Standard Deck Tech: Charizard Full Theme Deck

Hello everybody. I'm Rodrigo, sharing more news and information about the Pokémon TCG. In this article, we are going to elaborate on a somewhat strange possibility for the Standard format and a general concept: with all the Charizards released in the Sword/Shield block, what would happen if you built a deck of their own?

That's what the Brazilian channel "Eevee TCG" did, and we'll break it down:

With this whimsical and exotic idea, we'll look at all the cards released from it for the current format. Knowing that for years, in the history of the TCG, Charizard has always had a leading role with extremely high damage cards and unbeatable in a raw form, let's see if, in practice, within this current block, it is possible to have consistency...

Deck Analysis

This deck doesn't have a lot of mystery in terms of concept, so we'll jump to the objective side of Charizard's functions:

1) Radiant Charizard PGO 11 enters here as a late game attack, because of its Excited Heart ability where the Charizard's attack cost is reduced by one less colorless energy for each prize card the opponent took, and Charizard's attack, Combustion Blast, costs 1 fire energy and 4 colorless energy dealing 250 damage.

2) Charizard V BRS 17 is featured here because of two benefits:

- The first attack Incinerate, where for two fire energies and a colorless energy, the attack does 90 damage and before doing that damage, you can discard a Tool item card attached to your opponent's Pokémon.

- The second attack, Heat Blast for three fire energies and a colorless one, deals 180 damage.

Unlike its card released in Darkness Ablaze, this card has the first attack, Claw Slash, for three colorless energies for 80 damage with no effect; and the last attack, the Fire Spin, which even though it is 220 damage for four energies (two fire and two colorless), there is the use of discarding two energies in the process.

3) The Charizard VMAX DAA 20 is here for the massive base damage with 300 raw damage in one go (which is mostly KO at 80% of the current meta guaranteed), but still needs to close off some drip damage (the remaining 10, 20, or 30 damage) so that it can actually deal with any opponent's VMax Pokémon.

It still has it's exorbitantly expensive G-Max Wildfire attack, which has 5 energies (three fire and two colorless) with two energies in the process. With this "ace" of damage, it's inviting to a layman or anyone who finds damage exuberant, but it's dangerous to disregard a Pokémon that hit for low energy with high damage, like Palkia-VStar and Mew-VMax.

4) Charizard VSTAR BRS 18 enters the list to compensate for the massive damage in case the Charizard VMAX isn't enough, its attack, the Star Blaze, for 4 energies (three fire and one colorless) deals 320 damage at the cost of discarding two energies in the process, and with that attack knocking out 95% of the current format.

In addition, we have its normal attack, Explosive Fire, which for three energies (two fire and one colorless) does 130 damage + 100 if the Charizard has any damage counters on it, which in this case is ideal to combine with the Magma Basin BRS 144 card, as it attaches a Fire Energy to one of your Benched Fire Pokémon, and if you do, it takes two damage counters.

5) The Charizard PGO 10 is the essence of this deck and its main driving force thanks to its ability Burn Brightly, where every basic fire energy attached to your Pokémon becomes the equivalent for two fire energy at the same time. This boosting the power-up cost, for example, with two fire energies that can be paid as if they were four energies!

This card enters as a support tech and not an attacker.

6) Being the most shifted card in the game, Charizard VIV 25 would make more sense if there were four Leon VIV 154 cards because of the combination of its attack Royal Blaze, which for two has a base damage of 100 + 50 damage for each card named “Leon” in the discard pile, and since this deck only has two cards Leon VIV 154, the potential of this Charizard only goes up to 200 damage (not reaching 300 damage — which would be ideal)

Trainer Cards

Once again, the trio of required Supporter cards from the current format decks are present here: 1) Professor's Research, 2) Marnie and 3) Boss's Orders.

- Professor's Research (Professor Oak) CEL 23 is the game's great draw power potential, streamlining your resources to discard a bad hand. For example, combining this discard with fire energies from the hand and creating the combo of using the Magma Basin that takes advantage of fire energy recycling if those energies are in the discard is excellent.

- Marnie SSH 169 is that control of your opponent's hand: shuffle your hand cards to the bottom of his deck and then draw only 4 cards, while you normally shuffle your hand to the deck and draw 5 cards; having this advantage of taking away the opponent's resources with a full hand.

- Boss's Orders RCL 154 is precisely to pull that Pokémon-V, VMax, VStar or VUnion from the opponent that is on the bench to guarantee an accurate and crucial knockout, for example, the G-MAX Wildfire of Charizard- VMax, Radiant Charizard's Combustion Blast or Charizard-VStar's Star Blaze against an opponent's Pokémon to catch them off-guard.

