USD ($)
EUR (€)
Disney's Lorcana is a completely new Trading Card Game set in the Disney Cinematographic Universe. The game is taking the player community by storm since its launch party on the 18th of August and it is expected to be a great adventure for players of all ages.
For everyone interested in just trying it out or to jump onto a new TGC from the very beginning, Ravensburger has created three Starter Decks offering a balanced way to learn the game. Each of these prebuilt decks features a different playing style and provides everything you need to start playing including some tokens, a playmat and the game rules. Considering the very affordable price, these decks are very good entry level products but the real question is which one you should choose?
Although all the Starter Decks are quite balanced, each Disney Lorcana starter deck has weaknesses and strengths. In particular, each deck of the The First Chapter features cards with a differing play style based on the combinations of two Ink types from the six cards available in the game. For everyone new to Lorcana, Ink is the main resource of the game as it is needed in order to summon new characters and to perform actions. The Amber and Amethyst Starter deck is based on Orange and Purple ink cards that offer multiple drawing/recovery effects to ensure card advantage over the opponents. The availability of cheap characters with the Evasive trait then allows to quest every turn while a few of stronger characters can banish the opponent's ones preventing them to catch-up.
The overall strategy is pretty solid and also quite simple to master. In addition to that we can look together into the Amber and Amethyst Starter deck and how to maximize its efficiency.
What Is A Starter Deck & What's In It?
A Disney Lorcana Starter Deck consists of a preset collection of 60 cards. With respect to other TGCs, it is important to know that the cards included in all Lorcana starter decks are the same that can be pulled from any booster pack.
In total, this deck has 47 character cards, 2 copies of one action, 8 songs of four different types, and 3 copies of one item. 53 out of 60 cards can be converted in ink and therefore the remaining 7 cards can not be used in the inkwell. In terms of rarity, the Amber and Amethyst Starter deck includes 1 Super Rare card, 5 Rares, 20 Uncommons and 34 Commons of which 1 Super Rare and 1 Rare are foil (Mickey Mouse, Wayward Sorcerer and Moana of Motunui). A detailed list of all cards included in the set is available at this link or on the side of the box itself.
I have been pleasantly surprised by the overall card quality and by how all card information are visible and well designed. The graphics of the cards is also stunning as you can obviously expect from everything that is Disney related.
Additionally, each Starter Deck includes a booster pack with 12 additional randomly selected cards of varying rarity, a quick starter guide with all the game rules, 11 card tokens (one lore tracker and 10 damage counters) and a small card playmat. This last one in particular is small but quite cleverly
designed as it depicts a lore track and an area for the deck and the trash pile. The idea is to put the playmat on a side of the playing area as two marks on one side of it allow the player to organize the cards in a front line and a back line providing everything you need in order to play the game. The card token coming with the deck can be used to track the lore you accumulate during the game although I found using a dice or any other small item may be a better choice for this purpose.
I Got Friends On The Other Side: Card list & Deck Strategy
The play-style of Lorcana Amber and Amethyst deck is centred around outpacing your opponents by Questing and filling your board with characters. The strength of this deck lies on its ability to continuously draw more cards from the deck and to retrieve Banished characters from the trash and move them to the player hand. In addition, there are four main combos in this deck players can exploit to get a huge advantage: Mickey and his Magic Brooms, Moana and all the other Princesses, Flotsam and Jetsam, and Dr. Facilier Shift combo. Pulling these combos will not be easy considering there is only one copy of the main cards for them in the starter deck, but the ability to draw consistently and retrieve characters from the trash should be of great help to setup your board for them.
At the same time, the Amber and Amethyst Starter Deck lacks the ability to prevent and counteract your opponent's strategies. As such, this deck will struggle if you do not manage to gain board advantage in the first few turns.
Key Cards of this deck to look for and to master include:
1) Mickey Mouse, Wayward Sorcerer: this is likely one of the best characters in your deck allowing players to play Magic Broom Characters for cheap and put them back in your hand every time they get banished. Keeping Mickey alive should be a priority and cards like Hades, Lord of the Underworld, Part of Your World, or Dr. Facilier, Agent Provocateur can help with this.
2) Moana, Of Motunui: Moana will easily be the core of any Princess-centric deck as she allows a player to ready all the other Princesses on the board every time Moana quests. This effect can not be used to Quest twice but allows them to challenge or sing or at least to prevent your Princesses from been Challenged in the next turn. Moana can also allow Cinderella to use her healing ability twice removing an impressive 6 damage tokens. This can be quite important to also keeps Moana alive as she would be a focus point for your opponent challenges.
3) Dr. Facilier, Agent Provocateur: This version of Dr. Facilier is one of the best and more aggressive cards of the starter deck. Its ability “Into the Shadow” allows any character that is banished to return to your hand making very hard for your opponent to really reduce your board. Considering it may come into play on turn five by shifting another Dr. Facilier into it, this card can be a serious game changer.
4) Dinglehopper: Dinglehopper is quite a straightforward card with the ability to remove one damage from any character every single turn. Considering its very cheap cost of just one ink, this card can play a major role in a deck where most of your characters will not be as strong as those of other ink types.
Final Thoughts: When You Dream, You Dream Big!
When I first looked in into the Amber and Amethyst Starter deck I was captured by the two main characters it features. Let's be honest, who would not love a deck built around Mickey Mouse, Wayward Sorcerer, and Moana, Of Motunui? These are not only great Disney characters but also two of the very best Lorcana cards in The First Chapter.
Moana, Of Motunui provides a strong defence and can quest for three lore each turn. She can also ready other Princess Cards each turn whenever she quests and thus she synergizes strongly with all the princesses in this starter deck.
Mickey Mouse, Wayward Sorcerer, meanwhile, has great strength and willpower stats and can bring out any Magic Broom, Bucket Brigade for one fewer ink. While Mickey is on the field, he also allows to return them to the player's hand (instead of the discard pile) when banished creating a very nice combo. I only managed to pull off this combo once since I started playing with this deck but it was as hilarious as the corresponding sequence in Fantasia.
Overall, I think the Amber and Amethyst is a very fun deck with a lot of interesting mechanics and some very nice cards to play with. The deck mechanics is not too complex thus this is likely to be the best Lorcana starter deck if you’re brand new to trading card games. It is also a good option if you are looking for something simple to help you learning the basics of this new Trading Card Game.
Once you’ve mastered the basics using this starter deck, you can either improve the Starter deck further or exploit the cards obtained from Amber and Amethyst to create new and more efficient decks. In the first case, you will probably need to add more copies of the key cards for your combos by pulling them from Starter Booster packs or Boxes. In the second case, you may look, for example, into building a deck based on Disney princesses to best exploit Moana powers or one that focuses more on the Amethyst side of the deck adding other powerful cards like Ursula. As you get a booster pack of cards with each starter deck perhaps you can see what luck brings to you and start from there. And most important, have fun!
That concludes our thoughts on Disney Lorcana Amber and Amethyst Starter deck. Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy Amber and Amethyst Starter deck today click here!
