Disney Lorcana – Archazia’s Island – Starter Deck – Amethyst & Steel

Archazia’s Island is the seventh and most recent set released for Disney Lorcana, the Trading Card Game and, for many players including myself, one of the most exciting set released in a while for this game. The first main reason for this set to be so interesting is the release of two new completely new mechanics: the Dual-Ink and the Illusion Glimmers.

As the name suggests, Dual-Ink Glimmers are cards belonging to two Ink colours at the same time and they can only be used in a Deck featuring both colours. This limitation is very important as these cards are essentially designed to support a specific Archetype or Deck engine and this helps in keeping the game very balanced. Illusion Glimmers, on the other hand, are a type of Characters that are automatically banished when the opponent selects them as targets for an action. This drawback is largely compensated by the fact the Illusions are more powerful that other Characters with similar stats. It is also very likely this new type of banish mechanics will open the door to future mechanics involving the discard pile.

I am very excited about these new rules and mechanics and I think they will certainly a bring even more fun to all Illumineers by adding new twists and depth to the game. At the same time, I am very interested to see how these mechanics will develop in the future and how much support they will get in future sets. I think they are very likely to become an integral part of the game thus it is quite obvious all players will need to learn how the new rules work and what impact they have on the game. For me, the best place to start in order to have a taste of these new rule are the new Archazia’s Island Starter Decks: “Feathered and Feared” (Amethyst-Steel) and “An Inventive pair (Ruby-Sapphire). I had the opportunity to test these decks ahead of the release thanks to Ravensburger providing me with a copy and I am very eager to share my finding with all the players. Let’s open the boxes and let’s start as usual from the contents!

Archazia’s Island Starter Decks: contents

As usual, we have two different decks. The first one, “An Inventive Pair” is an Ruby-Sapphire deck filled with the items and cards that interact with them. The two main characters featured on the box are the Dual-Ink cards “Belle, Mechanic Extraordinaire” and “Beast, Frustrated Designer”. The second one is a Amethyst-Steel built around the new Illusion Glimmers and features “Iago, Giant Spectral Parrot” and “Jafar, Newly Crowned” hence the name of the deck, “Feathered and Feared”.

Interestingly, both decks are using two Ink colour combinations that have been quite popular in the competitive scene and each of them is designed to fully exploit one of the two new mechanics.

As usual, each deck comes with a ready made 60-card deck that also includes a foil copy of the two Characters depicted on the starter deck box itself. As done for all previous Starter Decks, all of the cards included are also available in the main set and therefore no exclusive cards are included in these Starter Decks. On the other hand, both Starter Decks actually include 44 cards from Archazia’s Island plus a few other cards from previous sets. These include two copies of 4 different cards from set 5 and 3 from the 6th set.

Inside the box, players will also find a standard Archazia’s Island Booster Pack with 12 additional cards of different rarity that can be used to boost the starter deck, a player’s guide with all the game rules, a small cardboard playmat with a lore tracker, a few cardboard damage tokens and one Lore tracker token. I really love the white and teal colour theme used for the Set and the small nature elements added to the Playmat. I also appreciate a lot the work done by Ravensburger to create a very informative Quick Start Rulebook while also keeping it a fun read by adding flavour text and background lore into it.

Conjure your magic in “Feathered and Feared” Deck – Strategic Analysis

The strategy of the Amethyst-Steel Starter Deck is based on the Illusions Glimmers and Jafar’s ability to bring them back to hand when they are banished. As mentioned earlier, the Illusions are in average better than Characters with similar cost therefore they can provide more value earlier in the game. Among them, “Rajah, Ghostly Tiger” is a good 3/3 Character that can be summoned on turn 2 to kick-off your evil plan. The second Illusion of this Deck, the 3-cost “Giant Cobra, Ghostly Serpent”, will likely become a must-have in any Deck using this colour combination due to its very good 4 Strength, 4 Willpower and the ability to provide 2-Lore on play by discarding a card that can be rapidly gained back by playing the 4-cost “Treasure Guardian, Foreboding Sentry”. This last card is quite good for its costs considering the 3/3 stats and the 2-Lore questing. Obviously, the biggest Illusion of them all is “Iago, Giant Spectral Parrot” with its 4 Strength and 6 Willpower for just a cost of 4.

