Hello and welcome back to Illumination, the Disney
Larkana podcast. My name is Max. And I'm Sam.
And we are back at you episode 42 this time.
42 times we've been yakking at you. Appreciate
you all being here. If it's your first time,
welcome on in. If you've been here before, welcome
on back. This episode, we are talking about brewing
decks. It's a brand new meta. On its way now,
right? Set champs are over. I don't think there's
any more really big tournaments on the calendar
anywhere for set eight at this point. I think
we're all going to take a little bit of a breather.
Yeah, a couple weeks. We're all anticipating,
bemoaning maybe, some of the reprints and the
new cards from Fabled that have been coming our
way. So we want to take this opportunity now
that all eyes are going to be on this new meta
to talk about where the heck do you start when...
though. brand new meta occurs. We had a small
version of this sort of happen not too long ago
around the time that Hyrum and Fortisphere got
banned, and we touched on some of these things,
but we never actually took an entire episode
to talk about the concept of brewing. From set
to set, I would say that there were some stalwarts
in terms of deck archetypes and frameworks that
survived and moved on. I'm looking at you, Amber
Steelsong. We kind of picked out some new cards
that we thought would be good and tried them
in the existing Right. There were always these
pillars of the metagame, if you will. We knew
these decks would be here. We know that they
are good and we're acutely aware of their presence,
whether they were good at the moment or lingering
in the back waiting to pounce. I'm looking at
you, Ruby Amethyst. Today, we'll touch on where
do we start now? There's so much of the metagame
that has now eroded away with the rotation of
sets one through four. So what the heck are we
going to do? We're going to break it down into
a few steps and then make some predictions about
the specifics that we think are coming, or at
least that you should probably be aware of. And
then we're going to give you some other advice
and some other words to round out the episode.
So first and foremost, step one, what is... going
to be the default best, most, I don't want to
say aggressive, but most efficient, most streamlined
deck that is going to exist post -rotation. To
my mind, there are two decks that I think of
as the level one big bads that we need to be
thinking about. And if you're building a deck,
you should be considering... one of, if not both
of, these two decks. And if your deck cannot
easily, I wouldn't say easily, but if it can't
consistently, at least I'd say you want to be
a little better than half the time, able to dispatch
these decks, I would say you need to reevaluate
some card choices in what you're playing. And
those two decks are both Amber. Amber Steel,
likely aggressive, could be a little bit more
mid -rangey. And I also think that... Amber Emerald
is going to be a serious contender. These are
two of the most streamlined decks. They are two
of the decks that lose some of the least for
the upcoming rotation. They still have a lot
of the framework of the deck really left intact,
right? We have the entire skeleton of the deck.
We even have some muscle tissue on that skeleton
in a lot of cases. We just need a little bit
of filler to tie the room together. So we're
looking into that. So we have what was formerly
the churn of dogs deck probably losing churn
of bog at this point i think it's reasonable
to guess we haven't gotten all the spoilers at
time of recording yet but we're close i would
say it's relatively safe that we're not going
to get churn of bog back at this point but i
don't know as though the deck loses a whole lot
from the loss of churn of bog we still have lady
miss park avenue and we still have Lilo, Escape
Artist. Is there any other cards that play out
of the discard very well? I think those are two
of the biggest heavy hitters, right? I believe
so, yeah. Yeah, so I think that that deck is
going to be a framework for a lot of Amber Emerald
archetype. Yeah, I think we are already seeing
a lot of people dropping Chernabog as well. So
I think the deck is going to be able to work.
Yeah, a lot of people were playing like zero
to hero or just in time in an attempt to put
out Goofy with Ward very quickly to try to protect
everything, which is a really interesting approach.
I think that coming up with some good end game
strategy is what the deck probably needs because
that's what Chernobog represented. But I don't
think that it needs it. so desperately that it
wouldn't exist anymore. And then probably Rapunzel
would be the other major thing we're losing from
that deck. Definitely. I think Rapunzel is likely
not coming back, at least in this set. And I
think that we're going to feel that pain a little
bit. Julieta stepping in to try to do as much
good work as she can. But I think that when you're
one third of the card draw of a single card,
it makes it a lot harder. And we could always
see like invited to the ball coming into that
deck just for a little bit of extra card draw.
