Doubles Spotlight: Mega Charizard Y

Charizard has always been sort of a joke when it came to competitive battling. In Generations I, IV, and V, even trying to run it got you 9.9ed at so hard that eyes would roll out of heads. Charizard became a staple on the Ubers ladder, and anything you see often on the Ubers ladder is basically guaranteed to suck. It happened to get a break in GSC—while I've never played the meta, I've been told that it was actually a legitimate threat with Belly Drum. But BellyZard has since faded into obscurity, remembered by most as something that only works with no nasty plot, or sword dance, or dragon dance, and no taunt, or heracross, and NO WEAVILLE, and no substitute, and NO ROAR, or WHIRLWIND.

Fortunately for Charizard, it had one thing going for it. As anyone who ever opened a pack of Base Set TCG cards (or played on the Ubers ladder) knows, it is a fan favorite. Money-grubbing GameFreak wasn't about to miss the opportunity to cash in on its popularity; when Mega Evolutions were introduced, they knew that there was no better way to bring back old fans than by making Charizard and Mewtwo broken little pieces of shit. Thanks to the introduction of Charizardite Y, in just three short months, Charizard has already established itself as one of the strongest Pokémon in the Doubles metagame.

Qualities

Of course, not much is different with regards to Charizard's base form. If you're going to use him with any item but Charizardite, I'll offer you the same advice that I would have last generation: stop using Skill Swap + Slaking. However, its Mega forms are very different and very powerful. Charizard Y is more common than its counterpart and thus the focus of this article, but Charizard X is also a legitimate threat. It's usually safe to assume Y when you see a Charizard, but Charizard's ability to keep an opponent on edge about that can be quite useful.

It's easy to see why Charizard Y is so popular if you take a glance at its stats. Asking any Pokémon, even resists, to tank a sun-boosted Heat Wave from base 159 Special Attack is a tall order. The tier's resident Fire-type attack tank, Rotom-W, can't even help, as it is OHKOed by Solar Beam almost 70% of the time unless it invests significantly in Special Defense. Also, thanks to the fact that Charizard sets sun automatically upon Mega Evolving, Tyranitar can't even fulfill its normal role of cancelling weather without jumping through hoops, such as running its own Mega Stone or switching in the turn after Charizard Mega evolves. In addition to its massive damage potential, Charizard has a solid Speed tier. Not excellent, but solid—for instance, it outruns Landorus-T, one of the premier users of Rock-type moves, so it needs a Choice Scarf to beat Charizard (and is thus vulnerable to Fake Out).

Defensively, Charizard Y doesn't contribute too much to the overall backbone of the team, but it can switch in on just enough common Pokémon (Amoonguss, Scizor, most Fighting-types...) that it can come in and rain down burning sulfur throughout the match. Though plenty threatening on its own, Charizard has some exploitable weaknesses (namely a 4x weakness to Rock and mediocre coverage) that can neuter it. Adequate support to cover those weaknesses can exponentially increase Charizard's effectiveness and turn it into an unstoppable juggernaut of fiery death.

Playing with Charizard

Every Charizard Y should be carrying Heat Wave for insane STAB power, Solar Beam for the best two-move coverage it can get, and Protect because Protect is the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Protect, as with on most other Pokémon, lets Charizard stall for time while its partner switches to the appropriate Pokémon for the situation at hand). Because it only has three mandatory moves, the fourth can be customized to your team's needs. Three options I would recommend for said slot are Fire Blast, which hits one target roughly twice as hard as Heat Wave and pierces Wide Guard, Hidden Power Ground, which is exclusively used for Heatran, as Heatran walls Fire- and Grass-type attacks so effectively that Hidden Power is an actual consideration if your team has trouble breaking it, and Tailwind, which is for situations where your Charizard needs no help beating its counters and would instead rather function as a team supporter. Two moves that I do see on Charizard Y's fourth slot and should never see again are Hidden Power Ice and Air Slash. I can see the logic behind wanting to hit Dragons, but the only Dragon hit harder by Hidden Power Ice than Fire Blast is Garchomp, which beats Charizard anyways (well, Salamence too, but Salamence isn't common enough to warrant a moveslot). However, I will give a cash prize to whoever tells me what Air Slash beats that Fire Blast doesn't. I also see Dragon Pulse and Focus Blast sometimes; toward these moves I am more ambivalent. Dragon Pulse does hit Dragon-types 30% or so harder than Fire Blast, but the only Dragons I'd keep Charizard in on one-on-one are Kyurem (hit harder by Fire Blast) and Hydreigon. Focus Blast seems appealing to hit both Tyranitar and Heatran, but ScarfTar or a well-EVed MegaTar (or Assault Vest Tar in sand) can beat Charizard regardless of Focus Blast, and its accuracy gives it an actually worse-than-even chance of 2HKOing Heatran, so I'm not a fan. On the topic of optimizing Charizard's moveset, Solar Power should be the base form's ability, because the odds of an opponent having a Mega Charizard Y whose sun you can use are much higher than the odds of Charizard somehow taking 66% without Mega Evolving. (Not to mention, even if you did, you'd hit harder with Drought off of 159 Special Attack than Blaze off of 109). EVing your Charizard is rather simple: max Special Attack and Speed investment, Timid.

