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Pokémon Power ⇢ Energy Burn
As often as you like during your turn (before your attack), you may turn all Energy attached to Charizard into {R} Energy for the rest of the turn. This power can’t be used if Charizard is Asleep, Confused, or Paralyzed.
{R}{R}{R}{R} → Fire Spin : 100
Discard 2 Energy cards attached to Charizard in order to use this attack.
illus. Mitsuhiro Arita · LV.76
Formats: Other: 1999–2001
External: Bulba ↗ · #ad / Affiliate Links: TCGplayer ↗, cardmarket ↗, Amazon ↗, eBay ↗
Spits fire that is hot enough to melt boulders. Known to unintentionally cause forest fires.
quaziko
IT’S CHARIZARDDDDDDD!!!!!
Even
$1 dollar card bad
Hagel
dude one of these got sold for 500k dollars
TheGreatBob
Question about the Pokeomon Power. It implies all energy can become fire energy so does that mean double colorless become double fire?
Curtis
Indeed.
TheGreatBob
Ok. I loaded it’s deck with them.
Charmaster
The other cool part about Energy Burn is that it lets you run basic attackers of multiple types to support Charizard. This gives it an edge over other stage 2 decks in Prop 15/3, a format where adding Fighting- or Lightning type basic attackers to your deck can greatly enhance its performance. Hitmonchan is especially convenient, since it can trade 2-hit-knockouts with Wigglytuff and Clefable while a Charmeleon hides on the bench and powers up, waiting to evolve and launch a two- or three prize sweep.
Charizard/Magmar/Hitmonchan is currently one of the best decks in Prop 15/3. We’ll see how that fares as the format develops.
https://retrotcgs.com/2025/01/20/prop-15-3-deck-diary-charizard/
Curtis
As a kid, I never would have thought this card would ever be less than $100
Anonymous
If I were a jerk I would buy this card for cheap and trade bait the hell out of ignorant players.
Quentin Goss
Kid’s at school still try to sell me this thing.
them – ” So you play Pokemon huh?”
me – “Yea why?”
them – “I have some cards, wana buy em?”
me – “What set?”
them – “Tch, I don’t know, but I have the first Charizard, I heard that was pretty rare.”
me – “I’ll give you a quarter for it…”
InTeLeOn lover
bruh that card is like 10000000000000000000000, well not that many 0’s but you get the idea
reshikrom64
Go Charizard! Use Seismic Toss at full power!
Anonymous
“It spits fire that is hot enough to melt boulders.” Then why does Rock resist Fire?
Brian Duddy
I mean, 70 damage will still melt most things…
Dr. λ the Creator of Variables, Binder of Variables, Applicator of Terms, Checker of Types, and β-Reducer of β-Redexes
Because rock is hard to damage with fire. The point that the flavour text is making is that Charizard’s fire is so hot that it can even damage things that actually resist fire, like boulders. It is meant to express that Charizard’s fire is extraordinarily hot. If it said that Charizard’s fire is hot enough to burn grass, than it would not nearly be as extraordinary.
Curtis
They’re legendary
The tales of kids pulling this
None of them were me
Quentin Goss
Haha, Professor Oak’s price is $231.53 + Free s/h.
feyblade
Energy Burn is a fitting ability for an intentional chase rare: it can fit in any deck. To support this, all of the Charmander line pokemon have attacks that don’t require colored energy to be attached to it.
I have to wonder about the balance behind this ,though. Not balance in the sense that this is a staple or an awesome card (it was never that good. Double discard,four energies, and two evolutions was just two much to KO something). I’m talking about type balance: this could simply be fielded alongside Blastoise or Venusaur to expand your ability to deal SE damage in your Rain Dance/Energy Trans deck, and it also provides a valuable fighting resistance.
The iconic fire type pokemon will ironically primarily be seen in non fire type decks. That speaks pretty poorly for classic fire types.
HEZ
Yep, there’s been people at League trying to fit this guy in somewhere, the best I could think of is a tech 1-1-1 line in a Water deck that has trouble dealing with Grass types.
It’s a shame he’s outclassed by Basic Pokemon now, they’d done a decent job keeping power creep in check all the way up to and even through early D&P, it’s a shame they let it slip.
coolestman22
Ho-Oh LEGEND is arguably better, it takes up less deck space, can be dropped in one turn, and looks way prettier.
HEZ
I don’t know if a 2 piece Legend card is actually easier to set up than a Stage 2, especially in a deck that already runs evolutions. Anyway, I think they just wanted an excuse, any excuse to play Base Charizard really :P
coolestman22
Probably the LEGEND, you can’t search for a Rare Candy.
