Hello and welcome back to Illumination, the Disney Lurkana podcast.
My name is Max.
And I'm Sam.
And we are here today, episode 22 of the podcast talking about Azure 8c.
I mean, what else are we going to be talking about?
Come on.
We're talking not about specific cards.
We're going to do our set review.
So if you're familiar with the podcast, you know we live stream our set review.
So you better get over there and check it out.
It's twitch.tv slash Supra Liminal Films.
We are a part of the Supra Liminal Entertainment Group.
So that's where you can find us over on our Twitch channel.
I'm sure if you look in the Disney Lurkana trading card category, you will find us as
well very easily.
We will be posting about this on socials throughout the week.
So you can find it easier there too.
We are the Illumination podcast over on Facebook as well.
So you can find us pretty much anywhere you want to find us.
And we do put this up as an audio podcast.
It is a ton of fun.
I recommend you check it out.
We have a blast doing the set reviews.
And again, it will come up probably middle of the week as a bonus episode as well.
So we're talking biggest improvements for existing cards from Azure 8c cards.
So we will be talking about Azure 8c cards, but we will be talking about them through
the lens of how they're impacting the current cards that we have access to.
So the focus will be much more on existing cards you are familiar with and a little bit
more withdrawn on the cards from Azure 8c.
Of course, they're going to heavily impact the conversation.
So we'll be going over them.
I want to give a brief disclaimer before we jump into it though.
We're not going to make vague comments.
We're going to try to stay away from that.
We wanted to give you some specific examples of cards we think are big winners from Azure
8c.
We didn't want to talk about just kind of general cards.
We know if a card says discard on it, there's a chance Prince John might get better.
We know that if more locations come out, Jim Hawkins might get better.
We are fully aware of all of those kinds of things.
We wanted to keep it to more than that.
So that way you're not shouting at the podcast angrily.
So there's your rationale if it falls into that category.
We might miss something, of course.
So the first card we want to talk about from Azure 8c that's going to have an impact on
some cards is Oswald.
Sam, do you want to tell us about Oswald?
And we'll talk about then the cards that Oswald will make an impact on.
Sure.
Oswald is a Sapphire legendary card.
It is a 212 for two uninkable.
And during your turn, whenever a card is put into your inkwell, you may reveal the top
card of your deck.
If it's an item card, you may play that item for free and it enters play exerted.
Otherwise you put it on the bottom of your deck.
So we know this is already going to pair well with some cards, right?
Like the first card probably you're thinking of at home and Sam's making eyebrows at me
to say is?
Lucky dime.
Lucky dime is going to be a big one.
I don't think that's much of a winner.
That card's already insane.
I don't think it really won too much.
I think Oswald is going to benefit other cards and this is shout out to Hyper Hippo Time
because he also kind of put these cards on the radar for the podcast.
I agree with what he said here.
Shield of Virtue, be able to re-ready things if we hit them.
Poisoned Apple and Sword of Truth, all really good hits for this particular card.
Sword of Truth lets you banish a hero character.
Poisoned Apple lets you banish a princess character.
These are first chapter items that kind of nobody's been playing but get better because
you have to run a heavy density of items in order for Oswald to really be effective.
I don't know as though we're going to see it slotted into the quote unquote standard
style Ruby Sapphire decks.
I think we're going to see a new version, something closer to what Moiam was playing
towards the middle of this particular set which is much more interested in things like
the legendary blue queen diviner, things like that.
But I think that these cards get a pretty nice little boost from Oswald.
Sam, do you have anything to add to that?
What's the card that you can exert it to give a character plus one lore?
I have the Fates.
Yes, I think that card will be really good with Oswald as well.
I think a lot of items are going to get improvement.
I do think a streamlined strategy is a good idea.
So a lot of call outs from Oswald, a lot of big winners of fringy cards that maybe we
saw play for a minute or in certain lists saw play or ones that you've kind of just
had in the back of your mind.
I think Oswald helps a lot of those items become very playable.
Next card I want to talk about is Robin Hood Sharpshooter.
So Robin Hood Sharpshooter we're all familiar with.
We've seen decks with Robin Hood Sharpshooter, particularly green red decks at this point.
Sam, do you want to tell us Robin Hood real quick?
I'm sure you looked it up over there.
Robin Hood Sharpshooter is a Ruby card that is a 1, 4, 2, 4 uninkable.
