aroramage |
Well now, and another week to run
more cards today! And let's face it, we've had so so
many! But today, we're gonna take a look at something
from the Radiant Collection. Today, we look at fan
favorite Charizard!
Now this Charizard is interesting
for two reasons, one of which being the artwork. This is
actually a set of three including his pre-evolutions,
and it tells the story of a boy and his Pokemon,
maturing alongside him and growing up with him after
bullying him around as a Charmander before teaming up
and traveling with him as a Charmeleon and a Charizard.
Here, he's shielding the boy from the cold winter storm
as they climb up one of the many mountains in the world.
It's a touching sight to say the least!
And then there's Charizard's
attacks, the first of which is Recall. For just 1
Energy, Charizard can let you use the attacks of any of
his previous evolutions, like Charmeleon's Call for
Support that can nab a Supporter or Charmander's Playful
attack, which has a 50/50 shot of dealing 20 damage for
every damage counter on him. Course there's a variety of
other Charmanders and Charmeleons to use with this
attack, so feel free to switch them around and figure
out what's best to use for Charizard's Recall - Standard
or Expanded, since well, Limited would just be this
line-up.
Recall's actually got another
important use, and that's to allow Charizard an attack
after using up Combustion Blast. At 4-for-130, it's a
hefty move for a non-EX, and its only counteracted by
the restriction of being unable to use it on subsequent
turns - that is, one turn after the other. So it's clear
to see what they're aiming for - use Charizard's
Combustion Blast on one turn to deal massive damage, and
then ideally finish them off with one of your other
attacks. Even Charmeleon's Slash can do a lot, what with
80 damage on top of the 130 damage totaling to 210 - and
that's before any boosts from, say, Muscle Band?
So Charizard's got a lot going for
him, in all honesty. Sure, he might not be totally
competitive, and 4 Energy is still a lot to add up to
even with acceleration, but if you can manage to build a
good deck around him, I'd say he's fairly competent in
the casual corner. If nothing else, he makes a great
collector's piece like Emboar (LTR) from before!
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (not gonna say he's
competitive, but he's definitely a solid option to try
out!)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (now if only he
were Grass-type, or we get Pillar of Fiery Fire or
something...)
Limited: 3.5/5 (some nifty things
about this guy)
Arora Notealus: Seriously though,
160 HP? For a non-BREAK, non-EX Charizard? Ain't that
crazy? I mean it's a little crazy, right? Wasn't the cap
at 150 for Stage 2s?
Next Time: Flip it upside down and
move it all around!
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Otaku |
We begin this week with Charizard (Generations
RC5/RC32): now I’m all fired up!
With embarrassment I mean; when we went to pick out a
Top 3 for Generations, scans were hard to come by
so to help out myself and the other reviewers I Google
for scans and took out all the reprints, providing a
temporary set of scans to reference until the usual
sites updated with far better ones. I… forgot
Charizard. Let’s see if it was a major (it
would have made the list) or minor (I hate forgetting
things). Before we actually dive into the meat of
the card, especially as this was part of the Radiant
Collection subset, I will talk about the art.
Yeah, it is just that great. I don’t know about
the technical details, but I know what I like and that
is the Generations Charmander,
Charmeleon and Charizard telling a story!
It is like what we saw with the Tepig, Pignite
and Emboar in BW: Legendary Treasures but
instead of a family scene we just see the two start out
a bit at odds and grow together as a team.
Charizard
is a Fire Type as you would expect, though as it is part
Flying Type a Colorless version would be an option.
Being a Fire-Type brings access to some solid support;
oddly enough while older support for some of the Types
is obsolete or at least weaker than when it was
introduced, the Fire-Type support like Blacksmith
and Scorched Earth are probably better now than
then. Unfortunately what I just named is it for
the “good” support give or take a few solid attackers
that said support will allow to work more effectively
here than in other decks. Even where there are
combos between Fire-Types, it seems to be a Pokémon A
plus Pokémon B kind of thing; Team Magma’s Camerupt
and Camerupt-EX, for example, work well together
but not as well with other Fire-Types. If this
seems like a nitpick, think of how Keldeo-EX and
Zoroark (XY: BREAKthrough 91/162) really
help out decks that barely use or even have no support
for their respective Types. Fire Weakness is
almost universal on both Grass Types and Metal Types,
which sounds better than it is: most of the current
examples of those Types from competitive play are either
small enough you won’t need Weakness to score the OHKO
(especially with a Muscle Band), Bench-sitters
you’ll need to force Active, or both.
Being a Stage 2 is difficult right now. Charizard
has no super shortcut like the Fighting (Maxie’s
Hidden Ball Trick) and Water (Archie’s Ace in the
Hole) Types. Not that I want such a thing for
other Types - I’d prefer they didn’t exist for any Type
- it is just that realistically the Stage 2 Pokémon of
those Types have a much easier time entering play.
