Thalin

Rotation is coming to TCG Live on March 26th so I’m bringing back the Callback Series. I’ll show off the first version of a deck vs the last to properly send off the decks we’re losing to rotation in 6 days! We’ve got a good one up next: 🔥 Charizard 🔥 🌀(and Pidgeot)🌀 🔥 This one went through the it on release. I have fond memories of this card releasing and not knowing if this card was broken or not. On the surface the stats were good and the ability was insane but nobody had been able to truly crack the deck open to show its true power and it would remain this way for quite a while. People tried charizard with the lost zone engine, arceus vstar, and on its own but there were no solid results and people were starting to think this card was mid at best but that was all about to shift in zards favor… 🔥 it was September 23rd, 2023 at the Curitiba regionals and it was all about to change. William Azavedo ended up winning that regional with a Charizard deck but it was built differently than anyone had seen before and “Arven zard” was born. This deck would prove to be INSANELY powerful and picked up by thousands of players across the globe (I even played it to Peoria regionals). It was soon after this the Europeans got ahold of it and advanced the deck further by adding rotom V and Tord himself even innovated the deck by adding Cleffa. After a few months of innovating on the Brazilians arven idea the deck found its spot in the meta and was a force to be reckoned with. 🔥 The deck used the pidgeot engine to cherry pick everything it needed out of the deck during a game (like Briar) and was fine falling behind early via cleffa to start feeding charizards burning darkness attack. Lots of games have been won by a lone 330 hp Charizard taking over a game after falling behind. It’s crazy to see Charizard STILL winning regionals all these years later and all the partners the card has been played with. Pidgeot, dragapult, and noctowl have been among the most powerful, showing the versatility of the card. 🔥 I truly believe if it wasn’t for the release of budew Charizard would still be dominating the meta today all these years later because the deck is that strong. It’s dark typing along with fire energy acceleration gives it a comfortable matchup into Gholdengo and gardevoir and is simply held back by a poor budew/dragapult matchup but it hasn’t stopped people from trying new things even today and still bring this thing to major tournaments. I expect plenty of zard in Houston and Orlando from the people who want to give their favorite deck one last ride. 🔥 the deck didn’t make 900k for nothing, nearly a million dollars and STILL showing up on our day 1 meta graphic at regionals. It’s awesome to see a deck form after a worldwide release and hundreds of pro players innovate on a core strategy like this until the deck is perfected. I’ll miss this deck keeping the format in check and will appreciate saying “burning darkness” a few more times before rotation So long Charizard!!!