Disney Lorcana: Shimmering Skies – Starter Deck – Emerald & Steel

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 shadow 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, 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!

Emerald-Steel Starter deck: contents

“A Roaring Guest List” features a 60-card deck including a foil copy of the two Characters depicted on the starter deck box, Scar and Kronk. 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. “A Roaring Guest List” 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 “A Roaring Guest List” works: path to victory

One of the aspects I like the most about is how they are all well balanced against each other. At the same time, they all have their own individual theme and deck engine. “A Roaring Guest List“, for example, is strongly themed around the Characters from the Lion King movie and relies on taking advantage of damaged opponents by creating strong combos. In fact almost all Emerald cards in this deck are either designed to deal or move damages to your opponent or to take advantage of damaged opponent Characters. The Steel cards, on the other hand, will protect the Emerald cards and will try to disrupt the enemy strategy.

The key aspect of this deck is that almost all the special abilities of its cards requires the opponen to have damaged Characters. However, there are no cards with the ability to deal direct damage to un-damaged Characters. To get the best out of this deck, therefore, the players should plan their strategy carefully as they will need to challenge the opponent’s Characters without killing them. “Rudy, Groove disruptor” and “Kronk, Unlicensed Investigator” are the best opening cards for this job. Once the opponent has at least a damaged Characters, players can play Scar for an extra card draw or “Robin, Archery Contestant” to gain quick lore. “Shenzi, Scar’s Accomplice” or “Ed, Laughing Hyena” can be used to banish a damaged Character if needed while “Simba, Lost Price” can also provide an extra card in the process. “Ed, Hysterical Partygoer” can prevent all damaged character from challenging that can be extremely useful if you are facing decks with powerful Characters like “Maui, Hero for All”. “Yzma, Unjustly Treated” can help spreading more damage every time one of your Characters banishes another Character in a challenge allowing the players to extend their combos.

“Robin Hood, Sneaky Sleuth” will then take direct advantage of all the damaged Characters in play by questing for extra Lore. However, if the player needs/chooses to challenge any of them, “Scar, Vengeful Lion” and “Kronk, Head of Security” will still provide some good advantages by either drawing an extra card or by playing Characters for free once an opponent character is banished.

Unfortunately the strength of this deck is also its worst weakness as its strategy will not work if players cannot damage the opponent characters and keep them on the board to create the needed combos. Carefully planning your strategy can surely help to get the best out of this deck but a lot may depend on which Ink colours/ strategies the players will be facing. For example, deck filled with weak and cheap characters (Hyper Aggro) or with a lot of songs (Amber Steel song) may be the worst match-up for your Hyena-driven strategy.

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 Emerald and Steel deck is definitely the most competitive one but also the one that requires more experience to be used effectively. Due to the good competitive value, this deck seems also the easier to upgrade by adding some cards to do direct damage and kick-off your combos and some late-game high questing Characters to close your games.

In the first case, the more reliable cards to add would be “Fire The Cannons”, “Ba-Boom”, “Triton’s Decree” and “Let the Storm rage on”. “Tinker Bell, Giant Fairy” and “Avalanche” are also very good cards as they can deal limited damage to all opponent’s Characters thus creating the perfect conditions for large combos. Tinker Bell, Giant Fairy is already perfect to gain additional lore late-game. “Robin Hood, Capable Fighter” is also perfect for this deck not only because of his ability to deal direct damage but also because he can Shift into his Sneaky Sleuth version. If you add Capable Fighter, I would also consider “Robin Hood, Champion of Sherwood” that offers more Shift flexibility and more options to gain lore. If you are going in this direction, the 1-cost Robin Hood should also be consider to widen your strategy. Of course there are plenty of options here and you can trial and test a lot of variations to fit your strategy and way of playing.

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