The Pokémon TCG Meta Snapshot is an article that aims to encapsulate the state of the meta for a given 1 month period.
The Pokémon TCG Meta Snapshot also aims to rank decks in a somewhat lesser tier system. The tiers that we will use are as follows:
Tier 1: Highly Competitive Meta Decks. 10% or more of tops based on Limitless Online Tournament Platform deck spread and/or at least WIN a big official event once (Regionals, Internationals, or Special Event).
Tier 2: Semi-Competitive Meta Decks. Less than 10% of tops are based on the Limitless Online Tournament Platform deck spread.
Tier 3: Semi-Competitive non-Meta/Rogue decks. 1-2 tops. Specifically includes decks that only top small events or get lower rankings at medium events. Can also include decks that can potentially top but have not yet in a given format.
Tier 4: Casually Competitive non-Meta decks. Decks that can compete at the local level, but cannot top an event.
Tops = 1st - 8th place.
This article is written based on the Scarlet & Violet format.
Deck Overview
The newly released Gardevoir ex surprise the format with its big firepower and draw power. Gardevoir and Zacian V can easily beat almost any Pokemon with its potentially high damage while Kirlia and Gardevoir can easily draw many cards with their abilities. But the deck is not complete without Gardevoir ex itself which can easily recycle any Basic Psychic Energy to your own Psychic Pokemon which can easily cover almost any Psychic Pokemon attack cost. Let’s take a look!
Table of Contents
Gardevoir ex
The newly released Gardevoir ex has quite shaken the format with its ability. Its ability can easily recycle any Basic Psychic Energy to our Psychic Pokemon in our arena is very convenient because we can easily utilise it for Pokemon such as Gardevoir or even Shadow Rider Calyrex. It also has HP over 300 which is great to tank some damage coming from the opponent.
However, if you look at its ability more carefully, you can see that when you are recycling your energy back, you will be dealing 20 damage to your own Pokemon. This may become a significant problem because you may not fully utilize your Pokemon attack or you may not tank enough damage to survive a turn. But still, freely recycling energy back to our own Pokemon in the arena is a great thing to have. You also need to look at its weakness because, unlike the previous Gardevoir who has Metal-type weakness, this Gardevoir ex has a Dark-type weakness which may become a big issue because some Pokemon such as Drapion V or Galarian Moltres can easily knock Gardevoir ex. Gardevoir ex is also a stage-2 Pokemon which may be hard to set up if your opponent constantly targeting your Ralts or Kirlia all the time.
Despite all that drawbacks, Gardevoir ex is still a strong card because of its ability that can easily benefit a Psychic-type deck. In the Gardevoir ex deck itself, having 2 copies is considerably a ‘sweet’ spot because most of the time, you only need 1 Gardevoir ex in the field because it acts as an engine rather than the main attacker.
Gardevoir
Up next is the regular Gardevoir from ‘Chilling Reign’. At the first of its release, this card seems to be not that important because not only it is a stage-2 Pokemon, its attack is not that powerful and hard to fulfil its highest potential for a single-prize Pokemon. However, since the release of Gardevoir ex, this card suddenly gains big popularity due to Gardevoir ex can easily fulfil its highest damage potential. You can also do a 2 card draw using its ability which is a very nice thing to do especially in this kind of deck. However, it is a stage-2 Pokemon which makes setting it up requires more resources. But because you have ‘Refinement’ Kirlia, you may not want to evolve your Ralts to Gardevoir straight away because you may miss out on more
Kirlia
Then, the deck is not complete without its main draw power, Kirlia. If you remember the ‘Make Do’ Cinccino, Kirlia does the same thing but because you can evolve it into Gardevoir or Gardevoir ex, Kirlia becomes a very important card in this deck to have and play. It has an 80HP which can be easily searchable using Level Ball and Ultra Ball. It is also a stage-1 Pokemon so you can easily evolve it once you placed your Ralts the turn before. However, because of its small HP, Radiant Greninja can easily snipe you off and leave you with nothing.
