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. 
欢迎回来，Cut or Tap 读者！Gholdengo ex 是我在 Journey Together 和 Destined Rivals 赛制中经常使用的套牌，随着我们期待 Black Bolt 和 White Flare，它似乎变得更好了。这些套装将于 7 月 18 日发布，将通过 Genesect ex 的发布为 Gholdengo 带来新的曙光。在本文的后面，我将深入探讨 Gholdengo 应该如何适应新系列的发布，但我认为首先查看迄今为止取得成功的各种 Gholdengo 列表是有意义的。

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. 
如果你读过 Jackson Ford 的文章「Deckbuilding for the Meta： Making a Better Deck for the Metagame」，这个 Gholdengo 的列表可能看起来很熟悉。如果你还没读过这篇文章，我强烈推荐这篇文章，因为它深入探讨了顶级玩家如何构组套牌来对抗特定的赛场主流。

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.
这个版本的 Gholdengo 特别有创新性，因为这副套牌还没有在 Prismatic Evolutions 赛制中取得成功，而 Gholdengo 之前主要和 Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR 和 Irida 一起玩。这份名单由 Xander Pero 驾驶，在欧洲国际锦标赛上获得第 3 名，仅关注 Gholdengo ex 作为攻击手。它利用 Radiant Greninja、Fezandipiti ex 和 Pokestop 的力量作为强大的引擎来建立 Gholdengo ex 并将 KO 链接在一起。

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.
所有版本的 Gholdengo 的一个共同目标是设置多个绘制能力口袋妖怪（通常至少两个 Gholdengo ex），并能够使用 Energy Search Pro 的强大功能立即响应 KO 高 HP 口袋妖怪。这是最初在套牌中普及 Technical Machine： Evolution 的 Gholdengo 列表，允许轻松设置多个 Gholdengo ex。在第 1 回合设置多个 Gholdengo ex 后，您已经拥有了攻击者，并且可以将 Gholdengo 的 Coin Bonus 与 Ciphermaniac 的 Codebreaking 相结合，以找到在下一回合击倒所需的剩余部分。

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.
此列表中的另一项创新是包含 Munkidori。由于 Dragapult 前任四处奔波，Munkidori 是 Gholdengo 的关键补充，以防止对两个 Gholdengo 前任轻松双 KO，有时还会在 Budew 上狙击免费奖品。

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).
这个版本的 Gholdengo 非常成功，在 EUIC 获得了一些现金投注，几周后 Lucas Xing 在温哥华地区赛上获得了第二名（打了几张牌与 EUIC 列表不同）。虽然 Gholdengo 在 EUIC 之前已经看到了一些零散的结果（在萨克拉门托和斯图加特地区赛中享有不错的人气），但该套牌从未见过这种程度的成功，并且总是更像是一个边缘选择。除了这个列表的主要特点之外，一副强大的 Gholdengo 套牌正在寻找强大的补充抓牌来设置多个 Gholdengo，或缓解您无法设置多个 Gholdengo 的情况（Radiant Greninja、Pokestop 和 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.
此外，一副强力的 Gholdengo 套牌需要在赛场主流中占据好位置。通常，这需要一些力量卡来使某些对决对您有利。在这种情况下，Lost Vacuum 对 Gardevoir 提供了强大的摇摆，而 Munkidori 和多个 Turo 教授的情景则对 Dragapult 提供了强大的摇摆。这种一致性和力量卡之间的平衡将继续成为未来 Gholdengo 列表中反复出现的主题。

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Journey Together Gholdengo
一起旅行 Gholdengo

