Gardevoir ex

Intro + Notable Placings

• 1st at World Championships 2025

• 1st at Regional Frankfurt

• 1st at Regional Monterrey

• 2nd at Regional Pittsburgh (Jellicent build)

• 1st at Malaysia Premier Ball League

Gardevoir ex is undoubtedly the most decorated deck in the format. Every major event had Gardevoir ex either winning 1st or taking 2nd place, shrugging off attempts by the various Darkness-type decks at dethroning it (except at Pittsburgh, where the Gardevoir ex player in the finals lost to N's Zoroark ex after getting a game loss for inadvertently playing with a 59-card deck). Gholdengo ex is an unfavored matchup for the regular build, but playing the Jellicent line makes it more even as you can throw Frillishes at them to keep them off Superior Energy Retrieval.

What made "Gardevoir fatigue" even worse is that the deck had also been top tier in 2023 (it got 2nd at Worlds that year), lulled in 2024, then came back to sweep everything in 2025. The deck continued to get new toys post-BLK/WHT, gaining a 100 HP Kirlia (shutting the door on Raging Bolt snipes) and Mystery Garden in MEG, and a non-Darkness-weak attacker in Mega Diancie ex in PFL.

Game Plan

Get Munkidori and Ralts down (those are the Basics you have the most copies of). Prepare Darkness Energy on the Munkidori and evolve Ralts. Note that you do not have Buddy-Buddy Poffin, because other than Ralts, all of your core Basics have more than 70 HP, so you'll need to rely on Nest Ball or Artazon.

Your standard setup combo off Secret Box is Earthen Vessel + Technical Machine: Evolution + Artazon. Use Artazon to bench Ralts, Earthen Vessel to find Energy for TM: Evo, and attack with Evolution to evolve Ralts into Kirlia. If you still have a Supporter available for the turn, check how many Kirlia you have in your deck: if you only have 1 Kirlia, you might want to avoid playing Professor's Research or Iono, as then you'd risk drawing into the Kirlia and not having any search targets for TM: Evo.

If you play Frillish, another possible combo is Earthen Vessel + Air Balloon + Artazon. This combo results in an attacking Frillish: use Artazon to bench Frillish, Earthen Vessel to find Psychic Energy for Oceanic Gloom, and Air Balloon to retreat your starter into the powered-up Frillish.

You have 3 choices for which Supporter to get with Secret Box. Professor's Research is usually the best option, as it draws the most cards, and can dump a Psychic Energy that you found off Earthen Vessel into the discard pile. If there's another card in your hand that you'd like to hold on to though, then Iono preserves it for later while still drawing a respectable 6. Arven can search for Ultra Ball → Gardevoir ex after you get Kirlia down, but it'll be quite useless if you don't have enough Psychic Energy in the discard pile, so Research/Iono tend to be better options.

To get Psychic Energy into your discard pile, use Earthen Vessel to search for Psychic Energy from the deck (you can also get 1 Darkness for Munkidori), then discard them to Ultra Ball, Secret Box, Professor's Research, or even another Earthen Vessel. You usually don't want to attach Psychic Energy manually from hand (unless you need it for Technical Machine: Evolution), since Gardevoir ex can attach it from the discard pile later; manual attachments should be saved for getting Darkness Energy on Munkidori. You also almost never want to Super Rod Psychic Energy back into the deck, since you'd have to go through the trouble of discarding them again.

After getting Gardevoir ex into play, the fun starts. Psychic Embrace is unlimited Psychic Energy attachment from your discard pile onto your Psychic Pokémon, generating damage as it does so. You can either leave the damage there if it's on Scream Tail to power up its attack, or move the damage onto your opponent's side with Munkidori.

Attackers

Gardevoir ex itself can attack. It's fairly bulky at 310 HP, and while Miracle Force doesn't do a lot of damage for its cost, Munkidori can supplement your damage output while also ruining attempts at 2HKOing Gardevoir ex. With 2 Munkidori in play, that's a total of 250 damage and 60 healing every turn. Watch out for Darkness-type attackers on the opponent's side though.

Scream Tail is an expendable 1-Prize sniper. It's the reason you can get by without Boss's Orders; you don't need to Gust if you can snipe (though you still have Counter Catcher if you really need to Gust). You'll want to Psychic Embrace more Energy onto it than needed for Roaring Scream, just to get damage onto it, so its attack does more damage. (You'd also want to avoid using Munkidori to heal it.) 

Lillie's Clefairy ex can attack and 1HKO Dragon-types (Raging Bolt ex, Dragapult ex), but note that you can also simply Bench it and attack with Gardevoir ex or Mew ex for the KO instead.

Mew ex can turn into an attacker occasionally. It can copy Flareon ex's and Ceruledge ex's attacks to 1HKO them.

First or Second?

This deck wants to go second, as it wants to play a Supporter as soon as possible. Keep in mind your setup doesn't just stop at getting Gardevoir ex out; you also need to get Psychic Energy into your discard pile, and you'll have much more cards to work with when you can play Professor's Research or Arven for Secret Box/Ultra Ball on turn 1.

ACE SPEC

Secret Box. It discards Psychic Energy, gets Artazon to help out your otherwise-lacking Basic search, gets Technical Machine: Evolution early or Bravery Charm late, and can get Earthen Vessel + Professor's Research to dump more Psychic Energy into your discard pile.

