Seeing Gouging Fire when it first released did not make waves in the National Dex community; other new Pokemon at the moment like Raging Bolt, Iron Boulder, and other mainstays like Zamazenta and Ogerpon-Wellspring overshadowed Gouging Fire for a while. Overtime though, and especially after the banning of Zamazenta, Gouging Fire skyrocketed in popularity with its Dragonium Z set, along with having some respectable results with its other Booster Energy and Bulky Dragon Dance sets. To see why Gouging Fire is being suspected during the start of NDPL and the middle of other tournaments, let's dive into Gouging Fire in the National Dex OU metagame and see what caused it to be under the forbidden spotlight.Evidently, Gouging Fire when you pull it up in the teambuilder is an offensive threat in National Dex that should have quite the amount of respect. Good Attack, acceptable speed tier, and then you see one of the best bulk spreads that has been seen on a viable offensive Pokemon. After that you can see how it can get out of control with the aforementioned traits along with all of the boosts that can be given to its already solid power output; Dragonium Z in particular, being the most egregious case. With Dragon Dance, Flare Blitz, Outrage, and Earthquake equipped with Dragonium Z, there is no reliable pivot into Gouging Fire that can consistently check it over the course of a game. Landorus-T, Garganacl, Ting-Lu, and Great Tusk are a few of these Pokemon that are obliterated by a boosted Devastating Drake, or even heavily chipped by an unboosted one. Its great natural bulk allows it to set up in the faces of revenge killers such as Urshifu-R, Mega Lopunny, and Iron Valiant, exacerbating the annoyance that is offensively forcing out a Gouging Fire since there are only a few Pokemon who can achieve that task. Alternative sets that Gouging Fire can use work well, but are not as consistent as Dragonium Z; the sets being Booster Energy and a Bulky Dragon Dance set. Booster Energy gives Gouging Fire a boost to its Attack stat and the choice of an offensive or defensive Tera. Particularly, Tera Dragon is often used and it eviscerates nearly any potential stopgap to it when boosted and paired with Outrage, albeit being revenge killed by the likes of Tapu Lele, Iron Valiant, and Mega Diancie easier. When it comes to defensive Tera types, Fairy or Flying were often used to stifle the attempts of trading with Pokemon such as Raging Bolt, Garchomp, Landorus-T, and opposing Gouging Fire. Bulky Dragon Dance sets are used with Tera Steel or Poison to prevent being poisoned by Alomomola and Gliscor. The latter would often struggle to beat it 1v1 due to the investment in its bulk, and along with performing well into a majority of other defensive Pokemon it still holds its own against more offensive Pokemon because of the potential it has live most relevant powerful attacks when it capitalizes in its great bulk.
The many traits of Gouging Fire do not come without flaws, however. The coveted Dragonium Z set has some resource management to be done, as while it can heavily damage or potential OHKO a would-be check, the issue of using it too early or too late in the course of a game when sequences come up where using Devastating Drake is important can cause some issues with the sweeping attempts of the set. Along with this, Booster Energy sets can be much more easily stifled than Dragonium Z due to the fact that when its forced out, it cannot obtain the Protosynthesis boost again (unless triggered under Sun) and as such, Gouging Fire does not exert much pressure after that. The ye-olde tale of having a Stealth Rock weakness can prevent its bulk from showing, and having an easier time revenge killing it with offensive Pokemon such as Urshifu-R and Iron Valiant. And lastly, often times a defensive Tera is used by the likes of Raging Bolt, Landorus-T, and Heatran on a Gouging Fire about to spiral out of control, letting them trade with the Pokemon and handling it a little more comfortably. The defensive counterplay it can break through; for example, Landorus-T, is capable of beating it if unboosted. If the contrary applies, the chances are significantly less in Landorus-T's favor.
Henceforth, due to the many absurd feats Gouging Fire has and the consistent results its puts up in tournament and ladder games alike along with the general discourse about it, the National Dex OU council has decided to let a suspect be held about the Burning Bulwark™ himself.
- Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE will suffice.
- The table for this can be found below:
GXE minimum games 80 50 80.2 49 80.4 48 80.6 47 80.8 46 81 45 81.2 44 81.4 43 81.6 42 81.8 41 82 40 82.2 39 82.4 38 82.6 37 82.8 36 83 35 83.2 34 83.4 33 83.6 32 83.8 31 84 30
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is incredibly unhealthy. Spending more time playing bullkier teams I realized it could take just one turn and its lights out. When we look at defensive counterplay a few mons come to mind we think 
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which people tend to leave in on goug because the opposition tries to use it as set up bait so more times than not the ferrothorn user stays in and clicks twave just to potentially remove this massive threat. Morning sun sets also stifles any attempts of offensive counterplay such as a scarf 
provided it selects the right Tera. Ultimately it comes down to looking at what 
