4 — Gardevoir EX — Primal Clash (105/160)
3 — Mega Gardevoir EX — Primal Clash (156/160)
4 — Audino — Boundaries Crossed (126/149)
4 — Carbink — Flashfire (68/106)
4 — Xerneas — XY Base Set (96/146)
Trainers [22]
1 — Master Ball — Plasma Blast (94/101)
4 — Trainers' Mail — Roaring Skies (92/108)
2 — Skyla — Boundaries Crossed (149/149)
2 — Lysandre — Flashfire (104/106)
3 — Colress — Plasma Storm (118/135)
4 — N — Dark Explorers (96/108)
3 — Gardevoir Spirit Link — Primal Clash (130/160)
4 — Fairy Garden — XY Base Set (117/146)
Energy [19]
3 — Wonder Energy — Primal Clash (114/160)
16 — Fairy Energy
MAIN STRATEGY
Nearly every one of our Pokémon in this deck require three energy to attack. And once you're all out of energies—that's it. This deck can run out of energies really fast, and that can leave you totally stranded with an odd end when it comes to energies. For best results, try to stick with your main girl Gardevoir as best as possible—and from there follow up with Audino, Xerneas, or another Gardevoir. Concentration is very important—so don't get careless and put them all over the place.
Gardevoir & Mega Gardevoir: Here we have the girl in all her glory—the bride. This woman is the center of our universe. Our main offensive in this deck relies on Mega Gardevoir and her infinitely powerful attack—[Bright Arrow]. Since time is always of the essence, we want to get Mega Gardevoir out on the offensive as soon as possible. So in the process of powering up Gardevoir—make sure to double up on that effort—and attach the energy from your hand onto Gardevoir while you use Xerneas' [Geomancy] to do the same.
You don't want to overload her with energies though. This is one of the most important aspects involved with using Mega Gardevoir properly. Resources can get thin here, so even though the power of [Bright Arrow] is linked to the number of energies you have on the board—once you get three energy on Gardevoir—stop there. Every single energy can be significant, so don't get excessive, because you might need those energies later to rebound—and keep your offense or defense up.
Carbink: The wedding ring. Because of course, when you find a woman as amazingly beautiful as Mega Gardevoir—you've gotta put a huge rock on that. Carbink is mostly our backup starter for Xerneas. For one energy, you can bling on your opponent with the power of [Crystal Barrier] to potentially stall for any number of turns while you get your cards all geared up. This is a really great way to buy time when you need a turn or two to get things in place—and works really well in the middle of a heated game.
[Wonder Blast] can be a really great follow-up attack as well. It deals 100 damage stand-alone, which is enough to One-Hit KO troublesome cards like {Safeguard} Sigilyph & Suicune. For best results however, try to keep Carbink on the defensive and stick with [Crystal Barrier] as best you can. Another copy of Xerneas (with its high HP) is almost always going to be a better offensive card than Carbink, because the low HP of Carbink makes it too much of a liability as an offensive card. Especially given the fact that losing Carbink to a cheap 70 damage attack is going to drop the power of Mega Gardevoir's [Brilliant Arrow] by at least 90 damage afterwards.
Audino: The bridesmaids. They're here to back up the bride on her big day. Audino is a really amazing card in so many ways—and it finds a really special here in this deck. {Busybody} is a really powerful ability, that you can use at anytime to heal 10 damage and remove 1 Special Condition from your Active Pokémon. This works wonders against conditions like Paralyzed and Asleep—but you won't be able to use this ability once you've placed Audino on the bench—so try to keep Audino in your hand as often as possible to reserve the power of {Busybody} for yourself.
One the other end, Audino doubles up our potential to stall time if we need to—via its [Hip Bump] attack. This is a really great way to stall for time and get some damage in while you cover odd ends and get your cards in place. However, since [Hip Bump] is two energy, it might be in your best interests to put your first copy of Audino onto the bench in your opening turn—and then split your energy between it and Gardevoir to reserve Audino as strong backup attacker. The tactical prowess of [Hip Bump] can work wonders to stall for time while you put together another Mega Gardevoir.
Master Ball: Because when you first saw that ass, you was like, "Go, Master Ball." This deck desperately needed as much direct retrieval support as I could spare, and it's from that notion I decided Master Ball would be the best selection for this deck among other ACE SPEC cards. And this, opposed to what some say, where Scramble Switch or Computer Search is a better option.
