Charizard ex Deck List ft. Dragapult ex (2024) — Joseph Writer Anderson (2024)

For a time, Charizard ex was by far the most dominate deck in the Pokemon TCG meta. Thanks to cards released in Twilight Masquerade, however, the meta has become more balanced and Charizard ex –while still popular – isn’t the tier zero deck it once was. That being said, it is still a powerful and prominent deck.

In this guide, we’re going to be taking a look at the deck Pokemon TCG legend Tord Reklev used at the Pokemon North America International Championships 2024 to land an impressive 18th place out of more than 2000 competitors.

*Updated June 21, 2024

Charizard ex Deck List 2024

Card Type

Charizard ex deck – what’s changed?

The biggest difference you will see immediately in this deck compared to where it was at previous to Twilight Masquerade is the inclusion of Dragapult ex. At first, this might seem a little counterintuitive. Why include Dragapult ex as a secondary attacker? However, there are many reasons why having Dragpult ex in this deck is a good bet.

First, Dragapult ex runs on a very similar engine to Charizard ex. Both decks are evolution decks that rely on Rare Candy to get set up, making them very complimentary. In many ways, they also make up for each others’ weaknesses. For example, Charizard hits very hard, but has no damage spreading capabilities. Meanwhile, Dragapult can’t hit those higher damage output numbers needed to OHKO high HP Pokemon, but can help with the damage spreading.

Additionally, in scenarios where you are facing a type disadvantage, Drapult ex can be the ideal tech card, preventing unnecessarily easy knockouts. This is relevant right now given the popularity of Teal Mask Ogerpon ex.

Of course, the inclusion of Dragapult ex isn’t the only thing that’s changed, but we’ll get into the rest of that as we work through the rest of this guide.

Charizard ex Deck is Deadly – Here’s How to Play It

One helpful way to think of the Charizard ex deck is as a control deck: not control in the way Pokemon TCG players typically mean that term in regards to stalling your opponent into decking them out, but rather in the typical TCG sense –you are playing for the long game, getting stronger and more dominant as the game progresses.

For this reason, there’s a very specific early game setup that you are looking for in order to prepare Charizard ex for the attack down the line. One thing that is the most counterintuitive to this deck (as it operates differently than just about any other top Pokemon TCG meta deck) is that you actually want to lose the early prize trade as it will power up your Charizard in order to take bigger damage.

Early game board set up

If you can get your board completely set up at first then it’s pretty hard for your opponent to stop you. However, it's challenging to get this ideal board set up right away.

Ideally, you’ll want to prioritize Charmander as Charizard ex is your primary attacker and energy accelerator rolled into one. This means getting two Charmanders onto the bench, just in case your opponent manages to take out one of them you have a spare to evolve the next turn and get the ball rolling.

That being said, getting as many of your Pokemon into play as possible will ensure your liklihood of success: two Charmander, two Pidgey and a Dreepy is a very scary board to face off against!

To help you make this happen more often and reliably, this deck runs four copies of Buddy-Buddy Poffin – the strongest option in the game for these low HP basic Pokemon.

Should you bench Manaphy?

In an ideal world you wouldn’t have to bench Manaphy at all, as not having it around leaves more bench space. However, if you leave your bench open to a sniping attack, that could mean wiping out your chances at a win straight away. If you are playing against a deck that’s good at sniping such as decks running Lost Zone then you will want to prioritize getting Manaphy onto your bench at the expense of a perfect board set up

Clefa is your turn one attacker

Charizard ex is not an aggressive deck (clearly). So you won’t be looking to take a turn one KO or attack the way other decks like to. However, this deck does give you a strong attacker on your opening turn (assuming you go second which most Charizard ex decks like to do) in the form of Cleffa.

Cleffa has a pretty insane attack that can be used without the cost of an energy, and when used it will grant you the chance to fully replenish your hand. While this attack is good, ideally you would only use it during your opening turn and start taking KOs the following turn. It may be a very low HP Pokemon but that doesn’t really matter: you want it to be knocked out easily so you can start powering up your Charizard’s attack.

Pidgey and Bidoof are insurance

While most Charizard ex decks prefer to run Pidgeot over Bibarel, Tord’s deck runs both. I’m sure he has good reasons for why he does this, but in reality most players would probably benefit from running just the Pidgeot line. Pidgeot is one of the big reasons this deck is so strong: letting you always find that card you need regardless of how much your opponent tries to mess with your hand or slow you down.

The strength of Pidgeot ex’s card search ability is one of the main reasons that I will actually focus taking out Pidgey early on if my opponent only benches one of them (we’ll get into how to counter Charizard ex a bit more later).

Should you go first or second?

Most Charizard ex players choose to go second for this exact reason: it allows them to get their board set up while also forcing their opponent to take the first KO. This powers up Charizard ex so it can start its relentless barrage.

Use Forest Seal Stone with Lumineon V

Lumineon V can also be a great card to use to help get a supporter card that is just out of reach. This deck runs four copies of Ultra Ball, meaning it should be relatively easy to get a Lumineon V into your hand.

