1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,480 Hello and welcome to Illumination, the Disney Lurkana podcast. 2 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:18,720 My name is Max and I'm Sam and we are here to talk to you today about something that 3 00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:23,520 a lot of Lurkana players will hopefully get a chance to experience and that is the store 4 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:26,200 slash set championships. 5 00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:28,940 We wanted to go over a little bit. 6 00:00:28,940 --> 00:00:36,560 What does the metagame look like right now for Into the Inclands set slash store championships? 7 00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:41,840 Our goal here is to kind of help you figure out what you need to do, how you need to navigate 8 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:47,040 through this rather diverse and if you go back to episode five and listen to our metagame 9 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:49,200 episode, healthy metagame. 10 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:54,180 So Sam, what do you think is important about knowing what's going to be out there? 11 00:00:54,180 --> 00:00:57,880 What are the key advantages for knowing what decks are popular, what decks are good? 12 00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:01,920 I think the main advantage of knowing what other decks are most likely going to be played 13 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:07,320 is knowing what to play around and knowing what might happen to your board as well as 14 00:01:07,320 --> 00:01:08,480 what the opponent may play. 15 00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:10,800 Yeah, we need to know what our opponents are doing. 16 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:12,280 This is a big part of Lurkana. 17 00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:17,520 In other games, there are ways to kind of interact with your opponent's plays. 18 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:21,440 While they're taking their turn, you can kind of interrupt their game actions and that's 19 00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:24,400 a way for you to fight back and deal with the things the opponents are doing. 20 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:26,040 In Lurkana, you do not have that benefit. 21 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:31,560 It is much more chess-like in the concept of taking your turn, setting up attacks and 22 00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:36,840 counter attacks and defending and protecting and being the aggressor and being the defender. 23 00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:40,240 It's imagine chess, but you didn't know what your opponent's pieces were doing. 24 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:44,360 That's a lot harder, but knowing that there were certain sets of chess pieces that they 25 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:50,520 could use, that makes things a lot more approachable and that's what understanding this concept 26 00:01:50,520 --> 00:01:56,280 of a metagame really helps you out going into a set championship, a store championship, 27 00:01:56,280 --> 00:01:59,400 something a little bit higher than maybe your locals where you're just playing things you 28 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:03,080 want to play for fun or testing out cool little interactions and strategies. 29 00:02:03,080 --> 00:02:04,080 We're trying to win. 30 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:06,880 We want that enchanted rock star stitch in the playmat. 31 00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:09,280 I want the playmat that does not say champion on it. 32 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:10,280 Correct. 33 00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:11,280 I want to come in second place. 34 00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:12,280 Second place would be ideal. 35 00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:13,920 We're going to talk about the tiers of deck. 36 00:02:13,920 --> 00:02:14,920 Now what is tiers? 37 00:02:14,920 --> 00:02:17,880 And if you get into trading card games, you're going to hear about this a lot and it's become 38 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:21,240 kind of a ranking system that a lot of different things have adopted. 39 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:26,800 That's what I typically refer to as tier one, tier 1.5 maybe or tier two. 40 00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:30,960 Just to tell you why are the tiers important, it's not really an important thing. 41 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,840 It's what decks are being deemed to be the strongest right now against most of the other 42 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:36,240 decks that are available. 43 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:40,280 And the reason the tiers are there more than not is to tell you what you're commonly going 44 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:41,280 to see. 45 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:44,440 And when you see it, how strong is that current deck? 46 00:02:44,440 --> 00:02:45,800 We have things like pixel born. 47 00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:50,640 We have tournament data that gets shared almost immediately after a tournament is done. 48 00:02:50,640 --> 00:02:54,120 So we can start to assemble lots and lots of pieces and start to see what are the things 49 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:57,180 that overlap in these different decks and what makes them strong. 