With the recent rotation eliminating Radiant Greninja and Pokestop, two of Gholdengo’s best draw-support tools, people took multiple different approaches to building the deck in the Journey Together format. The most popular builds seemed to be including a thin line of Dudunsparce as a supplemental draw Pokemon that allowed for easier comebacks against Iono and more push to find early Gholdengos. At Atlanta, the first Regional Championships in the format, it became clear that Dudunsparce was not the best way to play Gholdengo, as the three top-placing Gholdengo decks chose not to play it. 
随着最近的轮换淘汰了 Radiant Greninja 和 Pokestop，这两个 Gholdengo 最好的抓牌支持工具，人们采取了多种不同的方法来构组 Journey Together 赛制的套牌。最受欢迎的构建似乎包括一条细线的 Dudunsparce 作为补充抽签口袋妖怪，这样可以更轻松地对 Iono 卷土重来，并更多地推动找到早期的 Gholdengos。在亚特兰大，这是该赛制的第一场区域冠军赛，很明显 Dudunsparce 并不是玩 Gholdengo 的最佳方式，因为排名靠前的三副 Gholdengo 套牌选择不玩它。

Bodhi Robinson piloted the above deck list to 9th place at Atlanta Regionals, focusing solely on Gholdengo ex very similarly to the way Xander Pero’s EUIC list chose not to play a secondary Stage 1 (VSTAR) line. The one big difference now is the lack of additional support from Radiant Greninja and Pokestop, as I mentioned before. In this format, the additional Stage 1 lines became an added consistency rather than a hindrance to consistency.
Bodhi Robinson 在亚特兰大地区赛上驾驶上述套牌列表获得第 9 名，只专注于 Gholdengo ex，这与 Xander Pero 的 EUIC 列表选择不使用次要第 1 阶段 （VSTAR） 线的方式非常相似。正如我之前提到的，现在的一大区别是缺乏来自 Radiant Greninja 和 Pokestop 的额外支持。在这种格式中，额外的第 1 阶段品系增加了一致性，而不是阻碍了一致性。

Bodhi’s list was interesting, however, because it tried to mitigate consistency losses by maximizing the counts of consistency supporters. With four Arven, four Ciphermaniac, and two Pokegear, this list has a fairly high chance at a quick TM: Evolution followed by a big KO on the next turn. While this seems perfect for a Gholdengo deck, without the additional dig of Pokestop and Radiant Greninja, the deck can run into some issues in the late game. When Dragapult decks go for a multi-KO on two Gholdengo ex combined with an Iono, it can be hard to piece together a response with only a single Gholdengo (two if you’re lucky) remaining to support your draw. Due to the inclusions of Hawlucha and Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, benching Fezandipiti ex against Dragapult can be a death sentence (allowing them to win a turn sooner), meaning even the best setups for you will lead to these late-game Iono plays where you will miss a KO a decent percentage of the time.
然而，Bodhi 的列表很有趣，因为它试图通过最大化一致性支持者的数量来减轻一致性损失。有四个 Arven、四个 Ciphermaniac 和两个 Pokegear，这个列表有相当高的机会快速 TM：进化，然后在下一回合大 KO。虽然这对于 Gholdengo 套牌来说似乎是完美的，但如果没有 Pokestop 和 Radiant Greninja 的额外挖掘，这套牌在游戏后期可能会遇到一些问题。当 Dragapult 套牌对两个 Gholdengo ex 和一个 Iano 进行多次 KO 时，很难拼凑出一个回应，只剩下一个 Gholdengo（如果你幸运的话，两个）来支持你的听牌。 由于包括 Hawlucha 和 Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex，让 Fezandipiti ex 对阵 Dragapult 可能是死刑（让他们更快地赢得一个回合），这意味着即使是最适合你的设置也会导致这些游戏后期的 Iono 比赛，你会错过相当大比例的 KO。

A much more interesting build of Gholdengo came out of Atlanta Regionals, however. Grant Manley piloted the above list of Gholdengo to 10th place at Atlanta, with Caleb Gedemer also placing in the Top 64 with the same 60. This list chose to use Drakloak, an underplayed secondary draw engine for Gholdengos at the time. Drakloak allowed for an additional Stage 1 draw Pokemon that could help to smooth out those late game situations where you need a lot of draw to secure a final KO after an opposing Iono. While Drakloak is great for building boards of four or five draw Pokemon, it also simply helps to cycle the deck in the early turns. Without Drakloak, TM: Evolution always becomes two Gholdengo ex. With Drakloak, it is typical to evolve into one Gholdengo ex and one Drakloak. You will have a Gholdengo to attack with, but also a Drakloak that can see more cards than an additional Gholdengo would. Sometimes it can even make sense to TM: Evolution to two Drakloak and keep to a single-prize board while continuing to draw cards with Recon Directive. 

