The rise of Charizard

Finally! After 20 years or so, us Charizard fams (myself included) got what we have hoped for, a good Charizard card! Now granted, I did think the previous Charizard from Dragon Majesty was also good but the awkward every cost made it impossible, resorting to the likes of a Wishful Baton play or even an Alolan Marowak to attach energy.

This new Charizard from Team Up however, isn't plauged with ridiculous energy costs. Sure it still needs 2 Fire Energy to attack but here's the best part, you don't even beed to do that thanks to it's ability! And that's just one of the many upsides (and a few downs) of the new Charizard card.

The initial hype (and some maths)
On the 14th of November 2018, Pokebeach released an article on a new Charizard (along with Blastoise and Erika's Hospitality) coming in the Japanese Tag Bolt set (our Team Up set). Sure enough I took one look at it and I was sold, sharing it with all of friends, "this will see play". I was so certain of it I made it my mission to make it playable. It was quite rare to see one of my favourite Pokemon having a playable card and for there to be 2 in Team Up (the other being Hitmonlee), I was hyped.

Charizard's ability Roaring Resolve allows you to put 2 damage counter once during your turn on it, and if you do, you may search for up to 2 Fire Energy cards and attach them to Charizard. Still not convinced?

Charizard's attack Continuous Blaze Ball does 30 damage +50 more damage or each Fire energy you discard (at the cost of discarding all fire energy attached to Charizard). Let's do the maths shall we?

• For 2 Fire Energy, you are doing 130 damage. With a choice band, you are doing 160 damage.
• For 3 Fire Energy, you are doing 180 damage. With a choice band, you are doing 210 damage.
• For 4 Fire Energy, you are doing 230 damage. With a choice band, you are doing 260 damage.
• For 5 Fire Energy, you are doing 280 damage. With a choice band, you are doing 310 damage. And so on...

The numbers actually add up quite nicely against some of the main attackers you'd expect to run into the format right now. 130 damage will KO the likes of Buzzwole, Zapdos and Giratina. With a choice band and a well timed Shrine of Punishment, you could even knock out the likes of Tapu Lele-GX and Tapu Koko-GX, both with 170hp.

The likes of Blacephalon-GX, Dawn Wings Necrozma-GX, Volcanion Prism will fall with 3 energy attachment (2 from ability, one from hand). With the help of Shrine, Ultra Necrozma-GX, Zeraora-GX and Buzzwole-GX will all fall to Charizard. If that Shrine had been around for a few more turns, even the likes of Lycanroc-GX, Zoroark-GX and Alolan Ninetales-GX will get knocked out, some of them will with 3 attachments and a choice band.

But then there's the problem of the Tag Team GXes or Stage 2 GXes. No worries, if you were able to get 4 energy attachment on Charizard, Gardevoir-GX with it's 230 hp is going down. The likes of Pikachu & Zekrom-GX and Gengar & Mimikyu-GX will go down after one hit from Shrine, and those Pokemon with a chuck of HPs like the new Solgaleo-GX, Tyranitar-GX, and even Eevee & Snorlax-GX (with some help from Shrine) will go down with 4 attachments and choice band! So yes, almost every Pokemon can get knocked out by Charizard. Oh and I forgot to mention any Steel or Grass types as Charizard is a Fire type, two attachment is usually more than enough for them.

Oh but what about Magikarp & Wailord-GX you say, with it's almighty 300 hp? I myself thought that was an impossible task but, spoiler alert, even that can go down with a few new tricks I picked up for the deck that I discovered in one of my latest Pokebeach tournament round matches. 

Theorymon
Now with all that out of the way, now comes my favourite part, trying to build the deck itself. The fact that Charizard was it's own energy accelerator helps a lot, as some decks will need an accelrator to go with it's big attacker (think Rayquaza-GX with Vikavolt or Ultra Necrozma-GX with Malamar). Also, who should Charizard be paired with and how many energy was the right amount?

I had a few names of the top of my head that I wanted to include in the deck:

• Alolan Ninetales-GX from Lost Thunder - Easy way to get Rare Candy & Charizard at a price of 2 prizes
• Jirachi - Possibly quicker way to get Rare Candy and other important Trainer Cards
• Meganium - Easiest way to evolve a Stage 2 Pokemon, if you can get it up first
• Magcargo GX - Helps to charge another fire to charizard if it's the top card in deck
• Victini PS - Recharge all discarded energy, but has awkward 2 energy cost
• Blacephalon-GX - Initally with Charizard taking over Naganadel's spot but turned into the last prize attacker
• Ninetales - Another way to gust one of your opponent's pokemon at the cost of 2 Fire energies
• Blaziken - Fellow Stage 2 energy accelerator (similar style to Malamar), to be used in a Meganium-style toolbox deck

I had also initially considered a deck with Nagandel and Energy Switch but it was too much for me, and also the likes of Pidegotto (which would come back later on). So after trying to figure out how to build the deck, I came up with 4 very different lists (some of which got discarded right away)


First few draft lists

Now to test these ideas out. The first one I tried was with Magcargo and Magcargo-GX, trying to attach an extra fire energy with the GX's ability with the help of Magcargo, Lapras or PokeNav. It didn't work, I was trying to fit one too many pieces in that deck.

