Charizard-GX – Hidden Fates Pokemon Review

Vince

It seems like there’s a third Charizard-GX that we’re looking at based on the card effects. This is one of those cards which doesn’t seem to have much going for it, but some players are trying to make it work. Let’s see what Charizard has to offer.

Ok, so Charizard has only two attacks, both which costs RRCC and have no additional effect other than doing damage. Flamethrower does 140 damage while Flare Blitz does 300 damage, but can only use that GX attack once per game. If we were to look at the base damage, then Flamethrower barely 2HKOs 99.9% of Pokémon in the game when not factoring damage reduction or increasing it’s Max HP. Flare Blitz is on a similar boat, OHKOing 99.9% of Pokémon before factoring damage reduction, increasing HP, or have a protective effect from GX Pokémon, and there are a few of them (Keldeo-GX, Hoopa SHL, A-Ninetales BUS & TEU, just to name a few). Flare Blitz is a one time deal, but then you are stuck with a vanilla attack. It isn’t that bad, but one wished that it did more or have a helpful effect.

I suppose the reason why Charizard-GX is worth a look is because it gives Mew & Mewtwo-GX an attack to copy. For the standard format, Flare Blitz is perhaps the only attack that does 300 damage, and it could easily take care of Tag Teams for an easy three prizes. Expanded has other Pokémon that also does 300 damage, but it has other drawbacks. While Flare Blitz is labeled a GX attack, the others could suffer worse drawbacks. In terms of other attacks doing a flat 300 damage:

-Mega Charizard X’s Wild Blaze costs RRDCC and discard the top 5 cards of your deck.

-Mega Charizard Y’s Crimson Dive costs RRCCC and does 50 damage to itself (or 100 damage due to it’s own Psychic weakness from it’s own Psychic type regarding Mew & Mewtwo-GX)

-Mega Rayquaza’s Dragon Ascent costs RRRLC and discards 2 energy from it.

-Charizard-GX from Burning Shadows has Crimson Storm which costs RRRCC and discards 3 fire energies attached to it.

Those are some examples of attacks that did 300 damage like Flare Blitz, but those examples are REPEATABLE attacks. Mew & Mewtwo-GX’s Perfection ability allows you to copy attacks from EX/GX Pokémon in your Bench or your discard pile, so it makes sense to put a single copy of today’s Charizard-GX in your deck for the purpose of being discarded as bait so you can copy it’s attacks. Because of Mew & Mewtwo-GX, Charizard-GX has seen some play, and for a card that I didn’t have any optimism (it still isn’t good on its own), this is pretty impressive!

Ratings:

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 2/5
• Limited: N/A

Again, this is a card that I didn’t have much to recommend with, but it helped other cards. If you want a one time heavy hitter, Flare Blitz got you covered, and it’s cheaper than the other 300 damage attacks by one energy.

One thing to NEVER do is to try and mislead shoppers about Charizard-GX. That is because one might try to scam others thinking that Charizard from either Hidden Fates or Detective Pikachu EQUALS one from Burning Shadows or it’s shiny counterpart. Those prices are in triple digits while the other don’t cost as much! Don’t be that person!

Otaku

We begin this week with Charizard-GX (Hidden Fates 9/68, SM – Black Star Promos SM211). There is an older Charizard-GX (SM – Burning Shadows 20/147. 150/147; SM – Black Star Promos SM60, Shiny Vault SV49/SV94), we’ve already reviewed, so don’t confuse the two and remember that they count against each other for the 4 Copy Rule. Though Charizard-GX Evolves from the same Charmander and Charmeleon as baseline Charizard cards, they do not count against each other for the 4 Copy Rule, nor would Charizard-EX or Reshiram & Charizard-GX. As a Pokémon-GX, Charizard-GX gives up two Prizes when KO’d, has to deal with counters, and is excluded certain beneficial effects. The trade-off is Pokémon-GX have some useful bits of support (Cherish Ball), better HP than their non-Pokémon-GX counterparts, and are likely to have stronger effects.

Charizard-GX is a [R] Type at a time when it is good to be a [R] Type; they’re good enough that [R] Type counters are seeing play, though they aren’t enough to wreck the usefulness of Fire Types. It isn’t exploiting Weakness or not worrying about Resistance that makes the [R] Type hot right now, nor the actual [R] Pokémon support, but [R] Energy support. Heat Factory {*} is a very good Stadium, while Welder is the fantastic combination of very good Energy acceleration and decent draw. 250 HP is no longer the maximum printed HP score, but it is still great for Stage 2 Pokémon-GX, and should often survive an attack. Besides effect-based KO’s and ridiculously massive attacks, the big exception is due to Charizard-GX’s [W] Weakness, as it would allow [W] Types to do the deed with only 130 base damage (a typical amount for 2HKO decks). No Resistance is the worst but is also the norm. A Retreat Cost of [CCC] is a pain to pay without granting access to cards like Buff Padding.

Today’s Charizard-GX only has two attacks, “Flamethrower” and “Flare Blitz-GX”, both priced at [RRCC]. The former does 140 damage, while the latter 300. There are no other effects, good or bad, beyond Flare Blitz-GX using up your GX-attack for the game. Most of the time, Flamethrower and Flare Blitz attacks require you discard Energy, so not having to do that is nice. Flamethrower, however, doesn’t have much kick to it; 140 is only 10 shy of reliably 2HKOing anything lacking defensive buffs or healing but we’re used to seeing about that much damage for three Energy and not four (even sans drawbacks). Flare Blitz-GX hits hard enough to OHKO anything before factoring in protective effects, and for the Energy and the GX-attack, that’s solid. Brilliant? No, but solid. Together, the entirety of Charizard-GX just isn’t that impressive.

Enter Mewtwo & Mew-GX.  Its “Perfection” Ability lets it crib attacks from Pokémon-EX/GX on your Bench or in your discard pile. It lacks any regular attacks at all, just possessing an Ability and GX-attack. A Mewtwo & Mew-GX won the World Championship in the Masters Division, cementing it as a strong contender. Lists usually use Welder to cover the [C] requirements of attacks, then focus on useful attackers that operate on mostly [C] Energy. Sometimes the deck also runs another basic Energy, one that can be attached manually to still access some good attacks quickly. Others will run Rainbow Energy, opening up a very wide variety of attacker options. In either case, Flare Blitz-GX is attractive as a non-nonsense probable OHKO. Even Flamethrower may have some use; though I was disappointed with 140-for-four, even the winning Mewtwo & Mew-GX decks are lacking a straightforward attack which hits that hard without conditions or quirkier costs.

Ratings

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 2/5
• Limited: N/A

I don’t have any tournament results to offer as proof this is a good use for today’s Charizard-GX. I didn’t think of this on my own, nor have I tested it myself; this is me relaying some scuttlebutt I heard from Youtube Pokémon videos and (I think) only one video at that. Still, it was a potential oversight so I thought it was worth correcting quickly. The Expanded score depends on the massive assumption Mewtwo & Mew-GX can prove competitive there, while Limited is because this card doesn’t appear in a Limited Format-compliant expansion.