Welcome back, Cut or Tap readers! Gholdengo ex is a deck that I have played a lot across the Journey Together and Destined Rivals formats, and it seems to be getting even better as we look forward to Black Bolt and White Flare. Releasing on July 18th, these sets will bring a new light to Gholdengo through the release of Genesect ex. Later on in this article, I will dive into how Gholdengo should adapt to the new set release, however I think it makes sense to start by looking at the various lists of Gholdengo that have seen success thus far.
Prismatic Evolutions (Pre-Rotation) Gholdengo
This list of Gholdengo may look familiar if you read Jackson Ford’s piece “Deckbuilding for the Meta: Making a Better Deck for the Metagame.” If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend the article as a deep dive into how top players approach building a deck to counter a particular metagame.
This version of Gholdengo was particularly innovative, as the deck hadn’t yet seen success in the Prismatic Evolutions format, and Gholdengo had previously mainly been played alongside Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR and Irida. This list, piloted by Xander Pero to 3rd place at the European International Championships, focused solely on Gholdengo ex as an attacker. It used the power of Radiant Greninja, Fezandipiti ex, and Pokestop as a strong engine to establish Gholdengo ex and chain together KOs.
A common goal for all versions of Gholdengo is to set up multiple draw-ability Pokemon (typically at least two Gholdengo ex) and be able to immediately respond-KO a high-HP Pokemon using the power of Energy Search Pro. This is the list of Gholdengo that initially popularized Technical Machine: Evolution in the deck, allowing for the easy setup of multiple Gholdengo ex. With multiple Gholdengo ex setup on Turn 1, you will already have your attacker in play and can combine Gholdengo’s Coin Bonus with Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking to find the remaining pieces necessary to take a KO on the following turn.
Another innovation in this list is the inclusion of Munkidori. With Dragapult ex running around, Munkidori was a key addition to Gholdengo to prevent easy double-KOs on two Gholdengo ex and sometimes snipe a free prize on a Budew.
This version of Gholdengo was extremely successful, achieving a handful of cash placements at EUIC, as well as Lucas Xing’s 2nd place at Vancouver Regionals a few weeks later (playing a couple cards different from the EUIC list). While Gholdengo had seen some scattered results before EUIC (with a decent popularity at Sacramento and Stuttgart Regionals), the deck had never seen this level of success and was always more of a fringe pick. Picking apart the key features of this list, a strong Gholdengo deck is looking for strong supplemental draw to set up multiple Gholdengo, or mitigate situations where you cannot set up multiple Gholdengo (Radiant Greninja, Pokestop, and Arven + TM: Evolution).
Additionally, a strong Gholdengo deck needs to have a good position in the metagame. Oftentimes this requires some power cards to swing certain matchups in your favor. In this case, Lost Vacuum provided a strong swing against Gardevoir, while Munkidori and multiple Professor Turo’s Scenario provided a strong swing against Dragapult. This balance between consistency and power cards will continue to be a recurring theme in future Gholdengo lists.
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