The Competitive History of Base Set Charizard

[@pokumon2044]

Thank you for visiting the site! It means a lot that people care about some of the old TCG tournament history

[@CeliosNetwork]

Thank YOU! The site is so cool ❤️

[@sgarrue]

Imagine writing a report of a game that no one though it was gonna be this big and then the amazing Celios made a video about you

[@WickedCitizen]

I was a competitive player during the base set to fossil era and I can confirm that amongst the people who WERE online discussing deck building in depth in those days... everyone thought Charizard was garbage due to how slow it was to setup (and the insane energy requirements to use it if you did somehow get it setup). The few people who did try to play it quickly learned not to because more often than not they never even got to stage 2 before basics like HItmonchan, Scyther, and Electabuzz swept them. As the vid points out, you did see Blastoise and Venusaur decks decently often, but playing Charizard was like a huge neon sign that this person is a new player.

[@joshb1137]

And even if you did manage the nightmare task of setting it up one Fire Spin would then discard two energy, it was a horrible card.

[@RayquazaDot]

Ah yes, my favourite starter trio: Venasaur, Magmar and Blastoise.

[@L3thalShad0ws7]

I can only think of ReshiZard, (which is only 50% Charizard) and Radiant Zard being the only actual “good” Charizard cards

[@austinwthompson45]

I always though Mega Charizard with 300 damage was insane. But that was back when I though Energy was for changing type and you could just attack anytime

[@DKQuagmire]

every deck on ptcgo is playing Radiant Charizard right now. that is, if their radiant spot, isn't used up by Radiant Greninja.

[@fawfulmark2]

Leon's Charizard was a decent Rogue deck for a bit too. But yeah beyond most of those examples the big 'Zard is kinda scarce in tourneys.

[@kered13]

Why did you have to post this? Now Obsidian Flame Charizard ex is terrorizing the meta!

[@L3thalShad0ws7]

@@kered13 Hah I remember this comment! Although, the past couple months my main decks have been Gardy, Chien-Pao, or Rapid Strike, so I used love when my opp would flip over a charmander! Buttttt I admit, recently Zard has been annoying not to mention EVERYWHERE, and it has only gotten more consistent... ig tech in those TM Devos🤧

[@mellowasiam]

Charizard being a chase rare is just proof of people treating the game like collectible art. Even back then, I mostly cared about battling. Lol

[@luv-zp8jw]

wow the old report was such a cool find, like reading an old diary from 100 years ago. the fact that firebomb 2k likely cheated also checks out, I remember making up rules to the TCG all the time as a kid

[@doublejazz]

i remember being a kid and going to the corner store with a few dollars my mom gave me. Got a single booster pack and pulled Charizard. Me and my friend popped off so hard. It was truly the holy grail at that time

[@malachihill8677]

6:13 They may have meant Charmander, then drawed the evos normally. They did say "and some good draws."

[@Genra]

If his deck from 4:28 never changed, then it should be physically impossible to do so, since his Charizard would have been in the discard pile and he has no cards that allow him to pick up cards in the discard pile. I do agree though that the wording implies he didn't only use Revive, the only thing I can think of is that when he says "Charizard" in the first line he's actually referring to Charmander or Chameleon and is just simplifying it.

[@OutCold9te6]

He only has 1 charizard.

[@tablemon]

Super interesting to see the old tournament results! I knew about Pojo but didn't know about Pokumon

[@lkjkhfggd]

Thought he was going to talk about all Charizard cards ever printed. The original Charizard card generally seems bad. If Blastoise could attach its water energy to any pokemon type (not just water), then I could see the two cards working together perfectly (maybe. I'm interpreting the ability on the card to mean any non-fire energy attached to charizard is treated like fire, but maybe the effect actually requires you to have fire energy to swap out?). But anyways, with no energy acceleration for Charizard and energy removal and super energy removal existing, Charizard is way too slow.

[@CeliosNetwork]

I have videos like you described for Gardevoir and Blastoise in the history playlist, and I’ll make more with time! I’ve found viewers largely enjoy it when I focus in on 1 specific card, so I tried that with this Charizard video. Thanks for the feedback!

[@SnoFitzroy]

I pulled its reprint randomly from a Celebrations pack and immediately traded it with two of each of the other two starters for 50 packs lmao

[@ResidentKlinton]

You could do a follow up: Which Charizard cards have seen competitive success?

[@zegod2586]

radiant charizard cuz op ability and 250 dmg

[@icantthinkofaname4723]

@@zegod2586 forgetting reshizard?

[@fawfulmark2]

Base Zard? Nahhh. Radiant Zard? Oh heck yes.

[@marxistharpy]

The Celio’s Research card is sending me 😂 can’t wait to see the full art

[@kstanni87]

Charizard had good damage but having to discard 2 energies after a attack leaves him a sitting duck, for the next turns if the opponent has more pokemons already loaded with energies. And it couldn't use double colorless energy. A big weakness.

