Pokemon Co. shares Gardevoir ex TCG strategies

Gardevoir ex from the Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet expansion has redefined what Stage 2 decks are capable of. In the year or so that it’s been tournament legal, this card has seen success—including a Runner-Up finish at the 2023 World Championships. Two powerful Abilities lay at the heart of this success: Gardevoir ex’s Psychic Embrace Ability, which allows it to attach Basic Psychic Energy to Psychic Pokémon, and Kirlia’s Refinement Ability, which dials up the draw power of Gardevoir ex’s pre-Evolution.

Gardevoir ex is not a new card, but the recent Standard rotation has significantly changed the way the deck can be played. When Robin Schulz wrote about the previous version of the deck, attackers with damage that scaled based on the amount of Energy attached to them provided its might: Gardevoir and Zacian V. Both Pokémon could do enough damage to KO any Pokémon in the format—provided you could attach enough Energy to them (cards like Reversal Energy and Moonlit Hill could also help with that). But now that they’ve both rotated out of Standard, the deck simply can’t function in the same way.

For a while, it seemed that Gardevoir ex’s time was over and that it wouldn’t be able to contend with decks like the almighty Charizard ex. However, it is too early to give up on the Embrace Pokémon. Several players have made the deck work even after rotation: Fabien Pujol came in ninth place at the Europe International Championships with it, and more recently, Joshua Frink made Top 4 at the massive Orlando Regional Championships with a similar deck list.

To take a look at how to construct and play this new version of this popular deck, check out the official Pokémon feature here.