Gardevoir ex in Journey Together!

Hello everyone! Many players were expecting Gardevoir ex to disappear upon the rotation of Kirlia, however the deck has adapted and still gotten massive results! Henry Chao won his third Regional Championships of the season in Atlanta playing a very interesting Gardevoir decklist that used N's Zoroark ex to replace the role that Refinement filled prior to the rotation. While dealing with a Dragapult ex was a problem for the deck prior to rotation, with the addition of Lillie's Clefairy ex and its Fairy Zone ability you have a significantly easier time taking Knock Outs on the big Dragon Pokemon. Notably, Mew ex also gives you an extra boost in the Dragapult matchup, as you can copy Phantom Dive with Lillie's Clefairy ex in play to one hit KO the opposing Dragapult and spread damage to your opponent's board!

This deck still makes heavy use of Munkidori's Adrena-Brain ability, which is arguably stronger in the post rotation format. Budew is a much stronger attacker now with the lack of an aggressive Amp You Very Much threatening to take multiple Prize cards, which has resulted in many games devolving into both players using Itchy Pollen for the first couple of turns. Because Itchy Pollen slowly puts damage on the opposing Active Pokemon, having access to Adrena-Brain is very important to prevent your opponent from slowly taking KOs with their Budew, and to allow you to win the damage race while you're both using Itchy Pollen. N's Zoroark isn't represented in every Gardevoir ex deck, however much of the reason why I'm a big fan of its inclusion is how strong it is both with and against Budew. When both players are under Itchy Pollen, its important to use the slow turns to set up your board for the inevitable turn where you aren't under item lock anymore. Without a Zoroark in play, you struggle to push your board forward in the slow Budew exchange as you can't play search cards to find your Pokemon and if you run out of Supporters to draw more cards then you can struggle against an opponent who is using multiple Recon Directives to gain advantage. N's Zoroark can also be used as a way to draw into Darkness Energy to establish Munkidori's Adrena-Brain ability, as you can't play Earthen Vessel under Itchy Pollen.

The main downside of N's Zoroark ex is that it has a two retreat cost, and as it is a Darkness Pokemon you cannot use Psychic Embrace to help you retreat it. Henry's original decklist did use two copies of Professor Turo's Scenario and a Rescue Board to help you move the N's Zoroark, which are also solid cards in general even if you don't establish the N's Zoroark ex. As you don't have much on board draw support this deck often relies on using Fezandipti ex, which has a similar issue to N'z Zoroark in that you can't Psychic Embrace to it. In a game where you don't establish N'z Zoroark, attaching your Rescue Board to the Fezandipiti ex can be a solid option, since a comeback option for your opponent in the mirror match is often to Counter Catcher the Fezandipiti, then use Scream Tail to KO your Munkidori, effectively removing two Energy attachments by forcing you to attach to Fezandipiti to retreat. Rescue Board prevents this play from being a possibility, which makes it a worthwhile inclusion.

While players in the post rotation format initially were including Brilliant Blender as the ACE SPEC to make up for the loss of Refinement letting you discard Energy, players have concluded that Secret Box is the correct ACE SPEC to play. This is because the strength of Arven has diminished significantly after rotation, the setup aspect of it doesn't work when you are under the Item lock from Itchy Pollen. As such, finding Brilliant Blender at the time you need it is very difficult so you're better off playing Secret Box, which is useful at almost any time you draw into it. Henry also included Jacq and Morty's Conviction in his decklist, which are solid grabs from Secret Box for different scenarios. Additionally, for the Stadium you still include Artazon so that you can set up your whole board just from the one Secret Box. I have only changed the engine slightly from the one Henry played in Atlanta, so lets get into what I've prioritized with the decklist.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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