On Rare Candy, how does one know a basic Pokemon evolves into a Stage 2?

twwbowers

Card text-

"Choose 1 of your Basic Pokémon in play. If you have a Stage 2 card in your hand that evolves from that Pokémon, put that card onto the Basic Pokémon to evolve it, skipping the Stage 1. You can't use this card during your first turn or on a Basic Pokémon that was put into play this turn."

I've been in Pokémon since the beginning in the US. Most fans for the franchise will know that Charmander evolves into Charmeleon, and then onto Charizard. But specifically on the Rare Candy TCG card, what is the thing that actually links a Charmander to a Charizard?

If you're playing a deck that has Charmanders with the express purpose of using Rare Candy to skip straight to Charizard, you can avoid having Charmeleons. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing on the text of any Charmander card or Charizard card that links these two together as being valid for Rare Candy.

So I'm thinking two options exist-

1. Playing the TCG, you're expected to know how all Pokémon evolve.
2. There's an established document published that lists all valid Pokémon evolutions.

Are one of these two correct, or am I missing something?

Thank you very much for your time! I'm looking to get back into the TCG for the first time in ~20 years, and this card has given me a head-scratcher.

Thur55555555555

I do believe that you are expected to the evolutionary lines of your own deck but you can look up any that you are not currently aware of. I have not seen an official list of evolutionary lines but an online Pokédex can help

DoubleCure

If you're talking about Standard format, you're expected to know the meta decks and a couple of rough decks (and widely know Pokemon) evolutions, but it's not that hard after few weeks.

You don't need to know all the evolution chains tho, more than 90% of players only play the same top 10 meta decks or so, you will memorize those easily.

But if you're talking about all evolutions in any format (not just Standard)... that’s a different story, even I as a top player for so many years I don't know every single evolution stage.

But the thing is that as you build your deck and play with it, you will eventually memorize the evolutions that matter the most. And about your opponent's… well if they play some wired deck you may get a surprise once in a while 😅

And finaly if you're loking for documentation about Pokemon evolutions, there are plenty of good sources in the web including the pokedex of the official Pokemon web page.