R
RattataJoey
Today I will be reviewing the new Vanilluxe from Noble Victories.
Vanilluxe is a Stage 2 Water type Pokémon with 130Hp, Metal Weakness, a retreat cost of 2, and 2 attacks both of which cost 2 energy, the first attack Double Freeze which for {W}{C} allows you to flip 2 coins and for each heads you deliver 40 damage plus if either coin is heads then the defending Pokémon is paralysed, the second attack for {W}{W} does a straight 60 damage to the defending Pokémon.
From what I've mentioned above its hard to see anyway for the card to make a big impact, the 130Hp can easily be found on Basics since Black and White was released and those same Basics tend to have high damage output usually hitting for 120 damage with 3 energy, So if he's out classed by Basics why write an article about him? Because of his first attack, Double Freeze will paralyse the defending Pokémon as long as you hit at least 1 heads, with your opponent paralysed you have all the advantages of having there active Pokemon being asleep without the worry of them waking up coming into your turn.
So how do we make use to paralysis? Well we already covered the fact that the advantage of the opponents active being paralysed is the same as it being asleep in the sense that they can't attack and unlike confusion they can't retreat out of the condition, which means the defending Pokémon is stuck in the active spot unless your opponent plays switch, but of course there is a drawback to Vanilluxe's attack, that drawback being that the attack relies on a coin toss, which means that there's a slim chance that the attack might fail completely leaving Vanilluxe wide open to an attack.
Thankfully there is way to make the odds more favourable for Vanilluxe in the form of Fliptini,
Out of the 3 Victini's to be released in this set Fliptini is the Only 1 to carry an Ability, with Victini's 'Victory Star' in play you can choose to re-flip for an attack that requires coin tosses if you where unhappy with the result but you only use 1 Victory star per turn, effectively this doubles the chance of being able to paralyse the defending Pokémon, initially you would have a 25% chance of missing the attack completely but with Victory Star you only have to hit 1 in 4 coin tosses making the chance of missing roughly 6.25%, of course that's still a chance of missing but who would ignore the chance of making a decent attack into a good one.
Now a good question to raise is can my opponent counter paralysis? And the answer to that is yes, as mentioned above your opponent can't retreat out of the effect but they can still use Trainer-Item cards like switch to bring the paralysed Pokémon back to the bench and remove the status condition from there all they have to do is either promote a secondary attacker or anything with free retreat so that they can retreat back to there main attacker.
So with the above in mind how do we play Vanilluxe? And what are the advantages of 1 variant over another?
The first variant I'll cover is Straight Vanilluxe, this variant purely focus's on getting Vanilluxe active with Fliptini on bench and then start setting up a second Vanilluxe on the bench, now this is the simplest variant available which also allows you to take advantage of Vanilluxe's 130Hp with most big attackers outputting 120 damage that remaining 10Hp can buy you the chance to lock another attacker in place and make the prize exchange 2 for 1 in your favour allowing you to remain safe if you concede an early prize, the draw back of straight Vanilluxe though is the fact that you leave your opponent with access to an array of trainers that could get them out of trouble, cards like Switch to remove paralysis, Catcher to drag out Victini and PlusPower to allow them to revenge kill Vanilluxe making the prize exchange 1 for 1 meaning if you fall behind on prizes you'll stay behind.
The second variant covers the weakness' of the above variant but comes with its own drawbacks, the variant I'm talking about is trainer-lock using Vileplume,
Using trainer-lock allows Vanilluxe the ability to paralysis lock the opponent without fear of switch or catcher and also allows you to practically guarantee a 2 for 1 prize exchange once the field is set-up, the major inherent problem with Vileplume though the the fact that you can't run trainers either and that can slow down set-up when you have to rely on draw supporters and Professor Elm to grab your evolutions from your deck, but thankfully there is away around this, being granted by a card from Emerging Powers, that card being Leavanny (7/98),
Now of course relying on a Stage2 to help you get out stage 2's seems like a bad idea but there is away to make use of Leavanny without having to evolve upto stage 2 before setting up, the easiest way to do this is to use Mew Prime
After placing Leavanny in the Lost Zone Mew can use Nurturing to evolve you benched Pokémon allowing the deck some acceleration for its evolutions, making the task of getting out both Vileplume and Vanilluxe a much less arduous task.
Mentioning Mew brings me to my third and final variant for Vanilluxe, this third variation is simply a variation of Mewbox, where you can still use Leavanny to accelerate the process of evolving Vileplume but instead of evolving Vanilluxe along side it you use See-Off to send Vanilluxe out of play allowing Mew to use Double Freeze in his place.
This variant happens to be the fastest Trainer-lock variant and also stands a chance of being faster than straight Vanilluxe but it carries the major draw back of mew only having 60Hp, the variants that use Vanilluxe as a stage 2 have the opportunity to take advantage of Vanilluxe's high Hitpoints to survive revenge Knock-Outs, with the largest amount of damage expected being 120 but with only 60Hp even with Eviolite Mew won't survive the revenge and Prize exchange is will practically be guaranteed to be 1 for 1 and the chances of being the first 1 to secure a knock out with fast decks like ZPST being in format are pretty slim.
Out of the 3 variants lists I strongly prefer the Trainer-lock variant that only uses Mew as an Evolutionary aid as it seems to cover most of the decks weakness' without sacrificing consistency or allowing your opponent an easy chance to turn the game around.
So, what do you guys think? Is Vanilluxe worthwhile? Or is there a variant I've missed that you'd like to point out?
I'm also still willing to take requests on any new cards you guys might want reviewing so don't be afraid to drop me a line.
