Völkl has always cultivated a high-end clientele, both in terms of skill set and what they’re willing to pay for skis. The German brand has been so successful at cultivating an affluent, expert customer base that it has the enviable problem of being pigeonholed as a high-end ski for talented skiers. But even the expert-ski market has a price ceiling above which it’s risky to rise, which puts a damper on commercial adventurism.

But what if money were no object? To answer this envelope-pressing question Völkl created V.Werks, a special production that focused on the Holy Grail of ski design, superlight construction wedded to elite performance. The star product of the V.Werks lab was the Katana V.Werks, which remains in the line in 20/21. Its 3D.Ridge chassis worked so well it became the backbone of Völkl’s non-race collections. From a construction standpoint, it’s the conceptual grandfather of almost the entire line.

The new Deacon V.Werks isn’t likely to have as much downstream impact as the Katana V.Werks, both because it would be tough to clone less expensively and because Titanal Frame is now firmly ensconced as the dominant design among non-race Völkls. But in its own domain, it’s as impressive a tool as the original Katana V.Werks was – and remains – among Big Mountain skis.

All carving skis are judged by how well they maintain edge connection on hard snow. Classically, the key to keeping a ski quiet all along its edge was to ladle on the Titanal, a proven method that achieves its damping objective in part by its mass. As a leader in lightweight design, V.Werks instead turned to its wheelhouse material, carbon, to make a damp, non-metal ski that would be light and responsive.

Several factors work together to make the Deacon V.Werks easy to steer into a tight-radius turn without a lot of encouragement from the pilot. The cambered center section of its 3D Radius Sidecut is slalom-turn tight (14m@172cm); all the skier has to do to activate it is raise the edge to a high angle, a normal move for anyone who knows how to carve. To make it easier to depress into a deep carve, the abbreviated camber line underfoot is fairly shallow and soft. The tip and tail rockers are long and gradual so the long-radius zones at front and rear don’t interfere with the ski’s quickness edge to edge. The absence of metal and low elevation of the Marker system give the Deacon V.Werks a clarity of snow feel and lively energy that’s relatively rare among elite carvers.

Theron Lee, a technical skier with the stance and style of a slalom specialist, found the Deacon V.Werks to be “very powerful and precise. Best suited for someone with race technique or at least a proficient skier: fun for a good skier, a handful for an intermediate. Very smooth and stable at speed; the faster you go the better.” In short, V.Werks hit its target: the Deacon is a high-energy carver that’s simplicity itself to steer for skiers with the requisite skills.