Pokémon TCG: Charizard - Top 10 Best Cards

This article is part of a series of rankings with the 10 best cards of a certain Pokémon in Pokémon TCG, considering their strength, design and history, from the Wizards of the Coast era until now.

I'll start this series with the Kanto starter trio. Today's pick is Charizard!

10 - Charizard (Sword/Shield: Pokémon GO)

Its ability, Burn Brightly, doubles the basic Fire Energy CRZ 153 attached to your Pokémon, which is excellent for Fire Box decks. It is also excellent for decks that focus on Charizard itself, considering it is a heavy Pokémon ever since the beginning of Pokémon TCG and attacking with it has always been expensive.

This card was incredibly welcome by those who love this archetype, considering it is an excellent resource.

9 - Charizard (e-Cards Series: Expedition)

Its attack, Scorching Whirlwind, is a bit risky because, besides dealing very little damage, it also uses two coins and discards energy cards. This isn't optimal and, unfortunately, it is also a recurrent stigma with Charizard cards.

However, what stands out in this card is precisely its ability, Burning Energy, which transforms all energy cards attached to all your Pokémon in play into Fire type energy cards, which is incredibly powerful.

Currently, in modern Expanded, it would be excellent to have once again a recursive Charizard to help other Pokémon in this archetype, and play out specific combos with other Pokémon. For instance, it could go well with:

► Reshiram & Zekrom-GX CEC 157's attack.

► Turtonator DRM 50's attack.

8 - Charizard ex (Ruby/Sapphire: Fire Red & Leaf Green)

This was a fantastic card that unfortunately wasn't very popular because its attack cost a lot of energy cards. However, its damage output, as all Charizards in general, was one of the highest brute damage sources in the entire game at its time.

Its attack, Burn Down, deals 200 damage and ignores weakness, resistance, Poké-Power, Poké-Body and any other effect on your opponent's Pokémon, which is very efficient.

Its ability, Energy Flame, is basically a tribute and a rework of the Charizard from Wizards of the Coast's Base Set: Charizard BS 4. All energy cards attached to it were transformed into a basic Fire Energy CRZ 153; if this Pokémon returned to Standard, it would be incredibly useful.

7 - Radiant Charizard (Sword/Shield: Pokémon GO & Crown Zenith)

This card was essential to Standard's metagame.

Its ability is excellent because it states: its attack costs one colorless energy card less for each Prize Card your opponent drew, and like so can cost up to 4 colorless energy cards less. Therefore, Radiant Charizard CRZ 20 will deal 250 damage for just one energy card!

In Expanded, there are several ways to deal even more damage with this Pokémon:

► Volcanion-EX PR-XY XY173's ability, by discarding one Fire energy card, grants your Radiant Charizard CRZ 20 an extra 30 damage against the opponent's active Pokémon (if we consider only one Volcanion-EX PR-XY XY173, as this ability stacks). We can also use Incineroar UNB 29's ability, which grants you an extra 30 damage, and like so add up to 60 damage. This means your Radiant Charizard CRZ 20 will deal 310 damage!

► Fighting Fury Belt BKP 99 gives the Pokémon it is attached to an extra 40 HP and 10 damage. If we use the buffs above on Radiant Charizard CRZ 20, it will have 200 HP and its damage will go up to 320!

► We can also use a few more specific tools on Radiant Charizard CRZ 20 to deal damage, depending on the opponent:

- Choice Belt BRS 135 against Pokémon V.

- Choice Band GRI 121 against Pokémon GX, Pokémon EX and Pokémon ex.

- Muscle Band XY 121 to deal an extra 20 damage.

- Defiance Band sv1 169, if you're losing the game, to deal an extra 30 damage.

6 - Charizard-GX (Sun/Moon: Burning Shadows)

This Pokémon occupies this spot in our list because of its attack, Crimson Storm, which deals 300 damage, but it costs a lot of energy cards.

We can pay for this cost and deal all this damage in a few ways:

► With Welder UNB 189a.

► With Blacksmith FLF 88.

► With Kiawe BUS 116a.

► With Emboar NXD 100's ability.

► With Volcanion PR-SM SM179's attack when it is your turn to play on turn 2 to get three Fire energy cards and attach them to your Pokémon.

Besides the base damage Charizard-GX deals, we can amplify its attack with Volcanion-EX PR-XY XY173, Rapidash SIT 22 and Incineroar UNB 29.

Furthermore, its GX attack, Raging Out, is an excellent way to "mill" our opponent (discard the top cards in their deck), and it helps us conquer victories through "Deck Out".

5 - Charizard & Braixen TAG TEAM-GX (Sun/Moon: Cosmic Eclipse)

This card is a fantastic way to filter our deck: its attack, besides dealing 180 damage, also looks for any three cards we want in our deck and places them in our hand without revealing them to our opponent. However, unfortunately, it also costs a lot of energy cards.

Its GX attack is extremely useful, and has two effects:

► For one Fire (F) energy card, you'll get up to five basic Fire Energy CRZ 153 on the discard pile and attach them to your Pokémon in any way you want.

► If you add another random energy card (colorless or not) to this cost, besides the first effect, it will also make your opponent's active Pokémon Burned and Confused.

4 - Charizard ex Terastal (Scarlet/Violet: Obsidian Flames)

Historically, this Charizard was basically an adapted version of Charizard SW 3; its ability grants an extra 50 damage to Charizard's attack if your opponent only needs to draw 3 Prize Cards or less to win the game.