Yeah, when we were first testing this out, before
it became Churn of Dogs, when it was just kind
of the Amber Emerald Dog deck, I was testing
this with one or two copies of Invited to the
Ball for a while. I was doing just the famous
one of because it would never whiff. It was 59
characters, one Invited to the Ball. So we definitely
could see that. The Amber Steel aggressive deck
is going to be quite good as well. Still leaving
behind a lot of very strong cards. The Three
Drop Lady obviously coming up in this deck as
well. We have Penny, Bolt. person being quite
strong we have iterations of bolt if you want
to go that direction we have goofy we have lilo
escape artist still we have lawrence coming back
to make a guest appearance in rotation so i think
there are a lot of tools that amber steel can
leverage we have a new lilo coming that i think
will be really useful in the steel archetypes
i don't know if this build will take as much
advantage of it as something like maybe a ruby
steel would but i do think that this lilo just
simply giving multiple character's challenger,
a la like a Kriki effect, is going to be really,
really good for steal no matter what side of
the coin you're on, whether you're dedicated
challenging or just looking to take advantage
of an opponent who's a little overexerted on
a key turn. I'm excited to try her in Amethyst
steal. Yes. Picking her up and putting her back
down, potentially if we get any good bounce.
Being able to leverage her with some of the larger
bodied characters that have a benefit when they
come into play, something a la a White Rose.
Obviously there's insane synergy. with her and
Calhoun. So obviously the steel stitch on four
is the great Lilo stitch combo that everybody's
looking at. So there's a lot of opportunity here
for a card like that to be quite good. So I think
that these two decks are going to be kind of
the baseline aggressive decks. They lose some
of the least in rotation, which makes them pretty
strong choices to start with. So I would say
my message is not you have to play one of these
decks if you want to win. It's You need to be
aware these decks exist and you need to be able
to have a game plan that can effectively beat
these decks. So let's say if you're winning about
half your games on the draw. and a little better
than half on the play, you're in a good place.
I want to see the deck be able to not be completely
reliant upon the dice roll in order to be the
right choice when I'm testing. So that's a step
one. There are times in a meta where we could
see a singular card that's so powerful or a singular
synergy that's so powerful it could define a
format. I don't think we have that scenario happening
this time. I do think that there is a singular
card that has my attention very specifically,
do think that this kind of leads us into what
is step two and that is try to find a deck that
effectively beats the step one deck so if we
think that the aggro decks are going to be the
best decks out of the gate because they're not
losing a lot and they're very streamlined they
have a great card velocity they do a lot of effective
things then we need a deck that beats that traditionally
in trading card games, I'm sure everybody is
getting to know this at this point, if you have
an aggro deck, you're going to want to counter
that typically with a mid -range deck. And I
think that the mid -range decks to beat are going
to be Amethyst, which is not atypical of Lorkana
at all. But I think there's one card, and you'll
have to give me the full... name of it because
it's in front of you, but there's one specific
card that I think is going to end up defining,
at least in the very early part of the metagame,
what a mid -range deck is. Sam, what's this card?
It's Dumbo, Ninth Wonder of the Universe. Yeah,
it is. And if you don't know what that card does,
it's a... four cost inkable character. He's a
3 -3 evasive that has exert this character, pay
one, draw a card, and gain a lore. Also making
history, your other characters with evasive gain
also the same thing. So exert, pay one, draw
a card, and gain a lore. Yeah. For the cost of
a four cost 3 -3 -1, it's a fine stat line. It's
got evasive. Okay. Now we're talking about something
like a little worse than the rider, the common
from, I think it was set eight or seven, one
of the two. It's an Amethyst Common 3 -4 -1 evasive.
So it's like, okay, Dumbo is just worse than
this card. Right. That is true. But the ability
to turn all of your evasives into card advantage
is crazy. Now, usually the tension is card advantage,
or do you want to gain a tempo advantage and
push yourself towards winning the game? That's
what the usual tension is. We see this with songs.
In order to sing a song with a character, you
are giving up. lore that wins you the game, but
you are saving ink resources that let you add
to the board to further a long -term game plan.
I would have expected this Dumbo to exert, give
all your evasives, pay one, exert, draw a card.
That's still insane to me, but the fact that
you also push towards winning the game when you
do this is crazy. This card does a lot of heavy
lifting, it generates a ton of card advantage,
and it doesn't put you behind in the game on
multiple resources by doing it. You're not taking
time off from gaining lore to gain cards, you're
doing both at the same time. So any evasive character
that natively quests for one, if you have one
extra ink on your turn, you can turn that into
a card, which is And I think that this evasive
style deck, whatever color Amethyst is going
to pair it with, there are some really good options
across multiple different colors. Probably just
not Amber. Honestly, it's the only one that doesn't
have that evasive or evasive on your turn ability.
So it's probably the only color it really doesn't
pair well with. So I think that that's a lot
to like in any color, probably to pair it with
minus Amber. I think you're going to see these
Dumbo style evasive decks ruling the... mid -range
turf because they could just draw so many cards.
