Card of the Day – Charizard G LV.X (Supreme Victors SV 143)

pokemon-paradijs.comWelcome to today’s Card of the Day, where I’ll be taking a look at Charizard G LV.X from Supreme Victors. We’ll start with the basics. Charizard is an SP Level Up Pokémon, meaning it has full access to the Cyrus’s Conspiracy engine, which in itself is a reason to take a look at it. Being a Level Up, it can’t be searched for by Luxury Ball. On the plus side, it can be fetched from both your deck and discard pile by Premier Ball.

Being a Fire type is pretty good, being able to hit Dialga G LV.X for twice the damage. Unfortunately, it has a x2 Water Weakness, meaning Gyarados, Kingdra Prime & LA as well as Palkia G LV.X, which could see a big rise in popularity if Lost Zone is released. Charizard G comes with a nice Fighting Resistance and a disappointing but expected three Retreat Cost. Fortunately, since it’s a Pokémon SP, you can just use Poké Turn to remove it from the Active Spot instead of having to manually retreat it or use Warp Energy. Finally, it has 120 HP, which is slightly higher than many SP Level Ups.

Charizard G LV.X’s Poké-Power is called “Call for Power.” It allows you to move as many Energy cards as you like during your turn to Charizard. Unfortunately, those Energy must be in play. While this isn’t a terrible Poké-Power, it isn’t going to get a deck based around it for the power alone. Thankfully, it also comes with an attack.

pokemon-paradijs.com“Malevolent Fire,” for the MASSIVE cost of RRCCC (Even with a TGI Energy Gain AND a Double Colorless Energy, it’s MASSIVE), does a staggering 150 damage, which is enough to 1HKO almost any Pokémon in the format. If this was all there was to the card, I could easily see it in a deck with Typhlosion Prime to accelerate Energy attachment. However, “Malevolent Fire” has a catch. You must flip a coin. If Tails, you must discard all Energy attached to Charizard.

The fine print pretty much kills Charizard’s shot at seeing play. Sure, you could use a combination of Heatran LV.X and Typhlosion Prime. However, this would require a Stage 2, a Bulky Level Up and an SP Level Up with five Energy (not counting DCE or E-Gain). If I’m being perfectly honest, Charizard G LV.X pales in comparison to Charizard AR.

Perhaps if Charizard G had some powerful attacks to help avenge its Level Up, but alas, it does not.

My Recommendation: Leave it in the binder or sell it to a Charizard fanboy for $2.

My Rating 1.75/5 (The reward is great. The cost is great, too great)