And whenever this character quests, look at the top four cards of your deck.
You may reveal an action card with cost 6 or less and play it for free.
Put the rest into your discard.
Right.
These are cards and I'll stop torturing you making you read all the cards.
This card we are pretty familiar with from the green red decks.
I know Specimen was championing this archetype for a while and I think some people are finding
fondness with it because it plays some cool cards you don't get to normally play.
There are two new cards that really help this out.
One is Raya.
We're getting our first good Raya.
This is the Kumandrin Rider.
She is a 4 cost uninkable card.
I believe she is a 3, 3, 2 as her stat line and she has the ability whenever you ink a
card you get to ready a character they cannot quest for the rest of the turn however.
The reason I think this is good with Robin Hood is because you want to protect Robin
Hood.
That's the biggest problem with Robin Hood is his ability is when he quests and then
he's staying on the field exerted.
That makes him very vulnerable to being challenged.
Raya helps you get Robin Hood back into a position where he's a little bit more protected
which I think is very, very important.
A similar effect can be found on the red card coming out in the set.
It is John Silver, ferocious friend.
So a little bit worse in that you have to deal damage to the character in order to ready
it but I still think that that effect is also quite good and having redundant copies you
may find that you want a couple of more versions of this card to be able to do.
It might just be as simple as we just play LeFau instead as like copy 5 and 6 over Raya
and John Silver but I don't know if that's important.
I just think that Robin Hood gets some benefit from in color characters that can help prevent
him from being left exerted on the board.
Next up, speaking of John Silver's, I think John Silver, greedy treasure seeker gets a
big bump in this particular set.
There's one card in particular that I think really helps this card because obviously this
John Silver is a pirate.
I'm more interested in the location part because that's how we win the game less so than the
type line of being a pirate.
I think the other card is a pirate by chance.
I think that card is Minnie Mouse, pirate lookout.
This card, when you would ink, I believe.
She's a 3-2-1 for 3 and she lets you get a location back from your discard pot.
It is whenever you put a card into your ink well.
Okay, so when you ink.
We're seeing a lot of when you ink effects in this set.
That is a theme that runs through it.
I think Minnie Mouse being able to get back locations after a lot of players have changed
the shape of the game and the way they're playing to deal with the card.
I think having the ability to just simply get it back through taking a game action,
you're going to be taking normally is very, very powerful.
So Minnie being able to bring back locations.
John Silver can continue to quest and get big resist numbers.
It just makes the whole situation very difficult.
We'll talk more about different decks and archetypes as we proceed.
Something that's good about these ones during your turn when you ink effects is that it
can happen that turn.
Next card that is getting a big boost.
I personally do not support this.
I just want to put it out there before we get there.
Next card getting a big boost is Starlight Vial is finding its way into a lot of conversations
lately.
Starlight Vial is an item that let the next action you play cost two ink less.
A lot of people are using this or considering this as a way to ramp out the seven drop action
bend to my will, which is a seven cost action that has each opponent discard their hand.
All of it, every card in it.
So use this in tandem with some blue ramp.
Ideally, and you're able to cast this very far ahead of schedule.
The reason I personally don't like this is I think it's a little bit too all in and you're
going to be left with like between two and four cards in your hand, four on the very,
very upside.
If everything goes right for you, two in most likely scenarios.
So you're two against zero.
You're not too far up on cards and chances are they've committed a little bit more aggressively
to the board in a meaningful way than you have.
So you're much more ink positive most likely, but you're probably going to be actual threat
light versus what they're going to have on board.
So then you are hoping to have like something like under the seat.
It feels like it has to be too perfect for you to get all of these things to line up
the way you want them to.
But starlight vial is definitely going from absolutely being buried and having dust and
cobwebs on it to people have blown that off and are looking at it again.
So big win for starlight vial two cards, I think get a big bump from the next card and
that is Simba future King, the one drop steel Simba and Simba protective cub, the two drop
amber Simba from chapter one, both getting a significant boost by way of Simba pride
protector.
This one I'll read, please.
Simba pride protector is a four, four, two for five uninkable.
And it has shift three has the ability of understand the balance at the end of your
turn.
If this character is exerted, you may ready your other character.
So this card obviously is quite good as a shift in an aggressive shell.
It lets you ready all of your other characters.