But still, its ability is one of the abilities that keep the deck running. It is also recommended to have 4 copies of this card in your deck because you want to have at least 1 Kirlia in the field most of the time to draw your cards.
Zacian V
Last but not least, we have Zacian V as our other attacker. It has an ability which can search a Psychic Energy card from the deck and attach it to one of our Pokemon in the field. This ability is quite useful to pile up Psychic Energy to our Pokemon without hurting our Pokemon when using Gardevoir ex’s ability. It also has a great attack which can easily overpower even a Pokemon VMAX while also utilizing Gardevoir ex’s ability.
As for the Pokemon itself, it is a Basic Pokemon which can be searched easily using Battle VIP Pass and Fog Crystal which is very convenient. It also has a Metal-type weakness which is very good because right now we rarely have a good Metal-type Pokemon except Zamazenta. It also has 220HP which can still survive some hit from several Pokemon. Despite its good ability and attack, the Gardevoir ex deck itself only bring 1 to 2 copies of it because Zacian V is not the sole attacker in the deck. But still, it is a great addition to the deck.
Other Things to Consider
As always, there are many things that make the Gardevoir ex decks a very strong deck. Here are the other things that you can consider adding to your deck.
Cresselia
First up, we have Cresselia. If you look at its first attack, it may not seem that great because you only deal small damage to your opponent. But if you also look at your board state, this attack can be a great way to heal up damage from your own Pokemon that was damaged by Gardevoir ex’s ability. You can also try to aim for low HP Pokemon to take the prize card cheekily. This way, you can still get in the game in terms of the prize race. As for how many copies you want to bring, I think 1 copy is still the way to go because not only you can recycle this Pokemon back, but Cresselia is not the main attacker in the deck which means that bringing fewer copies is still a good thing to do.
Mew
If you play a stage-2 deck, Mew may become a consideration. Its ability ‘Mysterious Tail’ can easily help you to find Item cards such as searcher cards or Rare Candy. This can easily help you set up your board whether in your early phase or middle phase. It also has a 60HP which can easily be searchable using Level Ball, Battle VIP Pass, and Fog Crystal which is great. However, even though this card seems that important to have, people only play 1 copy of this deck because you can still use other means to find the cards you want such as Kirlia and draw Supporter cards to find the cards you want quite effectively.
Level Ball
Level Ball is actually an important searcher card in this deck. Being able to search for practically almost any Pokemon in the deck except Gardevoir ex, Gardevoir, and Crescelia is very important because you can use it in almost any phase of the game. Most of the time, you will be using this card to search for Ralts and Kirlia because you can get the board working by having those cards on the field. It also doesn’t has any discard requirement which is a great benefit for you because you want to save your resource unless it is an Energy card or Battle VIP Pass. However, you need to remember that it only searches Pokemon that have 90HP or below. As for how many copies you want to bring, 4 copies is the way to go because this card is really important in the deck.
Fog Crystal
Up next is Fog Crystal. Because Gardevoir ex relies on having Psychic Energy cards on your discard pile, searching for that energy requires a card such as Fog Crystal. This card is a great searcher card because it can either search for a Psychic Energy card or you can search for a Basic Psychic Pokemon. This really helps the board so much because you can easily search for Ralts, Zacian V, or the other Basic Psychic Pokemon card. It is a very strong card and in this deck, some people try to play with 4 copies of it but I think the ‘sweet’ spot for this card is 3 copies because not only deck space becomes a problem, but Battle VIP Pass and Level Ball are still the priority card in the deck so you need to fill the deck with those cards first.
Forest Seal Stone
Then we have our first Tool card here which is a Forest Seal Stone. It is actually a late addition to the deck because people are using Sky Seal Stone in the first place. But over time, Forest Seal Stone is becoming popular with its ability that can search for practically any card from the deck. You can also use this card’s effect even when Path to the Peak is in play which means you can easily save yourself when you are in a pinch with this card. However, you still need to remember that this is a Tool card so cards like Lost Vacuum and Tool Jammer may easily disrupt you. As for how many cards you want to play, 1 copy is more than enough because even without this card, you can still even play the deck quite comfortably. Although in some situations, having the chance to search for any card is a great thing to have.
