Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX: A Magical Miracle in This Meta

What’s up Flipsiders! I’m back at it again after a quick break due to school and not feeling well. I’m back at it again with a short recap of LAIC and how Gardeon pulled off a magical miracle of making it in top 16 of this event. After that, I’m going to be doing a Daytona meta prediction with a short list of decks I like for the event with explanations. Real quick, I want to thank everyone who reads my articles and enjoys the content. You guys are the reason why I do these and when I receive comments that you guys are happy to read my stuff, it really makes my day and I’m glad I can help. Let’s jump right in since I have a lot to write about since I’ve been gone for a while!

LAIC Recap:

I was fortunate to watch the LAIC stream and see what was doing well and what was struggling. As posted by Christopher Schemanske on Twitter from RK9Labs, we saw Arceus Dialga Palkia (ADP) as the most played deck with 95 masters playing it. Behind ADP, we saw Mewtwo & Mew-GX toolbox stay alive with 94 masters submitting the deck. Going down to the third most played deck with 72 masters piloting this deck, we see Gardevoir and Sylveon-GX. This number was the most shocking to me. I was dumbfounded that 72 people decided to choose Gardeon as their deck when they were very aware of Lucario & Melmetal-GX running around in ADP decks to give them an attacker not weak to Fairy attacks. I assume their mindset behind the choice was to just dodge them or if they hit them just scoop it up, but with ADP being the most hyped up deck and ending up being the most popular deck with statistics showing so, I don’t understand how you could think that’s the correct call for an IC.

Also, we saw Ability Zard perform very well as expected going into this sort of blind meta as this was the first major event with Cosmic Eclipse legal. Ability Zard feasts on lists that are not solidified due to the fact people don’t think about gusting every turn with Ninetales' Nine Temptations.

As the meta shaped out the way to be, I still can’t put together as to why Gardeon was the go-to choice for people. I will give it that the deck is very linear to the point where you can win games simply by attaching the right Fairy Charms for the matchup and your opponent not having answers to it. If I were playing for $10,000, I wouldn’t want to play a deck that my opponent can outplay me by having an answer to my Fairy Charm and just winning. I’m not trying to sit here and just bash the deck don’t get me wrong, but I can’t wrap my head around it. Let’s go ahead and look at the list that made top 16 and some of the different inclusions they added to find some success.

To put it simply, this list is wild. I really like it, but I am confused as to why there is an Island Challenge Amulet in the list. If I had to guess, it swings the ADP matchup since you already die to weakness from Lucario Melmetal. Forcing them to take 3 KO’s is huge because you can deal with the Melmetal and be able to sustain a late game with a Stamp and healing.

I like the Omastar package being included to make the Pidgeotto Control matchup not an auto loss like it normally is. Mallow and Lana is a very good card in this deck as we see it succeed in other Tag Team decks. I also like the 4 Reset Stamp/Power Plant combo to try and shutdown turbo decks from running away the game once they get running. I think that is the reason why this deck got in the top 16. I don’t see any other cards that drastically change matchups except for Omastar but even then in some matchups they can manage their bench to play around it. Let’s jump on over and peep another Gardeon list that day 2’d.

As we can see, these lists have many different inclusions that swing different matchups such as in the first list he included Omastar to help swing the Pidgeotto Control matchups where the second list included Fairy Charms in hoping to catch some decks off guard. We also see Chaotic Swell playing a part in the second list here. I guess Swell is a decent addition to stop opponent’s Viridian Forest/Giant Hearth/Heat Factory coming into effect and benefiting them. I would think Power Plant would be a more detriment to those type of decks but stopping their stadiums is always good.

We also see a one of Mina to accelerate energy to try and keep tempo with some decks that typically out-tempo Gardeon such as all the Welder decks. We also see more healing options in the second list in 2 Great Potion to try and sustain any decks that must focus on two hit knockout Gardeon such as Malamar and ADP when it comes to that situation of the game when they don’t have Melmetal. I think this version would tend to struggle with Melmetal more because of no Amulet or Helmet but it depends on board state and if Lopunny can get a big two hit KO on Melmetal. Let’s go ahead and jump into what I think will be good for Daytona regionals, what my top picks are and why I like the decks I do.