50 00:02:57,180 --> 00:03:02,760 What decks are consistently being listed out as top eight or top 16 deck choices that you 51 00:03:02,760 --> 00:03:03,760 can make. 52 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:07,740 Those are the things that start to identify and break down into tiers. 53 00:03:07,740 --> 00:03:11,800 So it's really important to know that this is a tier one deck. 54 00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:16,480 So I'm going to see it a lot and it has probably been played very frequently by many, many 55 00:03:16,480 --> 00:03:20,920 different people and refined each card choice within the deck is going to be specifically 56 00:03:20,920 --> 00:03:22,720 picked out to serve a purpose. 57 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:24,000 It's going to be fine tuned. 58 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:25,120 It's going to be polished. 59 00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:27,760 It's not going to be a, I know a lot of these cards do one thing. 60 00:03:27,760 --> 00:03:31,180 I got to figure out what the other 20 cards in my deck really are and how they're serving 61 00:03:31,180 --> 00:03:32,180 the main purpose. 62 00:03:32,180 --> 00:03:33,180 All that's been figured out. 63 00:03:33,180 --> 00:03:38,480 This is like you have room maybe to make between one and four card changes to tune it to your 64 00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:41,880 play style, but the core engines of the deck have been refined. 65 00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:44,160 The numbers have been pretty fine tuned. 66 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:46,560 So a lot of this is what are you going to see? 67 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:47,920 What are the key cards? 68 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:53,320 How do you deal with them based on their approach and their role in the game? 69 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:57,200 So I think it best to probably start with something like the tier one decks, which are 70 00:03:57,200 --> 00:03:59,160 going to be the most common ones, right? 71 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:01,240 These are going to be the things you see the most. 72 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:04,440 So Sam, I'll let you describe the first deck on my list here. 73 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:06,920 That is Ruby Amethyst Control. 74 00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:08,560 What is it doing outside of control? 75 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:09,760 What is it doing in the early game? 76 00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:10,960 What's it doing in the mid game? 77 00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:12,800 And what are some cards to keep an eye out for? 78 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:17,760 I think Ruby Amethyst's main goal is to draw a lot of cards and control the board. 79 00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:22,700 You're doing a lot of playing characters that give you some sort of advantage and then bouncing 80 00:04:22,700 --> 00:04:24,760 them to get more advantage. 81 00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:26,760 Can wipe the board with be prepared. 82 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:28,720 So that's one you really have to watch out for. 83 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:33,000 And this one of the hallmark, the Madam Mim and Merlin package plus be prepared are kind 84 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:34,360 of the hallmarks of this deck. 85 00:04:34,360 --> 00:04:39,120 If you're playing a Ruby Amethyst deck, things you need to watch out for is that be prepared. 86 00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:43,400 Make sure you're paying attention to how much ink your opponent has and don't play into 87 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:46,200 the key cards that could potentially lose you the game. 88 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:49,840 I think another big one in that deck is Maui and any red deck, Maui. 89 00:04:49,840 --> 00:04:53,660 So you don't want to when they're on for ink, you don't want to quest with a character 90 00:04:53,660 --> 00:04:55,880 that could just get taken out by Maui. 91 00:04:55,880 --> 00:04:59,820 I think we'll talk a lot about the Amethyst package of the Madam Mim and Merlin. 92 00:04:59,820 --> 00:05:04,760 And I think Ruby has kind of adopted a package of its own with be prepared, Maui, and then 93 00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:08,120 some number of like Lady Tremains and Madam Medusa's. 94 00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:10,440 It's become the standard Ruby package. 95 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:13,240 You still see some different things tacked on here and there. 96 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:15,760 You'll see a scar, you'll see a dragon fire. 97 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:19,720 You'll see a few things that kind of accompany that overarching strategy out of Ruby. 98 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:24,220 And that's Ruby's role in a lot of these high tier, well refined deck lists. 99 00:05:24,220 --> 00:05:28,940 Now keep in mind, Ruby Amethyst control also has the more controlling style where they're 100 00:05:28,940 --> 00:05:31,560 not going to play Minnie Mouse, Stylish Surfer. 101 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:35,080 They're not going to play the location package with Jim Hawkins. 102 00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:38,480 Then you're going to have other versions that are accelerated a little bit that are playing 103 00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:42,620 Jim Hawkins and up to six copies of various locations. 