Curtis
If you want to play Base Set Charizard, play him in the Game Boy game. The AI sucks enough that just about any deck can work.
Psykicked
I know this was years ago, but i thought I’d clarify. This cannot be fielded alongside Blastoise because Blastoise’s ability can only attach to water Pokémon, so this will not work. However, with newer “Rain Dance” Blastoises, this will work.
Otaku
Trying to keep things short, it is possible, but if should never have been competitive. I remember it as more of a technical exercise misunderstood as a competitive deck:
The Blastoise/Charizard/Venusaur combo requires Ditto (Fossil) and an opponent running a [W] to function. If not already Active, you used Gust of Wind to force your opponent’s [W] Active while your Ditto was Active, so that “Transform” makes it a [W] Type as well. Rain Dance [W] Energy onto it; Transform will make these count as all Types, which includes [G] Energy so that Venusaur’s “Energy Trans” can move it to Charizard, at which point Charizard’s Energy Burn can indeed make them all [R]. Successfully pulling it off requires both great skill and luck, because a competent opponent with a competent deck and not suffering from bad luck should stop it before it even starts.
Dr. λ the Creator of Variables, Binder of Variables, Applicator of Terms, Checker of Types, and β-Reducer of β-Redexes
That set-up requires only 3 stage 2 Pokemon, Ditto, a specific trainer, a bunch of Water energy in your hand, and an opponent having a Water type Pokemon in play. and that in an era where haymaker is king.
Charmaster
That technical exercise reminds me of a deck Jason Klaczynski built for the Japanese pre-Brock’s Ninetales nerf Base-Gym format. Basically, Brock’s Ninetales used to copy the Pokémon Power of the Pokémon it transformed into, along with all the other stuff, and while Brock’s Ninetales lost this privilege when it enabled Dark Vileplume players to turn off and re-enable Hay Fever at will, there was a less toxic combo where you could Shapeshift into Blastoise, accelerate Energy, discard Blastoise and Shapeshift into Charizard. The best part? You’re technically running only one Evolution Line.
Here’s the list. https://jklaczpokemon.com/original-rules/#brocks-ninetales-blastoise-charizard
Benjamin Poke Battler
This card changed the game of Pokémon right here.
jelze
It did? It was never really played. It’s just the card that everyone wanted
inatspong
It couldn’t have changed the game if the game didn’t exist before the set came out. Also, just to reiterate, nobody played it.
feyblade
It only defined the game in the sense that it was the first chase rare, a result of a combination of factors that didn’t exactly correlate to its potency in battle.
-It had big , BIG numbers for the time. As big as they came, in fact.
-It was a very popular pokemon, the most visually iconic of the three starters..and dragons (not a dragon type, but often described as one) always sell well.
-It was a rainbow card in a rainbow evolutionary line,and could theoretically be used alongside any other type.
-Apparently, it was either very rare, or vendors wished people to believe that.
As a result of Charizard’s startling high sellprice, people assumed that pokemon cards would be highly collectible items, thus causing a huge rush to buy them, even by people who had NO INTENTION TO PLAY THE GAME AT ALL. It didn’t matter that Charizard was overshadowed by the likes of Hitmonchan and Blastoise in terms of competitive viability…many of the people who wanted it had no intention of using it anyway.
As it would turn out ,the Pokemon TCG sold so well that the cards lost anything resembling collector’s value. Currently, only a handful of out-of-rotation cards are truly valuable enough to merit a hunt, and the most expensive cards are those that are dominant in the current meta.
Benjamin Poke Battler
I meant the cards, and yes people played it
inatspong
I did too. Base Set was the very first TCG set. This card is in Base Set. Therefore, before it came out, there was no game to change. It is responsible for its popularity to a great degree, but that’s it. It wasn’t very good competitively.
anon
I hate responding to a decade old comment, but It wasn’t viable, even by 1999 standards. People just fawn over it because of nostalgia and the idea of it being a chase card.
Charmaster
At least it’s viable in Prop 15/3. In a format with more limited Energy Removing, you can hide behind Magmar, Kangaskhan and Lickitung to pile up Fire and Double Colorless Energy onto it, then take two or three prize cards per Charizard. Charmeleon is a solid attacker in Prop 15/3 too. A guy called Nnstalgic pioneered the deck on a website called TCGONE (A Retro Pokémon TCG client that’s operated by fans but is automated like PTCGL), and people have been refining it since then. It’s the best non-Stage 1/Haymaker or Control deck I’ve encountered in the format so far.
Here’s the list I’ve been using.
