GALLADE GARDEVOIR ABSOL
City Championships saw Gallade-Gardevoir in almost every TOP!
It was by far a tier one in the format. One of the most succesful version was the one packed with disruption from Absol and Team Galactic’s Mars.
Here’s a basic list of the deck with a short description of his strategy and key cards. A short analysis of match-ups follows.
LIST:
Pokémon (17)
4 Ralts SW
2 Kirlia SW
3 Gallade SW
2 Gardevoir SW
1 Gardevoir lvl X SW
4 Absol SW
1 Sableye CG
Trainers (10)
4 Rare Candy
2 Night Maintenance
2 Warp Point
1 Strenght charm
1 Pluspower
Supporter (17)
4 Celio’s Network
4 Roseanne’s research
4 Team Galactic’s Mars
3 Team Galactic’s Wager
2 Oak’s Visit
Energy (16)
4 Double Rainbow
2 Scramble Energy
2 Basic Darkness Energy
2 Fighting Energy
6 Psychic Energy
MAIN POKEMON:
Gallade
Gallade is your main hitter. 130 HP and 2 retreat are standard but good.
His second attack (Psychic Cut) allows you to customize your damage, adding 20 for each prize you chose to flip face-up.
This allows you to deal up to 180 damage with a single attack for just 3 energies! To find such a huge impact for such a few energies you should go back to Lugia EX.
Off course you should carefully chose how many prizes to flip not to run out of gas late game.
Psychic cut also helps to avoid those nasty situations where you find you have key cards or basics pokemons prized. This helps a lot deck’s consistency.
His first attack (Sonic blade) is very good too, it leaves defending at 50 HP and sends it to the bench. It’s very good when all of your prizes are flipped over since it allows you to KO with 2 hits, even with a double rainbow attached using Sonic Blade+Psychic Cut.
Gardevoir
Gardevoir is a great card! His HP are below average in this format but his amazing Poké-Power will help your setup and makes your deck run smoother also late game.
Telepass (this is the name of the Pokè-power) allows you to use any supporter in opponent’s discard pile.
If you think that almost any deck use Celio’s Network and/or Roseanne’s Research, you understand that you’ll have a garanted help each turn early game.
Late game Telepass is great to recover after a lost Team Galactic’s wager.
Gardevoir’s attack, Psychic Lock, is great too, it do 60 and stops all of your opponent’s Pokè-Power on the following turn. If your opponent has a Team Galactic’s wager of his own in his discard pile, you can play it every turn, wait for him to lose it (with hand down to 3 cards) and use Psychic Lock to avoid his Gardevoir/Delcatty/Electabuzz/Claydol’s powers to refill their hand!
Gardevoir lvl X
This card is a true Silver Bullet for the deck. Not only has a Pokèpower “Teleportation” that allows it to switch with any pokemon (active or benched), avoiding nasty problems with special conditions, it also has an attack (Bring down) that Kos the Pokemon with the less remaining HP.
The sinergy with Gallade’s Sonic Blade is amazing.
Also: Psychic Cut KOS Pokemon early game, Bring Down cleans small threats late game, you can usually snipe unevolved basics and supporter Pokémons like delcatty, minum, sableye…
This card boosts deck even more!!!
Its only downsides are few HP and double weakness to Psychic...
Absol
This is your preferred starter. His attack “Baleful Wind” lets you discard 1 card at random from opponent’s hand. If the card is a Trainer, supporter or stadium, you can discard a second one.
If you think how many of those cards are used in today’s decks you can figure how easy is to hit 2 cards per turn.
Even if you don’t discard 2 cards, you are still taking off important parts of opponent’s strategy. Think how bad is discarding one of the three Infernape from an “Inferncatty” deck!
Team Galactic’s Mars is a great card that helps even more to disrupt opponent’s hand size!
Absol is also a decent hitter since it can do 40 for a single energy with Raid on the turn you lay it down on the bench. To attack he need to be active and this is where Teleportations is usefull!