Since the deck already has Drakloak for draw support and Fire and Psychic Energy to use with Energy Search Pro, it only makes sense to also include Dragapult ex. Grant’s list focuses pretty heavily on Dragapult ex, including two Crispin to power it up in a single turn, a Rescue Board to pivot into it from a Gholdengo (that likely had a Metal Energy already), two Counter Catchers, and two Ionos. Using Counter Catcher, Iono, and Phantom Dive at the end of a game can lead to some pretty sick comebacks, similar to those seen by Dragapult decks themselves. Having access to consistently power up Dragapult ex and use it can force decks like Raging Bolt and Flareon to hit a big combo off your Iono, or they will simply lose on the spot. In matchups like Gardevoir, Phantom Dive can also secure a couple prize cards at the end of the game, when your opponent has a low-HP Pokemon in play (like a heavily damaged Drifloon). 

Since the large Dragapult ex package takes up a lot of space, this list has a lot less room for “techs.” Dragapult ex serves as the list’s main power card, creating comebacks in so many situations rather than the deck trying to get ahead and stay ahead through other tech cards.

One tech card the deck does play is Vengeful Punch. Going into the new format, Tera Box saw a lot of hype and was expected to see a lot of play. Because of this, Vengeful Punch made sense as a way to break through Pikachu ex’s otherwise-unbreakable Resolute Heart ability.

Another consequence of including so many cards to help use Dragapult is the lack of space for other generally good cards. Grant’s list didn’t play Water Energy, limiting the strength of Energy Search Pro and often fully preventing Energy Search Pro from leading to a KO on a Dragapult ex without having another Metal, Darkness, or Psychic Energy at your disposal.

Another card that has always been a staple in Gholdengo, Ciphermaniac, is excluded from this list. Not playing Ciphermaniac severely damages Gholdengo’s consistency, not just at getting strong early boards and hitting the first KO, but also because you cannot play around Iono by using it to stack strong cards for the following turn. 

The week after Atlanta Regionals was Monterrey Regionals, where myself, Grant Shen, and a few others chose to play this list of Gholdengo Dragapult. Our list was a lot different from Grant Manley’s, removing a lot of the power cards surrounding Dragapult (both Crispin, Rescue Board, second Counter Catcher, second Iono, second Psychic Energy), to focus on improving the deck’s general consistency. With three Ciphermaniac and the full suite of energy types, we felt very confident against any Dragapult deck we encountered. Our plan was to set up a board of three Gholdengo, one Drakloak, one Munkidori with Darkness Energy, and maybe an additional Gholdengo or Drakloak if we had the luxury. Since Dragapult typically sat behind Budew for a while, using multiple TM: Evolution to achieve this board was fairly easy. With a board like this, it was easy to guarantee every KO by using Ciphermaniac at the end of turns to stack Superior Energy Retrievals or another Ciphermaniac on top of your deck. Water Energy also smoothed out the deck a ton, making it nearly impossible to miss the first KO on a Dragapult ex as long as you had a strong board, since any Arven or Ciphermaniac would become Energy Search Pro and find enough energy to take the KO. 

Cutting a lot of the Dragapult package also allowed for the inclusion of another tech card: Genesect. We decided to play Genesect for Monterrey as a tech for the mirror match. Getting down Genesect with Vengeful Punch and attacking with a Gholdengo ex makes it nearly impossible for your opponent to respond, since they cannot use their Energy Search Pro. After our success in Monterrey (I got 4th, Grant Shen got 5th), we expected others to adopt the Genesect and ended up cutting it for Milwaukee for another tech. Cutting the Genesect allowed us to cut the Vengeful Punch too, since Tera Box fell way down in popularity. These two slots gave us space for Jamming Tower, an extremely key tech against Gardevoir which was rising in play, and a second Earthen Vessel, a way to find energies under opposing Genesects. With these changes, I ended up placing 15th at Milwaukee Regionals. At Milwaukee, Raging Bolt and Flareon were both decently successful, creating an overall hostile environment for the list since those matchups were often reliant on setting up Dragapult and hoping for a whiff from the opponent.

