Alola Trainers! Welcome back to the PoTown Blog! We are gearing up for the Brilliant Stars release this month and I figured it was a good time to take a look at a deck that is very fun to use if you’re looking to spice things up with exciting coin flips that can help swing the outcome of a game! I am talking about Victini VMAX!

How does the deck work?

This is a very different deck than most, in terms of how it is structured. First off, Victini VMAX has a great attack, Max Victory, which deals bonus damage to any Pokemon V. Given we are in a Pokemon V and VMAX centered metagame, it is no surprise as to why this attack is so good! The attack only costing two Energy makes it very simple to power up and have ready, as long as you can find your Energy each turn.

Victini VMAX

This Pokemon deck only plays the 4/4 line of Victini VMAX as it doesn’t really need much else in terms of support. The Inteleon line would help the deck be more consistent but would take away valuable disruption spots and what makes this deck more unique. And Pokemon like Crobat V is unnecessary and even a hindrance as you could start with it as your lone basic or simply be unable to use it as we play four Path to the Peak. The split of the Victini V’s gives you flexibility in your choice of attackers if you can create a situation where you force your opponent to KO a Victini V before evolving into your second Victini VMAX.

Pokemon CatcherCrushing Hammer

The four Pokemon Catcher and four Crushing Hammer add that spice that some players look for, as it leads to games swinging back and forth at the mercy of a coin flip result. There are many Pokemon Online decks that can’t easily recover from a removed Energy via the Hammers or even Fan of Waves. Also, most players breathe a sigh of relief when they see you play Professor’s Research, Marnie, or even Kabu over a Boss’s Orders, only to be surprised when you play down Pokemon Catcher and are still able to gust after playing a draw Supporter.

The combinations of four Boss’s Orders and four Pokemon Catcher really allow you to maximize the amount of pressure you can do against your opponent’s Pokemon, especially if you win the coin flip and go first. Taking down their Pokemon V on the second turn that they attached Energy to, can sometimes be too hard to come back from for a lot of decks.

Path to the Peak

Finally, the four Path to the Peak provides further disruption against powerful decks such as Mew VMAX, whilst also ensuring you can slow down any Zacian decks, along with getting past Duraludon VMAX’s and Zamazenta V’s Abilities as well.

The deck is notably weak against any non-Pokemon V though and having to 2HKO things like Malamar, Hoopa or Inteleon lead to it having a lot of bad matchups to make up for the really good ones. However, these decks are never too popular so I’d be confident in grinding the Pokemon TCG Online ladder with it (and eventually on Pokemon TCG Live too).

Pokémon (8)

Trainers (42)

Energy (10)

2x Victini V SSH 25 CRE 744x Fan of Waves BST 1274x Heat {R} Energy DAA 174
2x Victini V BST 214x Crushing Hammer SSH 1596x Fire Energy SWSHEnergy 2
4x Victini VMAX BST 224x Pokégear 3.0 SSH 174

3x Evolution Incense SSH 163

3x Quick Ball SSH 179

4x Pokémon Catcher SSH 175

4x Professor's Research SHF 60

4x Marnie SSH 169

4x Path to the Peak CRE 148

4x Boss's Orders RCL 154

4x Kabu CPA 55

Victini VMAX decklist

Possible changes:

The main cards that could be switched around in the deck could be Fan of Waves if you wanted to make it less disruptive and give yourself more options, such as Big Charm to increase your HP further on top of the Heat Fire Energy, or extra Basic Energy to increase your chances of having one in your starting hand on the first turn of the game if you go first. I don’t think much else can be switched around to this specific list outside of those two options.

Matchups

Mew VMAX: Favorable

A very good matchup provided you avoid the possible donk if you go first and they pull off the Elesa’s Sparkle + Meloetta attack. The amount of Energy disruption plus Path to the Peak is usually too much for this deck to handle. .

Single Strike decks: Even

This matchup relies heavily on who goes first, as that usually determines who takes the first KO and dictates the tempo of the match. Both Single Strike Urshifu VMAX and Gengar VMAX can easily OHKO Victini VMAX if they have a stable enough set up, so it's very important to disrupt them and target those Pokemon as much as possible.

Jolteon VMAX: Unfavorable

This matchup is terrible for Victini VMAX as not only do they play Cheryl, but all your disruption basically doesn’t affect them due to the Elemental Badge and that they don’t rely on any Rule Box Abilities to set up. Not to mention how good a Rapid Strike Inteleon attacking is against Victini VMAX.

Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX: Even

This matchup is very even and fun to play, as their damage output isn’t huge and so your Victini can attack quite a few times before it goes down. However, they do play Rapid Strike Energy to power up Inteleon so you might actually be better off trying to target Sobble and Drizzile initially before focusing on Rapid Strike Urshifu.

Suicune V: Unfavorable

Even though you won’t ever have a big bench, the typing advantage plus Cape of Toughness preventing your OHKO on a SuicuneV makes this a terrible matchup overall, both against the disruption and the Ludicolo builds.

Zacian V / Zamazenta V: Very Favorable

Disruption isn’t even necessary against this deck, as all their Pokemon except Oranguru get easily OHKO’ed, even Zamazenta V isn’t a problem due to the 4 Path to the Peak or we can simply power up either Victini V to take it down. Our best and easiest matchup by far.

Duraludon VMAX: Favorable

Similar to the Zacian V / Zamazenta V deck, they are a slow set up a deck that is really hindered by our Crushing Hammers and we can easily bypass Durluadon VMAX’s Ability with our Basic Energy or Path to the Peak. Their Crushing Hammer disruption could cause a few problems but overall this should be a great matchup too.

Final Thoughts

I like this deck because it plays differently and there is always a rush that you get when you flip Heads on a game-changing card. If you’re a fan of the chaos that coin flips bring, then this is the deck for you to play with.

Victini VMAX not being popular makes this a sort of budget deck I would say and should be relatively cheap to build only requiring a few Pokemon TCG Online codes to build and trade for the necessary cards. Battle Styles code cards are some of the cheapest available over at PoTown Store in case you want to try your luck at just pulling the cards themselves. Eventually, when we get our Pokemon TCG Live codes fully functional, I imagine the Victini VMAX will cost just as much as any other VMAX to acquire, and Brilliant Stars will be adding a lot of support for Fire decks. This could lead to Victini VMAX becoming more powerful or popular in the coming months. Thanks so much for reading my newest article and best of luck with your games!