I then tried a Meganium style tool-box to help set up Charizard quicker and also use Blaziken from Dragon Majesty to help attach Fire energies from the discard to a Charizard (similar to Malamar). That idea didn't work as well as I hoped.

The next one was to try the new Ninetales from Team Up to gust out any of my opponents benched Pokemon, be it a Tapu Lele-GX or an attacker they are trying to charge up. The 2 energy cost for Ninetales' ability proved to be a big hindrance.

That's when it hit me, why not Alolan Ninetales-GX from Lost Thunder. That proved to be the right partner for Charizard so I decided to settle on that while waiting for the set to be released. At the time I tried Jirachi too but was too afriad of Alolan Muk's growning presence in ZoroRoc and Blacephalon decks to give it a try. That was a big mistake. So this was the first proper Charizard list I settled on.

The Smith Effect
While looking around the internet to see what other decks might come out from the new Team Up sets apart from the usual Pikachu & Zekrom, Zapdos or Celebi & Venusaur, I chanced across Rare Candy's version of Charizard and I was intrigued as it had a Pidgeotto line. I was a fan of the Pidgeotto too and just couldn't think of the right deck for it but in Charizard, it made perfect sense so I thought I'd give his list a try.

The idea of Pidgeotto is to use it's Air Mail abillity to hopefully draw you into a Rare Candy or a Charizard when you need it. Jirachi can only get you a few pieces to that puzzle (Candy, Ultra Ball and Rescue Stretcher) but with Pidgeotto, you can get the pokemon and even an energy too. And the best part about using this line is that both Pidgey and Pidgeotto are searchable from Professor Elm's Lecture! It does mean you'd have to go with the 50 hp Charmander (or the new 60 hp Charmander from Detective Pikachu).

The Ito Effect
Just a few days later, the genius that is Shintaro Ito made a Charizard list of his own. Ito is known for making whacky ideas but really good ones too (Mega Audino and Meganium-toolbox to name a few).

His take on Charizard got him a 3rd place finish in a tournament in Japan. One look at the list and I was convinced this was the way to go at that point. My original list wad somewhat similar but I would take on Flareon-GX, Bill's Analysis and Pokemon Commumication to my list too.

The Flareon-GX idea was a stroke of genius, something I didn't consider but made so much sense. You would only want to use it at the very end, picking up your last two prizes with Flareon-GX's ??? GX move. It does 20 damage times the amount of Fire energy in your discard pile. Charizard's whole bit is to use fire and throw them so it pairs nicely with Flareon-GX.

Once again it's all about the numbers here. With 6 energy in the discard, Zapdos is knocked out. 7 energies will knock out Buzzwole. 9 energies will finish off Tapu Lele-GX and Blacephalon-GX. Zoroark-GX will go down with 11 energies. And yes even Pikachu & Zekrom-GX will be knocked out with 12 energies, which is very possible from having used the deck many times.

This would be the list I would settle on for the first few weeks of playing. But there was still one tiny problem, what was the ideal way to start the games. And with our first Team Up-legal games coming, it was time to decide the supporter of choice.

Still on Ito's list but Lillie vs Elm engine
As much as I liked the idea of having both Lillie and Professor Elm's Lecture in the same deck, I did struggle at times to get it working so I decided to just test the deck with the Elm route and then the Lillie route.

Ito's List, first with both
Then just with Elm, -2 Lillie
Then just Lillie, -2 Elm -1 Bill -1 Cynthia for +2 Nest Ball
Both other 2 list had -1 Alolan Vulpix for +1 Ditto PS and -1 Fire for +1 Charmeleon

The Cognard Effect
On the 24th of Feburary, while doing my reasearch for the PokeStats team, I chanced across an interesting match so I stayed on to watch the entire match. It was Adam Hawkins with his Zapdos/Ultra Beast deck against Anthony Cognard and his Charizard deck. Didn't take long for a Charizard deck to be featured on stream.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/387584392

His version looked really consistent and his main thing was using Jirachi from Team Up to help him get whichever Trainer card he needed at that time, be it a Rare Candy, an Escape Board, a Guzma or maybe even an Ultra Ball. That got me thinking, why didn't I try the Jirachi engine? It was the perfect companion for a Stage 2 deck, even though it was a dying breed at this point with Zapdos decks running around everywhere.

Switching It Up(v7)
I got really comfortable playing the list similar to Anthony's but I felt the need to make it my own, so I started playing around with a few different cards to make my own unique Charizard list. I took Flareon-GX out for Blacephalon-GX since it's purpose was the same, just to get the last prize and Blacephalon-GX guarantees you that prize unlike Flareon-GX.

I took all GXes out as I was miffed at losing some easier matchups simply because I had a free 2-prizer on the bench when my deck was supposed to make it difficult for my opponents to win the prize trade. Absol and Ditto kept being switched around during games. Absol was for to deal with Zapdos while Ditto Prism's only use was to be my "5th Charizard".

