Gholdengo ex Return of the King

Gholdengo :) Made with lots of community edits and things, my list has gone through the ringer lol. Bottom of the description box is the latest card update with notes and explanations as to why.

Prefer to go second to set up as much as possible. Dudunsparce ex for Terabox + Mimikyu. Runaway Draw > Artazon to put the Dunsparce back out is nice. Levincia makes swinging into single prizers not awful. Rather aggressive list, you're basically brute forcing your way through matchups. Feels good when

Gholdengo :) Made with lots of community edits and things, my list has gone through the ringer lol. Bottom of the description box is the latest card update with notes and explanations as to why.

Prefer to go second to set up as much as possible. Dudunsparce ex for Terabox + Mimikyu. Runaway Draw > Artazon to put the Dunsparce back out is nice. Levincia makes swinging into single prizers not awful. Rather aggressive list, you're basically brute forcing your way through matchups. Feels good when it works. Bricks sometimes, but what deck doesn't in the early 2025 meta.. (pult..........)Feedback welcome, changes will be documented as I adjust and tinker.

Deck is listed as Expanded because pokemoncard.io hasn't updated Levincia and Dudunsparce ex to Standard. Also, url has an outdated name in it lol, don't pay attention to that teehee :3c

2/18 Edits:

-1 Iron Bundle (Paradox Rift)
-1 Buddy-Buddy Poffin (Temporal Forces)
-1 Gimmighoul (Surging Sparks) 
+1 Arven (Scarlet & Violet) 
+1 Jamming Tower (Twilight Masquerade) 
+1 Gimmighoul (Paradox Rift) 

I don't think Hyper Blower is necessary with 2 Boss's, and I definitely don't think 4 Buddy-Buddy is necessary. Jamming tower will be a nice tech against Pult and other tools coming out, and an extra Arven is always nice. Adding another Continuous Coin Toss in case of emergency against item lock. I don't really have the room for a dedicated second attacker in here, so I think this is an okay trade-off, to always have one in the pocket.

2/20 Update:

Remove:
-1 Lana's Aid (Twilight Masquerade) 
-1 Budew (Prismatic Evolutions) 
-1 Togekiss (Surging Sparks) 

Add:
+1 Duskull (Shrouded Fable)
+1 Dusclops (Shrouded Fable)
+1 Dusknoir (Shrouded Fable)

I think this needs another way to put some damage down. Not overly so, but I think being aggressive with Togekiss is fine. Being able to save 1-2 energy on an attack is nice, but also potentially drawing a few cards off of Wonder Kiss while your turn is still going is cool too. I'm not sure if the 1-1-1 Duskull line is the way to do this, but we'll see I suppose.

3/6 Update:

Remove:
-2 Togepi (Obsidian Flames)
-1 Togekiss (Surging Sparks)
-1 Rare Candy (Scarlet & Violet)

Add:
+2 Dunsparce (Prismatic Evolutions)
+2 Dudunsparce (Prismatic Evolutions)

I didn't want to have to do it 😭 I love Togekiss so much, Wonder Kiss is such a fun ability, but I think the deck is going to need some serious help drawing after losing Rad Greninja... I think the Dudunsparce engine works a little too well in this deck, due to it cycling back on itself so much, PLUS Dunsparce has no retreat cost, AND it clears its own bench space to give you more options... This also gives you alternative draws to pick up your Ciphermaniac cards. Goodbye Togekiss.... you were dearly beloved for so long. I'll figure out another WK deck I promise...

3/10 Edit:

Forgot to update the name now that the egg isn't in here...

Also thinking of only running 1 Exchange ticket and 1 of the new Dudunsparce ex from JT for use against Tera box, but I can't add those yet so same goes. Irida and Greninja will be replaced by 1 ticket and 1 Dudunsparce ex.

3/31 Edit:

-1 Iono (Paldea Evolved)
-1 Irida (Astral Radiance)
-1 Radiant Greninja (Astral Radiance)
+1 Professor Turo's Scenario (Paradox Rift)
+1 Dudunsparce ex (Journey Together)
+1 Redeemable Ticket (Journey Together)

Updated for post rotation, will re-categorize once rotation happens.

I took the Iono out in favor of Turo because very rarely do I want to use it. I think over like 30 games I used it maybe once. Turo is great though.

4/2 Edit:

-1 Technical Machine: Evolution (Paradox Rift)
+1 Gholdengo (Surging Sparks)

Aggressive cut here to give me an additional answer to Budew and Mimikyu (Paldean Fates). Dunno if this is the answer but we'll see. Need to playtest more.

4/6 Edit:

-1 Duskull (Shrouded Fable)
-1 Dusknoir (Shrouded Fable)
-1 Dusclops (Shrouded Fable)
-1 Rare Candy (Scarlet & Violet)
+1 Munkidori (Twilight Masquerade)
+1 Basic Darkness Energy (Scarlet & Violet Energies)
+1 Levincia (Journey Together)
+1 Basic Lightning Energy (Scarlet & Violet Energies)

I think Duskull is a little too slow, all things considered. Munkidori won't always be effective, but atp it's a single prizer and also discard fodder. Its potential to bring an attack requirement down by 1 energy is pretty massive though. With the space, the extra darkness, an extra lightning, and a Levincia really helps with bad energy prizing (but without ESP in prizes, so you don't really want to Ticket), and being able to pull 100 damage out of the discard is absolutely fantastic. SER + Levincia is 300 damage and that cannot be understated, along with reducing resources needed to pull energy out of discard, and make swinging on single prizers feel less punishing. I haven't really felt pressured about energy counts and SERs/Night Stretchers since making this addition.

4/14 Edit:

-1 Jamming Tower (Twilight Masquerade)
-1 Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking (Temporal Forces)
-1 Gholdengo (Surging Sparks)
-1 Fezandipiti ex (Shrouded Fable)
-1 Professor Turo's Scenario (Paradox Rift)
-3 Dunsparce (Temporal Forces)
-1 Basic Darkness Energy

+3 Dunsparce (Paldea Evolved)
+1 Levincia (Journey Together)
+1 Artazon (Paldea Evolved)
+1 Buddy-Buddy Poffin (Temporal Forces)
+1 Switch (Scarlet & Violet)
+1 Arven (Scarlet & Violet)
+1 Dudunsparce (Prismatic Evolutions)

Major changes here.

Levincia is really good. Prioritizing that.
Deprioritizing Munkidori. It's good, but not relevant enough in every matchup to beget 2 energies for it.
Fewer Cipher and max Arven for fetchables with no draw on board.
Max Buddy-Buddy for establishing.
Artazon is also good for doing Runaway Draw > Artazon to put Dunsparce back on the field.
Losing Jamming tower sucks, but it's too defensive/conservative. Go really just wants to beat face.
Switch instead of Turo for similar reasons, fetchable + usable in the same turn to get whatever out of the active.
Removed Fez because genuinely, it's just a liability, and you don't always need the cards that bad.
3-3 Dunsparce + Dudunsparce for consistency's sake.

7/23 Edit:

Just redo the whole thing get rid of all of it because GO IS BACK BABEY NO MORE CRYING, WE ARE CONSISTENT AGAIN WAHOOOOOOO

not even documenting the changes because basically the whole deck got restructured.