Remember that he is resistant to Psychic (Gallade and Gardevoir’s weakness!!!).
Team Galactic's Wager
This card can easily change the balance in a game. Not only it stops any plan your opponent could make for the following turn (like chosing cards with Furett's Keen Eyes), but it can leave your opponent with just 3 cards in hand, add a Baleful wind from absol and you could leave your opponent with 1 card and no supporter to draw more...
Usually this card is feared from both the players for his "double edge effect", about 50% of the time your opponent will win Wager and YOU are left with 3 cards.
This card defines format and can change a match...
Gardevoir's Pokepower has an amazing synergy with wager, since most of the time you can recover from a lost Wager with opponent's supporter.
If opponent tried to plays a Wager of his own, you can even use it every turn to mess his plan every turn!
Some days ago i used opponent's Wager and won, used a Team Galactic's Mars as Turn's Supporter then used Baleful Wind for 2 cards...
Opponent was left with 0 card in hand in a single turn!
A deck that is not scared by this card, and uses it as a weapon is even better in this format!
STRATEGY:
Remember that this deck’s aim is not to leave opponent with 0 cards in hand the whole game.
Early diruption should be enough to put your opponent in a situation where he can assemble just a single hitter (easily 1 hit koed by your Gallade) and is then left with a bunch of weak basics (easy fodder for Gardevoir’s telepass).
Gallade and Gardevoir offers you 4 different attacks (already described) that gives you great variety and an aswer to any weak strategy an opponent could make after Team Galactic’s Mars And Absol ruined his setup!
Deck is very solid thanks to his strong supporter line, Gardevoir’s Power (2 supporter per turn is great to always have a large hand and to find answer), not so much fear of cards to beeing prized (thanks to gallade’s attack).
18 Supporters may be a little too much, but i prefer to have many of them and to topdeck them often (especially since opponent's Absol tends to lower my hand seize).
Rare Candy are self explanatory and should never miss in a stage Two deck!
Attacks are cheap and Double Rainbow and Scramble energies provide even faster ways to power up your Pokemon!
Two Night Maintenance are needed to use even more Gallades and Gardevoirs afeter some of them get KOed, Night mantainance is also good to shuffle back basics and evolutions discarded by opponent's Absol (the deck is really good and you should expect to find many mirror-match).
This and Magmortar variants are, by far, the best decks in format right now. Even decks made just to beat it (like Banette) have troubles going further than 45-55.
MATCHUPS:
Magmortar-Absol
Magmortar is the great contender to this deck. His above average HP (110 and 130 on Lvl X) makes hard to one hit-Ko more than two with Psychic Cut. Late game, Magmortar’s Healing body makes hard to two hit KO with Sonic Blade+Psychic Cut. It is wise to two hit KO magmortar early game and do not fall in the lure to flip over all of your prizes too soon.
Remember not to bench Sableye since it makes you impossible to KO Benched Absols with Bring down!
60-40
Fire Truk (Magmortar-Delcatty-Typhlosion)
Tricky match-up. Fire Truk is a setup deck with BRUTAL mid and late-game power.
Its Pokemon-lines are a little confused and hard to pull (especially under absol's Baleful wind). By the way, if the deck setups, it should easily win.
Again flip carefully your prizes. It's important to know when to go agressive with Gardevoir to stop their power.
If you take the first KO (5 prizes to flip left) Look out for Typholosion as it could easily come out scrambled and do 60 and discard your double rainbow energies. You are forced to 2 hit ko it or flip 3 prizes. 2 prizes left means hard time against following Magmortars (with leveling up and healing with body).
After you are 3-3 tied, look out for a fully charged Magmortar lvl X that will likely 1 hit KO 2 of your pokemons (active or benched).
Being 1-1 is not good since a Delcatty EX could come out of nowhere doing 130+ damage....
