Gardevoir EX (Post Rotation 2025)

How to Play Gardevoir ex- By Natalie Millar TCGPLAYER

Instead of functioning similarly to how Zoroark GX decks used to work with the Trade ability, with the rotation of Kirlia SIT, the Gardevoir ex deck currently feels more like Tapu Bulu/Vikavolt to play in that you're hoping to eventually get your Stage 2 Pokémon into play through playing a bunch of draw supporters.

This decklist plays four copies of Professor's Research, four copies of Iono, one Mew ex and one Fezandipiti ex to draw

How to Play Gardevoir ex- By Natalie Millar TCGPLAYER

Instead of functioning similarly to how Zoroark GX decks used to work with the Trade ability, with the rotation of Kirlia SIT, the Gardevoir ex deck currently feels more like Tapu Bulu/Vikavolt to play in that you're hoping to eventually get your Stage 2 Pokémon into play through playing a bunch of draw supporters.

This decklist plays four copies of Professor's Research, four copies of Iono, one Mew ex and one Fezandipiti ex to draw cards. You also play two copies of Arven to assist you with finding Rare Candy and your new ACE SPEC, Brilliant Blender. With the rotation of Radiant Greninja and Kirlia SIT, it becomes very difficult for you to discard Psychic Energy, with your only outlets being Ultra Ball, Professor's Research and Earthen Vessel. Because of this, I've chosen to play two Arven and Brilliant Blender instead of Explorer's Guidance to assist you with getting a ton of Psychic Energy into the discard quickly, even moving to eight Psychic Energy and two Darkness Energy to help you with finding Psychics.

While it is tempting to play three Darkness Energy to help you establish multiple Munkidoris, I've often found just the one to be enough. This is especially the case with Lillie's Celfairy ex providing you with a completely different game plan against Dragapult ex, as you can now easily take one-hit knockouts on the big Dragons thanks to Fairy Zone giving them Psychic weakness. Notably, you can use any Psychic Pokémon to take the knockout, even Gardevoir ex itself! Against other matchups, you often don't need multiple Munkidori, and one is sufficient to get you through the game.

For the consistency line for this deck, I'm currently playing three Ultra Ball, three Nest Ball, three Buddy-Buddy Poffin and two Artazon. For a while I was playing three Artazon, but I found the third Nest Ball to be important for finding Mew ex, Fezandipiti ex and Lillie's Clefairy, especially because Mew ex and Fezandipiti ex are your only ways of using Pokémon to draw cards. I think there's also a solid argument to cut either Buddy-Buddy Poffin or Nest Ball for a fourth Ultra Ball, but since I've been able to consistently fill my bench quickly with this decklist, I would be happy with sticking with these counts. The Gardevoir ex line itself is a 3/2/2 line with two Rare Candy. While this is a low Rare Candy count, you do have Arven to assist you with getting a Gardevoir ex into play, and you have Budew and Klefki to buy yourself time.

One of the biggest draws to this deck is the fact that it can play well going first and can easily get Klefki into the active spot on turn one, which shuts down Fan Rotom. The Fan Rotom/Noctowl engine is played in a ton of decks, notably Raging Bolt ex, Tera Toolbox and Terapagos ex/Bouffalant and these decks take a massive hit when they cannot use Fan Call on the first turn to set up their Hoothoot and get Noctowls in play. Budew is always strong against the evolving decks, however it loses a lot of its power against the basic decks as they use Crispin heavily. It's relatively easy for a Tera Toolbox deck to use Torrential Pump on turn two through a Budew, so I would be opting first blind to try and lead Klefki to shut off Fan Rotom. Part of the reason I didn't lean heavier into the Rare Candy line is for opposing Budews, as it's difficult to find your one copy of Kirlia. If your opponent is leading with Budew, it's often fine for you to respond with Budew and use Munkidori to heal off their Itchy Pollen damage.

Because this deck is tying to "dump and draw", I chose to play four Night Stretcher to help you with recovery. Since you only have one copy of many of your attackers, having access to Night Stretcher is very important to have the correct one for the right situation. This deck also doesn't use Super Rod well since you don't have access to many of the cards in your deck and they'll often just be stuck there. Night Stretcher is also helpful with such a thin Gardevoir ex line, as its easy to discard Kirlias or Gardevoir exs with your Researches.

I chose to play two Bravery Charm in this decklist, however I think you could easily justify three copies. With the Research engine of this deck, it's likely that you will discard Bravery Charms, but I couldn't find space for the third copy. Similarly, I think you could justify playing a Technical Machine: Evolution to help you evolve your Pokémon without playing Item cards. However, you can't lean too heavily into Technical Machine: Evolution as you don't benefit from having multiple Kirlias in play anymore. Because this deck is usually trying to play from behind, and let your Budew or Klefki get knocked out, you still play two Counter Catcher. Counter Catcher also works well with Iono to make comebacks, and you can avoid taking Prize cards while still making meaningful attacks thanks to Munkidori.

Gardevoir ex Matchups

Gardevoir ex is still a solid deck in the Journey Together format, mostly thanks to the power of Psychic Embrace.

Dragapult ex (Slightly Favored)

Dragapult ex is a very different matchup to how it worked in the pre-rotation format, mostly thanks to Lillie's Clefairy ex. This makes it easy to take a one-hit knockout on a Dragapult ex, so in this matchup you're mostly looking to put pressure on your opponent's Energy.