There are plenty of powerful Trainer cards available for deck builders right now, but few can make a bigger difference in a game than Archie’s Ace in the Hole and Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick. Their impact is great enough that they deserve a deeper look.
The two cards are virtually identical, except for the type of Pokémon they work on: if one of these is the last card in your hand, you can play it to take a Water-type Pokémon (Archie’s) or Fighting-type Pokémon (Maxie’s) from the discard pile and put it onto your Bench, then draw five cards. The Pokémon you get from the discard pile doesn’t have to be a Basic Pokémon—it can be a Stage 1, Stage 2, or even a Mega Evolution Pokémon! Putting these Evolution Pokémon directly into play (without having to evolve them from a previous Pokémon) is a powerful effect, but it can be a little tricky to pull off. Let’s go through the steps of what you need to do to use Archie’s and Maxie’s cards effectively.
Getting the Pokémon into the Discard Pile
To maximize the potential of Archie’s and Maxie’s, you first have to have a Pokémon in the discard pile worth retrieving. Without a doubt, the Battle Compressor Item card is the most reliable method for doing that: you can use it to search your deck for any 3 cards, including the Pokémon you want, and then discard them right away. If the Pokémon you want is already in your hand, you can play Ultra Ball to discard 2 cards and search your deck for a Pokémon (but note you aren’t required to find one). Acro Bike isn’t as reliable as the other two options, but it does provide a chance to discard a Pokémon and find another useful card at the same time.
In the Expanded format, a few cards from the Black & White Series provide more
options. Similar to Ultra Ball, Superior Energy Retrieval can be
used to discard 2 cards from your hand, but you can only play it if at least
one basic Energy card is already in your discard pile. The ACE SPEC card Computer Search also lets you discard
2 cards, and it’s even more powerful than the other options because it allows
you to put any card from your deck into your hand. This is especially useful if
you don’t have Archie’s or Maxie’s in your hand yet. Computer Search can be the
spark that leads to an explosive turn with Archie’s Ace in the Hole or Maxie’s
Hidden Ball Trick.
You’ll note that all the cards we mention here are Item cards. As you’ll soon see, that will certainly come in handy very soon!
Reducing Hand Size
Perhaps the most difficult part of using Archie’s or Maxie’s is that it has to be the last card in your hand before you can play it, but this isn’t as hard as it might seem. The easiest way to achieve this is by playing as many cards from your hand as possible. But sometimes your hand can get clogged with multiple Supporter cards, Energy cards, or Evolution cards, and you can’t play all of them in one turn. In the Standard format, this can be the biggest hurdle, because the only Standard-legal Item card capable of discarding extra cards with no restrictions is Ultra Ball. If you don’t have one, your strategy will be brought to a screeching halt. At best, you can try to dump your hand with a card such as Judge and hope the cards you draw are easier to play.
As was the case with stocking the discard pile with good Pokémon, additional methods exist in the Expanded format to lower your hand size. Computer Search and Superior Energy Retrieval work for this. Dowsing Machine can discard cards from your hand as well, but it’s less versatile than Computer Search. Since you can only run a single ACE SPEC card in your deck, players tend to favor Computer Search in a deck with Archie’s or Maxie’s.
Finding Archie’s or Maxie’s
The final step to this process is the easiest one: get
Archie’s Ace in the Hole or Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick in your hand so you can
play it. A consistent way to do this is to use Battle Compressor to discard the
Supporter card and then use VS Seeker to put it into your hand.
Battle Compressor can discard the Pokémon you need at the same time—that’s why
the card is so valuable in any deck trying to use this strategy. Trainers’ Mail can also find Archie’s or Maxie’s if it’s in the top four cards
of your deck. Even if you don’t find one, you’re likely to find another Trainer
card that can help you.
One big difference maker in the Expanded format is Jirachi-EX. Its Stellar Guidance Ability lets you put a Supporter card from your deck into your hand, which makes it perfect for finding that Archie’s or Maxie’s. All it takes is an Ultra Ball to search for Jirachi-EX, and Stellar Guidance will deliver that Supporter card to your hand.
Archie’s and Maxie’s in Action
Now that you have a better idea of how to use Archie’s Ace in the Hole and Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick effectively, let’s look at some example decks that put these concepts into play.
