Gouging Fire has been one of the strongest Pokemon in SV OU since being released with DLC2! It was previously suspected in March here in what can only be described as a thread of all time, but half a year later and Gouging Fire's role in the metagame has evolved significantly. Before people who were pro-ban say "I told you so" or people who were anti-ban get all defensive, let's take a deep dive into Gouging Fire in the metagame and notice how much has truly shifted.
SV OU has been adapting with some of the most consistent and effective players being versatile, active, and open-minded while more stagnant players have struggled. Gouging Fire is a testament to this: the Breaking Swipes variant picked apart counterplay, but then people began running more durable counterplay and timely Tera Fairy to dwarf it. After a few months, we now have an even wider array of Gouging Fire sets that lack consistent counterplay, pushing it back into suspect territory after receiving overwhelming support recently on the forums and in a survey of OLT qualifiers, which will have results posted later this week. For reference, Gouging Fire is at approximately 4.5 / 5 on the survey so far, which would be the highest of any suspect this generation. This suspect will be used to determine if players who get voting requirements believe Gouging Fire has sufficient counterplay in the metagame or not factoring in all possibilities.
There is a variety of Gouging Fire sets in SV OU, but before the Breaking Swipes DD variant and the Sun Choice Band set were focused on. After some growth, Booster Energy sets have taken the conversation by storm. Other sets like bulkier DD and all-out breaking variants on Sun are still strong, but the mix between them and Booster Energy sets, which are far from predictable, proves troublesome. Gouging Fire has run Booster Energy to make it very strong, improving its attack to be strong even without a DD, alongside a number of offensive and defensive Tera options. Poison, Ghost, and Fairy are all great defensive options while the latter can even be parlayed with Tera Blast to demolish Zamazenta, Great Tusk, Ting Lu, and others while Ground or either STAB can allow for it to become a timely wrecking ball. Obviously certain Pokemon can limit Gouging Fire such as Dondozo if it is not Tera Dragon, Toxic Gliscor if it is not Tera Poison, Iron Defense + Roar Zamazenta if it is not Tera Fairy/Ghost, set-up Garganacl if it is not Covert Cloak or timely Tera Ground/Dragon, etc., but almost every check or counter comes with a very realistic contingency that is challenging to account for.
Perhaps counterplay in the conventional sense is no longer applicable to a metagame with such power creep offensively and defensively, especially when compounded with Tera. However, many prominent Pokemon do not pack such an immediate punch and permit teams to run multiple soft-checks to cover the spectrum of possibilities. Zamazenta is able to circumvent most individual counterplay with the right Tera and moves, but it is very possible for a team to be two or three deep on possible checks, thus making it a more competitive fight in some instances. You may have Tera Dark Crunch for Gholdengo or Slowking-Galar, but miss out on Heavy Slam for Clefable and Iron Valiant, Substitute for status, or Roar for various boosting wars -- the point is that you are oftentimes able to escape trouble without derailing all of your resources if you get ahead of things and are sufficiently prepared. Some still view this as a problem, and that is fair, but some would also argue that Gouging Fire takes this dynamic to a greater extreme than anything else in the tier due to how punishing it can be initially and the snowball potential. If you lack something like Dondozo and get the initial sequence wrong, it can very easily be game over!
Conversely, many people pointed out last suspect how much of a resource hog Gouging Fire can be and how many potential checks there are to it, often leading to game states where users committing to a Gouging Fire line end up cornered. It is true that Gouging Fire uses Tera a dispraportionate amount of the time when trying to sweep or even play defensive stopper on specific builds. In addition, you can find multiple checks to every individual variant of Gouging Fire within the metagame. The main questions here are if the counterplay overall is sufficient and numerous to make gameplay strategic, teambuilding varied, and the metagame competitively stimulaiting.
source