3 Charmeleon (BS2 35)
3 Dodrio (JU 34)
3 Lickitung (JU 38)
3 Charmander (TR 50)
2 Charizard (BS2 4)
3 Kangaskhan (JU 5)
3 Doduo (BS2 72)
3 Magmar (FO 39)
3 Full Heal Energy (TR 81)
3 Double Colorless Energy (BS2 124)
1 Potion Energy (TR 82)
15 Fire Energy (BS2 126)
1 Nightly Garbage Run (TR 77)
1 Item Finder (BS2 103)
3 Pokémon Trader (BS2 106)
3 Professor Oak (BS2 116)
2 Gust of Wind (BS2 120)
2 Scoop Up (BS2 107)
3 Computer Search (BS2 101)
Credit goes to whiskeyworship (TCGONE username), author of this blog.
https://retrotcgs.com/2024/12/08/revisiting-wotc-pokemon-tcg/ His main innovation over Nnstalgic’s list was cutting Dragonite and adding Full Heal Energy to make room for more Pokémon and Energy cards (Dragonite/Dodrio was great for constantly clearing away status conditions and effects like Smokescreen while also making retreat cost a non-factor, but having to run slimmer counts of most Pokémon took its tool on the deck, so Dodrio/Full Heal Energy was considered sufficient).
Charmaster
Charizard and all sorts of other random evolution decks were winning 1999 events before everybody switched to haymaker. Jason Klaczynski’s Base-Fossil article features a Base-Jungle tournament results sheet from Scyre magazine (A popular TCG magazine of the era) that shows decks like Charizard/Venusaur, Charmeleon/Pikachu/Base Set Magmar, Butterfree/Vileplume/Venomoth, Beedrill/Koffing/Scyther, and Magneton/Haunter/Clefable/Fearow. Often these crazy archetypes had pyramid evolution lines. I guess what you could win with depended on if anyone at your locals played Rain Dance, a dedicated Wigglytuff deck, or something close to Haymaker.
(Oh, and there’s randomly a kid who used cards from the Japanese releases of the next three sets. Which is especially funny when you notice Nightly Garbage Run got translated as “Midnight Trash Collection.”)
https://jklaczpokemon.com/1999-base-fossil/#jungle
Peter Jimenez
For some reason this card reminds me of Elliot Rodger.
feyblade
Because it’s a pathetic,ridiculously high maintenance narcissist that requires huge financial and emotional tributes to satiate its gluttony?
Because it bills itself a “Supreme Gentleman” when it is in fact just useless?
Sounds about right, except for the fact that people can actually love charizard
Hector Carter
He mentioned having that card in his manifesto. He pulled that card and treasured it until he got out of Pokemon because it wasn’t cool. He gave it to best friend James as his act of resignation.
Sad that a mass.murderer had to mention this card in his manifesto.
Steely Gilgamesh
To this day, I don’t
Quite understand why ‘Zard’s flame
Had been holofoiled.
(My first haiku of Base Set Charizard)
Psykicked
Pfft, how did the foilers miss that?
Edit: he made me see a foiling error on the tail instead of the flame
Blob Takeshi
Could be worse, the original card was Ken Sugimori artwork and had white bits near the arms they were too lazy to cut out.
Psykicked
why is charizard’s tail holofoiled
Weijen Wang
op。 this is so cool
A.I.L
I THINK YOUR FAKE CARD?
InTeLeOn lover
fun fact this is the rarest pokemon card on earth
Doc Martens
this is like the OG. the first card on earth
PosingSaucer251
Why does the illustrator on the card say Mitsuhiro Arica instead of Mitsuhiro Arita?
nago
I think it’s just bad kerning and jpg artifacting and it does indeed say “Arita”.
Asher
One of a meager six Pokemon with Pokemon Powers in the base set, and the most confusing use of Pokemon Powers in the set to me. There’s no interactions with energy type besides attack costs, so this card could have just had its attack cost four colorless energy and the card would have functionally been the same (except for when it’s confused).
Bento
Certainly held it back from being competitive. I suppose the ability allows for using double-colorless while keeping the card thematic, although not the oomf needed to create strategy around.
Do you recall if there are any later examples of powers which change energy typing similar to this?
Twylis
The Charizard from Evolutions is the obvious answer, though I think PGO Charizard’s Burn Brightly is a better representation of what this ability would look like in a modern context.
anon
The tyranitar from expedition has a similar body that turns energy into dark energy.
AlcreMina
“Rating: 3.5
The Charizard line can be put in any color theme deck, as they all have colorless attack.” – Pojo’s Unofficial Big Book of Pokemon, ~2000
anon
I had a playset of these, but charizard sadly couldn’t keep up with haymaker and rain dance.
truth speakerton
the most iconic and loved card by people who don’t actually like pokemon.