Try to hit hard and fast and discard important stuff with absol and use carefully your HP, try to maximize Bring Down (hard with Fire Bazooka spreading damage around).
45-55
Moving Truk (Electivire-Blissey)
Deck has no problem recovering from Absol’s discard but have seriour problems with 1hko on his early blisseys and 1hko on electivre. 110 – 120 damage from Electivire are usually not enough to deal with Gallade and Gardevoir.
Also Psychic Lock gives this deck serious headaches…
70-30
Inferncatty (Infernape-Delcatty)
Delcatty offers recover from lost Wagers and Absol’s discard. Infernape’s damage is not high enough, but Lxl X and Delcatty EX usually can 1hko anything without problems. Psychic Lock, by the way, stalls the deck greatly avoiding Delcatty’s powers to refill their hand after a “flare up”. Remember not to bench Sableye since it makes you impossible to KO Benched Delcattys with Bring down!
60-40
Hurricane (Feraligator, Delcatty, Magneton)
Like infernape, this deck has serious problems with repeated Psychic Lock after their reshulfed energies to 1hko you gallade. This is even easier due to thei slower setup! Again remember not to bench Sableye since it makes you impossible to KO Benched Delcattys with Bring down!
70-30
Straight Blissey
Sableye offer you all the time you need to setup. If they have WP+water they still need time to pass 30 from resistance. They also need FF not to be 1hit koed with 2 prizes flips!
Gallade then 1hko Blissey with 4 prizes (if it has FF attached) or 2 prizes (no FF).
Even after all prizes are flipped up, two hits are enough to kill blissey.
75-25
Banette variants
This deck is built just to beat Gallade and Gardevoir. It packs disruption if the form of Crystal Beach, Cessation Crystal and Energy Removal 2. It contains many way to 1hkos stuff early game (Ghost head for absol and Lake Boundary For gallade).
You should hope to go first and start with sableye or absol. If you go second and have a basic darkness or roseanne go for raid (even just for 20-30) to avoid ghost head 1hko (they are now forces to use second attack with a strenght charm).
Try to build Gardevoir lvl X and use free switching to abuse Raid for 40X2 if they laid down Lake Boundary to 1hko Gallade. Don’t be afraid to use Night Maintenance to recover Darkness and Absols. If your opponent has a good list this is a hard matchup.
45-55
Blissey versions are easier since Chansey starts offers you some breath early game.
55-45
Dark Wing Duck (Absol-Honchkrow)
If you setup Gardevoir their discarding strategy is basicaly over thanks to Telepass that gives you chance to abuse their own discarded supporters. Sableye’s Excavate gives you better Topdecks.
Mind for Fighting Resistance and buffer pieces since it can mess your 2 hit koes strategies after you flipped all of your prizes… Remember to attack with Gardevoir lvl X to kill benched Umbreon Star and Murkrows.
65-35
Lucario Variants.
The worst scenario is an early KO on absol from lucario.
After that your Gallade can 1hit Ko 3 Lucarios withou any problems..
Warp point helps to get rid of Lucario lvl X with Stance and you can Easily KO active Riolus with Gardevorir or Gallade.
65-35
Empoleon Variants
Empoleon lacks damage output to worry you. It is very slow to charge and you can easily 1ko it and 2 Hit KO even late game. Don’t miss opportunity to wager it down to 3 as often as you can!
65-35
VARIATIONS:
A lot of card could be included to fit the metagame:
If Banette worries you, you can rise Sableye’s number (even if it is useless in many other match ups) and can even think to put some Windstorm (dead card in all other matchups).
Strenght charm and Pluspower are great to improve mirror and magmortar’s matchups.
Some people even put Lake Boundary to have a better match up in mirror (I had 6 mirror in 7 games at my last tournament).
I often used some Pokedex to rise early game consistency…
A third Gardevoir SW is often used to raise consistency and gives you a better chance in mirror.
