New previews for the Pokémon TCG's upcoming Mega Evolution set, known in Japan as Mega Brave and Mega Symphonia, dropped on Saturday at Japan's Champion League tournament. Along with some swish full art trainer cards and a Mega Venusaur that pairs fantastically with Ogerpon, we noticed quite a few cards that will upgrade what is already arguably the game's strongest deck: Gardevoir.
Gardevoir ex was not only the winning deck of NAIC 2025, it also took second and fourth place. It's not the first time this card has dominated a major tournament. Its energy stacking ability makes it one of the best Pokémon cards of all time.
This deck has only been getting stronger over the years, as well. Munkidori gave it an excellent way to make use of your own damaged Pokémon, while more recent Pokémon sets gave it Lillie's Clefairy ex - an invaluable tool against the very powerful Dragapult.
The psychic type probably didn't need any more help, but it's getting it in this set, which - while we know it's coming September 26 - still doesn't have an English name.
There are two main upgrades for Gardevoir ex in the few cards that have been revealed: a new stadium and new preevolutions.
Starting with the preevolutions, both have greater utility than the Ralts and Kirlia we had before, which had fairly poor attacks with high energy costs for underwhelming damage. The new Ralts, meanwhile, has a useful attack that draws a card, while the new Kirlia has an amazing move that lets you fetch any three Pokémon cards you like into your hand!
The new Stadium is what's really surprising though. Mystery Garden provides another way to discard energy cards so that Gardevoir ex can cheat them onto your Pokémon, while also drawing a ton of cards. Either player can activate the ability, but you only get to draw for each Psychic Pokémon you have. Discard one, draw up to six is an amazing rate, but this card gets dramatically worse in the mirror match.
The fact that Gardevoir ex is getting more toys to play with despite already being so great makes me wonder if The Pokémon Company didn't expect it to be as good as it is. Perhaps the designers believed Gardevoir ex would no longer be an S-tier deck by now and that this upgrade would help boost it into relevance.
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