You guys really wanna see a Gholdengo deck. I am but your humble servant. Gholdengo ain’t humble though. With 120 HP, his Scintillating Surfing attack will have you flipping a coin for each steel type energy attached onto him.

Today’s deck is what I believe to be the most optimal way of playing Gholdengo. We combine the greediest pokemon with the most selfless. Dialga allows us to ramp 2 steel type energy onto Gholdengo, which we can proceed to build up as high as possible so that no matter our foe, Gholdgengo will obliterate them. This pokemon combination is a given, the question is…

What Trainer card distributions are best suited for this tactic?

The answer is to go all in on enhancing our resilience. We run 2 copies of Giant Cape, one potion and a full set of Adaman. It’s the first time we play Adaman on the channel, and it’s not because we’re trying to be edgy here. Giant Cape plus Adaman allow Gholdengo to survive key attacks in the meta, such as a Rampaging Whirlpool from Gyarados, a chaotic impact from Giratina plus a Darkrai ping, and all kinds of other high end hits.

In order to consistently ramp with Dialga as fast as possible, we run 2 copies of X Speed and one Leaf, to correct our Gimmighoul openers and metallic turbo right away. One copy of Dawn can allow us to set up a surprise Heavy Impact and then there’s Mars. I’ve always said Mars should be a staple for Dialga decks. Oftentimes our Dialga will remain in the front, ramping endlessly until taken down, and then Mars will proceed to delete our opponent’s hand, leaving them with just 1 card. Which strips them from key endgame supporter cards.

This deck may be rough on the heart at times, but it’ll get that dopamine release like nothing else.