After huge tournament win, Gardevoir is Pokémon TCG’s first million-dollar deck

If you love Pokémon TCG as much as I do, maybe you tuned into the 2025 Pokémon North American International Championships (NAIC) on Twitch a couple of weekends ago, and saw Isaiah Bradner take home first prize in the masters division with their Gardevoir EX deck. It was a big $25,000 win for Bradner – but a bigger milestone for Gardevoir EX, as it officially became the first Pokémon TCG deck archetype ever to make $1 million in tournament prizes.

That’s according to LimitlessTCG’s online tracker of all the biggest  Pokémon TCG decks, listed by total tournament points, wins, top 8 finishes, and total earnings. Bradner’s NAIC 2025 win tipped Gardevoir EX over the edge to total earnings of $1,015,500 – more than a quarter-million dollars more than the next biggest earning deck, Lugia Archeops, at $752k.

A lot of Gardevoir’s huge cash pile is down to a marked increase in prize values in the last few years. But even accounting for that, Gardevoir EX is still outstanding for its ongoing dominance at Pokémon’s top tables; adaptable, aggressive, and supported by incredibly rapid energy acceleration, it keeps winning for a reason.

This deck didn’t just win the top spot at the NAIC, either. Riley McKay won second, and you’ll never guess what deck they had? You guessed it, Gardevoir, meaning our psychic pal just made another $15k. Fourth place will get ya $10k, and, er, this went to Gardevoir as well. Gardevoir EX claimed three of the four top spots, raking in $50k for its growing tally in just one weekend.

Only two other currently tournament legal decks are in Limitless’ all time top ten for total winnings: Charizard, and Dragapult EX.

New(er) kid on the block Dragapult is no slouch either, of course. It’s beating Gardevoir to the top spot for overall tournament points in the current newest Pokemon set, Destined Rivals. It’s also the only non Gardevoir deck to break into the NAIC 2025 top four, with Todd Reklev claiming third place with it, and numerous other Dragapult players making it to the tournament’s top 100 finishers.

It’s easy to see why it’s a popular deck, and that’s not just because it features so many of the best Pokémon cards. It offers flexibility, resilience, and brute force. Dragapult EX’s main attack is a beefy one and Dragapult can disrupt your opponent’s setup from the bench.

Honestly, I’m shocked this deck didn’t claim more top spaces at the NAIC – but again, it speaks to just how unassailable Gardevoir has been in the high level Pokémon TCG meta, and for how long. For all its strengths, Dragapult EX decks have only won $542, 250 in tournament prizes – just over half Gardevoir’s fortune.

Of course, this is just one tournament of hundreds, but as Gardevoir has already claimed so many top prizes and continues to do so, well, I’m not surprised it’s managed to accumulate over a million bucks in winnings over the years. With Worlds just around the corner, I can’t wait to see how much more money Gardevoir will rake in before something else inevitably takes it down.

Fancy expanding your deck? Check out the following sites for Pokémon TCG deals:

Have you also piloted Gardevoir to tournament victories – or has it snatched victory from you one too many times? What deck do you think is coming to take its crown? Come let us know your tournament stories by joining the Wargamer Discord community.

Alternatively, you can catch up with the game’s history in our list of all Pokémon sets in order, or ogle at the biggest money collectibles in our up to date list of the most expensive rare Pokémon cards of all time.