All it needed was a little Legendary help.
While Charizard cards will always have a special place in the hearts of Pokemon fans everywhere, they usually disappoint when it comes to the actual Pokemon Trading Card Game. They typically do a lot of damage but are far too slow and costly to consistently attack. Things started to change for the fiery lizard back in February when a fast and efficient Charizard card came out, sparking a bit of hope for fans of the Fire-type Kanto starter. However, even though it was the best Charizard the game had ever seen, it barely saw any competitive use. It seemed like Charizard was never going to get a competitively viable card… until this month’s Sun and Moon: Unbroken Bonds expansion set released what is not only the best Charizard card ever printed but one of the best cards in the game, period.
Meet Reshiram & Charizard Tag Team GX. You can see the new card below along with its alternate rarities and support cards that we’ll be discussing in the article.
The Attacks
This thing is one beast of a card. With 270 HP it can tank quite a bit of damage, but opponents will have to think twice before hitting into it because with Outrage it can dish all that damage back to the opposing Pokemon.
What really makes it so good is it’s Flare Strike attack. For four Fire Energy, it can attack for a frankly ridiculous 230 damage. That’s enough to take out every popularly used Basic like Tapu Lele GX (170 HP) and Ultra Necrozma GX (190 HP) and Stage 1 like Zoroark GX (210 HP) and Lycanroc GX (200 HP). Equipping a Choice Band adds+30 damage so it can reach 260, which is enough to take out opposing Tag Teams like Pikachu & Zekrom GX (240 HP) and the new Gardevoir & Sylveon GX (260 HP). And while Venusaur & Celebi GX previously saw some use with its 270 HP and healing support, it’s x2 Fire weakness pretty much makes it unplayable going forward.
Flake Strike does have the downside of not being able to be used two turns in a row, so that’s where its Double Blaze GX attack comes in. It does 200 damage for a mere three Fire Energy, and that can be increased all the way up to 300 damage and gain Shred by attaching three extra Fires. The boosted version will likely rarely be used in favor of just doing a clean 200 damage on a turn when you’re not able to use Flake Strike. At the end of the day, the downside to Flake Strike isn’t much of a bother given how you can use one of Reshiram & Charizard GX’s alternate attacks or just activate a switching card (Guzma, Switch, Escape Rope, etc.) to reset the effect and allow it to attack again.
Have you watched us unbox Pokemon’s ‘real’ metal Pokeballs? They can hold anything… and we mean anything!
The Support
While these attacks may seem prohibitively expensive at first glance, Unbroken Bonds includes some serious Fire-type support that makes the cost a non-issue. The new Supporter Welder lets you attach two Fires from hand and draw three cards, while Fire Crystal recovers three Fires from your discard pile to hand so you’ll always have energy to burn. Add in previously released cards like Fiery Flint which lets you grab four Fires from your deck and Kiawe which attaches four Fires from deck and you’re beginning to see why Reshiram & Charizard GX has become such a serious contender. It has numerous ways to access Fires, quickly get them on the board, and then start lighting up the opponent as quickly as Turn 1 of the game.
The Negatives
Now, Reshiram & Charizard GX may be incredibly powerful, but it’s not without its weaknesses. Being a Tag Team GX, it lets the opponent take three Prizes for knocking it out, which is half of the six Prizes required to win the game. Also, its x2 Water weakness makes it easy prey for Slowking’s Psychic attack, which any deck playing Triple Boost Energy can toss in and make use of via Ditto Prism Star.
Anti-ReshiZard tech.
Still, even in the face of these issues Reshiram & Charizard GX is currently the most dominant deck in Japan, where it has already been legal for months now. The most recent big tournament was the Champions League in Kyoto with 1489 participants and Reshiram & Charizard GX not only took first place (piloted by Ryoya Kanagawa) but comprised 25 of the top 64 decks.
The Price
As you can imagine, Charizard cards are already worth a lot on the secondary market because they feature such a popular Pokemon, but being an amazing competitive card makes that price jump up even higher. As of this writing, TCGPlayer.com prices the regular version at $37.58, the full art at $43.59, and the rainbow full art at a whopping $177.72.
So after over 20 years, Charizard is finally enjoying some success. It just took a little help from a Fire-type Legendary to get there.
Check out the rest of the Pokemon GX coming out in Unbroken Bonds below.
For more on Pokemon, be sure to peep our spoiler-free review of Detective Pikachu.
Joshua is Senior Features Editor at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.