And there's such a pain in the neck for a lot
of units to take down because of that evasive
keyword. We're going to see a lot of air fights,
which hasn't changed much, honestly, in Amethyst
since the popularity of one Shadowfinder. I don't
think that will have changed too, too much. I
think we're just going to honestly see more of
it. So it needs to be a thought going forward
that this is going to be a strong mid -range
choice. So you want to be testing synergies,
right? Like a lot of the testing that's going
to happen in the step two for Sam and I is going
to be pairing Amethyst cards in some package,
right? We want to find like the best Amethyst
packet. So a line to me that stands out very
clearly is Genie on four and then Dumbo on five.
And then with the extra ink there, right? Because
it's now the fifth turn, we're going to use that
extra ink to exert our Genie and immediately
convert into a card. Early in the game, I don't
mind giving up that second lure from Genie. I
think that that card is worth more than that
lure at that point in the game. Obviously, as
the game goes later, that equation changes drastically.
where I'll take lore above almost any amount
of cards if it lets me close a game out sooner.
But in the early part of the game, I don't mind
that. And there are plenty of four -cost evasives
that we can pair that same combo with. It's just
the idea of being card neutral through the entirety
of that two -card line is very, very strong.
And in some colors, we have even cheaper evasives
that you might not even be losing out on that
lore. Right. Like, if you wanted to pair this
with Emerald, you could start on turn one. with
your evasives, right? We can start off with a
little gift for Hercules and we can roll right
into everybody's favorite bird. Good old Diablo,
the two cost Diablo with challenger two and evasive.
We can roll right into our - I was thinking Go
-Go. Ah, Go -Go is another great choice, right?
If you don't mind playing Go -Go on two, that's
a totally fine choice there. A number of three
drop options for you that have evasive, including
the new Dumbo that can give something else evasive.
If you're not lucky, maybe you're starting off
on Cursed Merfolk. Let me just give my Cursed
Merfolk evasive. Little questy quest going. on
that's great and then we can start exerting things
once the four drop jumbo comes down on turn four
or later and start drawing more cards the evasive
strategy gives you a lot of really good bodies
for challenging things and the fact that you
can take those bodies and convert them into cards
is great you can use something like if you were
to pair it with ruby then moana great card to
pair this with i'm either challenging with the
moana and giving something else a pump if i need
to deal with my opponent's board or i can use
them to convert into cards so for sam and i this
is a very very promising and looks like it's
a very powerful mid -range strategy to help overcome
the level one or step one aggro decks that are
going to come out with big heavy hitters. So
I think that that's really effective things to
be thinking about in that regard. Then obviously,
step three is test, right? We're going to need
to test. And I really want to call out not being
afraid to test things that you think might stink.
There is definitely a part of me that wants to
play some kind of a red -green deck that is using
hypnotic deduction to put songs back on top of
my deck so that I can sing with Powerline and
then sing that card I put back, right? I could
put back the worst card in my hand in a pirate's
life, then use Powerline's second ability to
reveal that crappy card and that will go away,
and then I'll sing that pirate's life, and whatever
song I'm singing will give me the additional
benefit of my opponent loses two. lore and i
gained two lords fantastic yeah so will it be
good i'm willing to wager it won't be Will I
test it? If there's time, I will. Because I do
think that if we get a song that's worth singing,
I mean, there is obviously Under the Sea coming
back, which immediately strikes me as a very
powerful thing to be doing with something like
Powerline. If I can sing Under the Sea and then
gain two lore and my opponent loses two lore,
that seems like a really good deal to me. So
we'll keep looking at things to test. Weird ways
to go. Should we be testing Ruby Steel? It's
been long considered not a great deck. But is
there enough cards? We get the Queen coming.
back the shift queen we get the stitch lilo combo
we were talking about earlier we have a lot of
powerful tools out there we have mulans that
can shift into various other mulans the ruby
mulan just the actual like ruby one not the ruby
steel one can take down multiple cards at once
if that mulan shifts so it's a really powerful
option to take down a more wide board. It can
also hit one thing on the ground and take things
out that are evasive. So there's a lot of opportunity
to test and we really need to find out what are
the lines that are good and what are the other
lines that can counter those very good lines.
