Operation Two Braincells: Gardevoir Ex is still too hard

Welcome back y'all, I played a league cup today. My preparation for this event was honestly terrible, I played Jelly Gardy on ladder for like 6 hours and went negative, then stayed up super late last night helping Yihao test a terrible pile. I woke up like 30 minutes before I had to leave, started sleeving a PultZard deck, then decided I didn't want to play that and grabbed my Gardy deck from last week and made some approved changes.

     

Drifloon greenlit, 2 charm. Would like another CC but I do not have edit permissions on Gardevoir ex lists.

Round 1 

Venusaur L
Well, best to get the throwing out of the way early I guess. I think this matchup should be really good with the Drifloon even without LuxCape, but I can't count or sequence so things go sideways at the end. The game goes mostly smoothly, I take 1 on a Bulbasaur with Scream Tail, 2 on an Ogerpon with Gardy, then just have to get through a Venusaur to close out the game. I've been sprinkling damage on his side of the board with Munkidoris and have a bunch of counters banked up on a Fez that was punched by Ogerpon earlier in the game but he gust kos that with a clean Venusaur to take away my counters. On my second to last turn I do some griefing and miss the knockout with a million cards in hand. I have access to 7 purple energy, including 1 stuck on my Gardevoir from Miracle Force, Drifloon + charm and two Munkidoris. What I can do to get to the 380 number is embrace 5 onto Drifloon, move 30, embrace 1 onto Gardex, move 30 (10 left from a previous 40-10), Turo Gardex (I have a second one) embrace the last 2 energies onto Drifloon to get 110 for Balloon Blast 330. What I do instead is embrace a bunch of energy onto Drifloon, realize I'm short, then Iono and hit for 180. The next turn I Iono again after he heals/runs away but somehow use 3 monkeys and don't have a clean 310 Gardevoir to hit with and die to 6 energy Ogerpon. Some really awful gameplay to start the day, deserved 0-1.

Round 2 

Greninja W 
My opponent goes first, drops some little guys but misses a water attachment for his Froakie so I'm not under a lot of pressure. I Lillie into TM:evo and ultra ball as well as one copy of Kirlia, so expecting Budew, I ultra ball for Gardevoir to evolve next turn then use the TM to get a Kirlia onto the board. My opponent tries to get around this by evolving into Dusknoir and Pidgeot, blowing up my Ralts, and using TM Devo on my Kirlia, but he has to use his Grand Tree to do this, so I just Lillie my Gardy pieces back into the deck and evolve up this way. With a Gardevoir on the board and some Munkidoris camping down Duskulls it's pretty hard for me to lose. He tries some weird stuff with gust trapping and paralysis flipping but I just Turo and attach my way through it and eventually set up a board where he can't even attack with Greninja without instantly losing the game.

Round 3 

Zoroark Gengar W
I pair into a senior playing some dark type box, which in theory should be really good for me but I have to sweat like crazy to convert because on my first search I find out both of my Gardevoirs are prized. I start attaching to a Munkidori on the bench to try and take a prize with Mind Bend. I would have preferred to start with a dark because it's less suspicious, but all I have are purples. I don't think he knew the problem I was having, because he plays Secret Box for boss to take out my Kirlia on the bench but dumps his whole hand to do so AND goes in with a Binding Mochi Yveltal that he pinged with Toxtricity + poisoned with Pecharunt. I mind bend and unprize a Gardex. For the rest of the game, the poison and Toxtricity damage causes him to draw zero cards because I can always dodge Fez, and I cruise to a win using my single prizers hitting big numbers.

Round 4 

Absol W

I go first, set up some Ralts and get down a Monkey Dark. They trolley and energize to Absol on their turn, then I evo into double Kirlia with 2 draw supporters in hand. One of my Kirlias gets bossed and clawed but my hand and subsequent draws are good enough to respond with Drifloon 240 onto the Absol. With no darks on the bench I am reasonably confident that I won't get double Adrena Brained + boss on Gardy, and I'm right. They Penny into Kang and try to energize again, so I Iono all their energy to the bottom, spread some damage onto the fresh Absol and hit the Kang for 240. They get some darks down to KO my Drifloon, but can't do this and claw, so on my turn I CC up the Absol and Mew copy Claw to take 3 and rip a boss out of their hand. The heavily damaged Kang comes back into the active, gets healed a bit with ice cream and monkeys but is promptly blown up anyway by Drifloon for a clean 3-3 prize map. Time to ID into cut!

Round 5 

Slowking W
Or I thought so, anyway. My opponent has suspect resistance and a homie ID in an earlier round has caused a possible bubble at 3-1-1. I'm down to send the ID and see what happens but he wants to play so we shuffle up and start our game while everyone else is circling tie and making plans to get food. I get cleanly into a Gardevoir while being item locked because I draw into Kirlia evo off a supporter. I've been attaching to the Fez I started this whole time to threaten Cruel Arrow on Slowpokes and charm the Munkidoris I bench to stay out of Kyurem range, so his first Slowking attack is Haxorus to KO Fez. No Cruel Arrow today, sad. I respond with Iono to 4 and Mind Bend to threaten KO on both Slowkings the next turn. He actually flips heads and uses Kyurem to KO a Kirlia, but I am super happy to absorb 220 damage onto my board to send back at my leisure. I wipe both Slowkings with Adrena Brain and CC Miracle Force, but my Scream Tail is still prized so I can't chase the next Slowpoke and get Budewed. I take the Budew with another monkey trigger, unprize my Scream Tail, snipe the Slowpoke and go to 2 while loading more counters onto his Fez, creating a checkmate board.