104 00:05:42,620 --> 00:05:45,440 You're going to see them playing Minnie Mouse as well. 105 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:50,880 So not only within each of these things I'll name, there are often going to be variations 106 00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:52,480 in there as well. 107 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:55,680 So it is worth knowing that just because you've identified, okay, this is definitely a Ruby 108 00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:56,680 Amethyst control deck. 109 00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:01,880 It's not an aggro deck and I need to figure out still more layers I'm peeling back to 110 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:02,880 figure it out. 111 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:06,520 So it is definitely important in this game to pay attention and know directly what you're 112 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:07,520 dealing with. 113 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:09,560 You really want to know what to play around. 114 00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:12,560 And so I think that's what's important about knowing each one of these decks. 115 00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:13,800 Amethyst Emerald. 116 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:15,600 This is a tempo style deck. 117 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:18,800 It also plays the Madam Mim Merlin package. 118 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:22,300 It also is jockeying hard for board position. 119 00:06:22,300 --> 00:06:27,480 So one of its key cards in addition to the Madam Mim and Merlin package is the Ursula 120 00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:33,520 package coming out of Emerald of two drop Ursula Deceiver and three drop Ursula Deceiver 121 00:06:33,520 --> 00:06:39,160 of all in order to get advantage by singing Mother Knows Best and Friends on the Other 122 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:44,680 Side two times instead of just one with the three drop Ursula and two drop Ursula Deceiver 123 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:49,400 being able to snatch out those key cards, like be prepared before they happen. 124 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:53,640 So that is really the role of the deck is trying to get on board and it's trying to 125 00:06:53,640 --> 00:06:57,440 quest not as aggressively as an aggro deck, not kind of at all costs. 126 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:00,120 But what it's trying to do is stay front footed. 127 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:03,680 It wants to remain the deck that is questing more than the opponent. 128 00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:08,320 That's its goal in this to retain enough resources that it's stopping the opponent as needed, 129 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:12,080 which something like Madam Mim Fox and Merlin Crab are very good at doing. 130 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:17,220 It also is very good at then going on the aggressive with cards like Cursed Murfolk 131 00:07:17,220 --> 00:07:20,400 and Flynn Rider Charming Rogue card in there. 132 00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:21,400 Yeah, it can be. 133 00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:22,400 Yeah. 134 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,240 The Cursed Murfolk and Flynn Rider package slow the opponent down by stripping out cards 135 00:07:26,240 --> 00:07:28,760 at a faster rate, even if they're being challenged. 136 00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:31,880 Obviously a key weakness to this deck would be steel, right? 137 00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:36,720 You can deal damage to all these cheap characters with cheap pieces of interaction like Baboom 138 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:40,680 or Fire the Cannons or a little bit later in the game, you can use stronger cards like 139 00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:42,980 Grab Your Sword to deal to everything. 140 00:07:42,980 --> 00:07:47,640 So understanding that this deck wants to end the game quickly and maintain an advantage 141 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:51,680 in play versus in the hand, as opposed to Ruby Amethyst control, which is very good 142 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:55,520 at maintaining an advantage in the hand and doing what it needs to do on the board in 143 00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:59,080 order to maintain as many options as possible in your hand. 144 00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:01,480 So card advantage versus board advantage. 145 00:08:01,480 --> 00:08:04,660 Moving on from that one, I'll let you talk about this next one, Sam. 146 00:08:04,660 --> 00:08:06,040 This is way more in your wheelhouse than mine. 147 00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:08,000 We're talking about Ruby Sapphire. 148 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:09,000 Tell us about it. 149 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:10,000 It's another control deck. 150 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:15,080 It's my favorite color combination that unfortunately I will not be taking to set slash store championship, 151 00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:16,080 but I love this deck. 152 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:17,600 I just can't get it to work for myself. 153 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:24,120 Anyway, the key cards in this deck, again, it's Hyrum, it's Popsicle, it's Be Prepared, 154 00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:27,520 Fishbone Quill I think is the number one card in this deck. 155 00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:33,720 You want Fishbone on three or Mickey at very minimum, but you need that ramp. 156 00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:37,360 Some lists play one jump ahead or the two drop Gramatala to ramp. 157 00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:40,080 Some decks play some number of a lot of those. 