Gardevoir Wyrdeer Rough Draft for SV Standard

This is an early draft of the Gardevoir Wyrdeer deck I will be trying my hand at when Scarlet/Violet release in a couple of weeks.

* Gardevoir VMAX = Gardevoir ex from Scarlet & Violet

* Training Court = Beach Court

* Volo = Arven

* Pokemon Center Lady = Miriam

The counts are almost all definitely off of where they will settle, but I think this deck has a lot of explosive potential with a decent amount of consistency for a Stage 2 deck.

I don't know whether to consider Gardevoir ASR or

This is an early draft of the Gardevoir Wyrdeer deck I will be trying my hand at when Scarlet/Violet release in a couple of weeks.

* Gardevoir VMAX = Gardevoir ex from Scarlet & Violet

* Training Court = Beach Court

* Volo = Arven

* Pokemon Center Lady = Miriam

The counts are almost all definitely off of where they will settle, but I think this deck has a lot of explosive potential with a decent amount of consistency for a Stage 2 deck.

I don't know whether to consider Gardevoir ASR or Wyrdeer as the primary attacker in this list but both hit plenty hard and require Gardevoir ex to set up efficiently. With 6 attaches from Gardevoir ex, Gardevoir ASR is hitting for 240. Attach from hand is 270. Choice Band is 300. And Shining Arcana has a chance to bump that up to 330 or even 360 on a high roll. Not bad for a single prizer with 0 energy the turn it comes into the active. Wyrdeer has the ability to steal all the energy from Gardevoir ex and hit for a max of 520 if every single energy in the deck was attached to Gardevoir ex at the time of promotion with a Beach Court in play. It only needs 9 energy to one-shot quite literally anything (and only 8 for *almost* anything with very few exceptions), so 10-11 attachments to Gardevoir ex plus discarding for retreat would get you there. Gardevoir ex is no slouch either. 190 for 3 energy that it can power to itself in a pinch is more than respectable.

Playing the Gardevoir line benefits us in naturally having access to the Kirlia engine so the deck doesn't exactly hurt for draw power. The energies make perfect discard fodder to Kirlia so Gardevoir ex can fish them back out later. You can essentially sit on the Kirlias as long as you need to then evolve to Gardevoir ex and Gardevoir ASR as necessary and immediately set up to take out KOs in one turn from essentially empty boards. Because of Kirlia's ability paired with Gardevoir ASR's Shining Arcana, we don't necessarily need to run a ton of draw supporters, so I will probably pare down the Researches (and maaaaaaaaybe the Serenas) even further to make room for more utility supporters, items, and Pokemon.

Radiant Greninja is a fairly obvious inclusion, basically Kirlia #5 to get even more energy in the discard, which is only a good thing for us.

Lumineon V's inclusion is due to the amount of utility supporters we run. I may drop this to 1 copy or 0 copies depending on testing, but I want it at 2 right now so I can test the supporter package more often.

Most supporters are self-explanatory staples. The ones I will touch on are:

Cheryl - She makes a very interesting combo with Wyrdeer V. You can use Gardevoir ex to add a ton of energy to itself, steal all of it with Wyrdeer when it is promoted, then use Cheryl to fully heal your Gardevoir. This can be used proactively to take surprise KOs or even reactively if Gardevoir has taken a huge chunk hit while it only has 3 or less energy on it. Count may increase or decrease but I think 2 is a good start.

Arven - Because we run a Basic Pokemon V attacker in Wyrdeer and no VSTARs, we are able to take advantage of the Seal Stone package. Sky Seal Stone turns VSTAR and VMAX OHKOs into surprise potential game-winners and Forest Seal Stone is just a free tutor for any card I need. Both cards can be fetched with Arven while also grabbing a ball search, Switch, or even a Rare Candy if I need to skip over Kirlia for any reason (although I'm not sure if the Candies will stick, I may be replacing them with other items). Choice Band is also a decent target for Arven if I need to fix math just a hair more.

