I’m no stranger to writing tournament reports, a couple people know me as “The Charizard Guy”. (By the way, this is a name I approve of.) At first I wasn’t planning on writing a report for this one, simply due to the amount of Charizard tournament reports on SixPrizes.
Then I saw the 26th LuxChomp report, and decided if people like constant LuxChomp articles, and Charizard is 100x cooler than Luxray or Garchomp, no one would mind this one.
Because there are so many extensive Charizard articles on SixPrizes, the basic strategy of this deck is well known, so I won’t go into that much. At this point, I’ve also put too much work into my list to risk it being net-decked, but I will say it is mind-bendingly close to the final list in my last report.
No one cares about my drive up there, or my lack of breakfast, or the fact that I was fighting crime just fifteen minutes before the tournament with my superhero friend Umbreon Man. Let’s get to the detailed happenings of assorted card games.
Round 1: Lost Zone Deck
My opponent starts with a Mew Prime, and an Evee. My opponent starts off by throwing Lucario into the Lost Zone. I have no idea what the deck is about at this point. My first turn is amazing. I am able to set up a Charizard, and get 4 fire bench plus an Uxie down, and fill my hand. I use “Fire Wing” to KO the Mew.
My opponent evolves Evee to Umbreon, and uses “Moonlight Fang”. I use Warp Point to switch Charizard with Infernape 4 and with Typhlosion’s “Afterburner” I am able to use Infernape’s “Split Bomb” and deal 20 damage to Umbreon.
My opponent uses “Quick Blow” the next turn, and instead of drawing it out with Infernape 4, I use the opportunity to retreat Infernape and use Fire Wing, as Moonlight Fang was no longer in effect.
1-0
Round 2: Tanking Donphan
Like all fighting-type matchups, Donphan is just crippled against Charizard. A -20 resistance doesn’t seem like much, but when it takes 3 belted “Earthquakes” to KO just 1 Charizard, it can get ugly.
I start with an early Charizard blocking the Earthquakes, and was even able to heal one with a Seeker. My opponent used healing cards for the first half of the game, keeping 1 Donphan alive about as long as a Charizard was staying alive.
The prize race was close but the MooMoo Milks and the Poke’ Healers had to run out eventually. About the time we were both around 2 prizes, I was able to KO the remaining un-belted Donphans 1 turn at a time. Definitely the toughest Donphan deck I’ve played so far.
2-0
Round 3: Sable-Chomp
I lose the coin flip so I’m able to go second. I don’t get a really great start. At one point I have a Charmeleon with a rescue on my bench as well as a Vulpix. My opponent decides to “Dragon Rush” the Vulpix and not the Charmeleon.
While I hate my Vulpix/Ninetales being KO’d, it was a game changing decision on my part. The remaining Charmeleon with the Rescue became the Charizard with 3 energy sweeping with “Burning Tail”. That Charizard, plus another that I built up on my bench continued to do just that.
3-0
Round 4: LuxChomp
This was a game I wish I could have recorded. I get a mediocre start, and my opponent gets a “LuxChomp Start” so I’m in the red already, but I know from experience, a Charizard can pull a victory out of a LuxChomp match as long as a Charizard with 3 energy can become active before the LuxChomp player draws more than 3 prizes.
Once a Charizard goes out against SP, they have very few decisions. The most obvious is to directly attack it. Two turns of LuxChomping one Charizard will KO it, but a good Charizard only needs 1 turn.
The second option is to snipe the bench. Nintales, leftover basics, and Uxies can all add up to the remaining prize cards that LuxChomp needs. This kind of ability makes retreating useless, and makes hiding impossible.
The last, and often easiest way for a LuxChomp to deal with Charizard is collect all of the Power Sprays. You need to spray the first Uxie, spray the “Roast Reveals” spray the “Afterburners” spray everything you can, because those Power Sprays are the only things stopping an angry Charizard from plowing those fragile 110Hp SP Pokémon to the ground.
My opponent tries all three of these tactics. He sprays my first “Set Up” and gets a head start on me from the beginning. He snipes my Ninetales with “Dragon Rush”, waiting til he has the bench space for a Crobat and 2 prizes the following turn.