158 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:41,080 Right. 159 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:44,880 So this deck is basically ramping to play big stuff very quickly. 160 00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:45,880 Yeah. 161 00:08:45,880 --> 00:08:50,900 We talked about that Ruby package of interactive cards and those come with a price. 162 00:08:50,900 --> 00:08:55,640 When you're stapling, deal with a character in some way onto a character itself, they're 163 00:08:55,640 --> 00:08:58,160 going to cost six plus ink. 164 00:08:58,160 --> 00:09:03,480 So it's really, really important to make sure that you can get to that number quickly. 165 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:08,520 So I think the big plan for this deck is to play Tamatoa and Lucky Dime very quickly. 166 00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:09,720 Or Gaston Lucky Dime. 167 00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:10,800 Gaston Lucky Dime. 168 00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:13,520 Lucky Dime is kind of the wing condition of this deck. 169 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:19,040 So once your opponent has nine ink, they can easily slam down Lucky Dime, turn it and get 170 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:21,680 whatever character they have on board, the lore that they have. 171 00:09:21,680 --> 00:09:25,080 Bell is another one that could potentially be in there, some builds. 172 00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:26,080 Absolutely. 173 00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:30,240 It's really disheartening when your opponent is at 12 and you have out Gaston Lucky Dime 174 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:32,400 and you go, okay, they can quest with Gaston Lucky Dime. 175 00:09:32,400 --> 00:09:34,320 They're only at 18 and then they play Bell. 176 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:36,240 And then all of a sudden you've lost the game on the spot. 177 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:41,240 They can, the reach this deck is able to attain is huge, but it cannot do it without the ink 178 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:44,200 advantage that it gains through the ramp pieces of the deck. 179 00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:46,800 The early part of this game is extremely soft. 180 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:51,480 Its only interaction is typically Teeth and Ambitions or the Red Rush Queen. 181 00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:54,200 Sometimes you get the Cruella, the 3-2 that can gain evasive. 182 00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:57,280 There's a sprinkling of cards and that's most of them. 183 00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:02,220 Predominantly, your bread and butter is just ramping through the early stages of the game. 184 00:10:02,220 --> 00:10:05,360 So I think if you're playing against this deck, if you can, if you have the ability 185 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:07,440 to blow up a Fishbone Quill, do it. 186 00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:08,440 Right. 187 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:10,020 This deck you want to attack your Amethyst Emerald. 188 00:10:10,020 --> 00:10:13,760 This is where you want as many copies of Curse of Merfolk and Flynnrider as you can get down 189 00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:16,280 because those will quest so fast. 190 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:20,080 Generally your Sapphire Ruby opponent will not be able to deal with it. 191 00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:21,080 They're not able to catch up. 192 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:24,320 So all you need is a couple characters or some goat bounce in the late game to cheer 193 00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:28,400 it up where if you're playing something like Ruby Amethyst control, it gets a little bit 194 00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:32,840 trickier because you're both trying to jockey for position, but the Ruby Amethyst decks are 195 00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:35,440 going to do it from a position of a lot less ink. 196 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:37,540 So that's where the card advantage comes in. 197 00:10:37,540 --> 00:10:42,580 Trying to disincentivize them or punish them for playing things like Flavisham via a Madam 198 00:10:42,580 --> 00:10:47,920 Medusa or a Maui to mitigate how many times that they can activate Flavisham's questing 199 00:10:47,920 --> 00:10:52,080 ability is really, really critical to the deck's success. 200 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:58,180 And not too dissimilar from that is the Sapphire Steel deck, which is kind of a ramp mid-range 201 00:10:58,180 --> 00:11:02,520 style deck, more than a straight flat control deck in a lot of cases. 