Gholdengo ex

Intro + Notable Placings

• 7th at World Championships 2025 (Togekiss build)

• 1st at World Championships 2025, Senior Division (Joltik build)

• 6th at Regional Frankfurt (Secret Box build)

• 6th at Regional Pittsburgh (Togekiss build)

• 8th at Malaysia Premier Ball League

Gholdengo ex is the premier aggro deck in the format. The deck's basic game plan is simple enough to understand, its damage output is high, and having multiple Gholdengo ex means you're drawing lots of cards every turn, making it easier to fight through Iono. Genesect ex, released in Black Bolt, was the final push for the deck's competitiveness, searching up Gholdengo ex as well as tech attackers like regular Gholdengo or Scizor.

There are lots of silver bullets that other decks can use to beat Gholdengo ex: walls like Crustle or Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex, or ways to stop Superior Energy Retrieval like Toedscruel, Budew, or Frillish. Well-prepared Gholdengo ex lists can usually beat the first silver bullet that the opponent presents, but not repeated ones.

Game Plan

Get a bunch of Gimmighouls and a Genesect ex down. Genesect ex is this deck's Evolution searcher; you can find it with Nest Ball, and it searches for Gholdengo ex, your attacker and draw engine. Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking combos with Coin Bonus, letting you search your deck for any 2 cards and put them into your hand.

During your first deck search, check whether you've Prized Energy Search Pro or any types of Energy. Energy Search Pro is a fairly important card; it's searchable by Arven or Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking, and can find up to 8 Energy, paying the cost for Make It Rain and providing the fodder to discard for up to 350 damage. Your first big Make It Rain of the game will usually be fueled by Energy Search Pro, so if it's Prized, you need to come up with a backup plan, whether that's attacking with a low-maintenance tech attacker to try to get Energy Search Pro out of the Prizes, or setting up slowly with Earthen Vessel and Gimmighoul's Minor Errand-Running. Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking for Earthen Vessel + Levincia can give you enough resources for KOs against weaker Pokémon to tide you over.

If everything goes according to plan, the game comes down to a Prize race. You want to take the first 2-Prize KO, then use the draw power of Coin Bonus to find Superior Energy Retrieval and Levincia for subsequent attacks, and Boss's Orders to drag in 2-Prizers.

If you play Secret Box instead of Energy Search Pro:

Secret Box lets you assemble some powerful early-game combos. The common ones are (assuming you go second):

• KOing the opponent's 70 HP Active with Fan Rotom on turn 1. To do this, you will need either Fan Rotom or an Energy (or a way to get either), and an Arven, Team Rocket's Petrel, or Secret Box. Play Arven/Petrel → Secret Box → Buddy-Buddy Poffin/Earthen Vessel + Air Balloon + Levincia; BBP or Vessel gets Fan Rotom or the Energy, whichever you're missing, Air Balloon lets you retreat your starter into Fan Rotom, and Levincia counts as the Stadium for Assault Landing.

• KOing an ex with 200-250 HP on turn 2. On turn 1, you'll want to maneuver a Minor Errand-Running Gimmighoul into the Active, attach a Metal Energy onto it, and use Minor Errand-Running for 2 Lightning Energy. On turn 2, you'll want to play Secret Box, discarding at least the 2 Lightning Energy, searching for Earthen Vessel + Levincia (+ Air Balloon and Supporter of your choice). Use Coin Bonuses to try to draw into more Energy, then play Earthen Vessel for 2 Energy, and Levincia to get back the 2 Lightning Energy you discarded. At minimum you'll have 4 Energy (2 from Vessel, 2 from Levincia), which translates to Make it Rain doing 200 damage. If you drew into at least 1 more Energy (Earthen Vessel counts too) with Coin Bonus, you'll do 250 damage. If you drew into Secret Box and didn't have to Arven or Petrel for it, you can get and play Boss's Orders off it to pull a target from the opponent's Bench.