- Cynthia's Ambition BRS 138 is guaranteed to change hands to improve the drawing power at a certain point in the game.

“But what do you mean, Rodrigo?”

You draw cards until have 5 cards in your hand. However, if your opponent Knocked Out one of your Pokémon in the previous turn, instead of drawing 5, you draw 8 cards! This is very useful for flexing and changing your hand if you are stuck with a previous draw where your resource options got bad.

- Leon VIV 154 doesn't have much of a mystery: he gives you an extra 30 damage on the turn you play that card. Remember what I wrote above about Charizard VMAX DAA 20 not “closing” damage even with the G-MAX Wildfire attack with 300 damage?

Now with Leon, it will be virtually 330 damage and can knock out anything in the format! Not to mention that this card already combines with Charizard VIV 25 because of the Royal Blaze attack, described above about Charizard's points.

- As the only Stadium/Stadium-type card in the deck, Magma Basin BRS 144 has a quick power-up function, at the cost that this Fire Pokémon on your Bench can receive this benefit by taking a Fire Energy from the discard pile to it, but takes 2 damage counters.

It is mainly useful for the Charizard VSTAR BRS 18 combo with its Explosive Fire attack that for three energies (two fire and one colorless) it does 130 damage + 100 if the Charizard has any damage counters on it; and not to mention that for the current Standard Fire Box-themed Pokémon, this card is essential.

- Ultra Ball BRS 150 is for the filter of Pokémon in the deck, with the cost of having to discard two cards from your hand to make the search, and of course, the priority is to discard the fire energies to create synergy with the Magma Basin.

- Quick Ball FST 237 has the same reasoning as the Ultra Ball, but you only need to discard a card from your hand to get a basic Pokémon.

And of course, discarding these fire energies that would be ideal to pay the cost, create the combo with the stadium Magma Basin BRS 144 to create this synergy with the Charizard that will put in play, in addition to the speed of filtering the deck (it is always recommended to go for this script).

- Rare Candy PGO 69 is essential to use in decks that require stage 2 Pokémon to evolve and speed up the process, and since Charizard PGO 10 is crucial, it's more than a must to have this type of card in the deck.

- Evolution Incense SSH 163 is for filtering and looking for evolutions in the deck, in case, wanting to get this Charizard PGO 10 in the deck, if you have guaranteed a Charmander PGO 8 and a Rare Candy PGO 69 in hand, just do the evolution combo.

- Ordinary Rod SSH 171 is the resource management to be redeemed in the discard pile, that is, being able to fulfill one of the two requirements that the card asks for or do both, which are the following effects:

1) Recover up to two Pokémon from the discard pile and return them to the deck.

2) Recover up to two base energies from the discard pile and return them to the deck.

Advantages

This is a deck with high attack power that can take many good decks of the format with massive damage, as said, attracting the attention of the public with its damage output.

Metal decks like Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR ASR 114 or Melmetal VMAX PGO 80 don't last for the obvious fact of the double weakness that they receive for being the metallic type, and even more for the Dialga that plays in the format with some situations.

But overall, if the deck is lucky enough to have Charizard PGO 10 providing double cost fire energy early in the game, it easily manages in 80% of games to go head-to-head with current decks.

Disadvantages

Massive damage decks for low energy and fast builds, like the Suicune V EVS 31, Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR ASR 40 that because they are water-type and by two energies are hitting for every Pokémon in play, deals high damage, and the Mew VMAX FST 114 that with that synergy with Genesect V FST 185 and the constant draw power and the use of the tablets, the Power Tablet FST 236, it can always hit 330 for two energies.

If the deck has any cards that prevent VMax damage like Zacian V SSH 138 it's an annoyance to deal with, but there's a way around it with Charizard VSTAR BRS 18.

And if you happen to pick up a metallic deck that has a Bronzong ASR 112, it's game over — literally, due to its ability that prevents it from taking damage from fire Pokémon.

It's a deck made for fun and not competitive play. Although from the looks of it, it is seemingly tremendously powerful with its massive destructive power, it doesn't have much consistency and in this list created by the original channel, "Eevee TCG" only used it as a tribute to all the Charizard released. But there are loose ends such as Charizard VIV 25 which is the most misplaced on the list, where it loses his massive power of 300 due to the absence of two Leon VIV 154.

In addition to essentially relying on Charizard PGO 10 to guarantee the energies paid for the ability at double cost, without it, the deck becomes an easy target for other decks in the format.

And not to mention the killjoy called Bronzong ASR 112, who never knows if someone is going to put this type of Pokémon in a Metal Box? So, there are some of these problems... If I were to build a Fire Box, I would do something that nullifies as many weaknesses as possible from my deck and weaknesses for abilities and effects that the opponent could cause me.

Until next time!