Top 8 

Boltik LWW
I eat one of the steamed buns I packed for the day (is it ego to expect a long day including top cut?) and shake hands with my opponent. Going first he Squawks a hand with some Raging Bolt looking stuff but then benches a Miraidon and gets Joltik + Hands, revealing Boltik. I evo into Kirlias and then Gardevoir while he's doing his Joltik stuff, but am struggling to discard energies. I get the first hit but the best I can do is Munki KO Joltik + punch Miraidon for 140 with Clefairy. Maybe Scream Tail Punch Hands would have been better? He gusts twice to go down to 2, then we kind of sit around while I Iono him low and set up prizes for later before he finally manages to find a Sada for game. I feel like I could have played this better but idk.

I go second again, this time I have no energy issues and KO Hands with Drifloon, KO Bolt with Clefairy, then Scream Tail a bench sitter for game. 

We start game 3 with very little time which I am extremely aware of. I go first, bench some Ralts and Munkidoris, but he misses energy for Jolting Charge, so I evolve into Gardevoir and wait. I respond to his Jolting Charge with Charm Frillish - he's lost so much energy from his Squawk or has it in hand so he can only load 3 on Hands. All he can manage on his last turn is an Arm Press 160 KO  so I just CC his Squawk and KO it with Gardy to take the lead in time. I celebrate by eating my other baozi.

Top 4 

Dengo WW

My opponent gets off to a slow start and is only in the game due to my donated Artazon, but what this means is he's very low on Gimmighouls. I try to take advantage of this with a quick Scream Tail KO but he's able to boss and KO my Gardy as well as a picnic basket to neutralize Tail. A few problems with this play - he attaches the VitBand to Dengo, he discards his super rod with Secret Box, he's board locked out of Mawile, and there's 8 energy in the discard pile with 3 metals showing. I charm my Frillish and start announcing Oceanic Gloom over and over. He's able to get a KO on my Kirlia but I set up the Gardevoir again over a few turns to thwart attempts to break item lock with Boss, and now there are 10 energy in the discard pile. I ask if he plays Lana or a non item way to get energies back and he concedes.

Game 2 I go first and get down some Ralts and a Munkidori. I think I have decent odds to get Candy Gardy the next turn, but he looks sadly at his hand and plays Turo on his lone Gimmighoul. On to finals! 

Finals

Dawnzard LL

Game 1 was pretty weird. I win the flip and choose first, gettting down a Ralts behind a Munkidori start. My opponent opens the Klefki so has to play his Prime Catcher to unlock Fan Rotom. Unfortunately the Ralts I grabbed was with Artazon and he actually has the energy in hand to take the knockout so I am pretty far behind. I go back in my deck with Artazon and find out that I've prized my other 2 Ralts and my Frillish so I can't Iono item lock like I want to. Luckily I do find a stretcher off Iono and rebench my Ralts, then mind bend his Fan Rotom. He takes a KO on my Munki with Charizard, and I respond with Secret Box into Candy Gardy Mind Bend. Jet is prized on his end so he can't actually Jet Boss my Gardy and settles for flipping on the Munkidori (heads). I Mew his Zard, he uses Terapagos to go down to 1, and I can't find a way to prevent him from winning while progressing since all my charmed attackers I can use to remove his Terapagos will die to Joust. Is it right to keep Clefairy around for this case?

I go first again and get down some guys while refusing to donate my Artazon. He misses Charmander which is great for me and he Sobs my active Scream Tail after I use it to evo into Kirlias. Not complaning about donated damage. I decide that I can take it slow because he's behind and hit his Dusclops for 80 forcing him to evolve into Dusknoir and pop it on my Munkidori. The Dawn he gets off the prizes finds some basics and a Pidgeotto and he sobs my Scream Tail again. I've been holding a few Ionos the whole game and refuse to play them because his hand is obviously dead, so he decides not to grab Pidgeot because I would instantly Iono that to the bottom. I think I make a mistake here when I decide to hit his Wellspring for 120 to try and set it up for later, but I should be allowed to snipe off the Pidgeotto without too much danger. He topdecks Pidgeot and starts to put on pressure with Prime Catcher Gardy. I mind bend the Zard, he jets out of confusion and KOs. On my last turn I have an Iono in my hand but also a Gardevoir and some Arvens, I think I was maybe just supposed to Iono and hope to hit candy Gardy off draw + Fez, but I try and Fez into one of my two candies, miss, then feel forced to play Arven (should still maybe Iono) to KO his Zard with Mew and use Adrena Brain to set up win for the next turn. He shows me stretcher + super rod to get Charizard and the energy back and I concede. 

I congratulate my opponent, we chat a bit about the season, then I catch the bus home, which takes forever with like a 15 minute delay. +40? I guess it's +8 or something idk. As always, thanks for reading!