The best part of having two Pokemon V in your deck means that you can also take advantage of the still-powerful Forest Seal Stone. Using this VSTAR ability, you can search your deck for any single card you want. You usually need two Pokemon V in your deck to make adding a Forest Seal Stone viable, making it idea for this deck.

Use Arven to search out key cards

Speaking of searching your deck, there’s a reason this deck runs four copies of Arven. Whether you happen to top deck Arven, or search him out with one of your many powerful card search options (namely Lumineon V and/or Pidgeot ex).

Arven is critical for helping you get the Rare Candy you need when you need it. It can also be helpful in pulling one of the nifty tools this deck includes, like Forest Seal Stone or Defiance Band.

Ready Charizard ex for the attack

With your bench set up and your hand full of Rare Candies thanks to Arven, it’s time to get Charizard ex ready to attack. One of the best things about Charizard ex (and part of the reason why its such a strong deck) is that once you evolve it, it will accelerate its own energies and an additional energy, making it quite the versatile card.

As the game goes on, it only gets stronger, making it possible to take out weaker Pokemon early game, and tougher Pokemon later game. To help amplify the damage your Charizard ex can do, and to reach those KOs that are just out of reach, you can pair it with Defiance Band. Given you are going to want to go second, typically you will be behind in Prizes when you get your Burning Darkness attack off, meaning you can get an extra 30 damage against any Pokemon you are facing off against.

By the time you catch up in prizes, Burning Darkness will be dishing out so much damage that it won’t matter you were behind.

When to attack with Dragapult ex instead

Although this deck does run a copy of Dragapult ex, it’s important to remember that it’s a secondary attacker: Charizard ex is still the star of the show. However, Dragapult ex can be a handy attacker in particular situations. Early on, for example, it might be more advantageous to attack with a Dragapult ex as Charizard ex won’t be hitting quite so hard yet. This especially the case when facing off against decks that enable you to get an extra prize card. You could use Dragapult ex to take a KO against a Pokemon V or ex while also taking out a benched low HP Pokemon. Additionally, you can use Dragapult ex’s damage spreading “Phantom Dive” attack to set up knockouts later down the line.

How to counter Charizard ex

Charizard ex is one of the hardest decks to play against partly because of its unorthodox playstyle, using your own early game success against you to totally dominate you later in the game. For this reason, we’re going to go through some strategies to use if you are looking to counter this particular powerhouse. If you are instead looking to pilot this deck to victory, what you are going to want to do instead with this section is to reverse engineer these ideas and watch out from them in the matchups you face.

Get rid of Charizard’s card search

Although not foolproof by any means, one of the best ways to deal with Charizard ex’s power is to cut off its supply. Although Charizard can accelerate energies on its own and take KOs, it doesn’t have any draw support or card search built into it, and as such that is its biggest weakness. If you can get rid of your opponent’s Pidgey or Bidoof (depending on what they are running) you stand a much better chance of winning.

This is part of the reason Dragapult ex is such a strong archetype against Charizard ex – it can make minced meat of the weaker HP Pokemon and cut off Charizard ex’s chance to get set up. If you force your opponent to lean on Charizard ex as an attacker alone and the draw support/card search from trainers, Charizard ex is significantly less effective.

Avoid swinging into Charizard ex multiple times

Charizard ex is truly a beast of a Pokemon card – and that’s partly due to its HP. It’s HP stat is insane in the current format, making it really hard to OHKO it. However, you really, really want to avoid swinging into this Pokemon multiple times. Not only does that make it hard to keep up in the prize race, it’s also a liability as Charizard ex players can simply use Professor Turo’s Scenario to pull their wounded Charizard back into the hand. This deck may only run two of these powerful cards but if they have their card search set up that’s not very hard to manage getting it into the hand.

Plus, Charizard ex also has Pal Pad, meaning its very easy for players to add supporters back into their decks once used.

Take advantage of Charizard ex’s early game damage output

Charizard ex doesn’t hit very hard out the gate. Even after you take one prize card, it still is not hitting hard enough to take out most basic Pokemon EX. While Defiance Band can level the playing field a bit, its possible to take a hit from Charizard and survive. Of course, that also makes your Pokemon a liability to Dragapult ex’s damage spreading Phantom Drive. A really good way to deal with this is to simply run a copy of Penny or Turo’s Scenario as well. Removing damaged Pokemon from play after absorbing a hit from Charizard ex is a strong way to keep up in the prize race with thi dominant deck.

Faster Decks Could Overwhelm It

It’s important to note the fact that Charizard ex is a stage 2 Pokemon. For that reason, it can be a little bit tricker to setup than other decks in the format that only need to evolve at most once.

If your opponent is able to get out the door really quickly and you stall, you could have a lot of trouble making up ground.

Watch out for Devolution!

Lastly, Devolution – the gnarly TM revealed in Paradox Rift – is an absolute killer against Charizard ex. If your opponent manages to get one of these attacks off, you will be forced to discard the evolved forms of all of your Pokemon. That means all the hard work you put into searching for Rare Candies and evolution Pokemon is gone. If you’ve already used up your Rare Candies in the process of setting up your board, this can almost be a certain death sentence.

There’s not a lot you can do to defend agains this other than hope you can get up and running quickly after it happens (or just hope your opponent isn’t running one of these TMs in their deck).