Pokémon really likes giving us new Charizard cards all the time, don't they? Well, luckily for us, they gave us arguably the best non-GX/V Charizard card yet! This new Charizard has an attack that does + 50 more damage for each Leon in your discard pile, meaning you can do a total of 300 damage for having 4 Leon in your discard! It also has a great ability & cheap energy cost! Another great thing about it is that it is relatively easy to build thanks to Leon & Charizard being in its own Theme deck & with the Trainer Toolkit also being accessible for this deck! Let's look at my starter list & break things down! 

The List: 

Pokémon: 20 
- 4 Charizard (VIV)
- 2 Charmeleon (HIF)
- 4 Charmander (VIV)
- 4 Jirachi (TEU)
- 1 Dedenne GX (UNB)
- 1 Mewtwo (UNB)
- 1 Galarian Zigzagoon (SWSH)
- 1 Mew (UNB)
- 1 Oranguru (SWSH) 
- 1 Oricorio GX (CEC)

Trainers: 33 
- 1 Ordinary Rod (SWSH)
- 4 Pokémon Communication (TEU)
- 4 Quick Ball (SWSH)
- 4 Rare Candy (SWSH)
- 4 Scoop Up Net (RCL)
- 3 Switch (SWSH)
- 3 Giant Hearth (UNI)
- 1 Boss's Order (RCL)
- 2 Professor's Research (SWSH)
- 3 Welder (UNB)
- 4 Leon (VIV) 

Energy: 7
- 7 Basic Fire Energy 

This is a good beginner list for the Charizard deck! The deck uses 4 of the new Charizard, a stage 2 Pokémon, so we use cards like Rare Candy to put it into play! The deck also uses cards like Jirachi with the ability Stellar Wish to help find your Leons & Rare Candy when you need it; it is a perfect setup card! Using cards like Oricorio GX to help draw 3 cards every time something is KO'd is also very helpful when finding Rare Candy & Leons! Charizard has 170 hp making it decently bulky & has an ability that lets you look at the top 3 cards of your deck & choose 1 card you find and put it into your hand, but discarding the other 2 cards! This ability has many uses, like helping you find more pieces to get more Charizards into play and dig for Leons to discard. You can combine this ability with Oranguru's Primate Wisdom ability to put a Leon from your hand on top of your deck! 

This deck uses Welder to help power up your Charizard's 2 energy attack cost, meaning you can attack in one fell swoop! Welder drawing you 3 cards alongside Oricorio's ability can let you see quite a few cards in a single turn! Of course, we also have a couple of Professor's Research to help us draw cards too when trying to dig through the deck to set up and potentially discard more Leons from the hand! With our supporters, we also have Mewtwo. When combined with either Jirachi, Oranguru, Oricorio, or Charizard's ability, Mewtwo lets you put a supporter back into your hand from the discard pile, letting you reuse Welders and even Leon to do extra damage! 

While we are on the topic of damage, Charizard can do 300 damage with 4 Leons in the discard. It is not enough to KO most VMAX cards, but that is why Mewtwo can be useful, as your supporter for the turn can be the Leon to do 30 more Damage. This means since you are using it, it goes back into your discard pile for the 300 damage potential, but it also means you're doing the extra 30 damage from playing the Leon; this will help you OHKO VMAX cards! If you can't do that and have to use Welder for your supporter for the turn, don't worry. You have the Galarian Zigzagoon alongside Scoop Up Net to get that bit of 20 damage you need for 320 damage total! The other relevance for the Zigzagoon is to do more relevant numbers like 340 for the Eternatus VMAX matchup, where you want to go Leon & Goon for 340 total damage, or even against PikaRom where you can go 230 with 2 Leon, then Goon drop for 240 damage! 

With all the outs to finding your Leon, thanks to Jirachi, Oricorio GX, Dedenne GX & Battle Sense, it is easy to get them into your hand! Of course, the deck uses 3 Giant Hearth to discard one from your hand, but it's to get 2 energy for Welder/Charizard! The Quick Balls are also useful for discarding Leons from your hand! This deck is a great and easy deck to build as buying the Vivid Voltage Charizard Theme deck twice gets you 4 Leons, 4 Charizards & Charmanders, and even a few Researchs! While the Trainer Toolkit can get you your Welders, Dedenne GX, Boss's Orders, Giant Hearths & Quick Balls! If you get the Pikachu & Zekrom battle arena kit, you can obtain the Jirachis needed, but they are not too expensive right now anyway! Some other includes in this deck can be 2nd Ordinary Rod, 2nd Dedenne GX, PokéGears, 2nd Zigzagoon, Marnie & Talonflame V! 

With this new Charizard deck, we finally have a good non-V/GX Charizard deck that wins quite a few games. Hopefully, if we continue to get more Charizard cards, they will be as good as this one! 

Post By: Littledarkfury