First off—those don't match the theme at all—but to elaborate further; there are a few major demands in this deck that have to met in hopes of keeping pace with the game. And Master Ball's potential to meet these demands at no cost makes it the best selection for this deck. The first urgency is getting Gardevoir onto the bench as soon as possible—so that you can begin powering her up for [Bright Arrow]. And the second urgency—is evolving her to Mega Gardevoir as soon as possible so that you can begin a quick offensive movement.
Now, there are only three copies of Mega Gardevoir in this deck, and this is done in order to help prevent any redundancy issues from blocking up the flow of the cards in this deck. I use this technique to sharpen the structure of every deck I create that involves evolution lines featuring Pokémon that don't offer any immediate offensive or defensive potential. It promotes a better fluency in the flow of the cards, but you can also expect to experience a little latency here and there when it comes to availability. For this reason, I try to always include some form of direct retrieval to help further improve the flow of the cards and bring everything full circle.
And that's what Master Ball is here for. If any distance develops between your copies of Gardevoir or Mega Gardevoir—Master Ball is here to help tie the knot. You see—this is a very concentrated deck—one that can't afford discarding masses of cards in exchange for a single card. That is why you don't see Ultra Ball in here—and that is also why Master Ball makes a better option over Computer Search. Another perk to this is—even though there's only one copy of Master Ball in the deck—there are various other cards in the deck (such as Trainer's Mail and Skyla) that can cascade into Master Ball so you can use it right away at no additional expense.
And whenever the flow of the cards in your favor (where your copies of Gardevoir and Mega Gardevoir come to you naturally), you can always use Master Ball to fetch yourself a copy of Audino—and reserve the power of {Busybody} for yourself to be used at a later time.
Trainers' Mail: Our golden wedding invitations. Unfortunately, this might not be as exciting for everyone despite our cheer about it. Even so, I think glamour that we put into it is good effort to say the least. Striving to lift their spirits and reach out for what's important—which is exactly what this card is all about here. Trainers' Mail makes an amazing retrieval card—contrasting the erratic card advantage of our wheel Supporters in this deck. Trainers' Mail makes an excellent catalyst in a concentrated deck like this, quickly getting us to copies of important cards like Supporters, Fairy Garden—and maybe most importantly—Gardevoir Spirit Link.
Trainers' Mail can be a make or break card here—so don't use it carelessly. Shuffle them back into your deck for later if the need for a specific card is not eminent. Wasting this card is likely to lose you the game in a climactic match—so don't just throw it out there early in the game—every game. This deck in specifically does not benefit from Trainers' Mail that dynamically. The content here is concentrated—and most of it is condition-based content. Meaning, that you can only make good use of it when certain other conditions are present. And if they're not—those cards sit around and go to waste.
For this deck, Trainers' Mail has the most potential later in the game—after a majority the content have been thinned out, and the remaining gems come closer together.
From a neutral ground, that's when you're going to get the most out of your Trainers' Mail, so unless the need for a specific card has you in dire straits—save them for later in the game.
Colress & N: Gathered here we have the priest and the best man. These two are here to see us through on our big day and together make up the majority of our card advantage potential.
Colress resides on the lesser end of the split—to help prevent the liability generally involved with such a conditional card advantage Supporter like himself. Although we have a slightly elevated number of Pokémon in this deck (at 19)—we can't account for at least six of them; because three of them are evolution cards. And for good measure, we want to displace at least three copies of Audino, in order to cover the potential need for its {Busybody} ability.
This gives us a decent enough number to make use of Colress—but not likely until later in the game. So just like with Professor Juniper in some decks, the structure of this deck requires a light touch in order to tap into the full potential of Colress—where Colress is also our best option overall.
That would be the case here—and the major reason for this is due to the concentration of this deck structure. You see—we don't have a diversity of pieces in this deck—and this creates an importance for each unique piece that we do have. In the sense that, each piece is so important that we really can't afford throwing any of them away—and that is a big reason why I chose wheel effect Supporters for this deck.
However, it also compliments the aspect deck thinning effects like Xerneas' [Geomancy]—which brings the contents of our deck closer together, and increases the potency of cards like Trainer's Mail in addition to other copies of our wheel Supporters.