Daytona Predictions/Favorite Choices

Top 3 in popularity:

Mewtwo

Ability Zard

ADP

Will see play but not in numbers:

Baby Blacephalon/Pidgeotto

Blacephalon-GX

Naganadel Guzzlord

Malamar

Charizard Braixen

Pidgey Control

Gardeon

Quagsire decks

My top 3 choices going in:

Mewtwo

Ability Zard

Malamar

I am really liking Mewtwo as of right now. I have been testing the 2nd place list from LAIC and it fits my playstyle well. If I were to change anything from Bryan’s list, I would probably find room for a 2nd Marshadow to help bump Chaotic Swells consistently. Mewtwo needs its stadiums as often as they can get it to Giant Hearth/Welder combo plus discarding Pokémon to gain access to their attacks. I really like the tag team supporter line in Bryan’s list as it wasn’t too heavy, but it wasn’t light enough to where I missed it. I love Cynthia Caitlin in the deck and want to play more of them if I had the space. Every card spot is tight in Mewtwo, but Bryan’s list was close to perfect and is 90% what I’m going to play for Daytona.

Ability Zard is second on my list because if I’m going to try and win the event, Ability Zard is the way to high roll. It’s got two options: hit Welder or don’t. Playing for $5k that’s not a bad strategy because you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with having to setup so many things to the point where if you can’t pull off one out of 10 things you lose. A straightforward game plan of playing a supporter card and progressing your board is the best way to shoot for the money and that’s why I have it as number two on my list. If I were to play a list, Robin’s LAIC was close to perfect I think. I don’t see any changes I would make personally.

Finally, Malamar. Everyone’s love or hate deck. I love Malamar like it’s the child I never have had. As soon as my teammate, Michael Catron on Nerd Rage Gaming, showed me that the deck had potential with the list I instantly fell in love. I have done well at multiple cups with the deck and I am still considering it even with the negative matchup to ADP. Latios GX does not fix the ADP matchup because if you Clear Vision, they just take 2 prizes on Latios and take 4 knockouts typically before you can take 6 knockouts on a big 280hp tag team, potentially two of them or one and a Keldeo GX. For a list reference, I would recommend checking out Michael Catron’s post in HeyFonte on Facebook to get a good base. That’s where I am starting and would probably play that same 60 if I were to play Malamar.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think Daytona is going to be a lot weirder than everyone expects it to be. IC metas are very hard to use as bases because it’s a whole different setting when choosing a deck. You’re playing for $5,000 and 300 more CP, which encourages taking big swings over playing it safe for a decent finish. For example, we saw Stephane Ivanoff bring Silvally Quagsire that normally we probably would not see any U.S. player bring out to a regional (unless you’re Jonathon Croxton). I think this regional will be a good meta defining event and show what the meta is going to look like going forward from here. I know I have a lot more testing to do for this event, but what I have tested so far has got me very excited for what I’m getting myself into.

The new set really helped iron out consistency issues in decks with cards such as Silvally-GX and Cynthia & Caitlin. I don’t think there was anything game breaking that came out of this set which is healthy for the first time in a while. There are decks that got power buffs from this set such as Pidgeotto Control with Bellelba and Brycen-man. This set saved the game from being an inconsistent pile of trash and I’m glad to experience it firsthand at Daytona.

I want to say thank you to Flipside Gaming as always for giving me this opportunity. These guys are one of the best people in the game to work with and highly recommend you check out the rest of the website (like the Tag Team Generations Premium Collection)!  You can even use promo code CELIO to save 10% off and help out our hero Luke Morsa!   Thank you to my sponsor Nerd Rage Gaming for everything the store, the owner and my teammates do for me. I can’t wait for many years to come with you guys. Again, if you made it here, thank you so much. You reading this means the world and I am happy to do it for you guys.If you guys are in Daytona and see me, please don’t hesitate to say hi. If you guys can leave a like on the post you saw this shared on, that would be amazing. Go ahead and drop a comment on what you think about the content, what you want me to write about next week, how you’re doing, anything you want. I’m here to listen to y’all. You guys are the best, I’ll catch y’all on the flipside. Peace.