Going Deep on Gardevoir - GX

Hello everyone and welcome to my next article for Flipside Gaming. As promised, this time I want to talk about Gardevoir-GX/Sylveon-GX, a deck I have been playing for the past few weeks almost exclusively as I have been really enjoying it and think it is definitely a top tier contender now that the format has developed. As normal, I’ll be including a basic list, discussing card choices and then I’ll take a look at some tech options overall.

My experience

First, I want to give some background on where my opinions on the deck have come from. I have only played the deck in three tournaments, with mild success, but have been playing the deck on the ladder for nearly 3 weeks now (only breaking for some expanded testing for the Bilbao Special Event for a week or so) and Gardevoir-GX is definitely one of the strongest attacking Stage 2 Pokemon we have had printed in a long long time. Unfortunately, my first tournament experience with the deck was Bremen Regionals where I finished with a pretty poor record of 3-3-3. I feel I could have definitely performed better with the deck and some of my ties and losses could have definitely been wins if I had played more optimally. Despite the weak record, I still felt the deck was inherently strong and decided to take it to the League Cup the next day. Here I was slightly more successful, placing 19th in a 121-man Cup, bubbling top 16. The week after I again took the deck to another League Cup and placed 14th overall. Finally, I played in an invitational event that gave out Regionals tickets for first place and won the event overall last weekend. I’m not attending too many events before the European International Championships in November now but I will definitely be piloting this deck until Crimson Invasion is released in early November, if not for longer.

My latest list

This is the list I have been playing for the past couple of events and Leagues I have been to. Each week there were changed in cards but this is currently the most up to date of the lists for you guys to try.

Card decisions

Looking at the list on the whole, there aren’t all that many odd card choices in here I feel, but I will go through each of the decisions anyway.

4-2 Ralts/Kirlia: Kicking us off is the baseline evolutions of Gardevoir-GX. There isn’t too much to be said about these guys, debatably it’s better to play the psychic ones and if I had them to hand in real life I probably would be playing them but overall it will only ever change on matchup really (Espeon Garb).

3 Gardevoir-GX: The decks main attacker and honestly one of the strongest cards I think we have had printed in a while attacking wise. Being able to ramp up to huge numbers in a single turn is incredibly strong especially as Secret Spring means you also have access to Double Colourless Energy for your turn. Over time I have begun to value the use of Twilight-GX less and less the more I use Plea-GX on Sylveon-GX, but there are definitely situations where you’ll be thankful for not Plea-GX’ing. Against almost any Garbodor matchup, it is almost always right to save your GX to get rid of some of the items within the discard to stop late game Garbodors being able to 1-shot Gardevoir-GXs with Trashalanche. This can also let you shuffle in a huge amount of lost resources late in the game to vastly increase the amount of good topdecks within the deck. Having 230 HP is also incredibly strong as it means that your attacker is super difficult to take down and can tank hits for a long time before giving up 2 prizes.

1 Gallade: This is the decks answer to Baby Alolan Ninetales, along with being a good one prize attacker in certain matchups where you’d like to swing the prize trade into the 7 prize game. A lot of the time one of your Ralts/Kirlia will be KO’d in the early turns anyway so it may not be that influential and getting 3 Gardevoir-GX out is still often very good for being able to just constantly apply pressure, but having access to the Gallade is certainly a useful asset within the deck.

1-1 Sylveon-GX: The 1-1 Sylveon is a fantastic addition to the deck and honestly one of my favourite cards right now. Of course the Eevee from Sun and Moon is the one to use as it has the Ability Energy Evolution (which can also be triggered by Secret Spring). Sylveon-GX has some incredibly traits and really compliments the deck well. Being able to Magical Ribbon from the first turn of the game is fantastic as it forces people to start wasting their Ns in the early turns to stop you from setting up a huge board after tutoring out 3 cards of your choice. The 3 energy attack Fairy Wind is actually also very useful for applying early pressure on lower evolutions of Pokemon if your opponent has had a slow set up overall, as well as setting up damage on attackers for later on in the game for Gardevoir-GX to clean up for barely any energy itself. Finally, Plea-GX is an insanely strong GX attack and honestly one of my favourite parts about the deck. This GX attack is honestly a win condition against some decks outright when paired with Guzma/Parallel City. Being able to force a deck to pick up their 2 set up Stage 2s is a huge tempo swing at times that you can really prey on providing you are able to compliment that with a KO from Gardevoir or Sylveon the following turn. I have also been testing a 2-2 line of Sylveon-GX but where I am at right now is just a 1-1.

