Hello, Cut or Tap Readers! As of writing this, the Peoria Regional Championships is a few days away, then the weekend after that, Sacramento, and finally, Lille Regionals. While these events may affect the meta of the next format quite a bit, I believe that the many variants of Charizard ex will see good success across all three events.
After Worlds, the Obsidian Flames expansion was released, with not a ton of impact at first. People looked at the Charizard ex card, and while it seemed solid, nobody was building it optimally yet, resulting in the highest placement of the deck at Pittsburgh being in the lower Top 64, with an Arceus and Bibarel engine. A few other builds made Day 2, including Arceus Pidgeot, Pidgeot Bibarel, Lost Zone and more. However, these other variants really shone at the Barcelona Special Event. The same weekend as Pittsburgh, a Charizard Gallade variant placed Top 8 at the Champion’s League Yokohama, taking advantage of keeping one-prizers on your board, and not being susceptible to late game Path to the Peak with your non-Rule Box engine. At Barcelona, there were three Charizard decks in Top 32, two Lost Zone variants in Top 4, and a Charizard Pidgeot ex build in Top 32. Then came the Curitiba regionals, where Charizard dominated, with five in the Top 8. These consisted of three Charizard Pidgeots, similar to the Top 32 Barcelona list, and two Arceus Charizard Pidgeot. These results outline the four viable builds of Charizards: Lost Zone, Pidgeot, Gallade, and Arceus Pidgeot.
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