[Update 4 Dec 2024] After a long time out of the spotlight, the Gholdengo ex deck has begun to make a comeback thanks to a new variant that includes the Togekiss card from Super Electric Breaker [SV8]. Togekiss’ Ability of Wonder Kiss gives the player a 50-50 chance of taking an extra Prize card after scoring a KO on the opposing Active Pokémon.

By adding Togekiss, this deck makes up for its rather limited spread damage capabilities and damage output—the main issues which had been holding it back until now. With a third-place finish at the Sacramento Regionals and two top-10 finishes at the Stuttgart Regionals, the early results speak for themselves.

[Update 18 Apr 2024] A new variant of this deck has begun to make the rounds on the Pokémon TCG tournament circuit. This variant makes use of the Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR card from the Space Juggler [S10P] set.

Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR’s Star Portal, its VSTAR Power, can either be used to load up its own Subspace Swell attack or the Moonlight Shuriken attack of the Radiant Greninja card from Battle Region [S9a], allowing for serious damage to be dealt in a hurry.

In general, the Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR variant is more offensively-oriented than the OG.

At first glance, the Gholdengo ex deck might not seem to be the most formidable. However, a deeper dive reveals that this deck is more than capable of mixing it with the very best of them. The concept of the deck is not to overwhelm the opponent with sheer power—but instead by way of hand optimization.

The Gholdengo ex card from the Raging Surf [SV3a] expansion set has the Ability Coin Bonus which allows players to draw an additional card once per turn—or two if Gholdengo ex is in the Active Spot. While this may initially seem to provide just a slight advantage, the synergy it forms with other cards in this deck is extremely impressive.

Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking, a Supporter card from Cyber Judge [SV5M], gives the player the chance to change the order of the cards to be drawn by placing any two cards from the deck on top of it. By playing this Supporter card before using the Coin Bonus, a player will be able to obtain the exact card(s) needed for the situation.

Finally, Stadium card PokéStop from the Pokémon GO [S10b] expansion set lets a player discard the top three cards of the deck once per turn—but add any Item cards that would’ve been discarded by doing so to the hand. Thus, by using Coin Bonus to put an Item card on top of the deck beforehand, PokéStop’s effect can be used to immediately retrieve that Item card. All things considered, this deck is the epitome of the expression “death by a thousand cuts”.

Buying every card in a Gholdengo ex deck costs a minimum of ¥8,000 (~US$53).

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