I think its time for charizard to get some recognition. All say he sucks.
Only one thing sucks about him, and to find that out check the price
guide.

First, all cards have a use. Devolutionspray, porygon, they all have
uses. Devolutionspray can let you attack with a lower energy move, for
example. No card is really 'the best' (except for possibly an oak).

You all have read about 30 billion charizard articles by now, so I'll
skip the stats.

The main anti charizard things are.............
   1) ENERGY WASTER.

People don't really look at the big numbers and over-estimate. It is the
other way around. You skip the big 100 and look at the little 'discard
2'. They say 'ohno, discard 2! what will we do? it takes 2 turns to do
100 damage!! NNNNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!'  Now lets see. First of all, those
energies grab you a prize. Second, HOW MANY ENERGIES ARE ON THE GUY YOU
KILL??? Crush a full power dragonite and you lose two energies, your
opponent loses 4 energies and a stage 2. That is a really bad tradeoff
for you, isn't it? (tip- give him a lot of enegies. bringing out a 8
energy char and adding one every turn will go through EVERY SINGLE PRIZE.
You can 
even survive an energy removal or two)

   2) RETREAT COST.

Charizard is not a retreater. You keep fighting. It doesn't need to
retreat- it squishes things too fast. having a problem with a pumped
Lapras? Firespin you'e troubles away, don't retreat them away.
  
   3) STAGE 2.

Who cares. Look at his basic and stage 1! If charmander goes first, it
kills
hitmochan, hitmolee, any of the legendary birds, mewtwo, scyther, and the
list can go on. Rare basics shredded by a common. How about stage 1?
Solutions? a) use a breeder, b) use charmeleon. Charmeleon rules. Look at
it. It will blow virtually anything to dust. Now what? YOU ARE SET FOR
CHARIZARD!!

   4) WATER.

Char's worst problem. Uhoh, 3 pokemon can kill it one hit. Blastoise,
vileplume, and poliwhirl.

Blastoise needs 5 energies.
Vileplume needs 3 and 3 heads (SERIOUS LUCK)
Poliwhirl needs 3 and 2 heads (A LITTLE EASIER BUT STILL SERIOUS LUCK)

PEOPLE. Stop looking for weaknesses. This might seem like I think
charizard is best, I don't, I am just defending it against the people who
think night and day trying to find weaknesses for expensive cards.
Charizard may not be worth 40 bucks, but no one card is, so leve it
alone.