“A Psychic Embrace:” A Dive Into Gardevoir ex with Paldea Evolved

Paldea Evolved has finally arrived! Every time a new set comes out, it feels like Christmas for Pokemon players.

What’s up, everyone! SmartTCG here, and I am stoked to be hopping into my first Paldea Evolved deck article today. I currently have been focusing a lot of my time on the Scarlet and Violet format, however with the brand new set, it’s time to shift gears! The North American International Championships are quickly approaching, and it is expected to be the western world’s largest Pokémon tournament of all time! With over 2,000 players, this will also likely be considered the most prestigious non-Worlds event of all time as well!

A couple of months ago, the European International Championships marked the beginning of the Scarlet and Violet era, and NAIC marks the beginning of the Paldea Evolved format. There are tons of new decks that I think are going to shake up the game, and today I am going to go over a deck that has been around for a couple months, but has tons of new cards injected into it from Paldea Evolved. Lets take a dive in Gardevoir ex! 

Gardevoir ex has been a deck that has seen consistent success since its release in Scarlet and Violet. With Tord Reklev starting the Scarlet and Violet format off strong with 2nd place at the 2023 European International Championships, Pedro Pertusi winning the Santiago Chile Regionals with Gardevoir Mewtwo V-Union, and most recently Henry Brand coming all the way over from Australia to win the Milwaukee Regional Championships with the deck, it has proven itself to be quite the contender.

Although it has seen consistent success, there have been some very glaring flaws that the deck has had. Specifically, the deck has struggled against decks that were able to take large leads, and rushed their board state too quickly. Decks like Mew VMAX and Lost Zone Box could cause a plethora of issues for Gardevoir, especially if they missed the Turn-2 Rare Candy Gardevoir ex. Lets take a look at my list I have constructed for the new format. 

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