202 00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:06,040 But I would say it's mid-range definitely puts it in the position of being a control 203 00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:07,640 deck more than an aggro deck. 204 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:11,920 But sometimes you just have like three Mr. Smee's in your hand and you can just go ham. 205 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:16,220 This deck does, unlike the Ruby Sapphire deck, actually have an early game. 206 00:11:16,220 --> 00:11:18,080 It can do what it needs to do. 207 00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:22,160 It's not worried about playing one jump ahead because Mr. Smee is a solid two drop for this 208 00:11:22,160 --> 00:11:23,160 deck. 209 00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:26,740 Popsicle, Captain Hook, and Develop Your Brain are solid one drops for this deck. 210 00:11:26,740 --> 00:11:28,520 It looks really good on the one drop. 211 00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:32,660 It's two drop, I think, is one of its weakest with just Mr. Smee, I think, occupying the 212 00:11:32,660 --> 00:11:34,200 bulk of the two drop. 213 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:38,800 And then moving into the three drop, you still have your Detective Mickey and your Fishbone 214 00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:39,800 Quills. 215 00:11:39,800 --> 00:11:43,600 So you have a lot of things you can do and then you still set up that same Flavisham 216 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:44,960 Popsicle engine. 217 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:49,800 You're still using Lucky Dime to achieve victory with a heavy questing character like Gaston. 218 00:11:49,800 --> 00:11:51,060 It's just very good. 219 00:11:51,060 --> 00:11:57,680 It's very flexible and unlike the Ruby Sapphire builds, this Steel Sapphire build actually 220 00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:02,680 can deal with characters that drop quickly, which makes it a much more robust threat. 221 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:07,560 It also is very good because of the ramp elements at just completely dumping its hand and then 222 00:12:07,560 --> 00:12:09,960 using a whole new world to refill its hand. 223 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:12,720 That's something that the Ruby Sapphire decks tend to miss out on. 224 00:12:12,720 --> 00:12:17,120 I know in that matchup, the Ruby Sapphire players tend to count on the Steel Sapphire 225 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:19,280 players to refill their hand. 226 00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:21,960 Yeah, like please just give me seven more cards, just please. 227 00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:24,620 You can see kind of how that works a little bit differently. 228 00:12:24,620 --> 00:12:26,240 Both decks have a specific difference. 229 00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:30,160 Obviously, key cards for the Sapphire Steel deck include more like Whole New World and 230 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:32,400 Cogsworth Grandfather Clock. 231 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:34,360 Cogsworth is messed up. 232 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:38,400 It is Cogsworth in a lot of the Steel matchups, whether it's some of the other ones we'll 233 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:41,120 describe later or the Mirror match. 234 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:43,080 It's generally a race for Cogsworth. 235 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:44,800 A lot of cases it boils down to that. 236 00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:47,080 It is a key card, no doubt. 237 00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:51,320 There are not many of them in these decks, but those ones, it's definitely worth a call 238 00:12:51,320 --> 00:12:56,200 out and we're going to continue on the Steel Train with my favorite deck, probably of the 239 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:59,400 ones listed here, which is the Amber Steel Song deck. 240 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:01,920 This is a deck that I've been playing since chapter one. 241 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:04,200 If you listen to the podcast, you know I'm a big fan of this. 242 00:13:04,200 --> 00:13:05,980 It's definitely a mid-range style deck. 243 00:13:05,980 --> 00:13:09,720 There are three current different but very similar versions. 244 00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:13,240 There is the Lantern version, which tends to play higher end things like Tinkerbell 245 00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:15,400 and Stitch Carefree Surfer. 246 00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:18,840 There is the Flute build, Sleepy Flute. 247 00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:24,120 Sleepy Flute generally is paired with smaller characters who can quest more aggressively 248 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:25,120 and then Shift. 249 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:29,560 You'll often see Queen, you'll often see Robin Hood, you'll see Cinderella Shift, and sometimes 250 00:13:29,560 --> 00:13:32,240 you'll even get Rockstar Stitch Shift in here. 251 00:13:32,240 --> 00:13:36,740 Then the third version is the Pride Lands version, which is kind of the newest version 252 00:13:36,740 --> 00:13:42,520 of the deck, which is leveraging Simbas, the one-cost Simba from Steel, Future King, I 253 00:13:42,520 --> 00:13:47,160 believe, to loot and find things and then move over to Pride Lands to get your characters 254 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:52,580 more willpower and also make them cheaper so that with Rockstar Stitch out, you can 255 00:13:52,580 --> 00:13:55,840 just start drawing a ton of cards and flood the board out of nowhere. 256 00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:57,800 Really cool, interesting deck there. 257 00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:01,760 Key cards in that matchup, obviously a whole new world is a major player for them. 258 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:05,160 Ariel, Spectacular Singer is in every version of the deck. 259 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:09,680 Robin Hood, the one drop, Robin Hood the five drop appears in every version of the deck. 260 00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:11,240 These are really key cards. 