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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	Probably the most hyped Pokemon of the set, and with pretty good reason. Gardevoir-GX may be a Stage 2 GX with only 230 HP instead of pushing on the bar of 250, but like Decidueye-GX before her, she's got a powerful Ability on her side - plus a couple of good attacks - that could really turn the tides in her favor. Starting off with the Ability Secret Spring, Gardevoir-GX already has a pretty solid opening. It's a once-per-turn version of what you've seen as Deluge and Inferno Fandango, allowing Fairy Energy to rain down on your Pokemon...once per turn. Makes it a bit slower overall, but no less effective! Never mind that both of her other attacks only need that 1 Fairy Energy - but feel free to consider running more!  Infinite Force is arguably the best "X Ball clone" since X Ball. It costs 1 Energy and does 30 damage for each Energy card attached to both Active Pokemon. That makes it cheaper AND more powerful than the original X Ball. How bout that? Keep in mind though that the more Energy you put on Gardevoir-GX...the more susceptible she'll be to GARDEVOIR-GX!!!!  There's also the GX attack, Twilight GX, which is pretty nice. It shuffles back 10 cards into your deck...yayyyyyyyyy. Recovery's pretty nice and all, but there's more utility nowadays for this attack than you might think! You can get back Fairy Energy to use for Secret Spring later, sure, but you could also unload all the Items you've used in your discard pile to make Garbodor a much less immediate threat - really messing with that balance, eh?  Gardevoir-GX is a strong competitor to be sure, though I do feel there will be some struggles being a Stage 2. It's just an inherent part of their design, but with the game gradually shifting into more evolutionary-based territory - and as seen with powered-down Abilities like Secret Spring - there will come a slower format where Gardevoir-GX may even prove to be wildly dominant. For now, she'll have a strong presence and have a nice built-in counter to the popular Garbodor deck.  ...Arceus help you if there's a way to combine the two.  Rating  Standard: 4.5/5 (a flexible set of moves and a powerful Ability on a Stage 2)  Expanded: 4/5 (definitely a strong force to be reckoned with)  Limited: 5/5 (and probably going to be one of the best Pokemon in the format) Arora Notealus: Gardevoir-GX is definitely a powerhouse, and I can only see it improving with the right rotations. All we really need now is some form of Evolution acceleration for decks, and we're practically staring at the next crazy format. But I doubt we're going to hit anything that hard that fast...wait, Diancie exists in this format with a quick evolution attack...ohhhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo...  Next Time: But what decks are complete without powerful Supporters?
21times	Gardevoir GX (Burning Shadows, 93/147), as expected, won the Masters’ division World Championship this past weekend.  A 230 HP, Stage 2 Fairy Pokemon, the people who designed this card built it to win.  Gardevoir GX’s ability Secret Spring allows you to attach an extra Fairy energy in your hand to any of your Pokemon.  Its main attack, Infinite Force, mirrors the dominant Psychic Infinity attack of Mega Mewtwo EX (Breakthrough, 64/162), and its GX attack Twilight-GX virtually guarantees victory over Garbodor (Guardians Rising, 51/145) decks.  Heralded early on by many as the BDIF, Gardevoir GX lived up to its potential and proved that all of the Theorymon had not overhyped it. Gardevoir GX does have some weaknesses, though.  Greninja Break (Breakpoint, 41/122) gives it trouble – and Golisopod GX (Burning Shadows, 17/147) should also be a tough matchup – because they are single energy attachment attackers.  Necrozma GX (Burning Shadows, 63/147) and Alolan Ninetales GX (Guardians Rising, 22/145) both discard energy immediately after attacking, thereby reducing the amount of damage Gardevoir GX does to them.  And Metal Pokemon such as Magearna EX (Steam Siege, 110/114) and Metagross GX (Guardians Rising, 85/145) one shot Gardevoir GX as it has Metal weakness. And the meta of the world championship facilitated Gardevoir GX’s success.  Very few players chose to play Metal Pokemon or Greninja Break.  I know I saw a breakdown of the day 2 decks at worlds, the majority of the decks played there were predominantly Gardevoir GX and Garbodor, and I think there were five Greninja Break decks and no Metagross GX decks, but I couldn’t find that slide when I went back and watched the stream again.  While Golisopod GX was very common, the most common pairing with Golisopod GX was Garbodor (Breakpoint, 57/122), but by using this pairing your strategy relies on using the three attachment attacks of Golisopod GX as frequently (if not more) than the single attachment attack, First Impression.  This strategy just makes it easier for Gardevoir GX to reach the 210 damage needed to OHKO Golisopod GX.  The better build for Golisopod GX against Gardevoir GX involves Zoroark (Breakthrough, 91/162) or Wishiwashi (Sun & Moon, 44/149) to help you do acrobatics to continually get Golisopod GX into the active in the current turn to repeatedly use First Impression so as to avoid piling up energy on Golisopod GX. And my overarching, broad analysis here could be wrong – after all, there were only two Gardevoir GX decks in the top eight as opposed to the six Garbodor variants.  I just thought there would be more decks there that would be hard counters to Gardevoir GX. Rating Standard: 4.5 out of 5 Conclusion Gardevoir GX dominated the meta this past weekend at the world championship, and I would expect it to continue its sovereignty over the first couple months of the next season… at least until the Ultra Beasts come out in November.