Sky Seal Stone
Then we have the Sky Seal Stone as our second Tool card that we featured. It has a very simple ability which can easily put you ahead of the prize game because you can get an extra prize card when you successfully knock either a Pokemon VSTAR or Pokemon VMAX when using a Basic Pokemon V. This can easily turn the tide of your game especially when Gardevoir ex deck tend to get behind on the prize race at the early part of the game. This card can easily work well with Zacian V because it is the only Basic V Pokemon which can easily knock any Pokemon while also being a helpful card in the Gardevoir ex deck. But still, people only bring 1 copy of this card in the Gardevoir ex deck because the deck still works comfortably well without it. Although, it is still a great thing to be ahead of the prize race and when you can see that you can do it.
Winners’ Decklist
Now let’s see what people bring on their Gardevoir ex deck and we will start with the winner of Regional Milwaukee, Henry Brand.
First, we look at the Pokémon list. For the Gardevoir evolution line, Henry goes for the ‘regular’ quantity of the evolution line by having 3-1 line of Ralts, 4 copies of Kirlia, and a 2-2 line of Gardevoir ex and the regular one. I think this is pretty much the ‘sweet’ spot for the Gardevoir ex evolution line because you have 2 copies of both Gardevoir ex and Gardevoir while having a full line of Kirlia to draw cards. That evolution line is also accompanied by 2 copies of Zacian V which is a great thing because not only you can attack with big numbers but by having 2 copies of Zacian V, you can at least relax when 1 of your Zacian V is prized. As for the other Pokemon, one copy of each Cresselia, Mew, Radiant Greninja, Manaphy, and Lumineon V is brought by Henry in this deck. Radiant Greninja is a great draw engine for this deck because not only do you get to discard your energy card, but you also get more cards by drawing. As for Lumineon V, I think this card is quite important because you can easily search for any supporter in your deck such as Worker, Miriam, or Penny in case of an emergency. I think this is pretty much the ‘regular’ build for the current Gardevoir ex deck because it pretty much covers almost all sides with this Pokemon list.
As for Supporter cards, Henry brings quite a few supporter cards starting from Professor's Research which can easily fresh your hand with 7 new cards, Boss's Orders which can easily gust your opponent, Serena which can also gust your opponent or drawing cards while discarding cards, Judge and Roxanne which can easily disrupt your opponent’s hand, Worker which can draw cards while also discarding stadium cards in play (very useful if Path to the Peak is in play), Miriam which can easily recycle your Pokemon from the discard pile while also draw cards, and finally Penny which can easily save your Basic Pokemon such as Zacian V or Lumineon V. I think people can agree that this list of supporter cards is the ‘sweet’ spot for the current Gardevoir ex list because right now there’s not much that can be changed from the list.
Then we move on to the searcher cards. As always, Battle VIP Pass here is a must and 4 copies of this card is a must while also bringing 4 copies of Level Ball. Then, Henry brings 3 copies of both Fog Crystal and Ultra Ball I think this is also a pretty much standard build because the number of searchers still aims for consistency and balance.
As for the other Item cards, Henry brings 2 Rare Candy which is the go-to number unless you want to go for the third copy for a safer number. Then, we also have Pal Pad which can easily recycle 2 copies of Supporter cards. This card can quickly help you to recycle cards such as Boss’s Orders and Serena so you can gust your opponent all the time. Searching for that card is also quite easy with how much draw power is available on the board.
We also have 2 Tool cards, Forest Seal Stone will be the VSTAR Power for this deck and an exact searcher for you. Then Choice Belt will be the damage booster for the deck because sometimes you can save your energy for the other POkemon when you already have this. I think these are very simple Tool cards because their usage is so straightforward.
