You seem to be very misguided.  Much of your information is absolutely
wrong.

1.Fire is NOT the most powerful type.  If you ever actually played a
fire deck in a tourny, you'll realize that it gets crushed by all water
decks and energy denial.  Also, no single color is most powerful, every
color has its weaknesses and strongpoints.
2. Sadly, you DO have to discard energy, and it is pointless of you do
dwell on what it would be like if you didn't.  Ninetales and Charizard
would be incredibly powerful without energy discarding, but like I said
before, that's just your fantasy.  The truth is, they would be ripped
open by ERs and SERs before they can catch their breaths.  And in the
upcoming Fossil expasion, there is a little card called Aerodactyl.
It's power will shut down all Charizards, so your poor little charmander
is stranded with no way to evolve.  Pigeot would also send Charizard and
all his little past evolutions running home crying.
3. Again, you obviously didn't think of ERs and SERs.  Double
Colorlesses are even more vulnerable against them, since one ER would
take away 2 energies.  And with all the Haymakers and decks with plenty
of energy denial cards circulating around, it may be very difficult just
to power up one.
    Mr. Mime would also make it a very difficult day for Charizard.
Invisible Wall, ever heard of that?  It prevents all damage 30 and
above, so Charizard couldn't touch the mime. On a totally unrelated
subject, to all you Mr. Mime haters out there, I have one question...
Why?!  Is there something irritating about the speechless wonder that
you just can't stand, or is it just because when you play against it,
all your pokemon can't touch it?  I'm not saying it's invincible( i.e.
Haymakers{: ) its just not as bad as you wish it to be.  Now back to the
subject...
4. You weren't thinking when you wrote that article, were you?  Ever
heard of Gust of Wind? When your precious Charizard is hiding on the
bench, just gust it out and murder the energy-less sucker.  A three
retreat isn't very helpful for Charizard either.  I once killed a
Charizard with a magikarp, using a few SERs and ERs.
5. Where in the world did you come up with that idea?  Ever tried
reading your rulebook, if you even have one?  You HAVE do discard the
energy from Charizard directly, NOT from your hand.
    Hasn't everybody been through this before?  There is no best card,
and you would know that if you actually read any of the articles on this
site.  Also, damage isn't everything.  Speed is important( i.e.
Haymakers{: ) and so is resistance/weakness.  A Blastoise regularily
shouldn't be able to kill a Charizard in one hit, but because of
weakness, it can.
    So in conclusion, this Michael guy should grow some brains and learn
how to play the game of Pokemon before he writes about it.

P.S. Pojo, please post this in the single card strategies

Signing off, Jing Xu
You can find me at baseballfreak98@yahoo.com