Maxie's Archeops (Pyroar / Archeops)

[the last dinosaur]

Pokemon: 16

• 
  4 Litleo FLF
  3 Pyroar FLF
  1 Pyroar PHF
  1 Voltorb XY
  1 Electrode PLF
  2 Archeops NVI
  1 Mewtwo EX
  1 Seismitoad EX
  2 Jirachi EX

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 34

• 
  4 Acro Bike
  4 Battle Compressor
  1 Computer Search
  3 Evosoda
  1 Escape Rope
  2 Muscle Band
  1 Professor's Letter
  1 Switch
  4 Ultra Ball
  4 VS Seeker
  1 Blacksmith
  1 Lysandre
  1 Lysandre's Trump Card
  2 Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick
  3 Professor Sycamore
  1 Scorched Earth

Energy: 10

• 
  6 Fire Energy
  4 DCE

Strategy:

Set up Archeops as quickly as possible for its "Ancient Power" ability, which stops each player from evolving their Pokemon from their hand. Evosoda allows you to bypass Archeops' ability and allow Pyroar to come into play. Pyroar's "Intimidating Mane" ability (blocks basic Pokemon from attacking it) combined with Archeops' ability basically locks your opponent out of the game, since they will not be able to evolve manually and thus they will not be able to directly damage Pyroar since all they will only be left with Basic Pokemon. Normally one would use Plume Fossil and Archen PLB to get Archeops into play, but that I have found that to be much too clunky. So instead this whole deck revolves around getting Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick to be the last card in your hand, which if accomplished, allows you to grab a Fighting type Pokemon from your discard pile and place it directly onto the bench.

- Acro Bike to burn through your deck quickly and hopefully allows you to chuck an Archeops or other unwanted cards into your discard pile.
- Battle Compressor for same reason, also combos nicely if this card and VS Seeker are the last cards in your hand, for they will allow you to get both a Maxie and an Archeops in the discard pile.
- Evosoda is the only way to allow your Pokemon to evolve once the Archeops lock gets set up.
- The high Ultra Ball count is to allow you the have the maximum potential to thin your hand out in order to play Maxie.
- Lysandre's Trump Card is used due to the fact that you will burn very quickly through this deck once you get set up, and in the process you will often find yourself discarding valuable resources (like evolution lines, Evosodas, energy); having this card gives us the option of getting everything back.
- Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick: the centerpiece of the deck. Once this is the last card in your hand, it allows you to immediately bench Archeops and draw 5 cards.
- Scorched Earth serves as a counter stadium and it pairs nicely with Blacksmith at times. And it's just nice getting a little extra draw support.
- The one Pyroar from Phantom Forces is for its ability "Flare Command," which allows you to discard a fire energy attached to it so you can bring out one of your opponent's benched Pokemon. It is very useful for getting rid of potential threats (such as evolutions that manage to get through before Archeops comes into play). It's a Lysandre effect with the benefit of not having used a supporter for the turn.
- Electrode is a helpful draw support, seeing as how we have a very low draw Supporter count.
- The use of 2 Jirachi EX is what allows this deck to function. I'm aware it leaves an easy target (or two) for your opponent to pick at, but this allows us to be more flexible with our supporters, like say, thinning our hand down to an Ultra Ball and two other cards in order to grab a Jirachi and Stellar Guidance for Maxie.
- Mewtwo EX is just an all around great attacker.
- Seismitoad EX is admittedly not a very strong attacker without Laserbank; at the most with this deck it is dishing out without hitting for weakness 50 damage with a Muscle Band. The only reason it is here is to help slow your opponents down as you try to set up.

This deck is still in its testing stages. So far this deck works surprisingly well; there are many games where I am able to Archeops onto the bench on the very first turn, immediately putting my opponents in a very nasty lock. Of course this locks me as well, but I usually am able to draw into my Evosodas and begin walling and steam rolling with Pyroar. Energy can be an issue and there are games where I'm not able to set up at all and it all just falls apart. I also would like to make room for a Startling Megaphone or Tool Scrapper for Garbodor, but that usually is not an issue once Archeops sets up. Counters to this deck include obviously Seismitoad EX (they bar you from playing your Evosodas, so getting Archeops is usually not a very good idea, and they pretty much lock down this entire deck anyways), Exeggutor PLF (it blocks Maxie, but it is still possible to have the chance of using him and getting an Archeops and prevent them from getting one into play), Eevee FUF (its ability "Energy Evolution" allows it to evolve from the deck, not from the hand, enabling it to completely bypass "Ancient Power"), Latias EX PLF (her "Bright Down" ability prevents Pyroar from attacking it, so maybe this deck needs to make room for Charizard EX with Combustion Blast), Wobbuffet PHF (its "Bide Barricade" is devastating to this deck since it pretty much neutralizes all your Pokemon's abilities, so running Silent Lab might be necessary to help deal with it) and simply your opponent having their own Evosodas. This is more of a fun, casual kind of deck, but it's so sick when you are able to set up right away.

Any suggestions to help make this deck run better will be greatly appreciated.

 

[gromitxt]

I find sycamore/juniper to be occasionally counterproductive in this type of deck. I think you should cut Sycamore to two and consider adding at least 2 of a different draw supporter.

I get how Electrode could help, since you want to draw as much as possible and drawing to four is convenient for maxie, but I think it also gets in the way of what you're trying to set up. Maybe more copies of scorched earth and swapping some acro bike for bicycle would smooth things out? More scorched earth would help in keeping virbank at bay, too.