261 00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:15,200 Spare Necessities is a great new song addition to the decks. 262 00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:19,760 It can strip out fishbone quills, it can strip out grab your swords, it can strip out be 263 00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:23,560 prepared, it can do a lot of heavy lifting in these decks and I think people are finally 264 00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:28,640 starting to catch on that these are really, really powerful cards that have taken a little 265 00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:31,840 while in a metagame to settle a little bit to be chosen. 266 00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:36,360 So moving on to kind of like tier 1.5, I guess I should call it, because they're kind of 267 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:40,880 in-betweens, would be the first Ruby Amber Mufasa. 268 00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:43,040 One of my favorite decks in the game. 269 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:46,800 This is an aggro deck that is also kind of really a mid-range deck. 270 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:50,040 It can be built in a couple different fashions, like a lot of these decks you can season it 271 00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:51,040 to taste. 272 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:57,780 This deck is trying to leverage cards like the four drop Yellow Tinkerbell, Mufasa, Pongo, 273 00:14:57,780 --> 00:15:02,980 in order to gain card advantage and then play either fast characters and use Perdita to 274 00:15:02,980 --> 00:15:08,680 recur them in the late game or they're using big comes into play effects like Maleficent 275 00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:12,440 and Stitch Carefree Surfer to gain you an advantage when they come in. 276 00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:18,080 The kind of key cards I'd say that really make this deck hum are the Mother Gothel, 277 00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:19,560 Rapunzel lines. 278 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:23,080 Mother Gothel on two comes in with three damage and then Rapunzel comes in on four and is 279 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:25,560 able to heal Mother Gothel and draw three cards. 280 00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:26,680 So be aware of that synergy. 281 00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:29,360 The other one on this list is the Emerald Steel deck. 282 00:15:29,360 --> 00:15:32,900 I think these decks are varied and also very potent. 283 00:15:32,900 --> 00:15:37,120 These are generally mid-range versions of the deck and there's a few different variations 284 00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:38,120 in there. 285 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:41,480 You can get the discard style decks that are playing Bucky and Floodborns. 286 00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:45,040 You can get the new specimen style decks that are also discard but they're a little bit 287 00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:49,920 more traditional leveraging new card Friar Tuck and some of the past discard options 288 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:54,400 like using three drop Ursula Deceiver of All to sing Sudden Chill and make you discard 289 00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:55,400 two cards. 290 00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:57,360 Some use Lucifer, some do not. 291 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,320 All of them tend to carry the same mid-range package. 292 00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:04,600 This build you'll see a lot of the card morph because they want to try to shift a surprise 293 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:10,640 Floodborn or do the very fast line of Morph on two, Beast Tragic Hero on three. 294 00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:14,920 So definitely key cards to watch out for as this deck grinds you down and makes you discard 295 00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:20,280 your hand while it's adding board presence by way of these Floodborn characters. 296 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:23,520 Ones you will see most likely but may not see completely. 297 00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:26,540 Some are a little bit more popular in Pixelborn than they are in paper. 298 00:16:26,540 --> 00:16:29,120 So I wanted to knock them down a peg to kind of a tier 1.5. 299 00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:33,000 And then to send us home here at the end we have a few more decks to cover. 300 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:34,400 There is Amethyst Steel. 301 00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:36,920 This is a control style deck for the most part. 302 00:16:36,920 --> 00:16:41,960 Also has kind of a combo flourish if they're playing Jafar which is the striking illusionist 303 00:16:41,960 --> 00:16:46,100 that lets you gain lore whenever you draw a card so long as he's exerted. 304 00:16:46,100 --> 00:16:50,040 So they use him to sing a whole new world and gain seven lore out of nowhere. 305 00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:53,480 Even more sometimes if you can follow it up with cards like Friends on the other side. 306 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:57,480 There are a lot of ways in purple we all know to draw a lot of cards and this deck leverages 307 00:16:57,480 --> 00:16:58,480 those. 