Destined Rivals Gholdengo Dragapult

The 2026 season is right around the corner, with League Cups and League Challenges officially kicking off on July 1st! Since Black Bolt and White Flare won’t be out at the beginning of July, there is still some Pokemon left to be played in the Destined Rivals format that debuted at NAIC.

Grant Shen and I both played the above list of Gholdengo Dragapult to NAIC. The list is extremely similar to the one we had played previously, with the only changes being cutting the 2nd Vessel and 2nd Ultra Ball from our Milwaukee list for a 2nd Pokegear and a Team Rocket’s Venture Bomb. With Raging Bolt on the rise, having more consistency in the form of Pokegear rather than Ultra Ball made sense, because Pokegear can access Boss in addition to Arven and Ciphermaniac. Many of the games this deck wins against Raging Bolt come from an early TM: Evolution into two Drakloak turning into a Counter Catcher KO after the Raging Bolt player takes the first prize card. If they proceed to take another prize with a single-prizer, you will need to find Boss on the next turn to take two prize cards and keep up in the prize race. 

The Rocket’s Bomb is a more unique inclusion, however I still stand by it being the right choice in the deck. Raging Bolt and Flareon are this deck’s main problematic matchups, with some other more fringe decks like Ethan’s Typhlosion, Ethan’s Ho-Oh, and Ceruledge also being scary. The Rocket’s Bomb covers multiple of these issues in a single card. Against Raging Bolt, things often end up with you falling behind and relying on a Phantom Dive + Iono or even a Jet Headbutt + Iono KO on a Hoothoot. Rocket’s Bomb can become a flip to take a prize and eliminate an opposing Hoothoot, oftentimes either ending the game with a three-prize turn or making it a lot less likely your opponent can combo together a win (by KOing a lone Hoothoot).

Against Flareon, Rocket’s Bomb can do an even cooler trick. Typically, Flareon decks will take the first prize, playing into a three-prize Briar at the end of the game. Ideally you can attach a Metal Energy every turn to a Gimmighoul or Gholdengo, allowing you a leftover attachment at the end of the game for Munkidori. After your opponent has taken three prize cards, rather than going down to two prizes and losing to Briar, you can hit a Flareon ex for 250 with Gholdengo. On the following turn, you will be able to use the Rocket’s Bomb (combined with Munkidori if it flips a tails) to KO that Flareon ex and then Counter Catcher or Boss to bring in another two-prize Pokemon and finish off the game.

These aren’t the only uses for Rocket’s Bomb either. It can be used to finish off a Drifloon or Scream Tail against Gardevoir, or fix Phantom Dive math in random awkward situations. 

Black Bolt and White Flare Gholdengo Genesect

With the release of Black Bolt and White Flare, two new key cards are available for Gholdengo: Genesect ex and Air Balloon. Genesect ex is used for its ability Metal Signal, searching for up to two Metal type evolution Pokemon and putting them into your hand. This allows Gholdengo to rely less on TM: Evolution to find multiple Gholdengo ex quickly, since Genesect ex can be found with Nest Ball and instantly finds two Gholdengo ex. With Genesect ex, Gholdengo needs to be built around a heavier Nest Ball engine, similar to how it was built when Radiant Greninja was around–except Genesect ex is even stronger than Radiant Greninja in the early game.

The other new card that provides a lot of value is Air Balloon. Air Balloon is a reprint Pokemon Tool that gives the Pokemon it is attached to two less retreat cost. Air Balloon is great with Gholdengo, providing a free pivot between two Gholdengo ex and multiple extra cards from Coin Bonus over the course of every game. Having multiple Air Balloon supplements draw and also mitigates a lot of the need for Switch and Professor Turo’s Scenario. While Turo’s is still strong to remove a large amount of damage from a Gholdengo, the need for Switch is completely eliminated by adding multiple Air Balloons.