[@Buck93]

It Could use DCE. It could use ANY energy card as long as MUK wasn’t in play

[@kstanni87]

@@Buck93 *looks like i have to get a pair of reading glasses*

[@CyborgForgael]

I remember someone attempting to use a Blastoise/Charizard combo against me. But it didn’t work, as Rain Dance only places water energy onto water Pokémon.

[@luisroza9878]

Such great content in your videos! Funny to see that one of the most expensive cards was in fact not good to play with by its time 😂

[@Gnolte]

5:26 i never thought it'd hear this sentence

[@ThePotatoTechnique]

I got a yu-gi-oh ad while watching this video 💀

[@anthonybulone2417]

Poke history videos are awesome! I love these

[@Circ00mspice]

I'm guessing on top of Charizard's heavy energy usage, Rain Dance is also why I never heard of Charizard seeing competitive play

[@matthewkuscienko4616]

It's more than just that, I believe. Looking back at it, Charizard had basically nothing going for it: not only was it's attack very expensive to use (at least not without something like DCE or Electrode's buzzap to provide multiple energies and take advantage of Charizard's Pokemon Power), but it also required you to discard all energies from it as well. It's also worth mentioning that stage 2 Pokemon probably weren't exactly common, as it seems like there were more decks back then that focused on basic and stage 1 cards instead (I could be wrong, but it seems like they were probably more consistent, especially with haymaker being so good back then)

[@Buck93]

Back then if you went first you probably won unless you had a bad starting hand. You didn’t NEED fire energy. You can build a deck around charizard and consistently win but stage 2 decks are always at a disadvantage if they fall behind besides raindance because it bypasses the 1 energy per turn rule. Most the deck list on there are pretty terrible. 20 years later you can build a consistent charizard deck

[@AlsoDakota-bs5ux]

One theory I have is nobody with a Charizard wanted to damage it during play.

[@OriginFormeLad]

We need a "History of Venusaur" video! :D

[@JO-iv7tl]

I always wondered if they gave Charizard an attack cost of 3 but did 70/80 damage if he would have seen play. Keeping everything else about the card intact.

[@hv433]

It probably still wouldn't have seen competitive use, since Fire Blast's "discard two energy cards attached to Charizard" effect is so crippling... Assuming Charmeleon had three energies, Charizard gets one Fire Blast, and if you have a Fire Energy in hand on the next turn and your opponent doesn't use Energy Removal, then he gets a second one, and now Charizard needs a DCE to run, and after that, he's out. Base Set Charizard is literally the epitome of burning gas too fast. The only way to mitigate this is to stockpile Fire Energy on Charmeleon, and Gust of Wind and Energy Removal is probably gonna make that plan fail. Not to mention Rain Dance would absolutely stomp most Charizard decks. Blastoise is like three notches above Venusaur and Charizard. Base Set Charizard would've been viable if the creators had either made Blastoise but for Fire types instead, created more energy types that provided multiple energy like DCE, or lowered the discard cost to one card like other Fire type Pokemon (including Charmeleon and Charmander, which saw better use).

[@DKQuagmire]

back in like 2014 or 2015, when i joined the site TCG ONE, i felt a wave of nostalgia, opening virtual booster packs by playing through the sites career mode, where you fought against other real life people using decks built of cards you have pulled from the virtual packs, and i remember pulling base set charizard in my first week on the site. Did I use it... YES!!! i built my old charizard deck from the game boy colour TCG, which included Jungle Rapidash and Fossil Magmar. later on, my main fire type deck on the site would switch to a Blaines Charizard and Blaines Arcanine, with Fossil Magmar, and i never actually touched base charizard again.

[@xxwallzxx4509]

It would lose to Staryu. Atleast that was what I have heard before. C=Charizard S=Staryu C: Fire energy S: Water Energy hits C: Fire Energy S: Water Energy hits C: Fire Energy S: Water Energy hits and KOs Unless I am wrong on how the game works. But that was what I have heard before.

[@positivedud4961]

Only in gen 3 OU. That’s the games, I can’t think of an occurrence where it’s good in the cards though.

[@TinyLadyKris]

it would be cool if you explained why it was bad compared to the other. even though, if you read it, it's very obvious. despite charizard having the strongest damage, it is a COMPLETE energy sink. all the way from Charizard to Charmeleon to Charizard, their strongest attacks all discard energies for zero purpose. you can get them back with energy retrieval, and but that doesn't stop it from being an absolute energy-waster. the other two starters at least do something beneficial with their energy. charizard only turns other energy into fire energy for themselves. it's just a selfish energy-wasting pokemon without any benefit outside of a big damage number, which you might only be able to pull off once, MAYBE twice if you want to waste energy.

[@mrplow8]

Base set Charizard was never good. Show me a good Base set Charizard deck and I’ll show you a bad Venusaur or Electrode deck.

[@Ivlook]

Why is there an ad every 1 minute??

[@sovitouphin773]

first

[@sovitouphin773]

les go

[@Donohuebro2]

Charizard is the most overrated card and pokemon ever