The closest competitor to Colress was Professor Birch's Observations, but I came to the conclusion that Colress ultimately trumps him. And the reason for this is because Colress holds a higher range of potential over Professor Birch's Observations (especially in the mid-to-late game scenarios) where board position is at a climax—and there might be a strict need to either keep your card advantage one-sided—or reach far into your deck exceeding 7 cards. Since every ounce of potential is significant when it comes to making our decks the best they can be, I had not other choice but to go with Colress.
On the higher end of the split, our best man N makes up the majority of our card advantage potential—and I have to say that it was a nightmare deliberating the effectiveness of N over other card advantage Supporters here. N is just both a very technical and conditional card. I went over a number of matches that played out like a roller coaster ride. N's technicality a few times over seemed to hold me back, where I had captured too many prize cards, and wasn't able to draw cards with N in the depth that I needed to succeed.
Yet in the end, I had seen more than enough games that I need to see (where a late game N had totally saved the day and ensured victory)—to decide that no other Supporter card could have provided this for me. And therefore, the tactical edge of N must be crucial to the potency of this deck structure in specific.
Since N is our main outlet to card advantage, it really does leave us with many options in regards to the techniques that we can use to play him. It pretty much equates to spam N for best results. With the only exception being—events where there's a lot of Pokémon in play—and you can play Colress to a greater benefit (while also keeping the card advantage one-sided).
Other than that—the only other advice that I can give—is that sometimes your best move is actually to not play him. Seriously, the power of this deck is very low maintenance. You should be able to get everything you need rather quickly (and by simple means). So be cautious of times where you might be low on cards, but more importantly your opponent is low on cards, and your best move actually becomes to starve your opponent's hand—and prevent them from obtaining anything that can build up their advantage against you—or even win them the game. Apply some discernment. N is a double-edged sword after all, which can be turn against you.
Lysandre & Skyla:
Priest: "Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife...to have and to hold...through sickness and through health...till death do you part?"
Lysandre: "I do..."
Priest: "And do you, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband...to have and to hold?"
Skyla: "Aww yeah...you already know."
The bride and the groom—in their most dynamic form. What we have here between these two Supporter cards is a tactical pair. One of which adds to our direct retrieval power, and the other which adds some tactical edge to our combat potential. An aspect that would otherwise be a weakness for us. And in these spare numbers, they accent the power of this deck with the flexibility needed to prevent them from disrupting the flow of the cards so we can actually make good use of them.
Lysandre can be used at any time to flash out bench warmers which might pose a threat to us. Such as aspiring Pokémon EX for example—or more technical bench warmers, like {Fairy Transfer} Aromatisse and {Deluge} Blastoise cards. As a neat combat trick, Lysandre can also be used to flash out a Pokémon with the intentions to stall your opponent for a few turns. This in-turn can not only buy you a few times, but also force your opponent to waste a few energy if they're desperate enough to retreat the Pokémon so they can spare it from being Knocked Out.
Skyla's can be used at any time to net us a copy of Fairy Garden (or more prominently Gardevoir Spirit Link) when no other card can. Skyla can also get us a copy of Lysandre late in the game, where we a turn to spare, and a tactical move like that's separating us from victory. Skyla is also a direct ticket to Master Ball (if-or-when you need it that badly).
She really opens up a lot of options, and strongly reinforces what could otherwise be some rather insignificant potential from Trainers' Mail (what with only four copies to carry the whole deck). This is another great example of doubling up on something that you want to do successfully. So I hope the extra potential Skyla that provides here helps to make this concept as a whole more prevalent for you to understand.
Energy Base: As a bonus, I'd like to explain the energy base here—because it does hold some significance in regard to the structure of this deck—and I can imagine there are a number of people who might be questioning why there are only three copies of Wonder Energy opposed to four.
The reason for this—is to maximize the potential of [Geomancy]—and cut back on the liability posed by facing off against excessive numbers of cards like Enhanced Hammer. Even at sixteen large, [Geomancy] can still consistently run your deck out of Fairy energy. I've learned this to be true for nearly every energy retrieval-styled deck that I've built, so I've learned to build such decks on a large energy base in order to fully support that dynamic potential.
Wonder Energy does have some amazing potential, and that's why it's in here to begin with. But even the potential benefit of Wonder Energy comes second place to the possible consequence of prematurely running dry on energies with Xerneas & [Geomancy]. And therein, a high number of basic energy aims to support (rather than suffocate) the full potential of this deck structure in specific.
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