But the big change was adding 2 Energy Switch to the deck. One of the ideas was the avoid using the ability to attach energies on Charizard when it's down to 20hp so the hope is that someone else on the bench has the energy for it to be switched to Charizard. The other was to help make it easier to knock out the Tag Team GXes. In my Pokebeach tournament, I managed to use 2 Energy Switch to knock out a Magikarp & Wailord-GX.

Current List
With a few tournaments coming up, I decided to skip all the cute techs to make a consistent Charizard list so gone were the Energy Switch and Blacephalon and in came the likes of Switch and more Jirachi, Rescue Stretcher and Energy Recycler. I used it for the first time in our Singapore Pro Circuit Winter Invitational and I tested it against my friend Bertrand, who would go on to win the whole thing with his Zapdos/Lycanroc deck. And yes my deck was beating him most of the time during our tests so I felt confident going in but unfortunately the deck didn't help me out during my top 8 match.

I also decided to have some fun and try out a 3-3 Pidegotto line during one of our league games with this list in place of Jirachi/Board, switch Lille with Elm and the 70hp Charmander with the 50hp Charmander. I was actually quite impressed at how good the Air Mail Pidgeotto was once you got at least two set-up, I managed to hit one Charizard and a Rare Candy in two consecutive Air Mails.

Results with Deck thus far: 

• Ito list: With Elm 5/4/0 (8th, 9th and 27th Feb)
• Ito list With Lillie 7/2/0 (12th, 13th and 20th Feb)
• Switcher List: 13/11/0 (2nd to 16th)
• Current List: 8/2/2 (29th Mar, 12 and 14th Apr)

Matchups:

Pikachu & Zekrom                     6/1/0

Ultra Necrozma/Malamar         5/0/1

Zoroark/Lycanroc                     3/4/1

Zapdos/Jirachi                         2/6/1

Charizard                                 2/0/0

Zoroark/Beedrill                       1/0/0

Tapu Koko/Zapdos                  1/0/0

Buzzwole/Weavile                   1/0/0

Celebi & Venusaur                   1/0/0

Zoroark/Decidueye                  1/0/0

Eevee & Snorlax/Turtontator    1/0/0

Zoroark/Hoopa                        1/0/0

Melmetal/Solgaleo                   1/0/0

Gardevior/Ninetales                 1/0/0

Rayquaza/Vikavolt                   1/0/0

Aerodactyl/Malamar                 1/1/0

Nidoqueen/Meganium              1/1/0

Regigigas/Hoopa                     1/1/0

Blacephalon/Naganadel            0/1/0

Giratina/Malamar                     0/1/0

Zoroark/Control                       0/1/0

Lost March                              0/2/0

Blastoise/Articuno                   0/2/0

Future Inclusions
With Unbroken Bonds coming in a few weeks time, my mind has been on overdrive on how to improve my Charizard list with the newest set. Sure I have built Reshiram & Charizard, Hitmonlee/Hitmonchan/Hitmontop and the new Vikavolt deck but my main focus is still on Charizard. The two biggest inclusions are Fire Crystal and Welder.

• Fire Crystal allows you to take 3 Fire Energy from your discard pile and put them into your hand. A much better version of Energy Retrieval for Fire types.
• Welder allows you to attach up to 2 Fire Energy to one of your Pokemon. If you do, you may then draw 3 cards.

Yup, extra energy attachment and drawing more cards? I'm sold! It's a good thing I was already on the fire hype train long before everyone else jumped on it. As if the new Reshiram & Charizard-GX didn't sell me enough (yes, another good Charizard card)! So the idea for these two is after you've done your first attack with Charizard's Continuous Blaze Ball, you use Fire Crystal to get hopefully 3 energies back. Use Welder to attach 2 of them to Charizard. Then use the other for your manual attachment. Not forgetting you still have your ability to attach another 2 fire energies! That's 5 energies on your Charizard, dealing a crazy 280 damage (310 with a choice band). And yes that knocks out almost every Tag Team GX.

There is another help on the way in the form of the new Salazzle. It's ability says that if you discard a fire energy from your hand, you may draw 3 cards. Yup, it's Heat Factory. You might find yourself in a position that if you happen to have 2 Salazzles, a Heat Factory and a Welder, you might end up drawing 12 cards in that one turn! You won't miss a Rare Candy and Charizard with those odds surely!

And that's not all! Very soon in Unified Minds, there'll be a Chandelure that has an attack whereby if you discarded a fire tyre pokemon from the effects of the attack, that pokemon goes straight into the discard pile! Possibly an even more easier way to bench down your Charizards (or Blazikens or Incineroars)! I can't wait to try that combo out as well.

With all of that, is Charizard really that good? Not always sadly. It is a stage 2 deck after all, you're quite dependent on that Rare Candy. Sure Charizard has a good matchup against the likes of PikaZek, Zoroark variants, Blacephalon-GX, but that all depends if you can set up. Decks like Zapdos, Malamar and the new Blacephalon are not favoured but still winnable if they don't set-up (but you still have to get your set-up ready first). But is it a fun deck to play? Absolutely! Give it a try and you'll see why this has become my favourite deck.