12/20 - COTD - Charizard (Basic Set)

[Gokey Shuckle]

Oh yes, it's the card that was considered "a legend" back in the day and everyone went nuts for it. Now it's almost forgotten.

Rate & Review.

Thanks to Water Pokemon Master from www.pokebeach.com for the scan.

 

[Lordpenguin]

Yay, old cards make me feel like a kid again.

Actually, this card is pretty bad. Unless you have a good retrieval system for your energy, it is gonna burn (lol) through your source pretty quick. Even with dble colorless, this baby isn't going to be able to attack more than twice in a row before you have to wait to power it up again.

Of course, cards newer than gym which i have no knowledge of may solve this problem.

Weakness it bad, resistance is good, if a little boring, retreat cost is high considering you might want to switch it around to recharge. Loses badly to rain dance, which comes up quicker, as classic fire decks tend to run charmeleon over breeder, probably because charmeleon is actually better than charizard in many cases.

Energy Burn was nothing to write home about in classic format, but with some of the newfangled energy that seems to befloating around recently, it might be better, i don't know.

In general, if you are playing this line at all (in classic), you are probably playing red aggro or that weird fire/water build, and would thus probably be better off just sticking with base charmeleon.

 

[~Solarys~]

Bah... it's the same bloody thing as that pointless and useless Charizard ex in F/L, except it doesn't even guarantee a 1HKO with 100 damage...

However, Charizard ex has at least a backup 50 damage attack, this doesn't! Which only means that it cannot attack twice in a row unless you pwnseek and spam 10 energy onto it... (NEVER do that, or you're GG'ed when you come across a Gardevoir ex or Espeon etc. that does damage based on fielded energy.)

Misc: although 120 HP is good, 3 retreat is a pain in the ass as you cannot switch it out when it doesn't have enough energy to attack!

IMO, this is a good card for inexperienced players to play with in fun matches - definitely not something am experienced player would likely to use very much, because it has only 1 attack and it's very costly!

3/10

 

[Drifblim]

Ah, the memories.

Unfortunately, it was about as cumbersome as a Stage Two as it was sought after. While Energy Burn is a good thing, the very word 'cards' in the attack description means that, if you've managed to hook on two Double Colourless Energy cards, both would go out the window. Same for a Buzzapped Electrode, Holon-ised Pokémon, or whatnot.

Retro rating 6/10, updated rating 3/10.

 

[Alter Ego]

Bah... it's the same bloody thing as that pointless and useless Charizard ex in F/L, except it doesn't even guarantee a 1HKO with 100 damage...

Once again you are rating cards out of context. Back in the days of the base set only Chansey and Charizard had the HP to take a hit from this thing (Unless they were running Defender or something similar), but the double energy discard really hurts. I guess the best way to make use of this thing would be to keep a Venusaur or Blastoise on your bench and continuously pool Grass (or Water) energy over to it, but splitting the energy types for this isn't really all that appealing. You could also evolve Charmeleon to this zard for a quick KO and then use Devolution Spray to return it to Charmeleon. This is a lovely nostalgia card, but Dark Charizard and the base set Ninetales do its job better. 6/10, good HP and potentially useful poképower but bad attack and expensive retreat.

 

[~Solarys~]

Well, it should at least have a backup attack like that 50 damage Slash on the ex. Even if it did only 10 damage like the Dark version, it would help a lot against those have 110 HP.

For the same reason, I don't like the Crystal Guardians one either - the only attack is too costly to use over and over again, save that you CANNOT in the first place. But at least it somewhat guarantees a 1HKO against a non-ex and those without external damage reductions.

 

[Te-em]

My friend played with that card and used a Venusaur that let you attach 1 extra energy to your active Pokémon, and I think that more than 1 Venusaur could use that ability at once from your bench.

 

[Lordpenguin]

But a deck that runs two stage2 lines that both need to be in play to have any decent effect? Not really, thanks.

 

[Jaimes]

But a deck that runs two stage2 lines that both need to be in play to have any decent effect? Not really, thanks.

Metagross d/Dragonite d
Blaziken/Ampharos/Ray ex
Scizor/Metagross DX/Pidgeot
Blaziken/Pidgeot
Blastoise ex/Steelix ex/Pidgeot/Lugia

It's a lot easier than it sounds, only if you build your deck right (4 Rare Candy ftw).

Back to Charizard..

High HP, average type, good resistance, poor weakness and a hefty retreat cost. Very decent power, but it doesn't help unless you have 4 energy cards on. The new reprint is also errated so that it reads 'Discard 2 energy cards attached to Charizard or this attack does nothing' so no using Boost or DCE to confuse your opponent.
Pretty decent amount of damage, but its also slow to power, very ERable and discards quite a bit. Should be able to KO something before becoming a target.

The Venusaur combo isn't so great since there's no way to get energy out from the discard effectively. (No Energy retrieval is not an effective method before anyone points this out).


4/10
Id rather use an Expedition Charizard if I had to run this Pokemon.

 

[~Solarys~]

Id rather use an Expedition Charizard if I had to run this Pokemon.
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I'd rather use the Dragon box topper... or even the ex...

 

[Eruption]

High Hp.
100 damage would wipe out alot of cards in 1 hit.
And the ability is fantastic that way you could throw any old enrgy on Charizard to power up for his attack.On the minus side it'll take you a while to power for his attack and if you only have 4 energies on him you'll have to charge up again.

8.5/10

 

[Jaimes]

I'd rather use the Dragon box topper... or even the ex...

Oh yeah. Forgot about the Dragon one - even though its probably the best of the lot. Its not a boxtopper though, its a secret card (one every 3 boxes of Dragons or something like that) or was given out at 2004 Nationals.

Really really not sure about playing the ex version though. Save it for eBay/ trading bait.

 

[MegaDitto]

During the time this card was released it was the most overrated. It did had a lot of combos. Using colorless energy to fill up quicker then just using regular enegry for the discard.

I give it a 7/10 but a bit weakened now. D;

 

[QFred]

I've seen a deck from this that worked with 4-4-4 line and no other Pokémon, about 28-32 energies and the rest super potions, bills and energy retrivals, ah, and gust of winds!

It was nearly suicidal but it worked pretty well...


The card itself:

High HP, bad weakness, the resistance was nothing special till Fossil came, high retreat cost (so no retreat). This card was awesome at Base Set and Jungle times, cause of the amount of Grass cards those days.

The Power is cool, and the attack is too... But discarding 2 energies is purely suicide...

 

[Lordpenguin]

It's a lot easier than it sounds, only if you build your deck right (4 Rare Candy ftw).

Its a pity it wasn't around when these sort of decks were seen, then...