SINGLE CARD STRATEGY - TR CHARMANDER

-----INTRODUCTION

40 HP

Pokémon Power: Gather Fire
Once during your turn (before your attack), you may take 1 Fire Energy card
attached to one of your other Pokémon and attach it to Charmander.  This
power can not be used if Charmander is Asleep, Confused, or Paralysed

1 Fire Energy - Fire Tail  20

Retreat       - 1
Weakness      - water


-----USES OF GATHER FIRE

Although this card has 10 fewer HP than the Base set Charmander, the many
uses for it's Pokémon Power make it a far more useful card.  Consider the
following:

1. Moving a Fire Energy from an active like Magmar (F) in order to use a
trainer such as Pokémon Centre or Scoop Up without losing the energy.

2. Moving a Fire Energy onto Charmander in order to use Fire Tail while
attaching an Energy card to a benched Pokémon during the same turn.

3. Moving Fire Energy onto a benched Charmander for a couple of turns and
then using Mr Fuji to put cards back into your deck

4. The obvious one - attaching energy before evolving to Charmelion /
Charizard.


-----POSSIBLE DECK STRATEGY

After several turns with Magmar (f) as an opening basic with two Fire Energy
attached, play Charmander on the bench.  Use Gather Fire and attach one of
Magmar's Fire Energies to Charmander.  Magmar can still attack with
Smokescreen and you can attach another Fire Energy to Charmander if you are
going to evolve to Charizard (not what I would do - read on).  The following
turn, Gather Fire from Magmar and play Scoop Up - no loss of Pokémon and no
loss of Energy.  Evolve Charmander to Base set Charmelion.  Attach an Energy
and attack with Flamethrower for 50.

Why not use Pokémon Breeder and go straight to Charizard or Dark Charizard? 
Charizard is too energy intensive and most Pokémon don't have 100 HP, so his
attack is inefficient.  Dark Charizard is very similar to Base Charmelion. 
They both have 80 HP, both are weak to water, and both discard energy to
attack.  The main difference is that Charmelion can do a guaranteed 50
damage, DC has a chance of doing no damage.  Although DC has resistance to
fighting, Charmelion has a retreat cost of one and is a stage one.  If you
don't bother with Charizard and Pokémon Breeder you can fill your deck with
pluspowers to use against all those Pokémon with 60 and 70 HP.  Charizard
just isn't required.

When Charmelion is used in this way, he's kind of a Haymaker Pokémon, but a
little slower and a little tougher.


-----CONCLUSIONS

Mono Fire decks are usually slow.  Fire can actually be quite fast with
Charmander, Charmelion, Magmar, and Rapidash.  The shared water weakness is
frightening to a lot of players.  Why was Electabuzz promo #2 invented? 
Because it takes 1 DCE to inflict 20 or 60 damage to Pokémon that are weak to
lightning (a lot of water Pokémon, including the Blastoise line)... I can't
understand why people slag this card off so much - the card was designed for
inclusion in Fire decks!  The biggest problem is it's retreat cost, that
nobody ever seems to mention because they are too busy comparing it to Base
set Electabuzz.

Well, I started with TR Charmander and ended up touching on the whole Fire
Pokémon family and promo Electabuzz.

Comments are always appreciated and e-mails are always replied to.


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