Really exciting makes as we just discussed with the little synergies with Robin Hood,
this Simba also can do that and makes it very, very powerful.
So I think that this is going to be a big boon.
It also costs five, which means that it can sing songs if that's applicable.
So something like a pride lands aggro style deck in amber steel can still sing a whole
new world or another song if need be because Simba can do that so effectively.
And the shift line is nice.
It's a good shift line.
I think that this card, a lot of people are going to be testing with, and I think it's
a card to definitely have on your mind as we begin the format.
So I wanted to make sure I called that out.
We've been waiting for the shift Simba.
We got one last set.
It was okay, but not super played, maybe one or two copies.
And it is, I think by far the more powerful, obviously we're talking about uncommon versus
all legendary.
So big ups for Simba in that particular archetype.
So now we're talking less about cards and more decks or strategies that have gotten
some big improvements from new cards.
Potentially.
I think I'm very wrong here, right?
It's worth testing.
These are things that stand out in my mind and in Sam's mind as some things that might
be pretty darn good.
First off, I think Blurple's getting a couple of tools.
First one is Madam Mim, Truly Marvelous.
And she is a character that lets you pay two, ink, and discard a card to gain one lore.
So her stat line is kind of, eh, she's uninkable three drop.
It's like a two, three, one, I think.
Her stat line's pretty miserable, but her effect for Blurple is very good.
Cause a lot of times in Blurple, you have a bunch of ramp cards that maybe you don't
want to play out like some extra Mickey Mouse detectives.
And you often have a lot of ink cause you spent the first several turns ramping.
So I think that this card is pretty darn good at helping you close out a game or explode
out of nowhere as extra copies of like a Merlin goat for this particular deck.
Yeah.
And there's not like a limit on how many times you can do it.
So late game, if you have four cards and eight ink, you just gain four, win the game.
You can absolutely do that.
Very powerful card to call out for Blurple.
I think of the purple decks, Blurple probably has the best use for this particular card,
but it may end up finding a home somewhere else.
I don't know.
The other card to call out is Hades, Lord of the Dead.
Blurple tends to want to close the game out because it doesn't have the most robust options.
It can't deal with similarly wide boards.
So with Blurple, you tend to want to be the front footed deck in the format.
Hades lets you do that and punishes your opponent from challenging your character space.
Let's leave them there so they can all quest or you can start to take out my other characters,
but I'm going to gain lore if you do.
And Hades stat line is pretty absurd at three, four, three for six uninkable.
It's an attractive looking card for the purple decks in my opinion.
Yeah, I agree.
Baymax is pretty sick.
We did see with our preliminary testing, we saw Baymax do some pretty crazy things.
Baymax quests hard.
That line is decent.
It's a little susceptible playing a five drop to have it brawl.
Feels pretty bad.
It does have that six butt, so it makes it hard to take care of like Hyrum.
Right.
The steel removal just struggles to take care of it.
So maybe something like Baymax as well.
Great legendary card there that helps do exactly what Blurple wants to be doing.
Challenge something with a fox and then quest with Baymax to take the damage off a fox.
Feels pretty gross.
Next up archetype, I think he's getting some cool toys.
Baja Blast, which is Sapphire Emerald.
One that we've seen a lot of people try to make work at various points in time, but haven't
been able to do so.
Baja Blast gets two cards I wanted to call out.
One obviously is the bend to my will.
The point is you ramp on two with your Teepo or your Azure 8C, one jump, whatever it is.
And then you go into playing your Starlight Vial or Flamingo Iago.
And then you go ahead the following turn and play the bend to my will.
I think that is very thin, but I think a lot of people are going to be doing it.
The real get I think for this strategy is going to end up being the Green Basil, Disguised
Detective who is our flood born green card.
I think this card is very good whenever you ink, you get to pay one and you can have your
opponent discard a card.
Stat line is actually like pretty good.
I think it costs six and is inkable, right?
Yeah, it's just chosen opponent.
Oh, it's chosen.
That's a different one.
Okay.
So six cost inkable.
Four, five, two.
Yeah, it's a good stat line.
Annoying to deal with.
It can only be Zeus.
Can't really be hit with red outside of ice block technology.
So I really like that a lot.
I think that's a good get for that deck because keeping your opponent light on resources to
get back into a game is really where you have to be in Baja Blast because you can't deal
with the board directly outside of under the sea.
