Yo yo yo it's yo boy BigP with another long winded deck analysis, this time with less
s since OU7C4ST gave me crap for that in my Politoed list commentary.
This deck revolves around the granddaddy of all Fire starters, the Charizard family, which were just recently given new cards in the new Generations pack given out with each Mythical Mew/Celebi Collection. Just a warning however: these cards are not all that great. But like many of you out there, I have fond memories of the original games, especially of the badass fire-breathing dragon Charizard, and it's a blast reliving my nostalgia of evolving my meek Charmander into the big ol' Charizard. Saying that, play the deck for yourself and see how you like it, and I suggest you change your deck to match your playstyle. Seeing how the Generations packs can only be obtained on PTCGO by either random tournament giveaway, buying the actualy Mythical Collecitons, or if you're like me, buying upwards of 60 codes online, many might not be familiar with the new cards, so let's take a look at them.
First obviously is Charmander, a 70 HP Basic Pokemon (not bad for a Basic that evolves into a Stage 2) with the attack Playful: 1 Fire Energy and 1 Colorless Energy; 20x; Flip a coin. If heads, this attack does 20 damage times the number of damage counters on this Pokemon.
Next we have Charmeleon, a 90 HP Stage 1 Pokemon that has 2 attacks. The first attack is Call for Support, which requires 1 Colorless energy and allows you to search your deck for a Supporter card and add to your hand, shuffle your deck, yadda yadda yadda. The second attack is Slash, which requires 2 Fire Energy and 1 Colorless Energy and does 80 damage.
Finally we have the don himself Charizard, a 160 HP Stage 2 Pokemon that also has 2 attacks. The first attack is Recall, which allows you to use any 1 attack from this cards previous evolutions as its own attack for just 1 Colorless Energy. The second attack is Combustion Blast, which requires 2 Fire Energy and 2 Colorless Energy for 130 damage with the drawback being that if you use Combustion Blast, the Pokemon can't use it your next turn.
Looking at these cards, what jumped out to me was Charizard's attack Recall, which is a built-in Shrine of Memories, but with the added benefit of the used attacks only costing 1 Energy. This bypasses the unusual cost for Charmeleon's Slash attack which costs 2 Fire and 1 Colorlesss Energy where many cards that have a 3 Energy attack will require just 1 colored energy and 2 Colorless energy. Charizard also clearly benefits much more from Charmander's Playful attack with the potential of doing upwards of 300 damage, though I would much prefer to be in a situation where I'd rather use Slash or Combustion Blast rather than relying on a coin flip, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Combustion Blast also does not do as much as its EX counterpart for the same drawback and has the steep 4 Energy cost, but this can be overcome with a Blacksmith and a DCE.
To round out the Pokemon, I run 1 Houndoom Ex which allows you to attach a Fire Energy from your discard to one of your benched Pokemon and is nice for milling 2 cards out of your opponent's deck if you open with it and go second. I also run a 1-1 of Litleo-Pyroar because while the game has been seeing a rise in Stage 1/Stage 2 decks, EX's and cards such as Regice are still prevalent and at worst, your opponent will have to waste their Supporter of the turn on a Hex Maniac just to get over your Pyroar. Finally, I run a Shaymin EX because it's Shaymin EX and it's what you should be Ultra Ball-ing for if you have the chance.
For now I'm going to skip the Trainer cards and talk about the Energy cards as energy ratios are something I often struggle with and am very open to feedback and suggestions about. I run 10 Fire Energy and 2 Double Colorless because even though Charizard's Combustion Blast is costly, you are also able to do 50 damage less for just 1 Energy. Blacksmith also allows you put up to 4 Energy in one turn on a monster pretty easily.