Miriam - This one seems fairly self-explanatory, but since it is a new card, I will cover it regardless. Miriam lets us shuffle 5 Pokemon back into the deck and draw 3 cards. Almost any evolution deck is going to want at least 2 of these as she is essentially 2.5 Ordinary Rods and a Hop rolled into a single card for this deck. We're not looking to shuffle energy back into the deck basically ever, so Miriam is 100% preferable in this situation, even moreso than several other decks that may need those energies back.

The items probably need the most tuning as it stands right now. I think I probably really need a second copy of Switch, although Beach Court should help quite a bit with pivoting into Wyrdeer without losing too much of his damage potential. This is definitely a deck that would've liked Air Balloon to stick around. Like I said above, the Rare Candies may drop to 1 or 0 soon as well as I don't know how often I'm going to want or need to skip the Kirlia stage, but I will definitely be trying it with first as opposed to without. And I may just swap out the Level Balls for Nest Balls 1:1. Nest Ball lets me get Wyrdeer, Greninja, and Ralts while Level Ball gets me Ralts and Kirlia. Not sure which is more valuable just yet. With Arven, I may wind up running a 2-2 split. Like I said, items need a lot of tuning.

The only stadium is Beach Court which gives me both a way to make retreating easier on the deck and also an answer to Path to the Peak which shuts us down pretty much entirely. I will probably elect to run some Temple of Sinnoh in here as the counts are more refined as another counter-stadium to Path while it also gives me some coverage against Mew, Lugia, Arceus, Regigigas, and some other Special Energy reliant decks.

The energy count started at 14 and dropped to 13 to make a bit more space. This deck wants several energy in the discard, 8+ ideally to really get the deck going full steam, so we need a higher than average amount, but I don't know exactly where that is just yet.

I'm really looking forward to Scarlet & Violet's launch on Pokemong TCG Live. This is probably one of the first decks I'm going to get around to blinging out since I usually buy minimum rarity, but with the launch of a new set and several staples that are now going to be locked into Standard for several months to come, I think I'm going to really enjoy playing some bling for once lol.

Feel free to share any opinions, thoughts, etc.! Thanks!

Cards most likely to be tested soon:

- Battle VIP Pass: Can be very helpful to set up on the first turn, searchable with an Arven if we go second, and makes perfect discard fodder for Kirlia if we don't have any energy left in the hand. I'm thinking 2 copies will be a good start in exchange for possibly cutting down some of the supporters.

- Nest Ball: Like I said above, this could probably just be a clean 1:1 swap for the Level Balls depending on how much I need the Basic search over the ability to grab a Kirlia but no Greninja or Wyrdeer.

- Zacian V (CEL): Has exactly the same attack as Gardevoir ASR on a basic (so it could also take advantage of the Seal Stones). Also has an ability that can help with accelerating energy in the early game before the Gardevoir ex gets online and the discard pile starts to get full.

Edited @ 1:00pm 3/14/23: Dropping a copy of Rare Candy, Lumineon V, and Wyrdeer V. Lumineon and Wyrdeer made for too many awkward opening hands in the test hand simulator and made me realize how rough being stuck with either in the active at the beginning of the game will be. Cutting those down a copy each should increase the odds of a Ralts or even Greninja start which is considerably more palatable. Used the spare space to add another Switch, an Escape Rope as a potential out to Galarian Weezing, and Temple of Sinnoh for those pesky matchups I discussed above and as another out to Path to the Peak.

Edited @ 1:30pm 3/14/23: Dropped Lumineon V for Gallade ASR on the suggestion of Hunterhendrix. Completely spaced on the fact that this card existed and it fills the role of utility support search perfectly without taking up bench space, possibly being forced into the active during setup, searches for a supporter once per turn, *and* hits for a respectable 160 to top it all off. Great suggestion!