The Fire-type starter Pokémon from Kanto may have won the hearts of fans with its pseudo-dragon look over the years, but Charizard has never been used to win the Masters Division Pokemon World Championships in either the video games or TCG tournaments.
Which may come as a surprise to hear given how many powerful forms Charizard has had since Pokémon first debuted almost three decades ago, but this year may be different thanks to a new Charizard that potentially has what it takes to go all the way.
A New Charizard Heats Up the Competition
One year ago, the Pokémon TCG expansion set Obsidian Flames released what is arguably the strongest Charizard card ever printed: Charizard ex. The card has a whopping 330 HP, so most Pokémon will have to attack it at least twice in order to knock it out. Its Burning Darkness attack does 180 damage and only gets stronger the more Prizes your opponent takes – up to a staggering 330 damage if they’ve taken five Prizes, helping you scrape back from the edge of defeat.
It has an amazing ability called Infernal Reign, which allows you to instantly power up Charizard ex with Fire Energy pulled from the deck. As if that wasn’t enough, the Tera mechanic changes its traditional Fire typing to Dark, which is a much better type in the current metagame, because it hits the ever-popular Gardevoir ex for weakness.
If a Pokémon is weak to a type, it takes double the damage from it.
Charizard ex is an impressive Pokémon card by itself, but even a fiery powerhouse needs some help. Players paired Charizard ex with Pidgeot ex in order to give it more consistency, making an already strong card even stronger. Pidgeot ex’s Quick Search ability allows you to grab any card you want from your deck and put it in your hand once per turn.
The Charizard ex deck wants to immediately jump from Charmander to Charizard ex, skipping the middle Charmeleon evolution completely, so Pidgeot is key to finding Rare Candy and getting your main attacker up and running as early as turn two. Pidgeot is also handy to grab whatever card you may need in a pinch, such as a game-winning Boss’s Orders.
Charizard ex looks like it was designed purely to take down tournaments – and take down tournaments it did. In December 2023, US player Azul Garcia Griego piloted a Charizard ex deck to a first place finish at the San Antonio Regional Championship, beating out almost 2000 other players.
Since that first big win, Charizard ex has become a metagame mainstay. It dominated the tournament scene and racked up numerous high placements and wins as the months went on. Fast forward to today, and Charizard ex is the most successful tournament deck across the entire 2023-24 competitive season, according toTCG stat-tracking website Limitless.
Charizard’s Chances At Winning The Pokemon World Championship 2024
So, with Charizard ex being such a powerful deck with a proven track record, it should have no problem winning Worlds, right? Not exactly. What fun would it be without a last-minute twist to threaten Charizard’s chance to take the crown?
When the dust settled at the North American International Championships 2024 in July – the last major tournament before Worlds – things suddenly weren’t looking very good for Charizard ex. Though Charizard ex was the deck of choice for Tord Reklev, widely considered to be the best Pokemon TCG player playing today, he only finished 18th out of 2692 players.
A change in the metagame saw players switching off of Charizard ex in favor of other decks, like Gardevoir ex, which, ironically, is weak to Charizard ex.
Making things even worse for Charizard ex, competitor Jacob Eye made Top 16 at NAIC with Regidrago VSTAR. Players quickly realized that Eye was onto something big. In the blink of an eye, Regidrago VSTAR became a top performer at tournaments leading up to Worlds and cemented itself as the new favorite to win the whole thing.
Regidrago VSTAR’s attack is Apex Dragon, which lets it use the attack of any Dragon-type Pokemon in the discard pile. The deck looks to discard a handful of powerful Dragons and then have Regidrago VSTAR use whichever of their attacks best counters the opponent’s strategy.
Thanks to Dragapult ex’s damage-spreading Phantom Dive attack and Kyurem’s multi-hit Trifrost attack, Regidrago VSTAR can wipe out multiple Charmanders on the second turn, completely shutting Charizard ex out of the game. If a player somehow does manage to evolve up a Charizard ex, Regidrago VSTAR can use Raging Bolt’s Bellowing Thunder attack to knock it out in one hit.
Things look shaky for Charizard ex heading into Worlds, but it’s not out of the running just yet. The newly released Shrouded Fable mini-expansion added some spicy tools to the Worlds format cardpool that Charizard ex may be able to utilize. The Binding Mochi Tool Card combined with Pecharunt ex’s Subjugating Chains ability boosts Charizard ex’s attack by 40, allowing it to hit for 220 damage on the second turn – just enough to KO Regidrago V before it gets a chance to evolve into the VSTAR.
The new Dusclops and Dusknoir have the dangerous new Cursed Blast ability to KO themselves to place 5 or 13 damage counters on an opposing Pokemon, respectively. Giving the opponent a free Prize may not sound like a good idea, but Charizard ex can take advantage of it. Losing a Prize increases its attack by 30 damage, so, along with the extra Cursed Blast damage, it can take previously unattainable knockouts. Going down a Prize also allows the Charizard ex player to activate powerful come-from-behind cards such as Counter Catcher and Defiance Band.
Though Charizard ex does have a bad Regidrago VSTAR matchup, it still has some new tricks up its sleeve that at least give it a fighting chance at Worlds. Charizard ex performs well against other Worlds contenders such as Gardevoir ex and Maridon ex, and it isn’t too shabby against Lugia and Lost Box, either. Will Charizard finally end its Worlds losing streak? We’ll have to wait and see how it fares when the Pokemon World Championships 2024 kick off today and the grand finals are played out on August 18.
Pokemon TCG
Collected by children and adults alike for more than two decades, the Pokemon TCG contains thousands of cards of your favorite Pokemon, trainers, and more.