Attackers

Gholdengo ex is your attacker. Make It Rain only requires 1 Energy attached to use, but requires discarding Energy from hand to do significant damage. You can find the Energy for the first attack with Energy Search Pro, Earthen Vessel, or Gimmighoul's Minor Errand-Running. After that, the Energy will be in your discard pile, and Superior Energy Retrieval or Levincia can get it back.

First or Second?

Energy Search Pro builds want to go first, as they want to attack with an Evolved Pokémon (Gholdengo [ex]) as soon as possible.

Secret Box builds want to go second, as they want to attack with Fan Rotom or Gimmighoul (both Basic Pokémon) on turn 1.

ACE SPEC

Energy Search Pro. It gets you all the Energy you need to attack with Gholdengo ex.

An alternative build uses Secret Box for a less powerful, but also less risky search option. Prizing Secret Box doesn't hurt as much as Prizing Energy Search Pro.

Variants

Gholdengo ex has several builds to choose from, each adding different search cards, alternative attackers, Stadium bumps, and ways to fix the Prize trade. The main variants (excluding Joltik), in descending order of tournament success, are:

Other Options

• Munkidori, Picnic Basket, Moonlit Hill: Defenses against spread damage like Dragapult ex or Froslass.

• Gholdengo SSP: A 1-Prizer that can damage walls like Crustle or Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex.

• Counter Catcher: A Gust that isn't a Supporter, so you can search for it with Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking and play it in the same turn.

• Tool Scrapper: Beats opposing Genesect locking you out of Energy Search Pro, and has utility against other stuff like Sparkling Crystal or Bravery Charm.

Tips

• This deck wants to go 2-2-2 in Prizes. If you're in a matchup where both players are trying to avoid putting down 2-Prizers in order to not feed the opponent the first 2-Prize KO, play it slow and set up your board with Gimmighoul attacks, and take KOs with your 1-Prize attackers (non-ex Gholdengo, Fan Rotom, or Scizor). Setting up your Prize fixers (Togekiss/Chansey) can also force the issue and let you attack with Gholdengo ex into your opponent's 1-Prize board, provided you don't get horrifically unlucky with coin flips.

• If you are using Gimmighoul's Minor Errand-Running or Call for Family attacks to set up, don't play Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking in the same turn, as the post-search shuffle would undo whatever cards you set up on top of your deck.

• If you get Item locked by Budew, get a Gholdengo ex Active, use Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking to search for Metal + any Energy (or Levincia to recover Lightning Energy from your discard pile), then Coin Bonus to draw both. Attach Metal Energy and attack with Make It Rain, discarding the other Energy, to KO Budew.

• Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking can be used as a defense against Iono if you already have everything you need for the turn. You'll want to Ciphermaniac AFTER using up your Coin Bonuses, instead of before as you typically do. Since Iono doesn't shuffle the deck, you're guaranteed to have access to the cards you put on top — either they Iono you and draw you into them, or they don't Iono you and you draw into them anyway with Coin Bonus.

• Don't use Energy Search Pro unless you're attacking with Gholdengo ex in the same turn. If you get hit by Iono, you'll lose all that Energy.

• If you have Energy Search Pro lined up for the turn, play it before using Coin Bonus. If you Coin Bonus first, you might naturally draw into some Energy, effectively wasting those draws as Energy Search Pro would have gotten the same cards anyway. (Say you Coin Bonus first, drawing into 1 Energy, and only have 7 Energy to search for with Energy Search Pro as a result. Compare that to using Energy Search Pro for 8 Energy first: you still end up with 8 Energy in hand, but have Coin Bonus available this time.)

• If you haven't used Energy Search Pro yet, try to get Energy that you have multiples of (Metal, Lightning) with your small Energy search effects (Minor Errand-Running, Earthen Vessel, Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking). The more Energy types you have remaining in your deck, the more cards Energy Search Pro can get when you use it later.

• Use Genesect ex's Metallic Signal to thin your deck (and also check its contents!) before drawing with Coin Bonus or Flip the Script.