Last but not least is the Stadium cards where Henry plays 1 copy each of Temple of Sinnoh and Collapsed Stadium. Temple of Sinnoh is still important in this format because Lugia VSTAR is still present. Collapsed Stadium is also important because you play Lumineon V which can be easily targeted. But when you are playing Collapsed Stadium, you can save your Lumineon V by discarding it.
Overall, I think this deck is very solid because even though a lot of people saying that the list is not that customizable, the deck is still fairly strong and Henry proves the deck by winning the regional.
Up next, we will see quite a different build because we are looking at the Japanese format with Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi who won the Champions League Niigata.
Similar to Henry, Yoshiyuki brings the same amount of Gardevoir ex line in the deck but reduces the number of Zacian V to only 1 copy. Yoshiyuki also brings 1 copy each of Cresselia, Mew, radiant Greninja, and Manaphy while removing Lumineon V from the lineup.
As for the supporter cards, Yoshiyuki brings not quite have the same lineup because, in the Japanese format, we will have new cards being released. Hence, Yoshiyuki brings 4 copies of Iono, while also incorporating the already popular supporter lineup of 2 copies each of Boss’s Orders and a single copy of Worker. I think with the release of Iono, it can make the Gardevoir ex deck scarier because you will have a great disruption while also helping you dig for cards, unlike Judge which makes you shuffle your hand back to the deck, Iono acts like Marnie and puts your hand to the bottom of your deck which makes you get a really brand new cards to your hand. But you still need to beware because Iono draws by counting your prize card, if you don't calculate carefully, playing Iono may be a disaster for you.
Despite new sets being released, if you look carefully at the searcher cards, Yoshiyuki brings exactly the same searcher cards with Henry which I think makes this number for searcher cards in the Gardevoir ex deck the ‘sweet’ spot for the deck. However, there are some changes in the Item choices where Yoshiyuki brings in 2 copies of Super Rod while also increasing the number of Rare Candy to 3 copies and retaining the single copy of Pal Pad. I think this is a great update for the Gardevoir ex deck because Super Rod can easily help you recycle Pokemon from the discard pile without wasting the supporter slot when using Miriam in the previous format.
As for the other cards, Yoshiyuki brings a single copy of each Temple of Sinnoh and Collapsed Stadium which I think are the go-to stadium cards right now. Yoshiyuki also brings a single copy of Reversal Energy which can easily be attached to Gardevoiir to increase its damage output.
Overall, the deck is getting better with the update from several new cards because not only it can increase the damage output of Gardevoir ex deck but also the consistency. I think with this new update, people can get into the deck more because you can make a comeback with the deck and somewhat play the deck easier.
Tier Conclusion
Now we come to the tier conclusion. With all of the ups and downs in the big tournaments since Gardevoir ex is released, the deck has a fairly strong footing in the top-tier format. Although the deck is somehow ‘inconsistent’ because of its tight deck space between Pokemon and Trainer cards, I think it is fair to say the deck is easily one of the strongest decks in the format right now.
Based on the achievement and amazing performance of the deck, the deck will be a Tier 1 deck. I also hope that in the upcoming set, Paldea Evolved, Gardevoir ex keeps on its amazing performance despite new cards being introduced.
Afterword
What do you guys think of the Gardevoir ex deck? I actually enjoy playing this deck a lot despite its ‘inconsistency’ because we actually see another Psychic-type deck besides Mew VMAX becoming a tier-1 deck. Its firepower is also not a joke because it can easily hit any Pokemon VMAX with Zacian V. With Paldea Evolved, Reversal Energy can also help the deck greatly because you can use it on Gardevoir or even try to add Luxray to the deck to easily help you face Lugia VSTAR and Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR.
This is an ongoing project on pokemoncard.io and I really appreciate all the feedback. I plan to do this on a monthly basis so you can at least grasp what is happening over the month and I think it is a very safe cycle time considering that our set is not released once a month so you guys can still see how the format goes.
Life is too short to be anything but happy! - Arelios
There may be some mistakes and missing points of review in this writing. Please kindly comment to share your correction and point of view too.
