Thus far, the Gouging Fire ex deck hasn’t yet had much time in the spotlight in Pokémon TCG tournament play. Apart from an upset victory at the Thailand Regional League Vol. 3 in March 2024, players using this deck haven’t really achieved much of note to date. However, this could very well be set to change. Thanks to recent metagame shifts, several Pokémon TCG analysts have picked out the Gouging Fire ex deck as one that’s about to rise to prominence—just in time for the World Championships in August.

This deck makes much use of Energy ramping via Magma Basin from Star Birth [S9] as well as Professor Sada’s Vitality from Ancient Roar [SV4K]. This allows the deck’s titular card—another Ancient Roar [SV4K] card—to rapidly power up Blaze Blitz, an attack that strikes for a massive 260 damage for just three Energy cards.

Also featuring prominently in this deck are Switch Cart and Jet Energy, both switch cards from Time Gazer [S10D] and Triplet Beat [SV1a] respectively. Switch cards are important to the deck because Blaze Blitz can’t be reused until Gouging Fire ex has left and re-entered the Active Spot. Iron Valiant ex, a card from Future Flash [SV4M] which is also among the deck’s main attackers, benefits from the switch cards as well because its Ability of Tachyon Bits comes into effect when it’s switched into the Active Spot.

Buying all the cards in the Gouging Fire ex deck has a cumulative cost of at least 6,540 JPY (~US$41).

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