Test online. Test with your friends. Print things
out. Jot it down on a piece of paper. Shove it
in a sleeve and just practice. That is really
what you need to be doing at this point. I would
say definitely build one of these or if not both
of these aggro decks. Even if you don't want
to play them, that's okay. You just need one
of the two of you to take turns playing the deck
that nobody wants to play or whatever and test
against the other deck. Then once you're confident
the deck's your test, like, you know, I'm having
a pretty good matchup against aggro. Let's play
both of our brews against each other and then
battle back and forth that way. Don't give up.
immediately on the level one decks either. They
could definitely be just the best decks out of
the gate. It could just be several weeks until
we find a strategy that breaks up something very,
very good. These decks all have insanely strong
play patterns in them. So being able to take
advantage of those, really smart. Also, don't
dismiss the two best decks thinking that, well,
everybody's going to be doing it. We can't beat
it. You got to join it, right? It's got to be
a consideration. You only have so much time to
test, right? Some of these early pre -release
tournaments take place the weekend the set comes
out. So if you're going to play in a constructed
event, and I got to stop now to give a shout
out to our good friends at the Forbidden Mountain,
who are holding a ridiculous event the Saturday
after the set comes out. I think it's August
30th. And they are pairing up with one of our
other favorite places to play, Encounter Comics
and Games. And they are coming together, a bunch
of vendors, all coming to one really big event
that is happening the day after. It's core constructed,
which obviously would be with the new rotation
in place. Everybody's bringing their best ideas.
and their most ambitious hopes to try to take
down this multi -case tournament. It's going
to be huge. So if you're in the greater Philadelphia
area, the tri -state area, if you're from around
Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, if you're
in that area, New York, anywhere around there,
it's probably worth the pilgrimage down to check
this tournament out. Big, big shout out to the
Forbidden Mountain for putting on such a cool
event. I'm happy to see something like that in
our neck of the woods. Yeah, it's definitely
exciting. So we'll be testing for sure. So I
think that our predictions are pretty straightforward.
I think we've been pretty transparent about how
we think the meta is going to go. But I know
a lot of people are looking at testing some amber
cards like the Circle of Life. It's a very exciting,
our first legendary rarity song. Yeah, I'm excited
for it. Not to play it, just I'm excited for
it. It's a strong... potential card. So we'll
see what people can make of it. Being able to
use the steal ability to draw a card and discard
a card and then use the circle of life quickly
with singers to get back something like the gigantic
Mickey Mouse is a really cool idea. That big
Mickey Mouse is scary. So you never know what
will be really, really good. And one thing I
want to caution, and then I'll get over to you,
Sam, for any other advice that you might have
early into testing. But one big thing I'll warn
about is I have a certain play style I really
like, and I will tweak and fiddle with a deck.
And if that deck ends up not being so good, or
I think that it has a good game into something
that doesn't, I tend to get very irked about
it and irritated with it. And I will try to point
my finger in different directions at first, but
it's worth not getting married to any idea. We
don't know what's going to work and what's not.
It's a brand new meta, right? We're in a world
where we don't have to worry about putting damage
on a daisy duck right now, because there's nothing
that's going to just completely wreck us for
doing it. We don't have to worry about a lot
of these play patterns that have evolved around
these very keystone cards. So I would say don't
be precious with your ideas. Be willing to be
open to creativity. If you're testing with people
and they give you suggestions or they mention
like maybe this isn't a good idea, try not to
be contentious or try not to be too offended.
Be open to those things. If you're testing with
people, they're there because they want you to
do well and they want you to help them do well,
right? High tide rises all ships. So we want
to help each other. other and that sometimes
is letting somebody know like i think you're
kind of off base here like i think you're you're
just wandering off into the woods i need to kind
of pull you back to the trail a little bit because
you're just cooking way too much over there so
i would highly recommend that you don't get married
to any one idea or deck because it just might
not be right could be that it is very early in
testing and then somebody comes up with the better
mousetrap and now it's like i have to imagine
we're not going to be the only people on the
planet with a smaller card pool who have arranged
some number of cards that look like this. So
we have to entertain the notion that perhaps
there's a better deck out there. So just don't
think immediately or at any point in this process
that you might have it solved because it's going
to be hard to solve initially. So definitely
don't be precious. Sam, what do you have for
advice? Anything? I agree with you. Like, I mean,
you can be open to all possibilities. I think
just cards that we, especially from sets five
through eight cards that we haven't played, it
doesn't necessarily mean we won't play them because
we have a whole new card pool. cards that weren't
good could potentially be good we were just today
building a deck and we looked at the card coda
coda and we were just trying to look for the
amber steel aggressive deck like what cards go
in there and he's a 2 -1 that doesn't allow you
to lose lore right and it's like maybe that'll
be a good card because we're gonna see pirate's
life back again being sung by power line so there's
just i think you should just be open to looking
at cards that we've kind of just swept under
the rug before Right, don't be afraid to open
the binder, crack open, blow off the dust. on
the bulk and go back and reevaluate the cards
because ones that were underperforming now don't
have those cards standing on top of them that
made them unplayable before. It's definitely
worth considering everything and anything. Be
open, be excited, try different things. There
might be a whole new way to play that you've
never experienced. So don't be dismissive. Don't
just look to do one thing. Be open, try different
things. You might be surprised what you find.
No matter what you're doing, the best piece of
advice I can give you early in a format is keep
questing.