You can use Wally or Rare Candy to get
Charizard into play more quickly, but those are
additional resources plus in the case of Rare Candy
Item lock is far from rare. You’ll need to use a
Charmander no matter what and probably ought to
include a Charmeleon as well; we’ll look at our
options for those after finishing up with Charizard.
Compared to everything but Restored Pokémon and BREAK
Evolutions of Stage 1 and 2 Pokémon, this is more
difficult to implement as it is quite a bit of resources
and time. The 160 HP is the maximum we have seen
printed on a Stage 2 and is a welcome sight. It is
not the highest, with some BREAK Evolutions, Wailord
(BW: Dragons Exalted 26/124), and most Pokémon-EX
meeting or exceeding that amount, but sometimes
Charizard can take a hit even when the opponent has
a solid setup. Not so much against Water Types due
to the Weakness, but at least Charizard didn’t
get something more dangerous like Lightning Weakness.
The total lack of Resistance is a bit disappointing but
not unexpected and the Retreat Cost of [CCC] is chunky
enough you’ll need to make sure your deck addresses it.
Charizard
doesn’t have an Ability or Ancient Trait. Again a
little color commentary: I am okay that Ancient Traits
seem to have been a temporary gimmick. Charizard
does have two attacks at least. The first attack
is “Recall” for just [C] and its effect allows you to
use an attack from one of its previous Evolutions but
without paying the Energy cost printed beside said
attack. The wording is a bit confusing; based on
similar cards, “Evolutions” in this case includes Basic
Pokémon so Charizard can copy attacks from
whatever Charmander it started out as or from a
Charmeleon if you did not use Rare Candy.
The good news is that this makes the cards that are
usually just placeholders for the final Stage of
Evolution relevant, but we’ll need to see if the
designers actually kept that in mind while making at
least the newest Charmander and Charmeleon.
If they didn’t, this attack might be good in theory but
bad in practice. The second attack is “Combustion
Blast” and it requires [RRCC] to hit for 130 damage,
plus the attack text indicates you cannot use it
again the next turn. Without that clause the
attack is solid, giving you the kind of damage you need
for that much Energy. Without getting fancy that
is enough to 2HKO anything without a protective effect,
HP buff, etc. With the effect, the attack is
mediocre but still has some potential. If Recall
pans out, we still have a solid combination. If
Recall really has some good picks, we might not
even need Combustion at all. The Energy costs for
the two attacks are also good; a smaller attack leading
into a larger, and lots of Colorless costs.
Charmander
has a single option for Standard play, Generations
RC3/RC32. Expanded includes the older BW:
Boundaries Crossed 18/149, which was released with
new art as BW: Legendary Treasures 17/113.
Both cards are Basic, Fire Type Pokémon with Water 70
HP, Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC], no
Ancient Trait and no Ability. The older BW:
Boundaries Crossed 18/149 as two attacks: “Draw In”
for [R] and “Flare” for [RC]. Draw In allows you
to attach two [R] Energy from the discard pile to itself
while Flare simply does 20 damage. Generations
RC3/RC32 has only one attack and that is “Playful”,
which does 20 damage for each damage counter on itself,
provided you flip “heads” on a mandatory coin toss.
“Tails” does nothing, and that is neither of these
Charmander thrill me. They do show more effort
and potential than many other twice Evolving Basic
Pokémon, but I suspect this Charmander is better
of focusing on Recall which means attaching extra Energy
is unneeded, while Playful would be pretty good except
for the coin flip. Playful is not the kind of
attack you use when you have little to no damage, so if
you get “tails” odds are your opponent is finishing off
your Charmander (or Charizard that used
Recall). On Charmander itself, Recall is
actually a little underwhelming; while it can still hit
for a decent amount it now needs two Energy and an
opponent that falls just 10 or 20 points shy of KOing
Charmander. The coin flip has better odds than
taking the optimal amount of damage. Surprisingly
BW: Legendary Treasures 17/113 got a review
here.
Charmeleon
also has two options in the form of three cards. BW:
Boundaries Crossed 19/149 was reprinted with new art
as BW: Legendary Treasures 18/113 while
Generations RC4/RC32 is its own thing. Both
are Stage 1 Fire Type Pokémon with 90 HP, Water
Weakness, no Resistance, Retreat Cost [CC], no Ancient
Trait, no Ability, and two attacks. BW: Boundaries
Crossed 19/149 can use “Flare” for [R] to do a flat
20 damage or for [RCC] can use “Raging Claws” to do 50
damage plus 10 per damage counter on itself. These
are actually solid attacks in their own right, though on
a 90 HP Stage 1 they don’t seem like it. Generations
RC4/RC32 actually gives a similar performance in terms
of quality, but going a different route. For [C]
it can use “Call for Support” to search your deck for a
Supporter it adds to your hand. Not a good move
most of the time, but a nice fallback measure. For
[RRC] it can use “Slash” for 80 damage. On
Charmeleon this is overpriced but better than many
Evolving Stage 1 Pokémon see; when used via Recall on
Charizard it becomes a good 80-for-[C]. Recall
already made Rare Candy a bad idea, and in
Expanded I recommend running a split of the two
Charmeleon. In Standard, you only can pick
Generations RC4/RC32. Just a fun aside: while
using the older Charmeleon breaks up the “story”
being told on the Generations version of the line
with a different art style, it still seems mesh with the
narrative. Generations RC3/RC32 appears to be a
playful prankster, so it swiping some fruit in BW:
Legendary Treasures 18/113 seems in character.