Vince	Today we’re looking at Gardevoir-GX, our third best card of Burning Shadows. Upon looking at this card, I think this is a feature Pokemon that could be on its own deck. I would like to cover this Pokemon as well as other Pokemon that are related to each other (at least in Expanded). But sometimes, depending on the card pool, it may be clogging up the review. So, I’ll just go over some related cards that are worth consideration to be used alongside today’s card. Gardevoir-GX is a Fairy Type with 230 HP, Metal weakness, resist Dark types, and a retreat of two. It has an ability and two attacks. Secret Spring lets you attach one fairy energy to one of your Pokemon. This is not the same as Deluge, Magnetic Circuit, or the like since it states that Secret Spring works once per turn, not “as often as you like”. Even then, extra energy attachments, even once per turn, is still giving you a step ahead on your objective. It also stacks! So, if you have 4 Gardevoir-GXs in play, you could be attaching four more fairy energies to your Pokemon. Infinite Force costs Y and it does 30 damage times the amount of energy on both active Pokemon. Sounds familiar? This attack resembles Mega Mewtwo Y’s Psychic Infinity, albeit doing 10 more damage than Infinite Force. This attack is ridiculous!!! You can punish your opponent’s active Pokemon for investing too much energy and/or you continue to build up the pressure on your opponent by loading up your own Gardevoir with lots of energy. It takes 9 energies total to OHKO anything in the game (before factoring damage boosting items such as Choice Band)! Twilight GX costs Y and it shuffles 10 cards from the discard back to you deck. There are no restrictions as to what kind of card, so you can retrieve Pokemon, energy, and trainer cards! To some extent, you could get back resources that you’ve just exhausted. If it weren’t for being a GX attack, Twilight would’ve been broken if you could keep spamming it! Ralts evolutionary line splits for Stage 2. So instead of evolving Kirlia to Gardevoir, you can evolve it to Gallade. Probably the cards that can be used alongside Gardevoir-GX is Gallade (BW Plasma Storm) and Gallade (XY BreakThrough). Gallade (BW Plasma Storm) is a Psychic type, has 140 HP, weak to Psychic and a retreat cost of 2. Powerful Storm costs CC and does 20 damage times the amount of energy attached to all your Pokemon. This attack synergizes very well with Secret Spring since it is colorless friendly. Swift Lunge costs PCC for 80 damage, with the opponent having to switch their Active with one Pokemon from their Bench. If you have Expanded and you still have this card, this is worth consideration. Gallade (XY BreakThrough) is a Fighting type with 150 HP, psychic weakness, and a retreat of two. It’s ability, Premonition, allows you to look at the top 5 cards from your deck and put them back on top of your deck in any order. It functions the same as Pokedex, but an ability instead of an item. This helps you control what your next top draw would be if you want to draw cards right away. Sensitive Blade costs CC for 60 damage, plus 70 more if you played a supporter during your turn. Ideally, I would use the ability first, use Professor Kukui to get these cards, and swing for 150 damage. I would also consider this card alongside Gardevoir GX. Gallade was usually put into play via Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick, but with Maxie leaving rotation, Gallade doesn’t mind running with its evolutionary line plus Rare Candy. As I’ve said in the beginning, I’ll mention only worthwile related cards instead of doing the whole thing. The reason I consider those two Gallades, whether Standard or Expanded, is because their attacks are splashable. Powerful Storm can achieve big numbers if you employ sufficient setup; potentially up to 3 secret springs and a Double Colorless Energy manual attachment can enable Gallade to swing for 100 right away, and it gets even higher should Gallade & Gardevoir GX stays intact! Powerful Storm also ensures that you don’t have to worry about putting energies into one Pokemon, just distribute them and you’ll still deal the same amount of damage. Sensitive Blade can be powered up right away via DCE or two uses of Secret Spring abilities. So, it has come to my attention that Gardevoir-GX has received lots of hype because this is a feature Pokemon. The package deal is a bargain for one Pokemon even as a Stage 2: good energy acceleration, scalable attack similar to M Mewtwo Y, and a great once-per-game recovery move. Throw in other Gardevoir or Gallade that can hit a variety of Pokemon for weakness, such as Fighting or Psychic types, and we might have a deck that might give players a hard time. Expect to see Gardevoir GX a lot on Standard and Expanded. In Limited, if you have the complete evolutionary line, Gardevoir GX can steamroll against most cards in the Burning Shadows set. Ratings: Standard (pre-rotation): 4.5/5 Standard (post-rotation): 4.5/5 Expanded: 4.6/5 Limited: 4/5 Summary: Gardevoir-GX has impressed me so much that I would consider making a deck out of it. She secured third place with 30 voting points, 6 under 2nd place, and 2 above 4th place. I had mine at 3rd place on my personal list.
