Hey everyone. Been taking a long hiatus from PTCG due to some personal reasons, but I'm looking to get back into the card game and hopefully stay in it once the next rotation comes around since I won't have much time to play until then.
That being said, I've been sort of lurking all the set releases and wanted to start by rebuilding Gardevoir GX for post rotation as it's one of the few decks I understand right now. Feel free to make suggestions to the list or ask me if I've considered certain cards, because I know for certain I haven't caught wind of absolutely everything that's been going on the in the last half year or so.
Pokemon x23
Gardevoir GX x3
Ralts x3
Sylveon GX x3
Eevee x4
Zoroark GX x2
Zorua x2
Tapu Lele GX x3
Necrozma GX x2
Tapu Lele x1
Supporter x13
Cynthia x4
Guzma x3
Diantha x2
Judge x2
Pokemon Fan Club x2
Item x12
Ultra Ball x4
Rare Candy x3
Switch x3
Choice Band x2
Energy x12
Fairy Energy x8
Double Colorless Energy x4
Let me run through some reasoning here.
3-0-3 Gardy line up - I originally ran a 4/2/4 line, but the 4th copy of Gardevoir GX just never comes into play thanks to Diantha and Twilight GX. I also never use Kirlia since I can just Magical Ribbon search for Rare Candy + Gardevoir GX. Gardevoir GX is also not always the primary strategy of the deck. I usually just set 1 up for Secret Spring and let it build up over time while Sylveon GX takes the frontlines.
4-3 Sylveon GX line up - With N rotating out, Sylveon GX became the best search Pokemon in the game. Energy Evolution Eevee helps you thin out your deck at the same time. There is absolutely no reason to play Alolan Vulpix or Diancie over maximum Sylveon GX. You could technically drop Sylveon GX to 2, but there were games where I needed a 3rd copy to Magical Ribbon for crucial cards. I've also had a game where I prized 1 copy and had the 2nd copy in my hand, making it so I couldn't utilize Energy Evolution. 3 copies makes it almost statistically impossible to not have one copy in deck at all times in the early game.
2-2 Zoroark GX line up - Cynthia is currently the only decent draw supporter we know we'll have post rotation, so instead of 4 N 4 Sycamore, 4 Cynthia, 2-2 Zoroark GX is naturally the best replacement we have for our loss of draw power. As good as Sylveon GX's searching is, you still want access to draw power abilities so that you aren't forced to Magical Ribbon for hand advantage and can push damage instead while using Trade. Diantha also makes the discard cost of Zoroark GX's draw power not hurt nearly as much.
Tapu Lele GX - If there's anywhere I would cut cards to make space, I think it's here. 3 Tapu Lele GX is always my standard because I prioritize consistency over all else when deck building, but if dropping 1 for a deck changing card needs to happen, it can happen. Tapu Lele GX should be self explanatory at this point.
Alolan Vulpix - I almost wanted two copies of this, but I don't think it's necessary. Just like with Sylveon GX, with N rotating out, there's 0 reason to not play Alolan Vulpix, and there's almost no reason to choose the fairy type Diancie over this now. With Float Stone rotating out, getting Diancie into the active with energy is a bit harder and has late game reperccusions. You would rather Alolan Vulpix for Sylveon GX/Zoroark GX if you miss energy evolution and have bench set up, and Alolan Vulpix for Gardevoir GX if you have rare candy in hand for turn 2/turn 3 Gardevoir GX.
Alolan Vulpix is good but too slow for Stage 2 deck when you have the option to run Sylveon GX. Alolan Vulpix doesn't actually help you with Gardevoir since you can't search rare candy.
Xerneas (CRI) - Without Gallade, Gardevoir GX lost the ability to deal with things like Hoopa and baby Alolan Ninetales. Now that Alolan Vulpix became even more useful with N rotating out, I expect to see more Alolan Ninetales after rotation as well. The 130 on bright horn will see you through any of those anti GX walls, and you also should not underestimate Xerneas' Lead attack to search out supporters. Now that Glaceon GX is a thing and N is out of the format, the ability to search out supporters without Tapu Lele GX now has value. This move is made even more effective with Diantha since you can punish your opponent for a KO if they go after your fairy Pokemon when you Lead for a Diantha.
While good in concept, I don't think this is potent enough to deserve a spot. Why use Lead when you can just use Alolan Vulpix to search out a Pokemon and a Tapu Lele GX to search a supporter next turn anyway? The 130 damage on bright horn is fine, but Tapu Lele and Guzma should be enough damage to handle anti-GX situations.
