Summary

Charizard in draft is one of the scariest offensive Pokemon. While in OU it is often seen with Leftovers to counteract sand alongside a potential Substitute to safely lower it’s HP, a largely sandless draft metagame allows Charizard to expand beyond the role of mixed attacker it primarily wears in OU.

Charizard’s speed tier is 100 -- a potentially crowded tier, but one that allows it to easily fit offensive natures a lot easier when prioritizing bulkier slower targets. A fundamental characteristic of Charizard in draft is its natural synergy with pinch berries. Charizard’s ability, Blaze, already puts emphasis on low HP, and its speed and unique typing in draft makes it able to easily force pokemon out to allow safe Substitutes and gain more than just a Blaze boost when using Substitute to lower HP. While it can do much more, the standard of sub special attacking or mixed Charizard is still very good in ADV draft, and potentially better than its OU counterpart from game to game. Charizard is free to run any Hidden Power type it likes in most matchups, allowing flexibility along with an extremely hard to stop STAB Flamethrower/Fire Blast.

Unfortunately Charizard’s special movepool outside of Hidden Power is dire, causing headache or dips into weaker physical attacks if you need more than just Hidden Power and Fire-typed attacks. Despite this, Charizard can often thrive with Toxic or a physical attack to help it break, and a trusty Substitute to bring it down to low hp safely and help stall Toxic. Most matchups are sandless, enabling Salac or Petaya berry Charizard depending on the matchup. Charizard is very unique as a deadly Salac abuser, as most Pokemon of this archetype rely on Flail and therefore stray hits can ruin the damage Flail does. Charizard doesn't have this issue while retaining most of its power. This set can also run things like Sunny Day for more power, Dragon Dance for speed (and maybe to help the mixed physical attack), or Roar for phazers who want to roar you out as a substitute breaking method.

Another option for charizard semi-commonly seen in draft is its Belly Drum set. This is very do or die, but the line goes like this: If you sub as an opponent is forced out, and the incoming Pokemon doesn’t have roar, then you can safely drum behind your substitute which then will consume Salac Berry. This is obviously very risky, but is a threat to account for. In OU this is often blocked by sand and thus you can’t safely run Salac Berry -- however, in draft, this is much easier to run. Due to knowing what an opponent has ahead of time, you can tool your 2 move coverage to OHKO everything the opponent has, as most neutral moves can kill due to your collection of high base power physical attacks (Return, Earthquake, Brick Break, Rock Slide, Hidden Power Flying). This set is also able to run fire moves due to the Blaze boost allowing you to bypass Speical Attack EVs for many targets able to resist your physical moves. This set has its flaws however, as the Charizard is almost useless until it's time to use Belly Drum. Another issue is priority being common and able to thwart this set if it is a known threat. Another issue is its power, as Charizard can sometimes still struggle to pick up OHKOs even with its maximum attack. It’s not uncommon for Belly Drum sets to run items like Sharp Beak to break through certain extremely bulky neutral targets. However, that can open you up to being outsped versus teams with faster threats, especially if you need a speed-boosting nature without Salac Berry to outspeed all of their team safely. As well as that, it's rare a type item confirms a KO from full that would otherwise be a roll. Despite this, it is an alluring option and one that is able to immediately end games if you make one good play.

Other options for Charizard are Dragon Dance versus offensive structures that you can reasonably pick up OHKOs on with a boost, as well as Ancient Power as coverage which can let mixed sets look for a boost to all stats and run away with the game.

Overall, Charizard is a fast and extremely dangerous Pokemon. Its ability to use pinch berries so effectively and high speed and tempo of play allow you to aggressively put your opponent in scary positions. Salac Berry sets can help fix speed issues and enable offensive sets, or Petaya Berries can enable speedier sets. It is an excellent way to force lines from an opponent, and an effective breaker or sweeper that at the very least can make some progress with its freedoms enabled by the draft metagame.

Summary written by SPFunkM

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