This reasoning was the inspiration to bring back Charizard ex sv3 125's attack, Burning Darkness, which deals 180 base damage plus an extra 30 damage for each Prize Card your opponent drew. If your opponent drew 5 Prize Cards, Charizard ex sv3 125 will deal 330 damage for just two Fire energy cards!

Infernal Reign is an excellent source of energy cards, which means it is an incredibly efficient addition to any "Fire Box" deck.

This card already performs well in Standard; in Expanded, it is even more powerful.

3 - Reshiram & Charizard TAG TEAM-GX (Sun/Moon: Unbroken Bonds)

Its main attacks are incredibly versatile: if you spend a turn using Flare Strike to deal 230 damage, and you have to "wait" a turn to use it again (you can reset this setback with a Switch CRZ 144), you can just use its first attack, Outrage.

Considering it has 270 HP, the most Outrage can consider is 260 HP, and, therefore, you'll deal 30 base damage plus 260, totaling 290 damage for just two energy cards!

You can also increase this damage like so:

► Fighting Fury Belt BKP 99 gives you an extra 40 HP and 10 damage:

- With 310 HP, you can lose up to 300 HP and add 30 base damage to your total damage (plus the extra 10 damage from this tool): 340 damage!

► Bravery Charm sv2 173 grants you an extra 50 HP:

- With 320 HP, you can lose up to 310 HP and add 30 base damage to your total damage: 340 damage!

► If this Pokémon is equipped with 4 Heat Fire Energy DAA 174, which provides an extra 80 HP (if we add the four energy cards):

- With 350 HP, you can lose up to 340 HP and add 30 base damage to your total damage: 370 damage!

We also have this Pokémon's GX attack, which deals 200 damage for three Fire energy cards. Additionally, if you spend three extra Fire energy cards, you'll deal 300 damage, and it will ignore any effects on your opponent's defending Pokémon.

2 - Charizard VMax (Sword/Shield: Darkness Ablaze)

This Pokémon occupies our second place for two reasons. The first is that it has a lot of health (330), and the second is its second attack, G-Max Wildfire, which deals 300 damage, but discards two energy cards.

We also have the combo with Electrode-GX CES 48's ability because, "by exploding" this Pokémon as a sacrifice, it will attach up to 5 energy cards from the discard pile (including special energy cards) to Pokémon that aren't EX, ex and GX. This cheats out the Pokémon V rule (in this case, Charizard VMax), and, like so:

► You'll attach three Heat Fire Energy DAA 174 to Charizard VMAX DAA 20 and get an extra 60 HP, totaling 390 HP!

► Finally, you'll also attach two Burning Energy BKT 151 to discard two energy cards because of its second attack, G-Max Wildfire, and these special energy cards will activate their own effects: when discarded by an attack effect, they will return to the original Pokémon.

1 - Charizard ex (Scarlet/Violet: 151)

The best thing about playing this Pokémon is the number of Prize Cards it will give the opponent if it is knocked out. It will be only two Prize Cards, unlike Charizard VMAX DAA 20, which will give them three Prize Cards.

It, so far, is the Pokémon that deals the highest amount of damage in the entire game, 330 damage, but, unfortunately, it has the same issues as all Charizards:

1) Its attack is expensive: it costs 4 pure Fire energy cards.

2) Its attack needs to discard three energy cards.

These issues can be solved with:

► Welder UNB 189a if we use Fiery Flint DRM 60a, Professor's Letter BKT 146a or Earthen Vessel sv4 163, and also Giant Hearth UNM 197.

► Blacksmith FLF 88, which attaches Fire energy cards in the discard pile, for instance, if we use Fiery Torch FLF 89.

► Kiawe BUS 116a.

► Emboar NXD 100's ability.

► Volcanion PR-SM SM179's attack when it is your turn to play on turn 2 to attach three Fire energy cards to your Pokémon.

If you want to attack as fast as possible, we can use its first attack, Brave Wing, which increases your damage by 100 points if we use Magma Basin BRS 144. If your opponent tries to knock it out, we can use Max Potion GRI 128a, heal it completely and use Magma Basin BRS 144 to keep one energy card attached to this Pokémon.

Charizard (Sword/Shield: Vivid Voltage)

Its attack, Royal Blaze, is what stands out the most in this card because it deals damage according to the number of Leon VIV 154 on your discard pile. Considering that, per the rules of this TCG, we can only bring 4 copies of this card in our deck, it will deal 100 + 200 base damage (according to the discard pile), which will total 300 damage!

To discard Leon VIV 154 with no further issues, we only need to use at least two Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear PHF 92.

We can also increase this damage with Volcanion-EX PR-XY XY173, Rapidash SIT 22 and Incineroar UNB 29, and then deal over 300 damage easily.

There is something interesting we can do when we have this Pokémon on the board. If by any chance we want to increase our damage to 330 in our turn:

1) If we have all Leon VIV 154 in our discard pile, and a VS Seeker PHF 109 in our hand, we'll get back one copy of Leon VIV 154.

2) On that same turn, by playing Leon VIV 154, we'll activate this card's effect and deal an extra 30 damage to the opponent's active Pokémon. This will affect the effect on our Charizard VIV 25's attack, considering our Supporter will once again go to the discard pile.

3) If we play these cards correctly when we attack, we'll deal 330 damage (not considering other variants/tools that can increase this damage).

What did you think of this list? Do you agree with it? What would be your top 10 best Charizards? Comment down below!

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!