This Deck Can Beat (Almost) Anything — Charizard ex Matchup Guide
Hello everyone! Love it or hate it, Charizard ex once again finds itself in a position to be one of the best decks in the format. Charizard placed first and second at the recent Stuttgart Regionals, and often achieves other high placements at other major tournaments as well. If you are a competitor in the Surging Sparks format, Charizard needs to be on your radar.
For all the Charizard players, or those considering the deck, I’ve decided to put together a matchup guide for today’s article. Unlike Regidrago VSTAR, which has to be a highly adaptable deck due to the variance in its random draws, Charizard has access to stable search options. Pidgeot ex enables consistent lines and game plans, and perfectly supports Charizard, which is a ridiculously broken card with numbers that are just too big. I won’t spend much time on the actual deck list, as Charizard lists have mostly stabilized and see relatively few variations. One such outlier was the PokéStop build that placed second, which I do not recommend. The first place list from Stuttgart is basically optimized, and I consider it the gold standard for Charizard decks in the current format. This is the list:
The only deviation I personally advise is cutting a Duskull for the sixth copy of Fire Energy. I briefly discussed my thoughts on Charizard lists in my last article, so I won’t go into too much detail here. The sixth Fire Energy provides this deck with more power and flexibility, as well as additional outs to use Cleffa on turn 1. The second Duskull isn’t bad, and you’ll wish for it when Duskull is Prized. It’s possible that another card like Briar, Collapsed Stadium, or Night Stretcher is the better cut. Nonetheless, the deck can play fine without Duskull when it has to, and you don’t even need it in every matchup. I greatly enjoyed playing six Fire Energy at LAIC.
Another option is to include Canceling Cologne, which shores up matchups against annoying nonsense decks like Snorlax, Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex, and Iron Thorns ex. I myself couldn’t say for sure if this card is worth including, though I did play it at LAIC. I’ll leave it up to you.
General Tips
Charizard ex is a deck that doesn’t mind going first or second. Of course, going second allows you to stabilize with Arven before your opponent gets to attack, and you might even get to use Cleffa. However, going first gives you potential for a faster Pidgeot ex, which can protect Pidgey from getting KO’d. Going in blind, I choose to go first, but I prefer going second against aggressive decks that can punish you for going first.
The biggest and most common mistake I see from Charizard players is tunneling in on aggression. Sure, this deck can attack on turn 2, and sometimes an aggressive line is the best one. However, Charizard is a deck that plays very well from behind, and is capable of building awesome combos and checkmates. However, without Pidgeot, you are gambling on Charizard alone to carry you, which it won’t. This deck relies on Pidgeot to function, so I almost always prioritize setting it up on turn 2 instead of Charizard. Randomly swinging for 180 damage isn’t even that good in most situations. If my Pidgey is endangered in any capacity before it evolves, I will not hesitate to put down a second Pidgey to ensure that I get Pidgeot set up. The second Pidgey is more of a priority in some matchups than others, and we’ll get to that.
Most of the time, this deck is happy to aggressively utilize its two-Prize support Pokemon without regard to the consequences. Usually, this is worth it because you simply win the game with the help of those Pokemon. However, there are some games where you must be careful with what Pokemon you put into play. Some situations require diligence, and you can cut off your opponent’s win conditions by simply not having targets in play. In general, these situations occur when you are more than one Prize behind. Charizard can utilize its massive HP to pose an obstacle for taking Prize cards, since most Pokemon can’t one-shot it. You don’t want to convenience your opponent by allowing them to ignore the Charizard entirely and still win.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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