1-1 Octillery: To keep our hand refreshed we still have a 1-1 Octillery line. This makes sure the late game Ns our opponents were able to save don’t completely ruin us. Whilst a 1-1 line is of course risky (as with the Sylveon line), the Octillery line overall isn’t too useful in the early game as we try and tutor out 3 cards at a time anyway so therefore we have time to take prizes and try and find prized Octillery pieces if we need to.

3 Tapu Lele-GX: Of course Tapu Lele-GX is a mainstay in almost every deck right now and nothing changes here. In combination with the Ultra Balls, Turn 1 Brigette isn’t an uncommon sight and is almost always the correct Turn 1 play if available. The other 2 Tapu Lele-GX can then be used as and when needed throughout the game to grab Guzma/N/whatever fits the bill at the time. Energy Drive can also begin hitting some pretty big numbers too with the extra Energy acceleration from Secret Spring.

1 Turtonator-GX: Finally, the most questionable card within the deck, Turtonator-GX is a card I have been trying out ever since struggling with the Golisopod-GX/Garbodor matchup. Being able to Shell Trap with a Choice Band to deal super effective damage is really big in the matchup as it makes sure Golisopod-GXs weaker going back into your turn, not letting them get value from Acerola. As Golisopod-GX only requires 1 Energy to deal 120 damage, it can be really difficult to ever reach a 1 Shot KO without getting response KO’d in return, which is exactly why Shell Trap is very useful in the matchup.

I won’t go through all of the trainer cards as most of them are self-explanatory, but the main two I will talk about are the 2 Acerolas and the Parallel City. Acerola is very similar to Max Potion in that it can completely heal a Gardevoir-GX after taking a hit, denying prizes. However, the added bonus is that if you are able to re-evolve, you can use the same Gardevoir-GX to Secret Spring twice and are able to burst for more damage that your opponent may expect. Also being able to reattach energy elsewhere in the late stages of the game is incredibly strong in a format that really requires resource management. Parallel City is another card that can hurt your opponents resource management as in combination with Plea-GX it leaves them with a single target on the bench, almost always of your choosing. This is a huge tempo swing and can really punish players not playing around the Parallel/Plea combo. As well as this, it can be an incredibly oppressive card in the early turns when players fill their board with Supporters such as Brigette. Locking down an opponents bench from early in the game can mean they cannot use Pokemon like Tapu Lele-GX to get Supporters such as N to stop your Sylveon-GX’s Magical Ribbons.

Possible Changes

One of the biggest omissions within my list is the inclusion of a combination of Alolan Vulpix and Diancie. Both of these cards are fantastic leads in the deck as well and there are still lists that prioritize playing a combination of these starters over the Sylveon package. Vulpix is a really good Pokemon in the early game as the Beacon attack doesn’t require any energy, meaning as long as you have a means of retreating into the Vulpix, you can begin to Beacon from turn 1. Diancie is a slightly more complicated Pokemon to use as the attack does require an energy to use and therefore you have to find another means of getting Diancie into the active position. However, with a list like the one above, Float Stones mean that this can potentially happen and therefore Diancie could fit into this list well. A final inclusion that I have tried is Oranguru. Whilst I am a fan of the 1-1 Octillery I currently have in the list, some testing has gone into the single Oranguru to not only save a slot but also act as a Baby Ninetales counter too. However overall the net gain of 2 extra cards from Octillery I have always found worth it over the extra slot it takes and the risk of not having one of the pieces. I feel neither of the cards are overly impactful until the later stages of the game anyway so you should ideally have time to take some prizes and find the missing pieces anyway.

Thank you very much for reading this month’s first article. The next set of articles will be a series of reviews looking at all of the new cards coming out over the next couple of months. Make sure you check out all of my social links for Omnipoke, and I look forward to writing for you again soon!