308 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:02,320 A lot of the times you'll see Blue Fairy because so many cards in this deck are steel cards 309 00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:04,680 which we just noted shift a lot. 310 00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:08,520 So there are a lot of floodborns and they use the Blue Fairy evasive to gain themselves 311 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:13,560 a little bit of lore as well as draw a bunch of cards as they play these floodborn characters 312 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:14,800 for no cost. 313 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:16,560 This one caught me off guard at SCGCon. 314 00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:20,800 This is a tough deck to play sometimes especially if you're not ready for it out of the gate. 315 00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:27,100 Then there is the Amber Amethyst or we're seeing some Amethyst Emerald Hyper Agro builds. 316 00:17:27,100 --> 00:17:28,340 These decks are very very simple. 317 00:17:28,340 --> 00:17:32,100 They are aggressive decks that are trying to win the game as fast as possible. 318 00:17:32,100 --> 00:17:35,720 Your key cards here are going to be Leelos, they're going to be the Maleficent Biding 319 00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:39,900 Her Time, they're going to be Curse Murfolk, then you're going to start using things like 320 00:17:39,900 --> 00:17:42,840 Arthur to start to pick up those characters, put them back down. 321 00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:47,840 Two Drop on Incable Pinocchio is a common card to see in a lot of these builds. 322 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,760 They're trying to close out the game as hard as they can early and then use a finisher 323 00:17:51,760 --> 00:17:57,620 that's either evasive like Pascal or using the Madam Mim and Merlin Goat bounce package 324 00:17:57,620 --> 00:18:02,280 to close out the last three to five lore that they need to end the game before the opponent 325 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:04,920 can really get started and get their engines turning. 326 00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:10,340 And then the last one here is the Amethyst Sapphire decks, also affectionately known 327 00:18:10,340 --> 00:18:11,660 as Blurple. 328 00:18:11,660 --> 00:18:14,320 They are a ramp deck pretty much exclusively. 329 00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:18,140 They're not really a control deck so much as a ramp deck trying to make board presence 330 00:18:18,140 --> 00:18:22,800 and leverage some of the strong purple board cards like Elsa, Spirit of Winter, using that 331 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:27,600 to exert some of the characters and quest for a whole bunch of big numbers before the 332 00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:30,520 opponent can really stop them by way of utilizing the ramp. 333 00:18:30,520 --> 00:18:34,760 So opposed to ramping to use a lot of cards with whole new worlds and empty your hand 334 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:40,160 and leverage that or ramping to use powerful Ruby removal, they're ramping to use powerful 335 00:18:40,160 --> 00:18:45,660 purple board presence cards and continue to quest for a lot of lore right away. 336 00:18:45,660 --> 00:18:50,040 So I think that's the rundown of a lot of the decks that you're going to see as you 337 00:18:50,040 --> 00:18:51,040 go around. 338 00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:54,320 So if you want to build your own deck as they call it, make a rogue deck, I think even if 339 00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:57,560 your plan is that you have to know what these decks are doing because you can't go in 340 00:18:57,560 --> 00:19:00,400 with a deck that's not able to deal with some number of this. 341 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:03,120 You're not going to find a deck, most likely if you do this, you've accomplished a heck 342 00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:06,080 of a goal nobody else has been able to find a deck that beats them all. 343 00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:11,560 But you're going to want to find a deck that can navigate at least a reasonable win percentage 344 00:19:11,560 --> 00:19:13,720 across most of these decks. 345 00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:18,280 And all the decks I named tier one tends to do that the best where the tier 1.5 and the 346 00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:22,080 tier two decks do have some matchups where they're like, oh no, not this one. 347 00:19:22,080 --> 00:19:23,200 There's no auto wins. 348 00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:25,700 There are definitely favorable matchups. 349 00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:27,440 Some decks get that more so than others. 350 00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:29,680 Some people would rather leverage the great example. 351 00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:31,660 This is the Emerald Steel discard decks. 352 00:19:31,660 --> 00:19:35,080 Some games I'm just going to get Bucky Bucky and completely win the game. 353 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:36,080 Like it's not going to be a game. 354 00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:37,960 I'm just going to completely wreck my opponent. 355 00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:41,760 There are going to be other times where I struggle to gain two lore over the course of 356 00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:44,800 the game because I cannot keep up with what my opponent is doing. 