• Suppose you need multiple copies of a certain card, and have another card which searches for all but 1 copy of them in your hand. (Example: you need 3 more Energy for Make It Rain, and have 1 Earthen Vessel in your hand. Another example: you need 2 copies of Superior Energy Retrieval, and have an Arven in your hand.) In these situations you'll want to use draw Abilities BEFORE playing the searcher. The reasons for doing this are 1) playing the searcher first would take "hits" out of your deck, making it less likely that you'd draw into them, and 2) if you get very lucky and draw into everything you need off your draw effects, you can choose not to play the searcher, or to get different cards with it. (Example: if you needed 2 Superior Energy Retrievals and drew into both of them with Coin Bonus, you can play a different Supporter instead of Arven, or play Arven but get a different Item.)

• You can get two draw-2 Coin Bonuses in one turn by retreating or using Professor Turo's Scenario. Use the Active Gholdengo ex's Coin Bonus, then retreat it (Air Balloon lets you do this for free) or Turo it for another Gholdengo ex, and use that one's Coin Bonus. Make sure you have a Metal Energy to pay for the second Gholdengo ex's attack at the end of this sequence!

• If you have Gholdengo (non-ex), Professor Turo's Scenario, and two Metal Energy in your hand, you can line up consecutive 120-damage attacks by leaving a Gimmighoul unevolved on the Bench (instead of evolving it into Gholdengo ex to draw cards as you'd normally do). After the first Gholdengo attack, Turo it back to hand and evolve the Benched Gimmighoul into that same Gholdengo.

• When you play Superior Energy Retrieval and attack with Make It Rain, you usually want to leave Energy types that you might need later (e.g. Metal for attacking, Darkness for Munkidori) in the discard pile. If you leave the Energy in your discard pile and your opponent Ionos you, you have more outs of drawing into another Superior Energy Retrieval (you play 4 of those) to get it back. If you keep the Energy in hand instead and your opponent Ionos you, you only have 1 Earthen Vessel (and the Energy Search Pro, if you haven't used it yet) to search it out.

• Don't attach Energy just because you have an unused attachment for the turn. You may need that Energy in hand to discard to Make It Rain, or to attach to the Gholdengo that's actually attacking (which can turn out to be very different from the one that you had originally intended to attack with the previous turn). Make it Rain only costs 1 Energy, so you don't have to commit Energy attachments to any Gholdengo ex until you're sure that you'll be attacking with that one!

First example: it's turn 1, you have a Gimmighoul Active and another Benched, and have 2 Gholdengo ex's ready for next turn. You might be tempted to attach a Metal Energy to your Active Gimmighoul, thinking that you're going to attack with it anyway.

Your draw for T2 turns out to be Air Balloon. Now you regret your earlier choice, as the best you can do is evolve both Gimmighouls, use Coin Bonus to draw 3 cards total, and attack with the Active Gholdengo ex.

If you had held the Metal Energy in hand instead, you could have evolved both Gimmighouls, used the Active's Coin Bonus for 2 cards, attached Air Balloon and retreated to the other Gholdengo ex, used Coin Bonus for 2 more cards, then attached Energy to that one and attacked (basically cashing in the Air Balloon for an extra card).

Second example: you preemptively attach Metal Energy to a Gholdengo ex that's not attacking this turn. Your opponent Bosses out a different Gholdengo ex with no Energy on it. Now you'll need to find another Metal Energy or Air Balloon to attack. If you had held the Metal Energy in hand instead, you could have just attached to whichever Gholdengo ex they Bossed out.

• Conversely, sometimes you do need to attach preemptively in order to make certain plays possible. One example is when you're planning to attack and use Munkidori's Ability in the same turn — since both your attacker and Munkidori need Energy on them, but you have no acceleration, you'll need to attach an Energy to either of them one turn before the attack. Another example is if you're planning to attack on T2 with non-ex Gholdengo: technically, you can skip your T1 Energy drop and still be able to attack with Gholdengo on T2, but if you hit both your T1 and T2 Energy attachments, you have more options available on T3: you can hard retreat into a Gholdengo ex and attack with it, or you can attach to Gholdengo yet again and use Surf Back.