Hi All,
The Base
Charizard line is one of my favorite evolution lines in the card game. And
seeing as how the big guy has been coming up in a number of posts lately, I
thought I'd throw my hat into the arena:
First of all,
Charizard has taken a lot of flack over the last couple of years. After the
initial hype where every kid in america wanted that shiney Charizard card,
players really soured on him.. mostly because he wasn't the end all and be all
card that everyone thought he was. Personally, I don't think people really
understood how the line was supposed to be played. Just look at those attacks.
Charmander: 10 for 1 Colorless, Charmeleon: 30 for 3 Colorless, Charizard:
Energy Burn. Let's face it, the line was DESIGNED to be splashed...
Secondly, there
is the question of what sort of decks/archetypes can he be added to. Here's
another little peice of reality: Charizard is a great attacker for lot's of
damage. But he CAN'T just be thrown into any ol' deck. In order to properly
utilize the big guy to his fullest potential, he needs to be backed up. In
essense he is an archetype all his own. Of course the use of stall
pokemon and No Removal gym have already been spoken of, so I won't go
repeating that.. but how about this:
Recall: Generally
this card has been thought of in terms of Gyrados' Flail.. but how incredibly
useful is this for Charizard in a Splash deck using energy burn. Suddenly he
can just discard 1 energy for a 50 attack rather than blowing the two for
twice that amount to take out a stupid little 30 HP Abra..
Non-Basic energy:
In the old base days, we had double colorless energy which was hindered by the
fact that two energy CARDS need to be dropped for his attack to work. How
has this situation improved? Full Heal Energy... Energy Burn won't work if
Charizard is confused. Potion Energy.. Bonus HP for the 120 HP monster. And
the king: Recycle Energy: Burn it off, comes right back into your hand :-)
Prop15-3C? Sorry,
not going to happen I'm afraid. Charizard won't play happy with only 3
Charmander to build off of.. Plus, Charizard really demands trainer backup to
run properly.. both for card drawing and for to keep the big guy cycling
through the energy and in a healing state of mind.
Potential Deck
Framework (No numbers given)
Psychic Flames
Fire Pokemon
Base Charmander
Base Charmeleon (
No Breeders)
Base Charizard
(The big guy in question)
Psychic Pokemon
MP Mewtwo
(Recycle the energy burnt off)
Fossil Slowpoke
(Recycle back those trainers)
Fossil Slowbro
(Strange behavior - a poor man's Alakazam, but this deck doesn't have room for
2 stage3s)
Fossil Gastly
(Get some energy)
Fossil Haunter
(Great stall potential)
Trainers
Koga's Ninja
Trick (Protects your slowpoke - perfect with Haunter)
Mr. Fuji (Put
Mewtwo or Slowbro back in your deck: Sponge effect)
Recall (Energy
Burn then use Charmeleon's 1 discard attack for 50)
Nightly Garbage
Run (Keep it coming)
Bill
Oak
No Removal Gym
Energy
Full Heal Energy
Potion Energy
Recycle Energy
Psychic Energy
(Zero Fire
Energy)
Anyone wanting to
flesh this out, has any luck with it, or wants to debate the pros and cons let
me know,
-Bill