Alberto “Gatsu” Moretto
City Championships saw Gallade-Gardevoir in almost every TOP!
It was by far a tier one in the format. One of the most succesful version was the one packed with disruption from Absol and Team Galactic’s Mars.
Here’s a basic list of the deck with a short description of his strategy and key cards. A short analysis of match-ups follows.
LIST:
Pokémon (17)
4 Ralts SW
2 Kirlia SW
3 Gallade SW
2 Gardevoir SW
1 Gardevoir lvl X SW
4 Absol SW
1 Sableye CG
Trainers (10)
4 Rare Candy
2 Night Maintenance
2 Warp Point
1 Strenght charm
1 Pluspower
Supporter (17)
4 Celio’s Network
4 Roseanne’s research
4 Team Galactic’s Mars
3 Team Galactic’s Wager
2 Oak’s Visit
Energy (16)
4 Double Rainbow
2 Scramble Energy
2 Basic Darkness Energy
2 Fighting Energy
6 Psychic Energy
MAIN POKEMON:
Gallade
Gallade is your main hitter. 130 HP and 2 retreat are standard but good.
His second attack (Psychic Cut) allows you to customize your damage, adding 20 for each prize you chose to flip face-up.
This allows you to deal up to 180 damage with a single attack for just 3 energies! To find such a huge impact for such a few energies you should go back to Lugia EX.
Off course you should carefully chose how many prizes to flip not to run out of gas late game.
Psychic cut also helps to avoid those nasty situations where you find you have key cards or basics pokemons prized. This helps a lot deck’s consistency.
His first attack (Sonic blade) is very good too, it leaves defending at 50 HP and sends it to the bench. It’s very good when all of your prizes are flipped over since it allows you to KO with 2 hits, even with a double rainbow attached using Sonic Blade+Psychic Cut.
Gardevoir
Gardevoir is a great card! His HP are below average in this format but his amazing Poké-Power will help your setup and makes your deck run smoother also late game.
Telepass (this is the name of the Pokè-power) allows you to use any supporter in opponent’s discard pile.
If you think that almost any deck use Celio’s Network and/or Roseanne’s Research, you understand that you’ll have a garanted help each turn early game.
Late game Telepass is great to recover after a lost Team Galactic’s wager.
Gardevoir’s attack, Psychic Lock, is great too, it do 60 and stops all of your opponent’s Pokè-Power on the following turn. If your opponent has a Team Galactic’s wager of his own in his discard pile, you can play it every turn, wait for him to lose it (with hand down to 3 cards) and use Psychic Lock to avoid his Gardevoir/Delcatty/Electabuzz/Claydol’s powers to refill their hand!
Gardevoir lvl X
This card is a true Silver Bullet for the deck. Not only has a Pokèpower “Teleportation” that allows it to switch with any pokemon (active or benched), avoiding nasty problems with special conditions, it also has an attack (Bring down) that Kos the Pokemon with the less remaining HP.
The sinergy with Gallade’s Sonic Blade is amazing.
Also: Psychic Cut KOS Pokemon early game, Bring Down cleans small threats late game, you can usually snipe unevolved basics and supporter Pokémons like delcatty, minum, sableye…
This card boosts deck even more!!!
Its only downsides are few HP and double weakness to Psychic...
Absol
This is your preferred starter. His attack “Baleful Wind” lets you discard 1 card at random from opponent’s hand. If the card is a Trainer, supporter or stadium, you can discard a second one.
If you think how many of those cards are used in today’s decks you can figure how easy is to hit 2 cards per turn.
Even if you don’t discard 2 cards, you are still taking off important parts of opponent’s strategy. Think how bad is discarding one of the three Infernape from an “Inferncatty” deck!
Team Galactic’s Mars is a great card that helps even more to disrupt opponent’s hand size!
Absol is also a decent hitter since it can do 40 for a single energy with Raid on the turn you lay it down on the bench. To attack he need to be active and this is where Teleportations is usefull!