Now for Trainer cards. For Supporters, I run MY staples (feel free to adjust as you see accordingly) of 1 Ace Trainer, 1 Judge, 1 Birch, 1 Hex Maniac, 2 Lysandres, 2 Skyla (aka FA Bae) and 2 Sycamore. I also run 1 Wally for first turn plays or emergency evolutions, 1 Brigette since I run 5 non-EX Basic Pokemon (though I don't know how much I like it in this deck, let me know how you feel about it) and 2 Blacksmith because it's a Fire deck and you'd be an idiot not to run Blacksmith (no offense idiots). I run 3 Scorching Earth which gives Fire decks draw power that arguably lets them leave out cards such as Octillery and Shaymin and sets up Blacksmith plays and Houndoom EX. I usually don't run 4 of a particular stadium as I find it cloggy unless a deck absolutely calls for it; this deck does not however. You know what, this is pretty stagnant and I bet most of the people who began reading stopped by now and half of them will claim they read it (I'm looking at you OU7C4ST jk lol) so if you made it this far, message me on either Twitch or Discord (my name is BigPimpin1217 on both) and I'll give you a Mythical Collection Mew Sleeve. I run 4 Trainer Mail's, though I know some people prefer to play 3 and 4 VS Seekers because its VS Seeker. I run 1 Energy Retrieval and 1 Professor's Letter as I do in every deck, but I feel that they're important in this deck as they will allow you to draw off of Scorched Earth and attach an Energy for the turn if needed. I also run 1 Battle Compressor as the discard pile is becoming a much more valuable resource in the game, especially for Fire decks. Battle Compressor is great to open with if you open with a VS Seeker but no Supporters as you can dump the appropriate Supporter and add it to your hand. It's also perfect for a Turn 1 Blacksmith as you dump the aforementioned Blacksmith and 2 Fire energies, add the Blacksmith to your hand via VS Seeker and throw 2 energies on any Fire Pokemon you choose. I run 2 Level Balls as 8 of the monsters have under 100 HP and 2 Ultra Balls because it's Ultra Ball, though I could also understand replacing 2 more Ultra Balls in place of the Level Balls and it's something I have been teetering on myself.
Finally for my tool I run 2 Floating Stones and you may be wondering why I made a new paragraph just to tell you this. While creating this deck, I struggled deciding what Tool(s) I should run. It came down to me deciding between Float Stone and Muscle Band and ultimately, as you might have figured out, I decided to run Float Stone. While Muscle Band provides additional offensive output, I don't feel that it provides enough. Some decks really need that additional 20 damage to knock out big EX's, but the Charizard family's attacks are in this grey area between 80 and 140 damage where 80 damage is enough to knock out most Basic Pokemon (notable cards include Hawlucha, every Night Marcher, Basics that evolve) and 130 damage is enough to knock out some non-EX threats (such as Garchomp, Regice, Crobat, Miltank, Entei, Shaymin EX, Trevenant, wow there's a lot). 20 additional damage to push your attack to 150 is not helping you knock out any EX's except for Diancie EX and Hoopa-C EX and God bless you if you are running those. Charizard is capable of dishing out upwards of 300 damage however with the Playful attack, albeit you need to have 15 damage counters on the Charizard and flip heads, and until they release Mega Wailord EX with 310 HP, 20 damage is not helping you then either. Because of Combustion Blast's drawback of not letting the Pokemon use that attack during the next turn, Float Stone allows you to pivot to a Charizard on the bench that can use Combustion Blast, a tactic often seen with the EX counterpart. Float Stone also allows you to pivot into your Pyroar to wall a Basic Pokemon that's giving you trouble.
An obvious solution to this issue is to just run both, but my OCD and general bad player-ness does not allow me to take out the cards I like to run in every deck (it's taken me a year and a half to stop running Pokemon Center Lady) so feel free to take out cards you don't like if you'd rather run both or if you'd rather run other Tools instead.
This deck is by no means a Nationals contender or even good frankly. Charizard EX is a much better card as its Combustion Blast does 20 more damage and is a Basic EX. If that's your concern, I'm sorry for wasting your time. If you want to reminisce to the days of Pokemon RBY and the journey you took with your little Charmander this may just be the deck for you. Perhaps you better players may even see hidden potential in these cards. Hell, maybe you could build a deck with Training Center and Rainbow Energies akin to the Shedinja deck and try to land 360 damage hits on your opponents.
I hope you enjoyed this list and I'd greatly appreciate it if you left feedback and/or suggestions. I do not claim to be a great player, let alone a great deckbuilder but I am tempted to try to build a deck with every Pokemon. I'd like to see if you have a different spin on this deck and I'll give you all the credit in the world if I win Worlds with it
(sorry OU7C4ST, I had to put one in).