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Ryan Allred: Yveltal/Gallade (Standard Format)
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Alex Koch: Archie’s Blastoise (Expanded Format)
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6Darkness Energy
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4Double Colorless Energy
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2Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick
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2Lysandre
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2Professor Sycamore
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1Judge
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1Professor Birch's Observations
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4Acro Bike
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4Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear
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4Trainers' Mail
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4Ultra Ball
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4VS Seeker
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3Muscle Band
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2Float Stone
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1Startling Megaphone
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1Super Rod
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11Water Energy
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2Archie's Ace in the Hole
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2Professor Sycamore
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1Lysandre
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1N
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4Acro Bike
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4Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear
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4Superior Energy Retrieval
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4Trainers' Mail
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4Ultra Ball
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4VS Seeker
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2Rough Seas
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1Float Stone
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1Muscle Band
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1Computer Search
The first deck (see list above) we’re going to look at is the one Ryan Allred used to win a City Championship in the Standard format featuring Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick. This deck mainly relies on the lineup of Darkness-type Pokémon, but the Fighting-type Gallade is a complementary Pokémon that fits in neatly thanks to Maxie’s. The deck contains many of the important cards we’ve discussed for pulling off the combo: Battle Compressor, Ultra Ball, Acro Bike, VS Seeker, and Trainers’ Mail. With four copies of each of these cards, this deck aims to maximize its chances of getting Gallade into play on the first turn.
One important aspect to using Archie’s or Maxie’s
effectively is building your deck with a limited number of Supporter cards and
Energy cards. Since you can play only one of each per turn, having multiples of
these kinds of cards in your hand will make it difficult to play Archie’s or
Maxie’s. In the example deck list, there are only 6 Supporter cards besides
Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick and VS Seeker, and 10 Energy cards.
Depending on how important it is for your deck to use Archie’s or Maxie’s, you may be able to include a few more cards that won’t be useful until later in the game. In the example list, we can see cards such as Zoroark, Startling Megaphone, and Super Rod. Normally these cards can’t be used on the first turn of the game, so they can clog up your hand and prevent you from using Archie’s or Maxie’s. But this deck can function well enough without getting Gallade in play, so it can afford to include some cards that are helpful later in the game in exchange for using Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick a little less frequently.
Now let’s look at a deck (see list above) that relies on Archie’s Ace in the Hole to execute its strategy.
You might recognize this strategy that Alex Koch used to win a City Championship in the Expanded format: it’s just like the Blastoise deck that Jacob Van Wagner used to win the Masters Division at the 2015 World Championships. The strategy all begins with Archie’s Ace in the Hole to get that Blastoise into play for its Deluge Ability. The example deck list includes all of the important cards we saw in Ryan’s Yveltal deck, but it also uses Superior Energy Retrieval, Computer Search, and Jirachi-EX to maximize the chances of pulling off that Archie’s on the first turn of the game.
Unlike Ryan’s deck, Alex’s deck needs to use Archie’s Ace in
the Hole as quickly as possible, so the entire deck is built to use it. There
are only 4 Supporter cards besides Archie’s and VS Seeker. The 11 Energy cards
are a little high, but they’re necessary to power up Keldeo-EX's Secret Sword attack.
All of the Pokémon (besides Blastoise) are Basic Pokémon, and the deck is
loaded with Item cards and other cards you can play immediately to make sure
Archie’s Ace in the Hole is the last card in your hand.
Exeggcute and its Propagation Ability can make a huge difference. For example, if the only cards in your hand are Ultra Ball and Archie’s Ace in the Hole, you wouldn’t be able to play the Ultra Ball, so you also couldn’t use Archie’s. But if there are 2 Exeggcute in your discard pile, you can use Propagation to put them into your hand, and then discard them so you can use the Ultra Ball. Since you aren’t required to find a Pokémon with Ultra Ball, you’ll be left with Archie’s Ace in the Hole as the last card in your hand, so you can play it! Exeggcute has the power to turn bad situations into great ones.
These are just two examples of how to use Archie’s Ace in the Hole and Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick. These powerful Supporter cards can create new and unique ways to use Pokémon. Perhaps other strategies are out there waiting to be discovered. And with each new Pokémon TCG expansion, there’s an opportunity for new Water-type or Fighting-type Pokémon to make an impact thanks to Archie’s and Maxie’s.
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