The next turn he Power Sprays my Roast Reveal, so I play BTS and a Seeker. I remove the 80 damage from Ninetales, and am able to complete a Roast Reveal. At this point I can continue the use of Roast Reveal every turn, and with Fisherman, I have no shortage of cards or energy.
After I get my first Charizard out and swinging, it turns into a prize race and I am already losing by 2 at this point (4-6). To prevent a prize-for-prize exchange, I begin to Seeker up my Uxies and Ninetales, leaving only Typhlosions, Charizards, and my Infernape 4 LV.X.
With all options taking 2 turns to claim a prize, and no way of stopping a constant 110-130 damage per turn, I am able to win the prize race in this game.
4-0
Round 5: Gyarados
My opponent starts with two Karps, I start with a Vulpix active, Cyndaquil on the bench, and go first. I simply “Find Wildfire” and prepare for the Gyarados. My opponent uses Seeker to pick his Karp up, and uses Junk arm to throw it into the discard. He uses “Tail Revenge” for only 40 against Vulpix.
My next turn I get a Charizard through Collector, Uxie, Rare Candy, Etc, and attack with Fire Wing. Sadly, my opponents hand prevents him from getting another basic, and that 1 Gyarados is the only one I have to KO. I hate winning like this, but I’m always happy to quickly end a game against my weakness.
5-0
Round 6: LostGar
I’m really not sure how to describe this game. The LoastGar has a VileTomb engine, so I’m trainer locked from turn 1. I struggle to get a Charizard out, and I struggle even harder to gain prizes.
My hand is a buffet of Pokémon for Gengar Prime to just throw into the lost zone every turn, and with Palkia G’s “Lost Cyclone” my opponent is easily able to put 6 Pokémon into my lost zone before I draw all 6 of my prizes. The problem was just the stadium.
My opponent tried for several turns to get his Lost World, but because it was late game, we were both low on recourses. I was only using Fire Wing for 60 damage per turn, and my opponent kept switching out to prevent me from drawing my last prize.
The last turn left my opponent with Vileplume out, and 60 damage on it, which was my last prize. I’ve played many “Lost Zone” decks before, and this was only the second one to actually get 6 Pokémon into the lost zone. The stadium was just very unfortunate luck
6-0
Top 8: LuxChomp
Game 1:
This game goes much like the earlier game I played against LuxChomp. I am able to keep a prize lead even after an un-desirable start by using Seeker to scoop up my weaker benched Pokémon. I win this round with an impressive 2 prize lead.
Game 2 and 3:
A day full of winning made my deck tired I guess. So tired that it didn’t want to give me any Pokémon search cards in the first game, or energy cards in the second. It was just a mess of horrible draws, bad luck, and Power Sprays.
To put it simply, my deck basically stopped playing. I scooped in the second game after my opponent drew 4 prizes, and I scooped the third when I had only a Typhlosion active with no way of getting another Pokémon, and was again 4 prizes down.
Frankly, it just felt embarrassing on my part to go un-defeated all day, just to have my deck stop working in the final cut. It’s hard to let that go, especially at a State tournament when I went so far with such an under-rated deck.
This kind of bad luck isn’t new to me, but it’s the first time it’s happened to me in such an important match, with such depressing results. The feeling of drawing every card you don’t want, and watching the top 4 slip away one turn at a time is just too much when you’re so close to making it farther than you have at any other tournament. I really am trying to make a point with this.
A while ago I wrote an article called “The Art of Losing” in which I described how to have good sportsmanship, even when you lose a tough match. I did the whole “Handshake and Good-Game” ritual, but needless to say I wasn’t energetic, or even in a good mood like I was just half an hour earlier.
I pretty much contradicted myself and everything I stood for in the article I wrote, and would just like to apologize to the Pokémon Community, even though only a small percent of people were around to see it. Point is, the more matches you win, the more is on the line when you lose, and if a player plans on winning a lot, they should be prepared for the worst when the winning streak ends.
Now that all of that is on the way, I just wanted to call out to all of those Charizard players out there with less desirable records. The ones who play Charizard for the love of the Pokémon, or the fun of the deck. The deck is powerful, quick, and consistent enough to win tournaments, it just requires more practice, and a lot more list tweaking than most other decks.
Don’t lose hope, I have proven that Charizard can fly through even a State tournament with a great record, and we’ll see if he’s got what it takes at the next big one.