Retro	Gardevoir is that one Pokémon which has never seen a bad card in at least one generation of TCG. Herald back to Gen 3’s Gardevoir ex (EX Sandstorm), Gardevoir (DP Secret Wonders) with its Telepass and Psychic Lock combo, Gardevoir Lv.X (DP Secret Wonders) with its Teleporation Poke-Power (it’s like Stand In) and Bring Down which kills many support Pokémon at the time like Uxie (DP Legends Awakened), Gardevoir (BW Next Destinies) with its Psychic Mirage ability, making attackers using Psychic energies much more amazing, and the Fairy type Gardevoir EXs (XY Primal Clash, XY Generations, XY Steam Siege), Mega Gardevoir EX (Brilliant Arrow, XY Primal Clash and XY Generations) and especially Mega Gardevoir EX (Despair Ray, XY Steam Siege) which has seen multiple Worlds play. All these Gardevoirs are amazing, but there is a new Gardevoir on the block, and now it’s a GX. Can it do its forefathers proud? And most importantly, as I am a fan of Gardevoir, does it warrant a “play me” status?             Gardevoir GX is a Fairy type Stage 2 Pokémon-GX with 230 HP, making it the least bulky Stage 2 Pokémon-GX in existence. But Gardevoir is never the type to tank hits; think back to the old Mega Gardevoirs. They have only 210 HP, the least amount of HP found in Mega Pokémon EXs at the time. So it is not surprising to discover this fact. Weakness to Metal is annoying, since Metagross GX (SM Guardians Rising) is now HUGE at the moment, especially during Worlds where all the Volcanions are beaten by Water decks; it allows Metagross GX to swiftly defeat Gardevoir. Resistance to Dark, as ever is always welcome, as Darkrai has gained traction lately. It also has a Retreat cost of 2, which is vanilla, unless you run Fairy Garden (XY Base Set, XY Fates Collide), in which case it can turn into a free Retreat.             Looking at its attacks, it seems that it wants to take the mantle of the old Mewtwo-EX (BW Next Destinies) and applies pressure through big damage very, VERY quickly. Its Secret Spring ability is the first heart and soul of the card; it allows you to attach an extra Fairy energy to your hand to one of your Pokémon. Now it didn’t say that it is exclusive to a certain Pokemon or basic Fairy energies; it can be anyone and anything. So it not just boosts its own damage, but it can support its teammates as well. Have a Pokémon you don’t want in the Active? Attach that Fairy energy via the Ability and retreat it to a Pokémon you want; or just beef up one Active Gardevoir with multiple energies from your quota for the turn and the ability. You can even use Wonder Energy here, but I don’t think that’s neither viable, nor legal in the future.  But it does offer you a protection against status conditions, which is nice. Then you can use the second heart and soul of the card; Infinte Force, for a minimum of 1 Fairy energy, deals 30x the number of energies attached to both Active Pokemon. It’s a better X Ball, and an even better Evil Ball from Yveltal EX (XY Base Set)! And just like the old Mewtwo, Gardevoir can use Special Energies like Double Colorless Energy to beef up the damage count even more! Gardevoir can find itself abusing Secret Spring to get at most 4 Fairy energies and a DCE, and it can swing for 180 afterwards, which is like amazing.             But then, there’s the GX attack. Twilight GX. If there are any problems with the old Mewtwo EX, is that once the Mewtwo is defeated and most of your energies are in that Mewtwo, it’s pretty much game there. Twilight GX ensures that the same thing will not befall Gardevoir; for just 1 Fairy energy you can shuffle back TEN cards from your discard pile to your deck. This is an amazing GX attack that not only allows it to recover resources from the discard pile and also preventing deck out from Gardevoir’s side, it also allows it to hard counter Garbodor (SM Guardians Rising) by shuffling 10 Item cards from your discard pile. It’s like Lysandre’s Trump Card (XY Phantom Forces) if you have exactly 10 cards in your discard pile, but it’s one sided. Very, very amazing indeed.             If there are any weaknesses found in Gardevoir GX, it is in the fact that it came out in an era where Metagross GX is really big, and Gardevoir cannot easily reach 250 damage in a single turn, while just with Weakness alone Metagross GX finds an easy one shot there. It also relies on Secret Spring to get damage, so Ability shutdown options are a thing; but you don’t always need a Secret Spring boost to get the big damage. It’s also a Stage 2, which means that it needs time to setup.  But apart from that slight little niggles; between the massive damage it has, the good HP count, an anti deck out option, plus a positive matchup to pretty much every Pokémon in the format, Gardevoir is a potent threat and should be the card to watch out in the format. Standard: 4/5 (steamrolls everything except Metagross GX it seems) Expanded: 4/5 (faces competition from Mewtwo-EX, but you can tech your own Mewtwo-EX if you need it) Limited: 4.5/5 (Many good Pokemon in SM Burning Shadows have high energy cost attacks, and Gardevoir makes quick work of them). Next Up on Burning Shadows reviews: The kawaii makes another impression. This time, to stay and annoy.
Otaku	Coming Soon