And Basil helps sing a good portion of that song.
So pretty cool.
Next, we've already kind of teased this one out a little bit, but I think that the big
gets for this particular archetype being red steel.
I think the big gets for this one is the aforementioned Minnie Mouse, Pirate Lookout and Vanellope,
Gutsy Go-Gitter.
That's right, another Vanellope Von Schweetz I think is quite good.
So Vanellope Von Schweetz has an ability that if she starts off at a location at the beginning
of your turn, you get to gain a lure and draw a card.
And I think where this deck stumbles hard is in the category of card draw.
So early on we saw it in the set four meta.
We saw a lot of people trying pirates with this particular archetype and realizing like
the only card draw available to them is a whole new world.
And that ended up being kind of a disaster because you gave your opponent too many resources
to handle your locations.
And then we saw Doc come into the fold at the Vegas DLC where a red steel deck made
a deep run into day two, which is awesome.
And thing I want to point out about this deck, my little disclaimer is you're going to be
a pirate deck or you're going to be a location deck.
Likely you're not going to be a pirate location deck.
It's just asking too much of you.
I think if you're going to go pirate, you get a cool new smite that will help you be
more controlling in mid range.
I think you're going to be able to eke out a lot of games that way.
I think you're definitely going to play locations in your pirate deck.
Don't get me wrong, but I think the pirate part of it is going to be the predominant
force versus the secondary location part.
I think the red steel deck that I'm talking about more is the location style deck that
we saw at Vegas.
That is simply adding many to add redundancy.
So you can keep getting your removal back by way of getting back your seven dwarves
mines and adding Vanellope to help add an element of card draw into your deck.
That's consistent.
What about the wreck at Ralph with the location deck?
It's possible in a vacuum.
I get it back and then banish it and get it back and just gain those extra lore by itself.
Wreck at Ralph looks like a heck of a card, so we'll see if it does find a home.
It's just one that it's just a generically good card, so it doesn't have a home easily
identifiable yet.
The final deck that I think is getting the big ups is either your favorite or your least
favorite probably.
And that's Ruby Sapphire because I think sailing the Azure eight C is a very messed up card.
I think that's a huge get for this deck.
I think it's going to be extremely problematic because it just gives you more inkables, gives
you more card draw in the late game.
When your ramp can just simply be draw a card in the very late game when you're digging
for your pieces with your visions at all.
I think that card just offers so much flexibility for a deck that was already very, very good.
As good as that deck was, I think it's only going to get better.
Do I think there are other tools that could go in it?
Absolutely.
I am not a proficient enough pilot of the deck.
It's not my favorite.
It's one I often play because I think it's often the best deck, but I'm not good enough
to say what is or is not in there.
But I will say that I think that this deck is going to be very, very interested in sailing
the Azure eight C quite a bit.
So I think that gets a very big win.
I agree with you.
Excellent.
Green purple is going to be an archetype that also get a single card.
But I think that the single card is going to be very good.
Do I think there are other cards that could nestle into it?
Of course.
But time's going to tell.
I think the big gap for green purple or green steel, depending on how you configure the
deck is go go.
Tom ago.
This card is extremely powerful, adding a Merlin's goat esque effect with the ability to end
the game very proficiently as floor.
It's a two two that is evasive and costs two.
So it can challenge Diablo and deal with problematic cards in the early game, as well as just simply
be a win condition at the very end of the game.
So I think this is some cool stuff to established archetypes, getting some stuff.
And I think some fringy archetypes might actually begin to cement themselves as format staples
and core construct.
So I'm very excited to see what people do.
That'll do it for the podcast.
If you like this, we will be back at you, of course, with our set review this Sunday,
November 10th, that time of recording.
So please do come give it a listen if you're available.
Even if you throw it on and leave it in the background, that's tremendous help for us
over on Twitch.
If you are not able to make it live, we'll toss it up on the podcast as well so you can
hear it.
You won't be able to see it.
We will be here.
We'll be reviewing the cards and telling you what we think, how playable they are versus
how not playable.
That will be twitch.tv slash supra liminal films.
Supra liminal films.
Yes, I know.
If you can spell it, you can find us.
So check us out over there.
But until then, I don't have a good segue, Sam, but you have to say the thing anyway.
Keep questioning.