Remember that he is resistant to Psychic (Gallade and Gardevoir’s weakness!!!).
Team Galactic's Wager
This card can easily change the balance in a game. Not only it stops any plan your opponent could make for the following turn (like chosing cards with Furett's Keen Eyes), but it can leave your opponent with just 3 cards in hand, add a Baleful wind from absol and you could leave your opponent with 1 card and no supporter to draw more...
Usually this card is feared from both the players for his "double edge effect", about 50% of the time your opponent will win Wager and YOU are left with 3 cards.
This card defines format and can change a match...
Gardevoir's Pokepower has an amazing synergy with wager, since most of the time you can recover from a lost Wager with opponent's supporter.
If opponent tried to plays a Wager of his own, you can even use it every turn to mess his plan every turn!
Some days ago i used opponent's Wager and won, used a Team Galactic's Mars as Turn's Supporter then used Baleful Wind for 2 cards...
Opponent was left with 0 card in hand in a single turn!
A deck that is not scared by this card, and uses it as a weapon is even better in this format!
STRATEGY:
Remember that this deck’s aim is not to leave opponent with 0 cards in hand the whole game.
Early diruption should be enough to put your opponent in a situation where he can assemble just a single hitter (easily 1 hit koed by your Gallade) and is then left with a bunch of weak basics (easy fodder for Gardevoir’s telepass).
Gallade and Gardevoir offers you 4 different attacks (already described) that gives you great variety and an aswer to any weak strategy an opponent could make after Team Galactic’s Mars And Absol ruined his setup!
Deck is very solid thanks to his strong supporter line, Gardevoir’s Power (2 supporter per turn is great to always have a large hand and to find answer), not so much fear of cards to beeing prized (thanks to gallade’s attack).
18 Supporters may be a little too much, but i prefer to have many of them and to topdeck them often (especially since opponent's Absol tends to lower my hand seize).
Rare Candy are self explanatory and should never miss in a stage Two deck!
Attacks are cheap and Double Rainbow and Scramble energies provide even faster ways to power up your Pokemon!
Two Night Maintenance are needed to use even more Gallades and Gardevoirs afeter some of them get KOed, Night mantainance is also good to shuffle back basics and evolutions discarded by opponent's Absol (the deck is really good and you should expect to find many mirror-match).
This and Magmortar variants are, by far, the best decks in format right now. Even decks made just to beat it (like Banette) have troubles going further than 45-55.
MATCHUPS:
Magmortar-Absol
Magmortar is the great contender to this deck. His above average HP (110 and 130 on Lvl X) makes hard to one hit-Ko more than two with Psychic Cut. Late game, Magmortar’s Healing body makes hard to two hit KO with Sonic Blade+Psychic Cut. It is wise to two hit KO magmortar early game and do not fall in the lure to flip over all of your prizes too soon.
Remember not to bench Sableye since it makes you impossible to KO Benched Absols with Bring down!
60-40
Fire Truk (Magmortar-Delcatty-Typhlosion)
Tricky match-up. Fire Truk is a setup deck with BRUTAL mid and late-game power.
Its Pokemon-lines are a little confused and hard to pull (especially under absol's Baleful wind). By the way, if the deck setups, it should easily win.
Again flip carefully your prizes. It's important to know when to go agressive with Gardevoir to stop their power.
If you take the first KO (5 prizes to flip left) Look out for Typholosion as it could easily come out scrambled and do 60 and discard your double rainbow energies. You are forced to 2 hit ko it or flip 3 prizes. 2 prizes left means hard time against following Magmortars (with leveling up and healing with body).
After you are 3-3 tied, look out for a fully charged Magmortar lvl X that will likely 1 hit KO 2 of your pokemons (active or benched).
Being 1-1 is not good since a Delcatty EX could come out of nowhere doing 130+ damage....