Tapu Lele - This gives you a 1 prize incredibly powerful option that makes you not have to worry so much about guaranteeing OHKOs with 6+ energy on Gardevoir GX and taking massive losses on revenge KOs. Your energy game becomes much more efficient, and Secret Spring can activate Tapu Lele in a single turn. This is a mandatory tech in Gardevoir GX, IMO. You can just swing for 120/150 damage on Gardevoir GX per turn, and when the time comes just Magical Swap for 4+ prizes if your opponent isn't running Max Potion or any form of heal (Aka Prominence GX on New Solgaleo GX). Its first attack is also fantastic for revenge killing Gardevoir GXs or dealing big damage to Pokemon with high energy attacks.
This deck style just doesn't support Magical Swap at all. You're a deck focused on singling out targets one at a time and have absolutely no spread damage potential. Rolling a copy of Diancie to help with guaranteed evolution is a better choice to help with the deck's consistency, because Judge is very much a card that people can and will play to interupt Alolan Vulpix and Sylveon GX.
2 Necrozma GX/1 Tapu Lele - I originally removed Tapu Lele from the deck because it ran no form of spread damage to utilize properly. Now that Necrozma GX is making the list, Tapu Lele is also back. 2 Necrozma GX might end up being over kill, but between the two, Necrozma GX is the more important part of the strategy. Tapu Lele can Magical Swap the damage around, but you can simply just get a handful of Pokemon into KO range by attacking for 140 with choice banded Sylveon GX as well. The Tapu Lele is just there in case you didn't get time to do damage before Sylveon GX was KO'd.
Cynthia x4 and Guzma x3 are self explanatory.
Diantha x2 - With Super Rod gone, we sort of lose energy recovery with Gardevoir GX. Diantha is the best option we have as a fairy deck to recover not only energy, but anything. This is an incredibly powerful punish play, but more than 2 I feel is clogging deck space since you can only play this after getting KO'd, and you can only lose 2 GX's before you lose the game. Any higher than 2 seems like wasted deck space to me.
Pokemon Fan Club x2 - You need this card to better your odds of reaching Sylveon GX should you not open it. You cannot afford to prize Pokemon Fan Club and struggle to get Sylveon GX in the active.
Lillie x1 - In addition to Pokemon Fan Club x2, one copy of Lillie will increase your odds of having a very strong opening hand. Supporter cards are a bit on the smaller count now that N and Sycamore have rotated. Sometimes grabbing just Pokemon isn't enough and you can get yourself a ton of resources if you even play one or two cards. Simply playing Ultra Ball to discard 2 cards to play a Lele into Lillie is already a decent hand refresh. Thanks to FrostBiter12 for this one.
Lillie is irrelivent when the only thing you want to do is reach Sylveon GX to hard search 3 cards. I've never had a T1 where Lillie is the best play in this deck. Just Fan Club your basics out and get them all set up with Sylveon GX.
Steven's Decision x1 - This is a fantastic turn 1 going first card when you aren't allowed to attack for turn anyway. Between Lillie and this, you have options for your turn 1 play depending on what your hand looks like. I think 1 of Steven's Decision should be in most decks post rotation.
Lady x1 - Lady is fantastic for several reasons in this deck. The first is that if you brick on energy, Lady can help you see the energy you need to both retreat your active if Eevee is stuck on the bench as well as give you the energy you need to Energy Evolution as well. If you don't need Lady for that situation, Lady becomes a huge energy pump for when you have 2 Gardevoir GX in play. Lastly, when you stack Lady with Twilight GX, you effectively have very easy access to searching 8 energy out of your deck during a single game.
Lady is good in concept but never came up as a game changing strategy in playtesting.
Judge x2 - Judge is a fantastic disrupt card for this deck. Playing both Sylveon GX and Zoroark GX together, you can very safely play Judge, use Trade to get back up to 5 cards, then use Magical Ribbon to be at 8 cards in hand, 3 of which are hard searched. It's also good for denying any opponent Magical Ribbons or Beacons from Alolan Vulpix. When you're in control of hand advantage, you might as well play Judge to slow your opponent down.
Ultra Ball x4 is self explanatory.
Rare Candy x3 was reduced from the full 4 copies because I always just end up searching for it with Magical Ribbon anyway. It does slightly reduce the odds of me just simply having it in hand and not having to search for it, but deck space is getting tighter with new additions.
Choice Band x2 is there for the mirror match in particular, but also to save on energy. I don't think I ever want to go lower than 2.
