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WithDisney Lorcana’sShimmer Skies, we got two more Starter decks. These are both a great way to learn the game, and a way to kick off your Shimmering Skies collection. But unlike other sets and their relatively simple starter deck, for Shimmering Skies, Ravensburger delivered two slightly more complex decks with less obvious themes.
The Emerald and Steel deck doesn’t rely on the ink pairing’s usual strategy of discarding. Instead, it’s all about dealing damage to characters and profiting from it, so get ready to dish out the pain and ramp up your lore.
When Will My Life Begin (x3)
Key Cards
When your whole strategy is dishing out damage, you’ll want to keep an eye out for these cards.
Scar, Vengeful Lion
By far the best card advantage tool in the deck, Scardraws you cards just for challenging damaged characters.It triggers for each challenge too, meaning going wide and hitting multiple characters in a turn could net you a whole lot of cards.
At two willpower it’s at risk being removed quite easily, but the addition of Ward means it’ll hopefully be staying in play long enough to get you what you need. Just try andavoid sending it into challengesitself, as the card draw is too valuable to risk.
A significant subtheme in the deck are Hyenas, with eight Hyenas sprinkled throughout ready to challenge. Leading the way is Shenzi, a terrifying way of gaining a lot of lore very quickly.
By going wide and challenging as much as you’re able to, the Hyenas will bebuilding up two, four, six, or even more loreevery turn if you’re lucky. Set it up with mass damaging actions to make sure things are damaged before you swing in, and you’ll be laughing.
Robin Hood, Sneaky Sleuth
Robin Hood is another of the deck’s primary win conditions, and is best used against decks thatlike to go wide. Instead of challenging characters, you just need to have them damaged for Robin Hood to quest for large amounts of lore.
The deck also has Robin Hood, Archery Contested as an available shifting target.
The downside is that this immediately puts a target on Robin. You’ll need ways to heal or protect him, or at leastguarantee you can win before he questsand opens himself up to challenges.
Tug-Of-War
Flexibility is core to a successful Lorcana deck, and Tug-Of-War provides it. It’s an effective way of getting rid of evasive characters, and a board wipe for smaller ones, but more importantly it’s an easy way to damage all of your opponent’s characters ready for them to be challenged.
You’re likely going to be going for the option ofdealing one damage to non-evasive characters, and then following it up with lots of challenging to keep triggering likes like Scar and Shenzi multiple times a turn.
Food Fight!
Like Tug-Of-War, Food Fight! is a way of enabling challenging damaged characters. It does require careful timing, though, as you need to have the ink, the characters to exert, and either a way to ready them or something to protect them from the crackback.
But if you can pull it off, Food Fight could turn the tide of a game easily. Ping a load of damage, swing in, and get lots of triggers, all in a single turn your opponent couldn’t anticipate.
Steel/Emerald Playstyle
As mentioned, this deck is about two things:damage and challenging. Challenge-matters decks have historically been on the weaker side compared to combo and control, but this deck introduces enough tools to the archetype that it could actually stand a chance.
You don’t actually need to banish a character you challenge. Most of the effects in this deck only care about whether you’ve challenged or not.
A big drawback of the deck is itslack of Bodyguards. You’re going to be challenging and leaving your key pieces open to retaliation, and don’t have a lot of ways to avoid that. Other than Heihei, Protective Rooster and Sleepy, Sluggish Knight, you’re going to want to go for speed and try and win before your opponent mounts a comeback.
As a large amount of the deck relies on your opponent having damaged characters, you want toavoid banishing too many of them.Characters withlow strength and high willpower, like Royal Guard, Bovine Protector, are ideal for this, as they can just keep challenging characters to put small amounts of damage on them without banishing them completely.
If you do need to take out an opponent’s character,make sure you’ve got Yzma, Unjustly Treated outto damage another character and keep your value engines going.
Running alongside this theme is the deck’s secondary focus onHyenas. All three of Scar’s underlings are in the deck, and serve both as your most common characters and yourprimary win condition. Shenzi, Head Hynea is the one to keep an eye on for a quick win, but you’re able to also grind out the game withShenzi, Scar’s Accomplice; Banzai, Taunting Hyena; Ed, Laughing Hyena; and Ed, Hysterical Partygoer.
Aside from the five ink needed for Shenzi, Scar’s Accomplice, the other Hyneas tend to run close to the ground with powerful triggered effects, low costs, and modest damage. You’re not going to-to-toe with an aggro deck with them - your goal is to build a critical mass of Hyenas,using their abilities to pick away at your opponent,and slowly building up your lore until Shenzi drops and it’s time to win.
Your Opening Hand And When To Mulligan
As with any Lorcana opening hand, you’ll want to prioritiseinkable cards with lower costs. If you have a hand full of expensive cards, or uninkable cards, you should consider mulliganing.
However, this deck needs to take something else into consideration:the speed of your opponent. This deck needs your opponent to have some things in play for your value engines to come online, so keep an eye out for quick and easy ways to damage your opponents' characters.
This means some low-cost cards might not actually be worth keeping. Things likeFood FightandBanzai, Taunting Hyenamay look like good early plays, but require further setup on both yours and your opponents' parts to be effective.
Instead, focus on simpler cards likeRudy, Groove Disrupter; Kronk, Unlicensed Investigator;andLittle John, Camp Cookto help fend off your opponent long enough for the damage to start being dished out.
Weaknesses
This deck is very focused on its goal, which is great. What’s less great is that its goal iskeeping your opponents' characters alive.
Without damaged characters, this deck slows right down to a crawl, giving your opponent the chance to claw their way back. You need to be careful about banishing characters, but doing so also means your opponent can keep questing as well.
It also folds to control. You need to challenge, but if your opponent is bouncing or exerting your characters, you’re not going to get very far. Because of this, you’ll want tohit faster than Steel decks are used to.
