>Sit Down and dawns fire retardant suit.
>Charizard: CHARRRRR, opens deck box, and separates
cards, CHARRRRRR
>sees his
>run and holds it in his claw
>Let's see what we have here. AHH a note, it reads:
>
>DECK STRATEGY: Use the Chansey's to stall and then
move the damage
>using
>Alakazam and Pokemon Center it away, or use Mr. Fuji.
All the while,
>building
>up Charizard (CHARRRR) OH BE QUITE! for quick kills.
The defenders are
>for
>(in a low tone) when there are Blastoise about.
CHARRRIZARD snaps head
>around
>and hits me with a Fire Blast. NOT THIS TIME, I HAVE
FIRE RETARDANT
>SUITE. Cha
>rizard sulks away.
>
>Now for the cards:
>
>4 BILL
>4 POKECENTER
>2 DEFENDER
>2 BREEDER
>1 TRADER
>2 MR. FUJI
>
>2 CHANSEY
>4-3-2 CHARIZARD RUN
>Hearing his name, he runs back and sits next to me.
>4-3-1 ALAKAZAM RUN 
>
>
>4 DCE
>22 PSYCHIC ENERGY
>
>And some people call Charizard the BIG RED RETARD,
how can you, he's
>the most
>versatile card in the game, he's also a loyal pet.
Now on a serious
>note, I
>think I could squeeze a MR. MIME in there, but I
can't open the spaces,
>
>everything I have is curtail.

***

I decided to fix this deck and post it just to show
that I'm not neccessarily prejudiced against
Charizard--just against little kids who have five of
them and think he's "the stuff." And I'd like to note
for the record that neither I nor anyone I know has
ever called Charizard a big red retard. In fact, it's
a proven fact that Charizards score quite highly on
standardized tests. I would probably draw the line at
calling him versatile (hmm...he can throw away
energy...and...and...uhh...) but he's not neccessarily
bad. Yes, you heard me correctly: he's not
neccessarily bad.

<Spike's mailbox lights up>

Anyway, let's have a look:

1) None of your three Pokemon are horrible by
themselves, although Charizard is iffy. But all 3 of
them in the same deck--and with absolutely nothing
else to support them--won't work. It just won't. It
gives me a killer headache just thinking about it.
Drop Alakazam and Chansey right away--if you want to
run Charizard, these two gots to go. We can also get
rid of the psychic energy this way, which will help
the deck loads. Face it--Charizard and Damage Swap mix
about as well as oil and water. Now, we need to
rebuild this deck from the bottom up. Fortunately for
you, I have much experience at getting energy-hungry
fire Pokemon to work relatively well in an unfriendly
environment. The first step here is to get some
non-discarding fire Pokes in, preferably basics. 3 or
4 Fossil Magmars should fill the bill here. Rapidash
would also work well, but we're gonna have enough
trouble getting Charizard to go off without trying to
stick another evolution family in there. Next, card
drawing and stalling. One word: Kangaskhan. At least
2. Finally, you need yet some more strong basics that
can attack without discarding. Scyther comes in handy
here. He helps hose water, he can stick around for a
while with 70 HP, and when you finally do get the big
lizard loaded, he can be retreated for free. Is that
all? I do believe it is! Notice the fact that the
ENTIRE DECK is centered around getting Charizard out
and getting enough energy on his fat rear end to
actually do some good. This is bad, but it is still
playable if you've got some ulterior motive. Maybe
Charizard is your favorite, and there's nothing wrong
with that!

2) Oh yeah. Your trainers need work. First of all,
drop the Defenders and the Pokemon Centers. The
Centers are no longer useful, and Defenders just are
not that much good. Dude, if you see water, don't
bother with Charizard--grab your Kangaskhan and
Scyther and pray like crazy. Drop Trader; we will be
putting some Computer Searches in. Breeder is okay,
but you may want to cut one. The emphasis should not
be on Breeding, since Charmeleon is actually much more
stable and will serve you much better in the middle
game. Next up...Oaks! The thought of trying to play
fire without Oaks causes all the little hairs on the
back of my neck to stand on end. Put at least 2 of
them in, maybe 3. Try to insert some Energy Removal,
but don't put SER in, or I will have to hunt you down
and put you out of your misery. Anything else?
Hmm...some Energy Retrieval might not be a bad idea
:-) Other excellent cards would be GOW and Switch;
we'll see later on if we have the room.

3) Energy. You've got 26 total energy, which I think
is a bit much even in this deck. But we'll leave it
all unless we need the space for something. Another
excellent reason for replacing psychic with fire is
that it allows Charmander and Charmeleon to do
something useful, instead of just standing around
using wussy attacks and waiting for Charizard to hit
the board.

***

18 Pokemon:

4 Charmander
3 Charmeleon
2 Charizard
2 Kangaskhan
4 Scyther
3 Magmar (fossil)

18 Trainers:

3 Bill
2 Oak
2 Computer Search
4 Energy Removal
1 Pokemon Breeder
2 Energy Retrieval
2 GOW
2 Switch

24 Energy:

20 Fire Energy
4 DCE

***

This isn't a great deck. But I think it is much better
than what it started out as. The major problem is
going to be, surprisingly enough, energy. Try and play
around with this. Only put DCE on Charizard as a
last-ditch measure to scoop your final couple of
prizes. One more thing--if you wanted, you could try
cutting GOW, Switch, or both in order to assuage any
energy problems you might have.

VULPIX: Vulpix vulpix? [Are you done with the
Charizard deck yet?]

SPIKE: Yes, Vulpix. I'm done.

VULPIX: Vulpix! [Good. Now let me back in the house.]

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