Expanded Deck Tech: Gardevoir & Sylveon Tag Team - Hand Control/Tanker

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Carrying on with the Expanded format, we'll talk about Gardevoir & Sylveon Tag Team-GX that has as its goals tanking opponent damages and being able to disable their hand.

Decklist e Estratégia

The initial point of the deck is to build as soon as possible all fairy Pokemon in the game and preferably to have Xerneas as your active Pokemon so it can start its workings.

Here what matters is its first attack, Geomancy, in which you choose two of your benched Pokemon so you can charge one fairy energy from your deck and attach it to one of them.

So you can have an excellent first or second turn in the same round, it is vital that you have the card Battle VIP Pass FST 225, which can only be used during your first turn so you can search for two basic Pokemon in your deck and place them directly on the board.

You can pay its cost to bring two Spritzee UNB 141; or a Mr. Mime BKT 97 to protect your bench with a Spritzee UNB 141; or a Spritzee UNB 141 and a Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX UNB 130 (which I honestly don't think is a good idea).

As for Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX UNB 130, it's more practical to call it forth using Tag Call CEC 206, which is useful to summon all Gardevoir & Sylveon, besides other Tag Team Supporter cards from the deck.

Here we come in with the deck's main star regarding the roles of attacker and tanker:

- Fairy Song: deals 150 damage and you can redistribute these energies among your Pokemon in any way you'd like.

- Its GX attack, Magical Miracle GX: deals 200 damage, but if you pay three more additional energies to fulfill its cost requirement, besides 200 damage, you make your opponent shuffle their whole hand back into their deck, leaving them empty handed.

Ideal plays with this Deck

The ideal play, for a perfect board, is that the following order is met, at least:

- Gardevoir & Sylveon Tag Team-GX as your active Pokemon

- On the bench, the two Aromatisse, a Mr. Mime, another Gardevoir & Sylveon Tag Team-GX.

A hand like that early game is the ideal hand to have your setup:

The strategy with this combination is precisely to make your Pokemon tank damage and be a wall.

- Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX UNB 130 needs to manipulate energies and redistribute them to the Pokemon in your bench, maybe with another Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX UNB 130.

- Then, the active Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX UNB 130 needs to be equipped with Fighting Fury Belt BKP 99 as it grants 40 points of health more to the basic Pokemon, so the current health of 260 virtually becomes 300 damage, comparable to the VMax Pokemon (Which have this HP as their minimum) and even have an extra 10 more attack, so your Kaleidostorm attack goes from 150 to 160 damage.

- If Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX UNB 130 is taking damage and you don't want to lose the energies attached to it, you need to make sure you have at least two Aromatisse XY 93 to bluff your opponent, and redistribute these energies among them thanks to the Fairy Transfer ability.

This way it is possible to use Max Potion GRI 128 to heal all damage dealt without having to deal with the con of losing the fairy energies, so that this way you can reorganize and re-transfer these energies to Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX UNB 130 to attack again and stay in this loop.

Recursive Pokemon

- Aromatisse XY 93 is the deck's essence as this Pokemon, with its Fairy Transfer ability, guarantees the energy transfers from a damaged Gardevoir & Sylveon Tag Team-GX so you can use Max Potion without losing your energies.

- Dedenne-GX UNB 57 has its Dedecharge ability, which makes you discard your hand and draw 6 cards.

- Mr. Mime BKT 97 has its Bench Protector traits, which makes it able to defend your bench against decks that use sniper damage, precisely to prevent your opponent to focus as their targets your Aromatisse XY 93.

Xerneas XY 96 comes in as a recursive here due to its attack, Geomancy, so you can charge your benched Pokemon.

Trainer Cards

- Judge FST 235 is useful to control both players hands, but the biggest focus is to harm your opponent, reducing their ability to act, as reducing their hand with this card, making them only have 4 cards, when it's time to apply Gardevoir & Sylveon's attack, they will be without any cards in hand.

- Diantha FLI 105 can only be used if one of your fairy Pokemon is destroyed. And if that happens, you can take any two cards you want from the discard pile and place them into your hand, therefore being able to recycle many resources, such as Max Potion or Fighting Fury Belt.

- Roxanne ASR 150 can only be used if your opponent is about to win the game with 3 Prize cards or less: you and your opponent shuffle your hands and they only draw 2 cards whereas you draw 6. It is a way to control their hand so you can reduce their ability to act.

- Mallow & Lana CEC 198 has two uses:

1) You can switch your Active Pokemon into your bench.

2) You can discard two cards in your hand to do the following effect: besides repositioning this active Pokemon to the bench, this retreated Pokemon will heal 120 HP points.

- Cynthia & Caitlin CEC 189 has two uses:

1) You can get a Supporter card from the discard pile (that isn't Cynthia & Caitlin)

2) You can discard a card in your hand to do the following effect: besides getting a Supporter card from the discard pile, you draw 3 additional cards from the top of your deck.

- Max Potion GRI 128 is a full heal that clears out all effects from the Pokemon it healed, but with the con of losing all energies attached to it.

- Fighting Fury Belt BKP 99 is a Tool card that can only be equipped to basic Pokemon: it grants 40 additional points of HP and 10 points of damage to whatever has this card equipped.

- Energy Recycler BST 124 recycles up to 5 basic energies from the discard pile into your deck.

- Tag Call CEC 206 allows you to search for up to 2 cards that have "Tag Team" in their name.

- Wondrous Labyrinth ◇ TEU 158 is useful to disrupt your opponent, as it is a card that states that Pokemon in play which aren't type fairy get one colorless energy more in their attack cost.

- Fairy Garden XY 117 is useful so that all your fairy Pokemon have zero retreat cost, that means, it ends Gardevoir & Sylveon and Aromatisse's issue, which have 2 energies as their retreat cost.

Advantages

This deck is excellent to control your opponent's hand and make itself last for a long time as if it was the equivalent of the VMax Pokemon of the current generation, besides the energy transfer dynamic and constant healing, which makes your opponent become quite frustrated.

It is an effective strategy against dragon type Pokemon that got fairy weakness in X/Y and Sun/Moon's eras, in case it deals with any of those decks in Expanded, and mostly Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX CEC 156 takes a hard beating from this deck because of that.

Disadvantages

We have the steel type weakness, which got a certain upgrade with more aggressive resources.

The lack of other archetypes which have fairy type weakness left this type a bit poor regarding double damage options, as only X/Y and Sun/Moon dragon type Pokemon are left, so much so that the Sword/Shield new dragons don't have these weaknesses anymore, which makes this deck a bit weaker due to 150 and 160 damage not being that high of damage when facing ultra rare cards.

It might be complicated to deal with decks that use damage counters, the "spread snipers" against your Aromatisse, such as Mewtwo VUnion, Mimikyu VMax, Dragapult VMax + Sableye such as in this example.

It is a simple deck, good for beginners and intermediate players that like these mechanics that involve taking damage, healing, and testing your opponent's patience of always never taking down your Pokemon as quick as they can, also having your opponent's hands always reduced and controlled with GX attacks, with Judge and Roxanne.

It also presents great synergies and reading cards that match each other well, optimizing in any move the reuse of cards.

So, I would like your opinion. Which are your expectations? Would you change something in it to make it better? Make yourself at home and comment down below.

See you next time!