What if I open with a perfect hand for a turn two Klinklang and a Cobalion with two energy, but my opponent goes first and plays N? What if I get a hand with one Klink and 6 supporters? What if I am forced to open with Jirachi?
Obviously, there are controls that can be put in place here, but none quite as obvious as Victory Star Victini, re-printed in Legendary Treasures.
Victory Star gives you a second chance! Don't want to discard energy? Take damage from your own attack? Well if that condition is determined by a coin flip on the attack, this is the card for you!
There are several attacks that could benefit from this, but two immediately jumped out to me:
Gothitelle
Vanilluxe
How did I decide between these two? I simply pondered how many coins I would like to flip! Gothitelle will be 2-4 flips every turn once powered up. This is a healthy number of coin flips, but not quite up to the standard I was looking for. Vanilluxe on the other hand? Try 2 to.... Infinity???
Enough chit chat, let's check out the list.
| Pokemon | Trainers | Energy |
| 3 - Victini (LTR) | 4 - Professor Juniper | 7 - Fire |
| 4 - Vanillite (PLF) | 3 - N | 3 - Water |
| 2 - Vanillish (DXP) | 2 - Skyla | 4 - Double Colorless |
| 4 - Vanilluxe (PLF) | 2 - Colress | - |
| 2 - Voltorb (BCR) | 4 - Rare Candy | - |
| 2 - Electrode (PLF) | 3 - Ultra Ball | - |
| 1 - Mr. Mime (PLF) | 2 - Level Ball | - |
| 1 - White Kyurem (BCR) | 2 - Tool Scrapper | - |
| - | 1 - Switch | - |
| - | 1 - Super Rod | - |
| - | 1 - Random Receiver | - |
| - | 1 - Skyarrow Bridge | - |
| - | 1 - Computer Search | - |
The strategy here is pretty straight forward: lead with Victini, or possibly Vanillite, build Vanilluxe with 3+ energy as fast as possible, then drop ChillMAX and don't look back. Attaching somewhere every turn is a must. Victini's stored power attack actually comes in handy here as you can lead him, attach to him, and unless your opponent runs hot, hits for weakness, or runs a laser bank, usually dump those energy to an ice cream cone on the bench, and retreat for free via sky arrow bridge.
Why the DXP Vanillish? Because you get to flip more coins, duh!
Electrode helps consistency early and protects against late Ns.
Mr Mime and White Kyurem are the other techs. All the pokemon in this list are pretty fragile, so preventing bench damage is quite valuable. White Kyurem BCR is generally terrible, but having an attacker that can get through silver mirror is nice. That White Kyurem has flippy attacks is just icing on the cake!
Supporter line is fairly typical, as are the items. There are a few different Ace Spec cards that could work in this deck, but Computer Search was the most consistently useful.
How has this deck performed? In 47 games of Expert Modifed play on PTCGO, it has won 25 of them. As is typical of the PTCGO, about 50% of those games have been against random terrible things (I remember a lot of Blaziken builds?), 30% against popular archetypes with terrible tech ideas (Virizion/Genesect... Dusknoir!!!), and the remaining 20% against competent top tier archetypes. Which is to say that I have piloted this deck to multiple wins against straight Darkrai, one against Darkrai/Garbodor, and a couple against Ray/Boar+beach. This deck has its weaknesses, and is obviously very flippy (should have added catchers...), but it also has the potential to deal 240 damage on the second turn. So while it is extremely silly, if you take it lightly you will be smoked by an anthropomorphic ice cream cone.
I am too embarrassed to play it in real life, but if you have opened a decent amount of plasma freeze and legendary treasures, you probably have what you need to build this deck.
Have fun!
PS - When I started this blog, this deck was the namesake. I have since re-named the deck "Cones of Unova-shire". I suppose this is what happens when you have 2 month gaps between posts?
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