Switch x3 is here so that you can actually get Sylveon GX into the active and use it early. With Float Stone gone, we lose the ability of free retreat pivots, but we can at least change. I am highly debating if I want to use Escape Board here instead, but since Gardevoir GX has mostly 2 retreat cost Pokemon, I don't want to be losing an energy on every retreat. We'll see though. This slot is easily interchangeable with 2 copies of Escape Board instead.
Field Blower x1 - even with Garbotoxin gone, Stadiums and especially Choice Band are still a threat. Only 1 copy is needed as Sylveon GX can search it out for you, and Diantha can regrab it from discard if you need more than 1. I'm debating if I can do without this card completely since I would rather run more Switch/Escape Board to make Turn 2 Magical Ribbon more consistent. It'll end up depending on how many decks actually need Choice Band to close the damage gap against Gardevoir GX.
I place really low value on the Field Blower. I know this deck doesn't have a stadium to work with stadium wars, but I really don't care when most Stadium plays post rotation, like Brooklet Hill and Altar of the Moone, benefit the opponent on their turn as opposed to actually influence you on yours like Parallel City did. They can have those statiums all they want. I would rather play a 3rd copy of Switch so that I have as much mobility as possible in determining who I want to be my opening active Pokemon and to make Guzma plays far more flexible.
Energy pool is standard. I don't want to run the prism star energy since having the necessary Stage 2 count in play is abyssmal.
All in all I think that Gardevoir GX is a very strong contender post rotation. You have the strongest search engine, incredible energy acceleration, Plea GX for bad match ups in an evironment with no Parallel City, and beautiful tech cards like Tapu Lele with resource recovery in the form of Diantha. As far as Tier 2 decks are concerned, I don't think there's any out there that are as consistent at setting up as Gardevoir GX, and even then Tier 2 decks are still a bit too slow right now. Post rotation might change that.
As always, feedback & discussion is very welcome.
That being said, I've been sort of lurking all the set releases and wanted to start by rebuilding Gardevoir GX for post rotation as it's one of the few decks I understand right now. Feel free to make suggestions to the list or ask me if I've considered certain cards, because I know for certain I haven't caught wind of absolutely everything that's been going on the in the last half year or so.
Pokemon x23
Gardevoir GX x3
Ralts x3
Sylveon GX x3
Eevee x4
Zoroark GX x2
Zorua x2
Tapu Lele GX x3
Necrozma GX x2
Tapu Lele x1
Supporter x13
Cynthia x4
Guzma x3
Diantha x2
Judge x2
Pokemon Fan Club x2
Item x12
Ultra Ball x4
Rare Candy x3
Switch x3
Choice Band x2
Energy x12
Fairy Energy x8
Double Colorless Energy x4
Let me run through some reasoning here.
3-0-3 Gardy line up - I originally ran a 4/2/4 line, but the 4th copy of Gardevoir GX just never comes into play thanks to Diantha and Twilight GX. I also never use Kirlia since I can just Magical Ribbon search for Rare Candy + Gardevoir GX. Gardevoir GX is also not always the primary strategy of the deck. I usually just set 1 up for Secret Spring and let it build up over time while Sylveon GX takes the frontlines.
4-3 Sylveon GX line up - With N rotating out, Sylveon GX became the best search Pokemon in the game. Energy Evolution Eevee helps you thin out your deck at the same time. There is absolutely no reason to play Alolan Vulpix or Diancie over maximum Sylveon GX. You could technically drop Sylveon GX to 2, but there were games where I needed a 3rd copy to Magical Ribbon for crucial cards. I've also had a game where I prized 1 copy and had the 2nd copy in my hand, making it so I couldn't utilize Energy Evolution. 3 copies makes it almost statistically impossible to not have one copy in deck at all times in the early game.
2-2 Zoroark GX line up - Cynthia is currently the only decent draw supporter we know we'll have post rotation, so instead of 4 N 4 Sycamore, 4 Cynthia, 2-2 Zoroark GX is naturally the best replacement we have for our loss of draw power. As good as Sylveon GX's searching is, you still want access to draw power abilities so that you aren't forced to Magical Ribbon for hand advantage and can push damage instead while using Trade. Diantha also makes the discard cost of Zoroark GX's draw power not hurt nearly as much.
Tapu Lele GX - If there's anywhere I would cut cards to make space, I think it's here. 3 Tapu Lele GX is always my standard because I prioritize consistency over all else when deck building, but if dropping 1 for a deck changing card needs to happen, it can happen. Tapu Lele GX should be self explanatory at this point.
Alolan Vulpix is good but too slow for Stage 2 deck when you have the option to run Sylveon GX. Alolan Vulpix doesn't actually help you with Gardevoir since you can't search rare candy.
