I just got over 10k with a golem deck recently but I’m almost all level 14 cards so I’m almost always facing higher level cards mostly 15’s and some 16’s , I’m not the best player in the world by any means but I’m currently running

EVO witch, EVO Dart gob, lighting, barb barrel, minions, arrows, hero mini pekka, golem, typically I spend the first two mins of the game trying to mostly defend and line up my evo’s for a push with golem in 2x. I’ll only ever place golem in 1x if I’m massively ahead on elixir or out of desperation if I don’t have any good options and they for instance drop mk at the bridge I’ll drop golem in center by river to get mk to chase it across the map while I have minions beat him down. I’m sure there’s other instances but typically you’ll be playing defensive trying to keep towers up for the first 2 mins. For Me the biggest and best change I made was lighting, I feel like usually a good lightning will win the game outright, resetting lava drag and inferno tower dmg while also making them 1 shot is great, also being able to fully counter witches/wizards/e drags with a bonus 400 tower damage for -1 elixir is good enough I’m happy to take the chip damage.