? It one hit-KO's Gardevoir-GX while powers up more copies of Solgaleo-GX on the bench and Gardevoir-GX needs 7 Energy or 6 Energy and a Choice Band to get the one hit-KO back and the Solgaleo-GX can heal themelves with the GX attack. It seems like Gardevoir-GX is dead.