Disney Lorcana: Shimmering Skies – Starter Deck – Amethyst & Ruby

Shimmering Skies, the fifth set of Disney Lorcana Trading Card Game, brings the conclusion of Ursula treacherous plot and the seed for the next development of the story of this magical realm. In fact, while our Illumineers are enjoying a great (and well deserved) party, new and old Villains start plotting in the shadows as a new adventure starts appearing on the horizon.

While we are all preparing for the next set, Azurite sea, I would like to catch the opportunity to review the two Starter decks for Shimmering Skies. As done for all other previous sets, we have two different starter decks for this set: “A Roaring Guest List“, an Emerald-Steel deck featuring Scar and Kronk and “Ready to Let Loose”, and an Amethyst-Ruby deck featuring Elsa and Wreck-It Ralph. Interestingly, both these two Ink colour combinations are quite competitive in the current season and among those you are most likely bound to find at any Set Championship. I was therefore quite excited to review these decks and to see what cards and strategy Ravensburger put together for each of them. Let’s open the boxes together and find out!

Amethyst-Ruby Starter deck: contents

“Ready to Let Loose” deck includes a foil copy of the two Characters depicted on the starter deck box, Wrek-it Ralph and Elsa. The box also includes a standard Shimmering Skies booster pack with 12 additional cards of different rarity that can be used to booster your starter deck.

It is important to note that all of the cards in the starter decks are also available in the main set and there are no exclusive cards. However, for the very first time all the cards included in the starter decks are from Shimmering Skies while in previous set we usually had a few cards from past sets together with the new ones. I don’t dislike this approach as the theme of the products feels more centred around Shimmering Skies although having cards from different sets can sometime allow to make a deck more rounded.

As usual, every Disney Lorcana starter deck includes everything a single player needs in order to start playing right away. “Ready to Let Loose” includes in fact 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. The tokens are perfect for very new players but the cardboard they are made of is, as usual, quite light and it is best to exchange them for dice in the long run.

How “Ready to Let Loose” works: path to victory

One of the aspects I like the most about Disney Lorcana Starter Decks is how they are all well balanced against each other. At the same time, they all have their own individual theme and deck engine. “Ready to Let Loose”, for example, is a Control type of deck strongly themed around the Characters from Frozen II. The deck includes a lot of “Rush” Characters to keep the pressure on your opponent together a number of evasive ones that can safely generate all the Lore you need in order to win. The Control aspects of this Deck are also supported by a few Characters that can exert ready Characters ensuring none of the opponent’s card will be safe from yours.

One of the key aspect of “Ready to Let Loose” is the presence of a lot of redundancy in the cards and their effects that makes easy to Mulligan properly into a good curve and create an effective strategy. For example, the Deck only includes two 1-Ink characters, “Simba, Adventurous Successor” and “Taffyta Muttonfudge, Crowd Favorite”, both with abilities that make them more useful later in the game. However, once you play a Character on turn 1 you can make it much more powerful by either using Simba effect or by playing “Hypnotic Strength” that also allows the player to draw a card. There have been a lot of talking about how difficult is to deal with Daisy Duck Willpower of 4 early in the game but this Deck can actually offer a lot of options to remove the issue rapidly.

“Turbo, Royal Hack” and “Snowanna Rainbeau, Cool Competitor” also support your early removal package as they can rush on the game and easily take out any Character with a Willpower of 2 of less. Again Simba or Hypnotic Strength can turn this cheap cards into very impressive powerhouses.

“Anna, Eager Acolyte” is the first of a few cards in the set that can exert ready Characters on play. For a cost of 3, this card can stop your opponent to build their strategy as only Ward Characters will be safe from Anna’s effect. Moreover, this card can Shift later into “Anna, Mystical Majesty” that can exert all opponent Characters at once. This last effect is quite useful as a backup plan in case your main strategy to prevent your opponent from building a large board fails. Additionally, the more exerted Characters the opponent has, the cheaper is to play “Olaf, Happy Passenger”, a terrifying 3-Lore Character with both Strength and Willpower of 6.

Last but not least, this Deck includes “Elsa, The Fifth Spirit” that is a brilliant card to have in any Amethyst deck. Not only Elsa can exert an opponent Character on play but she can also attack it immediately with her Rush and Evasive ability. Considering her Strength of 2, Elsa alone may not be able to remove every threat but her Willpower of 5 will be of great help to ensure she survives the attack. And your Starter Deck has plenty of Characters you can use to help Elsa taking down any opponent.

Another interesting aspect worth mentioning in this deck is the presence of a very interesting location. “The Library, A Gift for Belle” is likely the most interesting location released in this set as it allows the player to draw a card every time a Characters is banished while being at the location. This additional card drawing is quite key to ensure this deck will not run out of steam thus it will be important to use it wisely. In addition, this deck includes “Taffyta Muttonfudge, Sour Speedster” that can also add value to your locations by gaining lore every time she moves to any.

In summary, this Starter Deck offers a very balanced engine with a clean strategy that should be easy to exploit. However, it also lack powerful combos and high-questing Character making it slightly weaker in late game. The other main weakness of this deck is the limited draw power. This can be critical in particular considering that a lot of your Characters will need to be banished to remove opponent threats.

Final thoughts: Will this deck be good for you?

My personal opinion is that the starter decks are always very good if you are new to Lorcana. Each of them is a complete deck that comes with everything you need in order to play the game right out of the box. Even if you are already playing Lorcana, Starter decks can still be worth buying for various reasons including their collecting value and the value they hold in casual events. For example, I know a few groups love to play Starter deck at release events as a way to familiarize with the new cards in a less competitive event. Starter decks are also good to have in a group to support the first steps of any new player. I personally own all the Starter decks released so far and they make a pretty nice collection on my shelves.

Among the two starter Decks of Shimmering Skies, I think the Amethyst and Ruby deck is definitely the easier and most interesting to play. The deck has also a good competitive value although it definitely requires a few more cards to fully exploit the Amethyst mechanics. Among them, I strongly recommend the Madam Mim/Merlin bounce package to keep pressure on your opponents. “Madame Mim, Snake”, “Madame Mim, Fox” and “Merlin, Goat” should never be missing in any Amethyst deck. “Friends on the other side”, “Merlin, Rabbit” and “Merlin, Crab” would also be great addition to increase card drawing and to make your challenges more efficient.

Consdering the lack of 1-cost cards in this deck, I would also consider to add a mixture of “Cogsworth, Illuminary Watchman”, “Magic Broom, Illuminary Keeper” and “Chernabog’s Followers, Creatures of Evil” as they can all be extremely helpful.

As an alternative, this Amethyst-Ruby deck can also be updated to become a fun Location-based deck centred around Taffita and other similar cards. In this case, I would definetely considering adding more locations including “The Queen’s Castle, Mirror Chamber” and “Casa Madrigal, Casita”. “Jim Hawkins, Space Traveller” is likely the best Character to add to this deck as it allows to play a location for free that Taffita can use to gain additional Lore. Cards like “HeiHei, Accidental Explorer”, “Tuk Tuk, Lively Partner” and “Magic Carpet, Flying Rug” will also provide value to your engine.

That concludes our thoughts on Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies – Amethyst-Ruby Starter Deck Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies – Amethyst-Ruby Starter Deck today click here!