While good in concept, I don't think this is potent enough to deserve a spot. Why use Lead when you can just use Alolan Vulpix to search out a Pokemon and a Tapu Lele GX to search a supporter next turn anyway? The 130 damage on bright horn is fine, but Tapu Lele and Guzma should be enough damage to handle anti-GX situations.
This deck style just doesn't support Magical Swap at all. You're a deck focused on singling out targets one at a time and have absolutely no spread damage potential. Rolling a copy of Diancie to help with guaranteed evolution is a better choice to help with the deck's consistency, because Judge is very much a card that people can and will play to interupt Alolan Vulpix and Sylveon GX.
2 Necrozma GX/1 Tapu Lele - I originally removed Tapu Lele from the deck because it ran no form of spread damage to utilize properly. Now that Necrozma GX is making the list, Tapu Lele is also back. 2 Necrozma GX might end up being over kill, but between the two, Necrozma GX is the more important part of the strategy. Tapu Lele can Magical Swap the damage around, but you can simply just get a handful of Pokemon into KO range by attacking for 140 with choice banded Sylveon GX as well. The Tapu Lele is just there in case you didn't get time to do damage before Sylveon GX was KO'd.
Cynthia x4 and Guzma x3 are self explanatory.
Diantha x2 - With Super Rod gone, we sort of lose energy recovery with Gardevoir GX. Diantha is the best option we have as a fairy deck to recover not only energy, but anything. This is an incredibly powerful punish play, but more than 2 I feel is clogging deck space since you can only play this after getting KO'd, and you can only lose 2 GX's before you lose the game. Any higher than 2 seems like wasted deck space to me.
Pokemon Fan Club x2 - You need this card to better your odds of reaching Sylveon GX should you not open it. You cannot afford to prize Pokemon Fan Club and struggle to get Sylveon GX in the active.
Lillie is irrelivent when the only thing you want to do is reach Sylveon GX to hard search 3 cards. I've never had a T1 where Lillie is the best play in this deck. Just Fan Club your basics out and get them all set up with Sylveon GX.
Lady is good in concept but never came up as a game changing strategy in playtesting.
Judge x2 - Judge is a fantastic disrupt card for this deck. Playing both Sylveon GX and Zoroark GX together, you can very safely play Judge, use Trade to get back up to 5 cards, then use Magical Ribbon to be at 8 cards in hand, 3 of which are hard searched. It's also good for denying any opponent Magical Ribbons or Beacons from Alolan Vulpix. When you're in control of hand advantage, you might as well play Judge to slow your opponent down.
Ultra Ball x4 is self explanatory.
Rare Candy x3 was reduced from the full 4 copies because I always just end up searching for it with Magical Ribbon anyway. It does slightly reduce the odds of me just simply having it in hand and not having to search for it, but deck space is getting tighter with new additions.
Choice Band x2 is there for the mirror match in particular, but also to save on energy. I don't think I ever want to go lower than 2.
Switch x3 is here so that you can actually get Sylveon GX into the active and use it early. With Float Stone gone, we lose the ability of free retreat pivots, but we can at least change. I am highly debating if I want to use Escape Board here instead, but since Gardevoir GX has mostly 2 retreat cost Pokemon, I don't want to be losing an energy on every retreat. We'll see though. This slot is easily interchangeable with 2 copies of Escape Board instead.
I place really low value on the Field Blower. I know this deck doesn't have a stadium to work with stadium wars, but I really don't care when most Stadium plays post rotation, like Brooklet Hill and Altar of the Moone, benefit the opponent on their turn as opposed to actually influence you on yours like Parallel City did. They can have those statiums all they want. I would rather play a 3rd copy of Switch so that I have as much mobility as possible in determining who I want to be my opening active Pokemon and to make Guzma plays far more flexible.
Energy pool is standard. I don't want to run the prism star energy since having the necessary Stage 2 count in play is abyssmal.
All in all I think that Gardevoir GX is a very strong contender post rotation. You have the strongest search engine, incredible energy acceleration, Plea GX for bad match ups in an evironment with no Parallel City, and beautiful tech cards like Tapu Lele with resource recovery in the form of Diantha. As far as Tier 2 decks are concerned, I don't think there's any out there that are as consistent at setting up as Gardevoir GX, and even then Tier 2 decks are still a bit too slow right now. Post rotation might change that.
As always, feedback & discussion is very welcome.
Last edited:
. Anyways, this actually works out since as you mentioned, we can up the Fairy Energy count to eight. Once again, thanks for pointing that out!