One skyla seems like it could be a big help, especially if you get an early archeops but want another pyroar.

Finally, I've been trying out different strategies to include Pyroar and Silent Lab together, and this seems like a good candidate.

 

[the last dinosaur]

I find sycamore/juniper to be occasionally counterproductive in this type of deck. I think you should cut Sycamore to two and consider adding at least 2 of a different draw supporter.

I get how Electrode could help, since you want to draw as much as possible and drawing to four is convenient for maxie, but I think it also gets in the way of what you're trying to set up. Maybe more copies of scorched earth and swapping some acro bike for bicycle would smooth things out? More scorched earth would help in keeping virbank at bay, too.

One skyla seems like it could be a big help, especially if you get an early archeops but want another pyroar.

Finally, I've been trying out different strategies to include Pyroar and Silent Lab together, and this seems like a good candidate.

I agree that Sycamore/Juniper can get in the way at times so maybe cutting one would be a good idea, but at the same time I feel this deck is already running quite low on supporters so it would just hurt the overall consistency. However, I do think maybe replacing one of the Sycamores with a the addition of a Skyla as you have suggested might help out because I have found there are times where I just really need an Evosoda or Computer Search to get a DCE right away.

I tend to get out Electrode usually after I set up Archeops, so thinning my hand down for Maxie is no longer needed. Also if I do manage to set up Electrode before Archeops I can just chose not to use "Magnetic Draw." But in that kind of situation I do see what you mean, for if I do decide to use it in hopes of drawing things like Ultra Ball, instead I sometimes end up with cards that I cannot use to thin down the hand, thus ruining the strategy. Electrode is just so helpful mid to late game though, especially when paired up with Blacksmith and Lysandre's Trump Card. I have considered replacing the Electrode line with a Slurpuff (Tasting) line, since unlike Electrode it allows me to get one more card even if I have 4 in hand, and just having one more card in hand can help complete the combo. Acro Bike can be very inconsistent at times, so maybe a Bicycle or two would be wise to replace them with. I would love to include another Scorched Earth for that reason (Laserbank is so deadly to Pyroar), but I'm really not sure what I can take out.

Pyroar and Silent Lab? That sounds like a very interesting deck, actually I might even consider running that stadium in this deck as well.

 

[appleatingoat]

I would swap all those acro bikes for maintenance, that way you can reduce your hand even faster while mitigating the effects of juniper and such if you have cards that are needed later in your hand. It helps a ton with maxie based decks.

 

[SlimyWafflez]

Add Golurk from boundaries crossed to counter decks with Evosodas and Wallies (in the future) or counter Pokemon that have evolved already

 

[Mora]

I would drop the Electrode line, and swap a Jirachi for a Seismitoad. Doesn't make sense to play any more evolutions than you need to in a deck like this. Pyroar is an exception because of its synergy with Archie's, and you can get around it with Evosodas.

 

[the last dinosaur]

I would swap all those acro bikes for maintenance, that way you can reduce your hand even faster while mitigating the effects of juniper and such if you have cards that are needed later in your hand. It helps a ton with maxie based decks.

I decided to try this out, I replaced three of the Acro Bikes with Maintenance and you know what? It actually helped out quite a bit! Not only did it help with the hand depletion to play Maxie, it also had the awesome benefit of allowing the Evosodas to work more efficiently. Sometimes during a game I end up having both an Evosoda and an evolution I can't place down due to Archeops in my hand, and so Maintenance allowed me to shuffle the evolution (and one other card I could use for later) back into the deck, therefore allowing me to play the Evosoda. Of course Maintenance can backfire badly and I just end up getting back the evolution from the one card I draw, but this very rarely happens, it depends mostly on the current deck size during a game.

Add Golurk from boundaries crossed to counter decks with Evosodas and Wallies (in the future) or counter Pokemon that have evolved already

That is actually a really cool idea and it would help dealing with those pesky evolutions that get through, but the thing is if I add Golurk I would need to add Psychic energies or those Blend GFPD energies, which means I would have to drastically change this deck in order to accommodate it. Also I feel the addition of one more evolution line would make it a bit clunky. Unfortunately that Wally card -- it's a supporter from the upcoming set Roaring Skies that allows you to search your deck for an evolution and place it on your Pokemon, and you may do this on the turn that Pokemon was put into play and it also can be used to evolve it on the very first turn of the game -- is a very big blow to this kind of deck, for it basically allows your opponent's Pokemon to go through the lock and it can be easily VS Seekered for.

I would drop the Electrode line, and swap a Jirachi for a Seismitoad. Doesn't make sense to play any more evolutions than you need to in a deck like this. Pyroar is an exception because of its synergy with Archie's, and you can get around it with Evosodas.

While I do agree that having more evolution lines in this sort of deck is kinda going against its own strategy, I feel a consistency Pokemon is necessary for a deck like this to run well. I recently switched the 1-1 Electrode line to a 1-1 Musharna NXD and I feel it got a lot better. Same goes for the Jirachi EX. By just having one more of those (or two more, as some simply people refuse to play this, and I'm not quite sure why it's such an amazing card that brings consistency to a deck like no other) my chances of getting Maxie out quickly rise exponentially. Depending on the match of course it is sometimes better not to bring out the Musharna and to try not to bench any of the Jirachis and to simply set up a bunch of Pyroar, such as this one battle I had against a very aggressive TDK Plasma deck on Pokemon TCG Online when testing this deck a few days ago.