Please post on Single Card Strategies.

Charizard can be good or bad! It depends on the deck!

I've been reading MANY articles about Charizard for months! Here's my say:

Personally, I like Charizard, but I know that it is VERY possiible to beat
it. It's NOT possible to compare two pokémon by pitting them against each
other, like blastoise is better than charizard with hydro pump, but raichu
is better then blastoise with thunder, and hitmonchan is better than raichu
with special punch, etc.

Instead, you should look at them this way: how well do they serve a purpose.
Dewgong vs Gyarados is one example, two pokémon with the same purpose both
with pros and cons. There really isn't any pokémon to compare Charizard to
yet, so this debate's getting nowhere.

Charizard's Pros and cons:
Pros:
120 HP, equaled only by Chansey.
Energy Burn, takes any type of energy and turns it to fire, double colorless
counts as 2!
Fire Spin, 100 damage USUALLY takes out any pokémon except chansey or
another charizard.
Resistance to Fighting, resistance is nice.

Cons:
Fire Spin, need to discard 2 energy CARDS, but that's not too bad.
Weakness to water, but then again most pokémon have weakness...
Stage 2, need Charmander and Charmeleon (both are pretty good)
3 Retreat cost, but do you need this THAT often with Charzard?

As you can see, it is VERY possible to exploit Charizard's Weaknesses, but
if you try to counter the weaknesses, Charizard is VERY good.

Here is my best deck, which includes Charizard (i need one more to make the
deck better) and Dewgong:

13 Water Energy
11 Fire Energy
3 Double Colorless   = 27 Energy Cards

4 Charmander
4 Charmeleon
1 Charizard
4 Seel
4 Dewgong
3 Lickitung          = 20 Pokémon (11 Basic)

2 Pokémon Trader
2 Computer Search
3 Professor Oak
3 Bill
3 Energy Retrieval   = 13 Trainers


Here is what my deck answers to charzard's cons:

Statement: Charizard is a stage 2! I can beat charmander or charmeleon
before it comes out!
Answer: Yeah, like i'll evolve the charmander i put out first turn, that's
what lickitung's there for, to come out first turn and stall for a bit.

Statement: I'll just energy removal charzard's energy! Then it can't attack
for another turn, and when it does t'll be out of energy!
Answer: I'll energy retreval them back, but it's rare when Charizard runs
out of energy, I usually get it out with 4 or more energy plus a double
colorless or two, just by stalling and buildng up charizard.

Statement: But when your one charizard is gone, your other pokémon will be
easy to beat!
Answer: Not so, you'll have to answer to my dewgongs and charmeleons, which
only need 3 energy to do 50 damage, and lickitung's available too.

Statement: But there's only 10 basics, and most are weak! You'll probably
lose all your pokémon really early.
Answer: Bill, Oak, Trader, Search...

Yes, my deck is beatable, but many a deck has succumbed to mine, Including a
raindance deck a few days ago. Charzard got beaten by a blastoise, but 3
dewgongs were there as backup. I won easily.

But still, there is no pokémon to compare with Charizard, that can take any
energy and use them for a powerful attack (fire spin still is less drastic
than zapdos's thunderbolt, by far).


                                          Hackman

Send any replys to pds64@hotmail.com
Visit my site at http://hackmanpokemon.u4l.com/

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