Gouging Fire ex, the Best Aggro Deck in Format

Hello everybody! It’s Gabriel Semedo again with another article, and today, I’m going to talk about Gouging Fire ex , the best aggressive deck in format for the metagame I expect in the coming weeks.

With the recent arrival of Twilight Masquerade, Dragapult ex and Raging Bolt ex / Teal Mask Ogerpon ex have seen a lot of hype. Dragapult ex generates a lot of interest because, in addition to its attack being very good, it has previously been successful in Japan. There are two variants of Dragapult ex, and in both, the objective is the same: attacking with Dragapult ex consistently, simple as that. In both the Xatu variant and the Pidgeot ex / Neo Upper Energy variant, the main challenge is to meet the Energy cost for the Phantom Dive attack. It’s still not 100% clear which is the best way to play Dragapult ex, and, moreover, the archetype as a whole has yet to fully carve out its niche as the format’s new S-tier deck, a position recently vacated by Charizard ex.

Raging Bolt / Ogerpon ended up generating more hype than Dragapult ex itself in the first few weeks after the release of Twilight Masquerade, as the deck’s consistent engine combined with the ability to OHKO any Pokémon from the first turn showed incredible potential. Both decks will probably remain Tier 1 until Worlds, but I don’t think they will be the undisputed best decks, as I believe that older archetypes, like Lugia VSTAR and Gardevoir ex, are still up there at the top. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that the format’s newest contenders will have a significant impact on the metagame. One of the best decks of the past format, Charizard ex, has already all but disappeared.

Recently, I was thinking about all these changes to the metagame, and, after analyzing some tournament results, I came to the conclusion that Gouging Fire ex could be a great pick going forward. In the current format, there are at least four good aggressive decks. All of them can hit hard on the first turn with a Pokémon ex, and all of them have been successful at big tournaments in Japan. Much of this is due to the decline of Charizard ex.

Miraidon ex got three Top 16 placements at a tournament with 2,744 players in Japan. Gouging Fire was also present in the same Top 16. At the 2,078-player Japan Nationals, Turbo Roaring Moon, the same one I wrote about recently, made the Top 8. And, finally, Raging Bolt / Ogerpon appeared in both the Top 4 and the finals of the same Nationals.

There is clearly a niche in the metagame for this style of deck, and I believe that Gouging Fire can beat the other three with this list. I also believe that only Miraidon ex and Gouging Fire can go head to head with Lugia VSTAR, which is another important niche that sets Gouging Fire apart.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

If you'd like to continue reading, consider purchasing a PokeBeach premium membership! If you're not completely satisfied with your membership, you can request a full refund within 30 days.

Each week we post high-quality content from some of the game's top players. Our article program isn't a corporate operation, advertising front, or for-profit business. We set our prices so that we can pay the game's top players to write the best content for our subscribers. Each article topic is carefully selected, goes through multiple drafts, and is touched up by our editors. We take great pride in our program!