When it comes to battling with Charizard, I've noticed a lot of people will lead Charizard plus its obvious support partner no matter how hostile the opponent's team is to Charizard. For the love of God, don't let that be you. Charizard's defensive typing gives him a surprising number of free switches on common Pokémon in the tier. When the opponent isn't nearly guaranteed to have their two strongest Pokémon against Charizard on the field, it can get a lot more momentum going, threatening massive damage with Heat Wave on basically everything ever. At the very worst, you can use Protect to bring in Charizard's support later in the game, once you've spent your time not having a shitty lead matchup and softening up their Charizard answers. Once Charizard is on the field, it's about as mindless as they come in Doubles—spam Heat Wave and nuke things.

Playing against Charizard

Charizard Y is, I believe, one of the few Pokémon so powerful that you have to pay specific attention to it during the teambuilding phase. However, before you slap a Scarf Landorus-T or Heatran on your team and call it a day, you should give thought to what support commonly accompanies Charizard (or, for that matter, virtually any valuable glass cannon): Wide Guard, Fake Out, Intimidate, and strong complementary coverage. Specifically, two of the most important Pokémon to remember are Garchomp, which provides exceptional STAB coverage alongside Charizard's Fire / Grass coverage, and Hitmontop, which carries a bajillion ways to support Charizard and packs Fighting-type STAB attacks to OHKO Heatran and Tyranitar. If your Charizard Y answer can't win through these, you should probably reconsider its status as your Charizard Y answer. For example, Scarf Landorus-T is demolished by a Fake Out + Heat Wave; QuakeSlide running Garchomp can use Protect on the Fake Out, but fails to OHKO Charizard after Intimidate; Tyranitar fears nothing from Charizard, but has exploitable weaknesses to common Charizard partners. Some of the most surefire Charizard stops are Stone Edge Garchomp, Latios, and Terrakion, though the last must be wary of switching into a SolarBeam. Another good answer is fast Electric-types: Mega Manectric and the Thundurus formes primarily, but they can't switch in on Charizard. This doesn't mean you can't use softer checks, but those checks might often need their own support to beat Charizard Y—for example, a Heatran paired up with a Latias, which can take both Hitmontop and Garchomp, or a ScarfTar paired with a Quick Guard Talonflame—or be doubled up. Without a hard Charizard counter, though, it will be a difficult Pokémon to play around, especially if your team carries any Charizard bait such as Scizor, Amoonguss, or Mawile, or if your team isn't fast enough to outspeed Charizard.

Although I've gone almost the entire article without even mentioning Charizard X, I figure it deserves a mention somewhere, simply for not dying to most rock-type moves. It's a damn upsetting surprise when this happens, so if your KO on Charizard Y seems too good to be true, it might just be. That said, a fair rule of thumb is to operate under the assumption that it's Charizard Y until you've been given big hints otherwise, because X is pretty rare in the metagame.

Putting Charizard on your team

Charizard Y may be a cannon, but it is sadly also the quintessential glass, which means that its mileage is greatly increased by some solid support. If you read the above paragraphs, you should have gleaned a pretty fair idea of what support Charizard Y appreciates. Another important teammate is a Scarfed or very fast Pokémon, or one with speed control to patch up Charizard's middling Speed and inability to boost it, though if your team packs no Scarfed Pokémon or speed control you probably should add some, Charizard or no Charizard. A Follow Me Jirachi partner sounds like fun metagaming against people who run Stone Edge to beat Wide Guard, but it's not like you can tell whether they're running Rock Slide or Stone Edge, so that's pretty risky.

Charizard fits in well on highly offensive teams, where its hole-punching prowess, ability to support a blazing fast Venusaur, and natural tendency to pair with other fast hard hitters work to its advantage. However, it can also work well on more balanced teams that use different forms of speed control than Trick Room. One thing I've seen that has not impressed me, though, is teaming Charizard with another Fire-type such as Talonflame or Heatran—the STAB boost is good on paper, but stacking weaknesses to QuakeSlide, a coverage combo virtually guaranteed to be on every team, ends up not being worth it.

Conclusion

Conclusions suck and are hard to write. We should all just go play Doubles instead n__n

« Previous Article