Charizard's bad romance

El Radar

El Radar

AKA Le Radar
Member
Not sure if this goes here or in State of the Game, but I decided to post it here since Charizard hasn't seen consistent play in the U.S. (compared to LuxChomp, Sablelock, Donphan, Gengar, etc.).

My question: Why doesn't Charizard get more love? It has nice HP, a great body and two attacks that are very energy efficient. It benefits immensely from the Typhlosion/Ninetales engine, and has one of the better starters in Charmander AR to work with (not to mention either of the PL Vulpix aren't half bad either).

I understand it has water weakness, but that hasn't stopped Donphan from being popular. Sure, it can be body locked, but only DGX can do that and it can still hit for a consistent 80/100 every turn w/out the body.

Typhlosion also makes a half decent back up attacker with the ability to eliminate energy from your opponent (bye bye DCE/Special Metal/Dark etc.).

Is it BDIF? Of course not, not even close. But it is a good deck, a very good deck with the right build. Can't really be considered rogue, since enough people have heard of it. But it is severely underplayed, which I do not understand.

So, the question, why no love for the fire breathing dragon?
 
Well Charizard is a Tier 2 deck at best as with decks like LuxChomp, Sablelock, Donphan, and Gengar/Vileplume are Tier 1. Most SP decks are Tier 1 due to their speed as well.

The problems I see with Charizard even though it is a solid deck, it has no way to lock Trainers while staying consistent with Fire Formation therefore your Opponent is free to negate damage with Poke Turn on their Garchomp C Lv. X or Power Spray anytime you try to use Roast Reveal with Ninetales or Afterburner with Typhlosion Prime.

Luxray GL Lv. X can still beat it with Bright Look by dragging out Ninetales and Flash Impact for the KO after a few Flash Bites from Crobat G. I do think Charizard can get around Luxray but it isn't easy especially If you just have 1 Ninetales setup on your bench, with 2 Ninetales on the bench you should be ready to find a counter against Luxray somehow.

Umbreon (HS Undaunted) can Wall against Charizard with ease using Moonlight Fang unless they bring in something like Infernape 4 without the Lv. X to attack against it since it has no Poke-Powers or Bodies at all but with a Special Dark and Expert Belt attached Umbreon's Moonlight Fang does 60 damage and can
2HKO a Stage 1 without any Powers or Bodies let alone an SP Basic.

Out of all the matches I've played against Umbreon at my League with Charizard I still couldn't beat it cause of how annoying Moonlight Fang is on Umbreon. Just running a Scizor Prime tech to go against it would only hurt the Charizard deck's consistency than help it since it's a Steel Type Pokemon, that and you need to dedicate a few slots for some Steel energies to attack with Scizor Prime.
 
What made me cry, that how come noone would think about using Typhlosion, the rare one from HS? That card do not have a PokePower/PokeBody yet it can beat Umbreon.... :)
 
It can but it's usually better to get 2 Typhlosion Primes out on your bench to use Afterburner twice in one turn helping accelerate Charizard even further.

But I suppose a 2-2-3 Typhlosion line with 2 Primes and 1 Regular won't hurt. Seems like it might be more favorable to run another Cyndaquil to compensate the additional Typhlosion to help counter Umbreon.
 
Card Slinger J said:
Well Charizard is a Tier 2 deck at best as with decks like LuxChomp, Sablelock, Donphan, and Gengar/Vileplume are Tier 1. Most SP decks are Tier 1 due to their speed as well.

The problems I see with Charizard even though it is a solid deck, it has no way to lock Trainers while staying consistent with Fire Formation therefore your Opponent is free to negate damage with Poke Turn on their Garchomp C Lv. X or Power Spray anytime you try to use Roast Reveal with Ninetales or Afterburner with Typhlosion Prime.

Luxray GL Lv. X can still beat it with Bright Look by dragging out Ninetales and Flash Impact for the KO after a few Flash Bites from Crobat G. I do think Charizard can get around Luxray but it isn't easy especially If you just have 1 Ninetales setup on your bench, with 2 Ninetales on the bench you should be ready to find a counter against Luxray somehow.

Umbreon (HS Undaunted) can Wall against Charizard with ease using Moonlight Fang unless they bring in something like Infernape 4 without the Lv. X to attack against it since it has no Poke-Powers or Bodies at all but with a Special Dark and Expert Belt attached Umbreon's Moonlight Fang does 60 damage and can
2HKO a Stage 1 without any Powers or Bodies let alone an SP Basic.

Out of all the matches I've played against Umbreon at my League with Charizard I still couldn't beat it cause of how annoying Moonlight Fang is on Umbreon. Just running a Scizor Prime tech to go against it would only hurt the Charizard deck's consistency than help it since it's a Steel Type Pokemon, that and you need to dedicate a few slots for some Steel energies to attack with Scizor Prime.
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I find it sad that people are already saying that Gengar/Plume is tier 1 even though we haven't had any Battle Roads since the release of Undaunted and therefore we can't be sure yet.
 
I think one of the reasons why it's not played much is because people can't find the right build. I have been playing Charizard off and on before HG-SS even came out and I'm still experimenting with the deck
Mew Jadester said:
What made me cry, that how come noone would think about using Typhlosion, the rare one from HS? That card do not have a PokePower/PokeBody yet it can beat Umbreon.... :)
Click to expand...
Wow! I've been somewhat woried about Umbreon and I never even thought about puting in that Typhlosion.
Thanks Mew Jadester!:)
 
The SP matchup is a nightmare, admittedly. However, if they don't have DGX Charizard can swing for up to 150 every turn. Umbreon can be annoying, but a. Warp Point or b. Typhlosion non-prime from Hs as Mew J mentioned take care of that. I will agree though that Charizard is tier 2 at best.
 
Yeah, the SP matchup is hard, and it can occasionally be sort of inconsistent because of the multiple lines, but your build is great, addmittedly. Your sister owned me with it while I was playing queengar, granted I had like 2/3 or my psychic energy prizes along with a gengar.
 
My girlfriend has played exclusively Charizard this last season, and with some techs made into it, she plans on playing it again this new season. My gripes with the deck, is that it's (in my opinion) extremely slow moving, which hinders it greatly against decks like donphan, luxchomp, sablelock, and decks of the similar manner.
 
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