Unlimited Challenge: A Competitive Dark Charizard Deck

[VibratingSky]

Goodday PokeGym Trainers!

I'm trying to build the best Dark Charizard deck possible that contains at least 3 Dark Charizards and family. I know Charizard was a pretty weak card in this format, but I can't let that stop me, this request is one from a family member. There are also some limitations on what I am able to use, from Base up until Team Rocket cards only, including Movie Promos. How can a 'Fire only', 'Fire/Fighting' or 'Fire/Psychic' deck compete with the likes of Haymaker, Rain Dance, The Cleaner, Damage Swap and Wigglytuffs from the same era?

This deck is my first attempt and comments are welcome. Since making this list I have thought about dropping the Dragonairs completely, and running a 3-1-3 Dark Charizard line. This might give some room to give the deck a little more versatility.

I have been asked to provide a strategy, but honeslty dont know what that could be looking at the card pool available. I was thinking that something like 'The Cleaner' strategy where Dark Charizard acts as the cleaner to mop up the last couple of prizes. I would need a solid range of basic or stage 1 cost effective pokemon while I built up my resources with a Dark Charizard or two.

3 Charmander (TR)
1 Dark Charmeleon
3 Dark Charizard
2 Dratini (TR or BS?)
2 Dark Dragonair (although these 4 could perhaps be replaced by the likes of 3x Scyther, and the energy invested in them reclaimed by TR 4x Charmanders instead)
4 Magmar (F)
3 Ditto

4 Prof. Oak
3 Boss's Way
2 Pokemon Breeder
2 Gust of Wind
3 Comp Search
2 Item Finder
2 Nightly Garbage Run
4 Bill

16 Fire Energy
4 DCE

 

[evil psyduck]

You have 61 cards listed so you need to remove one to have a legal deck.

 

[VibratingSky]

Looking around, there seems to be a fair number of decks playing fire with Electabuzz to protect them from water pokemon? Both Magmar and Electabuzz are able to stall out while Charizard is set up with energy.

3-1-3 Dark Charizard
4 Magmar
4 Electabuzz
2 Ditto
(17 Pokemon)

4 Prof Oak
4 Bill
3 Boss's Way
3 Gust of Wind
3 Computer Search
2 Item Finder
2 Nightly Garbage Run
2 Pokemon Breeder
(25 trainers)

6 Electric
12 Fire
(energy)

 

[Alazor]

Goodday PokeGym Trainers!

I'm trying to build the best Dark Charizard deck possible that contains at least 3 Dark Charizards and family. I know Charizard was a pretty weak card in this format, but I can't let that stop me, this request is one from a family member. There are also some limitations on what I am able to use, from Base up until Team Rocket cards only, including Movie Promos. How can a 'Fire only', 'Fire/Fighting' or 'Fire/Psychic' deck compete with the likes of Haymaker, Rain Dance, The Cleaner, Damage Swap and Wigglytuffs from the same era?

This deck is my first attempt and comments are welcome. Since making this list I have thought about dropping the Dragonairs completely, and running a 3-1-3 Dark Charizard line. This might give some room to give the deck a little more versatility.

I have been asked to provide a strategy, but honeslty dont know what that could be looking at the card pool available. I was thinking that something like 'The Cleaner' strategy where Dark Charizard acts as the cleaner to mop up the last couple of prizes. I would need a solid range of basic or stage 1 cost effective pokemon while I built up my resources with a Dark Charizard or two.

3 Charmander (TR)
1 Dark Charmeleon
3 Dark Charizard
2 Dratini (TR or BS?)
2 Dark Dragonair (although these 4 could perhaps be replaced by the likes of 3x Scyther, and the energy invested in them reclaimed by TR 4x Charmanders instead)
4 Magmar (F)
3 Ditto

4 Prof. Oak
3 Boss's Way
2 Pokemon Breeder
2 Gust of Wind
3 Comp Search
2 Item Finder
2 Nightly Garbage Run
4 Bill

16 Fire Energy
4 DCE

Thread was a little confusing since it said Unlimited, I would have added Entei (Neo Revelation). If it wasn't for Ditto, I wouldn't be using Double Colorless Energy and you can do that better using a Clefable - Clefairy line. You can add 1 Dark Dragonite as a tech to get basics.

-3 Ditto
-4 DCE

-3 Clefairy
+2 Clefable
+1 Dark Dragonite
+1 Fire Energy

And Base Set Dratini is better as it can do damage sooner and faster. Now if you play Base Set Dragonair with Ditto, put those Double Colorless Energies back into your deck.

 

[VibratingSky]

Thanks for your input Alazor, I have read quite a few of your posts lately and it is clear you are interested in old school decks.

The clafairy/clefaible line looks interesting, and is perhaps something worth trying since I havent used those pokemon in any of my decks yet. I will need to take those ideas into account when playtesting.

With your changes Alazor the deck looks like:

3 Charmander (TR)
1 Dark Charmeleon
3 Dark Charizard
2 Dratini (BS)
2 Dark Dragonair
1 Dark Dragonite
4 Magmar (F)
3 Clefairy
2 Clefable

4 Prof. Oak
3 Boss's Way
2 Pokemon Breeder
2 Gust of Wind
3 Comp Search
2 Item Finder
2 Nightly Garbage Run
4 Bill
17 Fire Energy

It hink your changes look really interesting, having 3 evolution chains in one deck is very unusual for this era. I may borrow the Clefairy/Clafable line for a mono-fighting deck I have planned that uses hitmonchan and hitmonlee as support verses psy. I need to do a little testing first.

A revamp of the origional list since my first post looks like this:

3 Charmander (TR)
1 Dark Charmelion
3 Dark Charizard (because that was the request, to make a teir 2 deck using Dark Charizard).
4 Magmar (F)
4 Electabuzz (to tackle the water pokemon I am weak to)

4 Oak
4 Bill
3 CPU search
3 Item finder
3 Gust of Wind
2 Pokemon Breeder
2 Nightly Garbage Run
2 Lass
2 Switch
2 The Boss's Way
2 Energy Retrieval

10 Fire NRG
4 Lightning NRG
2 Rainbow NRG

I realise I am minimising the Charizard line, but let's face it - the deck is stronger with heavy hitting basics. That said, it is a lot less interesting than your suggestion Alazor. *ponder*