These two lists placed 10th and 11th at the most recent Japan Championships, both capitalizing on the power of Genesect ex and Air Balloon. Since Genesect provides a lot of support and allows for the ease of setting up 3-4 Gholdengo every game, both lists have foregone the inclusion of Drakloak as supplemental draw. Air Balloon also provides some additional draw, as I mentioned before.

With the space gained from cutting out the Drakloak line and TM: Evolutions, these lists include Scizor as a single-prize attacker that can do big damage without lots of energy and offset the prize trade. The prize offset can be particularly good against Raging Bolt. Even if you fall behind early, you can go into Scizor to take a KO and use it again if they gust around it to force back-to-back gust KOs. Sometimes with Turo’s you can even get to full single-prize boards.

Another big plus for Scizor comes against the new Jellicent ex. Since Jellicent shuts off Item cards, it can be nice to have an attacker that can do large amounts of damage without needing Superior Energy Retrieval to get back large amounts of energy. The 10th place list plays Levincia as another way to retrieve energy under Item lock, while the 11th place list opts for multiple Team Rocket’s Watchtower to turn off the abilities of Raging Bolt’s Squawkabilly ex and Noctowls. I personally still like Artazon as a way to continue to find Gimmighouls and Munkidori under Item lock (typically I like to search it out with Ciphermaniac when I am drawing slow), but it may not be as strong without any Dreepys to be searched out and more Nest Balls to find basics on Turn 1.

Here is my current list for Gholdengo for the upcoming Black Bolt and White Flare format. I have chosen to cut Scizor because the Raging Bolt matchup should be fairly easy if you open with a single-prize Pokemon. As long as you can get multiple Gimmighoul, you have a high chance of accessing a Counter Catcher KO for two prizes on Turn 2, with Genesect providing so much consistency compared to the previous Drakloak version of Gholdengo. With these spaces, I have also added a couple Pokegear to ensure access to Arven early on, Boss in the midgame, and Turo’s whenever it is necessary.

I have chosen not to play any Stadiums in this list, which is not great against Jamming Tower since Air Balloon will be shut off. However, with two Turo’s and two Pokegear, it should be fairly easy to remove Genesect ex from play at some point and leave yourself with a board of only Gholdengo ex and other one-retreat Pokemon. This list is very bare bones, but with seemingly favorable matchups against Dragapult, Gardevoir, and Raging Bolt, it should get the job done.

The one new inclusion I have made is Iron Bundle, working very well with opposing Artazons to get around Jellicent’s Item lock very easily. This list is very gust-heavy in general, with three Boss to easily access Item cards against Jellicent and two Counter Catcher to keep up against Raging Bolt as I mentioned before. A Boss, Counter Catcher, or Iron Bundle is definitely cuttable and could end up going towards a Stadium slot if Jamming Tower becomes more popular.

I have also chosen to keep around one TM: Evolution to allow for quick evolutions against Dragapult in particular, since they cannot really punish you for having Gholdengos out on Turn 1 like Raging Bolt can. TM: Evolution helps set up when getting hit with Itchy Pollen, since you won’t be able to Nest Ball for Genesect ex if you didn’t find it on Turn 1.

In terms of scary matchups, Flareon and other fire-type decks are obviously a lot more scary for this list than the Dragapult list, since you have no good comeback potential without Phantom Dive. A Scizor could maybe help this matchup, but with no placements at Japan Championships, I am not too worried about Flareon at the moment. Grimmsnarl is another matchup that gets a bit scarier without Dragapult, since evolving into it as an alternate attacker is often nice. However, three Boss is great at taking down Froslass, which typically puts you in a good spot against Grimsnarl. If this matchup ends up being popular, it may be worth adding a second Munkidori, Picnic Basket, or Luxurious Cape as a way to play around TM: Devolution better. Levincia and another Lightning Energy could also be good to prevent any sneaky Budew-locks at the end of games.

Conclusion

Based on the meta and results from the recent Japan Championships, it looks like Gholdengo will be in a great spot for the World Championships this year. While the list in this article is just an initial build of the deck with Genesect ex and Air Balloon, I think it is a fairly good skeleton and has lots of space to include other tech cards if they end up being necessary.

Thank you to everyone for reading, and if you have any further questions, feel free to DM me on X @MeMaanhc!