357 00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:49,720 Other people would rather go and grind every round as hard as they can using decks like 358 00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:54,800 Ruby Amethyst where it's I want every decision to matter and I want to make sure I can leverage 359 00:19:54,800 --> 00:19:59,120 any mistake I made by using the deck strength to pull me back into a game. 360 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:02,600 So there's a lot of variation and a lot of choices to be made. 361 00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:06,880 So definitely worth thinking over what you're going to see across the table from you. 362 00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:09,280 Do yourself a favor and do some research. 363 00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:14,160 Watch some Twitch, watch some YouTube videos, play some Pixelborn or with a friend, you 364 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:16,800 know, in paper and just practice against these different decks. 365 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:17,800 Yes. 366 00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:21,480 If you want to do well in these store championships, do yourself a favor and learn the decks. 367 00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:22,480 Yeah. 368 00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:24,720 You have to know even if you don't want to play against them, even if you don't like 369 00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:28,000 the style and there are many on this list, I don't care for the way they play. 370 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:30,440 I'm looking at you Sapphire and that's okay. 371 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:34,280 You still need to know how they function and ask your play test partner. 372 00:20:34,280 --> 00:20:36,120 What's the worst thing I could do to you right now? 373 00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:37,640 What's the nightmare scenario? 374 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,440 Remember testing games are a lot different than you guys just jamming games, right? 375 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:44,400 Like testing games are wait, let me try that a different way now. 376 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:45,400 Help the other person out. 377 00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:46,900 Go wait, do this instead now. 378 00:20:46,900 --> 00:20:48,400 See how much better that is. 379 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:49,400 Yeah. 380 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,800 No, it just knowing what is what the worst thing that can happen to you if you make a 381 00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:54,920 decision is going to help you in the long run. 382 00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:55,920 Absolutely. 383 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:57,400 You're not just being aware of what your opponent's doing. 384 00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:01,840 It's also fine tuning and understanding if you sequence something a little bit differently, 385 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:06,520 like, Hey, I actually draw a card if I do it this way or Hey, if I do this, if I damage 386 00:21:06,520 --> 00:21:10,400 a character and then challenge them with Robin Hood, I get to gain two lore. 387 00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:14,400 Take out Prince Eric before you play your character that you want to survive. 388 00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:15,400 Right. 389 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,920 And this comes to something that I learned when I was playing Android Netrunner a lot, 390 00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:23,080 which is plan your entire turnout. 391 00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:26,200 If I'm going to leave you with any piece of advice outside of what we're talking about, 392 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:27,680 cause this is close to unrelated. 393 00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:30,200 I want to give you this advice going into set championships. 394 00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:31,560 Please think out your turn. 395 00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:32,820 You know, you're going to do these things. 396 00:21:32,820 --> 00:21:33,820 Set the card face down. 397 00:21:33,820 --> 00:21:34,820 Okay. 398 00:21:34,820 --> 00:21:37,360 I know this one first, this one second, this one third, and I know I'm going to quest now 399 00:21:37,360 --> 00:21:39,720 sit there and go, okay, I know I want to do these four things. 400 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:41,560 What is the right order to do them in? 401 00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:42,640 Cause it does matter. 402 00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:43,640 It matters. 403 00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:45,920 Maybe, but most of the turns it matters. 404 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:46,920 Yes. 405 00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:52,520 It's so pivotal that you learn those fine choices, those micro decisions help you win 406 00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:53,520 or lose a game. 407 00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:57,200 And then the next step is exactly what we've been talking about for the past like 20 ish 408 00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:01,640 minutes, which is knowing what your opponent's doing and how you counter that based on the 409 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,840 cards in your deck so that you can achieve victory. 410 00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:06,080 Well, let's be honest. 411 00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:20,640 The simplest way to win a game of Lorcan is to keep questing.