There is also one other Charizard to consider
though it was printed three times: BW: Boundaries
Crossed 20/149, BW: Plasma Storm 136/135, and
BW: Legendary Treasures 19/113. Apart from
card art, card ID#, etc. the only differences between
this Charizard and today’s are in the attacks.
For [RCC] it can use “Split Bomb” to hit two of your
opponent’s Pokémon (your choice) for 40 damage each.
For the hefty cost of [RCCCC] it can use “Scorching
Fire” to do 150 damage, but it has to discard a [R] from
itself as part of the attack’s effect. BW: Plasma
Storm 136/135 has a misprint that has received an
erratum: even though it says [FCCCC] for the cost, you
still play it as if it read [RCCCC]. Even
the-powers-that-be seem to make the Fighting-for-Fire
mistake people like me do since [F] is short for
Fighting and [R] for Fire in TCG shorthand. Both
of these attacks are underwhelming. In terms of
damage they were a bit better when they came out, but
they were also harder to use back then. Five
Energy in an attack cost is difficult even with
Blacksmith and Double Colorless Energy.
Even if we still had Boost Energy - an older
Special Energy that provided [CCC] but discarded itself
at the end of the turn and could only be attached to
Evolutions - this would be tricky. For five
Energy, even when four of the five are [C], to be
competitive you need to be setting up for a probable
OHKO. Right now that means 200 damage, not 150.
Even adding in other combos, there are too many
exceptions for OHKOing most Pokémon. You need to
layer on either Muscle Band or Silver Bangle
with Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym
and you still come up short on Wailord-EX and
many Mega Evolutions. This Charizard was first
reviewed
here
and got a
re-review
thanks to its reprint. I didn’t get to review it
then but probably would have rated it similarly… and
been too generous just like those reviews.
So back to Charizard (Generations
RC5/RC32): is this worthy of competitive play? I
don’t think so but it comes pretty close. In fact,
it is solely because the pace of the game makes it all
too likely that Charizard is going to get taken
down in one hit. As I usually would have
emphasized when first discussing the card’s HP,
everything is vulnerable to OHKO in the current
format: even Pokémon with record HP scores or built in
protection from being OHKO’d still can go down with one
attack because of certain combos. A two or three
card investment before Energy, Pokémon Tools and various
combos plus the time lost to Evolving cost Charizard
its competitive edge. Since I’ve taken time to
share my opinions more than once already, I do not
want Charizard to be faster, I want the rest of
the format to slow down a bit, which isn’t happening.
So without crazy powerhouse combos that most decks are
trying to reach by their second turn, Charizard
would be a beast. Thanks to Recall you can use the
attacks off of Charmeleon for just one Energy.
That means Slash is a solid attack as with Muscle
Band you’d manage 100 damage per turn and with a
cost of just [C] you could afford to Max Potion
or Super Potion the damage you’d take from your
opponent’s attacks. The other Charmeleon is
an option in Expanded, where if you don’t mind the risk
of a follow up OHKO Raging Claws will also be amazing
for [C] (and with 160 HP). Periodically a
Double Colorless Energy and/or Blacksmith
would get Charizard prepped for Combustion Blast
when it would be worth it.
Go ahead and give that a try in Standard or Expanded
anyway, but because you enjoy using Charizard and
not because you expect to win tournaments. Even
someone like myself that thinks Charizard is overrated
(...I went with Pokémon Blue just because I thought
Blastoise looked cooler) still likes to use it.
Maybe if you find some missing combo you’ll even be able
to prove me wrong and get a tournament viable deck
going, but I doubt it. Generations doesn’t seem
like a set where you’ll get to do much in the way of
Limited Format play, but if you do then this is an
excellent pull. The lower Stages are alright on
there own in this format, assuming you have enough room
for basic Fire Energy cards. If you’ve got
Charizard, you have the option of just running it
to use Recall, though with the lack of search and draw
power that might not be a wise idea.
Ratings
Standard:
2/5
Expanded:
2/5
Limited:
3.75/5
Summary:
Another Charizard, another Stage 2 that cannot
quite cut it in competitive play. Charizard at
least puts some effort into it and you can see how it
could be useful, just missing that last little bit to be
competitive. Maybe if we get a good Charizard
BREAK to go with it?
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