The deck includes also two new Jafar cards, a good 3-cost “Jafar, Aspiring Ruler” with 3 Strength and Challenger +2 and the impressive Dual-colour “Jafar, Newly Crowned” that not only quests for 2 as the previous one but it allows all Illusions to come back to your hand when they are banished during the opponent’s turn. Unfortunately, the newly crowned Jafar only has 2 Strength making it quite exposed to Ruby removal. Its ability only works during the opponent’s turn that is a bit of a shame considering this Deck strategy is strongly based on challenging the opponent.

Among the cards that support the main strategy, the most important ones are “Fa Zhou, War Hero” and “Amethyst Coil”. Fa Zhou can generate 3-Lore every time a second Character challenges in a turn. This means that it can be played on turn three providing immediately a good boost if you have two cards in play that can challenge your opponent. Amethyst Coil’s ability kicks in then the following turn allowing the player to move a damage from any Character to any of the opponent’s ones when a card is placed into the Inkwell allowing your Character to survive longer while supporting your removal strategy. Later in the game, your challenging strategy will strongly benefit from the Action “Restoring the Crown” which exerts all opposing characters and allows the player to gain 2 Lore every time one of them is banished in a challenge during the turn the action is played. Combined with Fa Zhou, this can easily lead to explosive gameplay.

Among the other notable Amethyst-Steel cards, “Madam Mim, Cheating Spellcaster” and the action “Magical Manoeuvrers” also allow a player to exert chosen opposing character to create suitable targets to be challenged by the other player characters. The new 2-cost “Helga Sinclair, Tough as Nails” can be a great support for this strategy thanks to her Challenger +3 and its ability to gain Evasive during the player’s turn. Although quite expensive, the 6-cost “Te Ka, Lava Monster” is also a great to have in play considering she can either quest for 2 Lore or use her 5 Strength to take out any opponent’s Characters late in the game.

Final thoughts and how to improve the deck

In general, I think all Disney Lorcana Starter Decks are a very good and balanced products that fit perfectly their scope. When Lorcana first released, these deck were meant as a good way to get into the game but, as the game progressively became more complex, they evolved into a more thematic products. Today, each Starter Deck is still a good way for Player to learn how to play Lorcana and to see what the game can offer them. At the same time, they also focus strongly on the set they feature either by exploring one of their main theme or a new rule/mechanic featured in the set. For example, Feathered and Feared Deck explores the new Amethyst-Steel cards and the new Illusion mechanics providing a good starting point to create a fun and efficient strategy.

With this in mind, Players interested in improving this Deck should focus on adding more cards that support the main deck strategy together with increasing the number of copies of the key cards mentioned in the previous paragraph. In this case, there are tons of good cards to choose from considering Steel and Amethyst have been among the more versatile and efficient Ink Colours so far. One option can be to exploit fully the “Vanish” ability of your Illusion cards by including the Location “The Library” that allows a Player to draw a card every time a Character is banished while being at the location. With the crowned Jafar in play, not only your Illusion will go back to the hand but you also draw an extra card. This approach can be taken further by also playing “Jafar, Striking Illusionist” to also generating a lore for every card you draw. Good cards to have for this strategy are then obviously “A Whole new World” and ” Friends on the other side” but I would also consider “Jafar, Dreadnought” to have another good challenging Character that doubles as target to shift Jafar and as extra card drawing.

Alternatively, this Starter Deck strategy can be extended by adding more cards that can help keeping pressure on your opponent by Challenging while gaining Lore in the process. The new “Bagheera, Guardian Jaguar” is a perfect addition to the deck considering it has the Bodyguard ability and can generate two Lore per turn. Most important, all opponent’s Characters will take 2 damages if the opponent manages to banish it. “Hades, Lord of the Dead” or “Calhoun, Marine Sergeant” from the previous set are two example of good cards to have in your deck to continuously generate more lore. I will also don’t forger some of the most classic Amethyst cards in the game like “Madame Mim, Fox” and “Merlin, Crab” to add an extra good challenger (with Rush) or to bring extra strength to your other Characters.

Overall, the cards included in the Amethyst-Steel Starter Deck offer a very good taste of the new cards and the new game mechanics. The Deck is quite fun to play for new players and provides also a good level of strategy for experienced one. In addition, this deck can be a good starting point to create some good and fun competitive decks. This Ink Colour combination can be quite fast and extremely good to keep pressure on your opponent but you may struggle against Deck with low board presence (Ruby-Sapphire in particular). Deck with a lot of removal like Amber-Steel may also be challenging to beat as your cards may not stay on the board long enough to put pressure on your opponent’s board. On the other hand, your Deck also includes Steel and you may be able to even the playing field with your cards.