Disney Lorcana: Shimmering Skies – Booster Box

Almost one year after the first set of Disney Lorcana released, the Illumineers have completed their quest and freed the Realm from Ursula and her plots. Now that the threat is over, the Illumineers and all the glimmers can finally relax and celebrate their long awaited victory. Coincidentally, these celebrations also marked the first anniversary of Disney Lorcana that released a year ago on the 20th of August 2023. With such great celebrations in both the fictional and the real world, there were a lot of expectations for Shimmering Skies, and I was very happy to see the latest set lived fully up to them. This set is in fact one of the best set released so far for Disney Lorcana for a lot of good reasons that I will be happy to summarize for you.

Shimmering Skies at a glance

As usual this set will include 204 cards equally divided in the usual six Ink colours. Each Booster Pack will include 12 cards (6 common, 3 uncommon, 2 Rare, Super Rare or Legendary and 1 foil card of any rarity). In addition, each pack will also include an Art card featuring one of the four Disney Gateway Characters.

Shimmering Skies Booster box will come with 24 Booster Packs for a total of 288 cards. As usual, boxes are not seeded thus there is no guarantee to be able to pull every commons and uncommon from each of them. Basing on statistics, a box may include 3 to 6 Legendary cards with 1 chance every 4 boxes that a foil card will be an Enchanted.

With respect to previous sets, Ravensburger changed the design of all Legendary cards in Shimmering Skies so that the main character on them is now embossed with a glossy finish. This change also applies to the foil version of the same cards making the artwork quite stunning and even more captivating The Enchanted cards of this set have also been revisited and they now have an extended artwork and “Mufasa, Ruler of Pride Rock” is likely the most hunted one among them.

Main themes and cards: Set relevance in casual and competitive games

Shimmering Skies is filled with great characters and cards from a lot of different Disney movies including some that were never featured in Disney Lorcana previously. The main new additions in this set are the characters from “Wreck-it Ralph” and “Koda, Brother Bear”. The cards based on Wreck-it Ralph include not only Vanellope, Ralph and King Candy but most of the Sugar Rush racers and even a location based on the movie. All these cards are quite interesting for a theme deck in particular due to their abilities and their Rush/Evasive characteristics. In addition, Vanellope’s abilities can be quite interesting for those (like me) who have been looking to create an efficient Princess deck since set 1.

In addition to these two new thematic lines, the set also features a few new characters from movies already seen in the game like Gazelle from Zootopia and a lot of fan-favourite characters like Elsa, Belle, Olaf and Kristoff that already had a lot of cards in the game. Snow White and the 7 Dwarves are also back although this time they are pictured as armoured Knights. Considering they are all Steel cards, they all have a range of Resist, Bodyguard and Challenge abilities and they work quite well together and with the cards previously released.

In terms of gameplay, Shimmering Skies includes tons of cards with a lot of value in Competitive decks. Among those, the most interesting to look forward to pull from your packs are, in no particular order:

1. “Mufasa, Ruler of Pride rock” can easily improve any Sapphire deck considering its ability to bring back 2 random cards from the Inkwell to the player hand once played. This ability not only allows a player to obtain back key cards they had to ink earlier in the game but it also increases a player hand giving a player a potential key late game advantage. Moreover, every time Mufasa quests (for 4 lore), the player can ready their Inkwell making easier to play high cost cards and taking the lead of the match.

2. “Clarabelle, Light on her Hooves” is 5/6, cost 7 Character that can shift for 5 on another card names Clarabelle. The ability of this card allows a player to draw cards at the end of their turn to match the hand size of an opponent. This ability not only can refill a player hand every time they finished their turn but it also synergizes perfectly with a lot of o Emerald cards ability to send back opponents Characters to their hand. Considering Ravensburger efforts to limit the decks based on “discard”, Clarabelle and her ability can be a very good alternative to keep Emerald-based deck among the most competitive ones.

3. Shimmering Skies support to Amber-Steel Song decks starts with the amazing “Prince Naveen, Ukulele Player”, a 3/3 cost 4 un-inkable Character that can play a song for free on play. Naveen’s very neat ability can be considered a sort of “rush” for singing and it is easy to see how it can provide a strong advantage in particular against control decks.

4. “Pete, Game Referee” is the other new support to Steel decks that it is likely to become a staple in all decks based on this Ink colour. Pete’s ability stops all opponents from playing Actions till the start of next player turn. Considering Songs are also Actions, playing Pete can allow a player to efficiently delay the opponents strategy by forcing them to not sing their best songs at the time they need the most. Gaining one turn more before “Be Prepared” or “A whole new World” or “Grab your Sword” wipe out your strategy can definitely make the difference between losing or winning.

5. Last but not least, “Daisy Duck, Donald’s Date” has all the characteristics needed to allow a player to gain lore very fast. With a cost of just 1, players can put on the field a 2-lore questing character that can stay there for at least a couple of turns due to its willpower of 4. To balance a bit the power of this card, Daisy’s ability “Big Prize” triggers every time she quests and it allows the opponent to get the first card in their deck as far as it is a Character.

Shimmering Skies – Final thoughts

Shimmering Skies is easily one of the best set of Disney Lorcana released so far. Not only the artwork on the cards have been improved but there have been a clear efforts to release cards with a wider support to allow more decks to become competitive. As a result, we were able to see more different and interesting decks in the top tiers of the latest Challenges in Las Vegas and Birmingham. Most important, the challenges showed that there are actually a number of very different deck lists even among the most meta relevant deck. For example, the Ruby-Sapphire deck that won in Birmingham is very different from other runner-up Ruby-Sapphire decks.

This variety is surely a result of the number of cards available after 5 sets but it is also a good testimony to the work done by Ravensburger to create a very balanced game. Shimmering Skies is

surely a great set to get for both collectors and players disregarding if you have played the game before or not.

That concludes our thoughts on Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies – Booster pack. Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies – Booster Box today click here!