The other not-so-serious/budget option is Brilliant Blender, to dump 5 Psychic Energy into your discard immediately (or 4 Energy + 1 Pokémon, which you then Night Stretcher to hand).

Other Options

• 4th Munkidori + 4th Darkness Energy + Technical Machine: Devolution: This lets you lean in hard on Devolution. With 3 Munkidori in play, you can bounce over 90 damage to an opposing Evolved Pokémon, which is usually enough for a KO after Devolution. Devolution is also good against Rare Candied Stage 2s, even without Adrena-Braining damage onto them first.

• Frillish/Jellicent ex: Item lockers. Jellicent ex's attack is incredibly inefficient (Gardevoir ex does more damage for less Energy), but it makes up for it with its very strong Ability. Frillish has an Item-locking attack.

• Drifloon: Like Scream Tail. Can't snipe, but does more damage. If you play it, you can also add Buddy-Buddy Poffin to the deck.

• Flutter Mane: This wins the mirror when you Counter Catcher up a Gardevoir ex with no Energy on it. The opposing Gardevoir ex will be trapped, and their only outs are manual attachments or getting a second Gardevoir ex into play. Flutter Mane also turns off Pokémon with Item/Ability locks, like Jellicent ex or Iron Thorns ex. Hex Hurl can snipe a Benched Pokémon with 80 HP or less if you also have two Munkidori.

• Klefki: Shuts off several draw/search engines, e.g. Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, Fan Rotom, Genesect ex, Miraidon ex. If you play Klefki, you'd want to go first, so you can search for and retreat to it before your opponent gets the chance to activate an Ability (plus, going first against Gholdengo ex or Raging Bolt ex denies them their preferred position).

• 8th Psychic Energy: Some of the max damage setups with Scream Tail or Drifloon require 6-7 Psychic Energy in your discard pile. Playing an 8th gives you some leeway in case some of them get Prized, or to pay for retreats if your opponent Bosses something up while you've committed a large amount of Energy onto Scream Tail/Drifloon.

Tips

• Scream Tail can 1HKO Budew with Slap.

• Quick damage calcs with Scream Tail and Drifloon:

  • Scream Tail: each Psychic Energy in your discard pile is worth 40 damage. Max damage (with required number of Psychic Energy in discard)...

    • Without Bravery Charm: 160 damage (4 Energy)

    • If you start the turn with Gardevoir ex in the Active Spot, 5 Psychic Energy in the discard pile, 2 Munkidori (each with Darkness Energy) and Scream Tail Benched, you can Psychic Embrace 3 Energy onto Gardevoir ex, retreat to Scream Tail and Psychic Embrace 4 Energy onto it, Adrena-Brain damage from Gardevoir ex over and finally attack with Scream Tail for a total of 220 damage. This is enough to take out most Basic ex Bench-sitters.

    • With Bravery Charm: 240 damage (6 Energy)

  • Drifloon: each Psychic Energy in your discard pile is worth 60 damage. Max damage (with required number of Psychic Energy in discard)...

    • Without Bravery Charm: 180 damage (3 Energy)

    • With Bravery Charm: 300 damage (5 Energy)

    • With Bravery Charm and 1 Munkidori: 330 + 30 damage (7 Energy)

• Bravery Charm can be attached to Ralts in order to survive certain Bench snipes (e.g. Thunderburst Storm from Raging Bolt with 3 Energy attached).

• Once you have Gardevoir ex, you can waste Energy on retreats in order to generate damage on your board for Munkidori to work with. For example, after a KO, you can send up Gardevoir ex, Psychic Embrace 2 Energy onto it for 40 damage, then retreat it into your actual attacker. If you play them, Frillish and Jellicent ex have 3 Retreat Cost, which are great for this. (Though if you are using Jellicent ex, you'd probably want to leave it in the Active Spot.)

• Always be aware of the possibility of one of your Pokémon getting trapped in the Active Spot. Don't Psychic Embrace every single Energy in your discard pile onto your Pokémon after getting Gardevoir ex out; leave some in the discard so you can pay for retreats in case something gets Bossed. Fezandipiti ex is not a valid recipient of Psychic Embrace (it isn't a Psychic Pokémon); you'll need a manual attachment to pay for its retreat. If Fez is stuck and you've already discarded all your Energy, you might still be able to Night Stretcher one back to get it out.

• If your opponent KOs one of your non-ex Basics, you can Super Rod it back into the deck and immediately search it out with Artazon, turning Super Rod into a pseudo-Night Stretcher. You do not need to wait until there are 3 or even 2 targets for Super Rod before using it.

• If you play Frillish, Item locking with its attack is harder to break than Item locking with Jellicent ex's Ability. Sometimes you may want to spam Oceanic Gloom to keep your opponent Item-locked instead of putting up a Jellicent ex and risk having it Bossed or Iron Bundle-d out, releasing your opponent from the lock.

• This deck can be quite frustrating to play on PTCGL, due to the slow animations when using Psychic Embrace. Every time you select a Psychic Energy and a Pokémon to attach it to, the game plays out the 20 damage animation. Repeat this and it could eat up a lot of time, compared to real life, where you'd just change a die to +2/+4 or put another die at 6 on the Pokémon. The game also has a tendency to become unresponsive for several seconds after choosing to use Psychic Embrace.