Try to hit hard and fast and discard important stuff with absol and use carefully your HP, try to maximize Bring Down (hard with Fire Bazooka spreading damage around).
45-55
Moving Truk (Electivire-Blissey)
Deck has no problem recovering from Absol’s discard but have seriour problems with 1hko on his early blisseys and 1hko on electivre. 110 – 120 damage from Electivire are usually not enough to deal with Gallade and Gardevoir.
Also Psychic Lock gives this deck serious headaches…
70-30
Inferncatty (Infernape-Delcatty)
Delcatty offers recover from lost Wagers and Absol’s discard. Infernape’s damage is not high enough, but Lxl X and Delcatty EX usually can 1hko anything without problems. Psychic Lock, by the way, stalls the deck greatly avoiding Delcatty’s powers to refill their hand after a “flare up”. Remember not to bench Sableye since it makes you impossible to KO Benched Delcattys with Bring down!
60-40
Hurricane (Feraligator, Delcatty, Magneton)
Like infernape, this deck has serious problems with repeated Psychic Lock after their reshulfed energies to 1hko you gallade. This is even easier due to thei slower setup! Again remember not to bench Sableye since it makes you impossible to KO Benched Delcattys with Bring down!
70-30
Straight Blissey
Sableye offer you all the time you need to setup. If they have WP+water they still need time to pass 30 from resistance. They also need FF not to be 1hit koed with 2 prizes flips!
Gallade then 1hko Blissey with 4 prizes (if it has FF attached) or 2 prizes (no FF).
Even after all prizes are flipped up, two hits are enough to kill blissey.
75-25
Banette variants
This deck is built just to beat Gallade and Gardevoir. It packs disruption if the form of Crystal Beach, Cessation Crystal and Energy Removal 2. It contains many way to 1hkos stuff early game (Ghost head for absol and Lake Boundary For gallade).
You should hope to go first and start with sableye or absol. If you go second and have a basic darkness or roseanne go for raid (even just for 20-30) to avoid ghost head 1hko (they are now forces to use second attack with a strenght charm).
Try to build Gardevoir lvl X and use free switching to abuse Raid for 40X2 if they laid down Lake Boundary to 1hko Gallade. Don’t be afraid to use Night Maintenance to recover Darkness and Absols. If your opponent has a good list this is a hard matchup.
45-55
Blissey versions are easier since Chansey starts offers you some breath early game.
55-45
Dark Wing Duck (Absol-Honchkrow)
If you setup Gardevoir their discarding strategy is basicaly over thanks to Telepass that gives you chance to abuse their own discarded supporters. Sableye’s Excavate gives you better Topdecks.
Mind for Fighting Resistance and buffer pieces since it can mess your 2 hit koes strategies after you flipped all of your prizes… Remember to attack with Gardevoir lvl X to kill benched Umbreon Star and Murkrows.
65-35
Lucario Variants.
The worst scenario is an early KO on absol from lucario.
After that your Gallade can 1hit Ko 3 Lucarios withou any problems..
Warp point helps to get rid of Lucario lvl X with Stance and you can Easily KO active Riolus with Gardevorir or Gallade.
65-35
Empoleon Variants
Empoleon lacks damage output to worry you. It is very slow to charge and you can easily 1ko it and 2 Hit KO even late game. Don’t miss opportunity to wager it down to 3 as often as you can!
65-35
VARIATIONS:
A lot of card could be included to fit the metagame:
If Banette worries you, you can rise Sableye’s number (even if it is useless in many other match ups) and can even think to put some Windstorm (dead card in all other matchups).
Strenght charm and Pluspower are great to improve mirror and magmortar’s matchups.
Some people even put Lake Boundary to have a better match up in mirror (I had 6 mirror in 7 games at my last tournament).
I often used some Pokedex to rise early game consistency…
A third Gardevoir SW is often used to raise consistency and gives you a better chance in mirror.
Alberto “Gatsu” Moretto
asd