Signing off for now,
RattataJoey
Vanilluxe is a Stage 2 Water type Pokémon with 130Hp, Metal Weakness, a retreat cost of 2, and 2 attacks both of which cost 2 energy, the first attack Double Freeze which for {W}{C} allows you to flip 2 coins and for each heads you deliver 40 damage plus if either coin is heads then the defending Pokémon is paralysed, the second attack for {W}{W} does a straight 60 damage to the defending Pokémon.
From what I've mentioned above its hard to see anyway for the card to make a big impact, the 130Hp can easily be found on Basics since Black and White was released and those same Basics tend to have high damage output usually hitting for 120 damage with 3 energy, So if he's out classed by Basics why write an article about him? Because of his first attack, Double Freeze will paralyse the defending Pokémon as long as you hit at least 1 heads, with your opponent paralysed you have all the advantages of having there active Pokemon being asleep without the worry of them waking up coming into your turn.
So how do we make use to paralysis? Well we already covered the fact that the advantage of the opponents active being paralysed is the same as it being asleep in the sense that they can't attack and unlike confusion they can't retreat out of the condition, which means the defending Pokémon is stuck in the active spot unless your opponent plays switch, but of course there is a drawback to Vanilluxe's attack, that drawback being that the attack relies on a coin toss, which means that there's a slim chance that the attack might fail completely leaving Vanilluxe wide open to an attack.
Thankfully there is way to make the odds more favourable for Vanilluxe in the form of Fliptini,
Out of the 3 Victini's to be released in this set Fliptini is the Only 1 to carry an Ability, with Victini's 'Victory Star' in play you can choose to re-flip for an attack that requires coin tosses if you where unhappy with the result but you only use 1 Victory star per turn, effectively this doubles the chance of being able to paralyse the defending Pokémon, initially you would have a 25% chance of missing the attack completely but with Victory Star you only have to hit 1 in 4 coin tosses making the chance of missing roughly 6.25%, of course that's still a chance of missing but who would ignore the chance of making a decent attack into a good one.
Now a good question to raise is can my opponent counter paralysis? And the answer to that is yes, as mentioned above your opponent can't retreat out of the effect but they can still use Trainer-Item cards like switch to bring the paralysed Pokémon back to the bench and remove the status condition from there all they have to do is either promote a secondary attacker or anything with free retreat so that they can retreat back to there main attacker.
So with the above in mind how do we play Vanilluxe? And what are the advantages of 1 variant over another?
The first variant I'll cover is Straight Vanilluxe, this variant purely focus's on getting Vanilluxe active with Fliptini on bench and then start setting up a second Vanilluxe on the bench, now this is the simplest variant available which also allows you to take advantage of Vanilluxe's 130Hp with most big attackers outputting 120 damage that remaining 10Hp can buy you the chance to lock another attacker in place and make the prize exchange 2 for 1 in your favour allowing you to remain safe if you concede an early prize, the draw back of straight Vanilluxe though is the fact that you leave your opponent with access to an array of trainers that could get them out of trouble, cards like Switch to remove paralysis, Catcher to drag out Victini and PlusPower to allow them to revenge kill Vanilluxe making the prize exchange 1 for 1 meaning if you fall behind on prizes you'll stay behind.
The second variant covers the weakness' of the above variant but comes with its own drawbacks, the variant I'm talking about is trainer-lock using Vileplume,
Using trainer-lock allows Vanilluxe the ability to paralysis lock the opponent without fear of switch or catcher and also allows you to practically guarantee a 2 for 1 prize exchange once the field is set-up, the major inherent problem with Vileplume though the the fact that you can't run trainers either and that can slow down set-up when you have to rely on draw supporters and Professor Elm to grab your evolutions from your deck, but thankfully there is away around this, being granted by a card from Emerging Powers, that card being Leavanny (7/98),
Now of course relying on a Stage2 to help you get out stage 2's seems like a bad idea but there is away to make use of Leavanny without having to evolve upto stage 2 before setting up, the easiest way to do this is to use Mew Prime
After placing Leavanny in the Lost Zone Mew can use Nurturing to evolve you benched Pokémon allowing the deck some acceleration for its evolutions, making the task of getting out both Vileplume and Vanilluxe a much less arduous task.
Mentioning Mew brings me to my third and final variant for Vanilluxe, this third variation is simply a variation of Mewbox, where you can still use Leavanny to accelerate the process of evolving Vileplume but instead of evolving Vanilluxe along side it you use See-Off to send Vanilluxe out of play allowing Mew to use Double Freeze in his place.
This variant happens to be the fastest Trainer-lock variant and also stands a chance of being faster than straight Vanilluxe but it carries the major draw back of mew only having 60Hp, the variants that use Vanilluxe as a stage 2 have the opportunity to take advantage of Vanilluxe's high Hitpoints to survive revenge Knock-Outs, with the largest amount of damage expected being 120 but with only 60Hp even with Eviolite Mew won't survive the revenge and Prize exchange is will practically be guaranteed to be 1 for 1 and the chances of being the first 1 to secure a knock out with fast decks like ZPST being in format are pretty slim.
Out of the 3 variants lists I strongly prefer the Trainer-lock variant that only uses Mew as an Evolutionary aid as it seems to cover most of the decks weakness' without sacrificing consistency or allowing your opponent an easy chance to turn the game around.
So, what do you guys think? Is Vanilluxe worthwhile? Or is there a variant I've missed that you'd like to point out?
I'm also still willing to take requests on any new cards you guys might want reviewing so don't be afraid to drop me a line.
Signing off for now,
RattataJoey
