The Reign of Jafar has begun in Disney Lorcana and I for one welcome our new Vizier- I’m sure he has the best interests of Archazia Island and the Illumineers (I think their names are Portobello, Shantal, and Kevin) in mind. The lore of this set is as daft as ever, with Jafar hypnotizing Basil of all characters to do his bidding in the search for the Hexwell Crown that, um, I think Ursula had at some point. It’s up to the brave Illumineers (hold on, I think it’s Dantonio, Winkerbean, and Lexx) to storm Jafar’s stronghold and steal it back. I hope to Mickey they brought Flynn Rider along.
Doofy storyline aside, you can expect another 200+ cards- excuse me, 200+ legal-to-play cards- in this set along with the usual products and accessories that we’ve all grown accustomed to over 8 sets of this madness, including a very sweet Rescue Rangers playmat and another co-op/solo Illumineer’s Quest boxed game subtitled Palace Heist. There are a couple of new twists though, like a special Lore card in each booster and more puzzle pieces to collect. I’d say calibrate your enthusiasm on those last two.
But anyway, having had a full survey of the set now with some cards in hand to mull over, it’s time for my traditional top picks piece. And as always, I must remind you dear reader that I am not a sweat, I have never been a sweat, and will never be a sweat. This is a casual Disney Lorcana column so please be gentled with your rebuttals.
Amber
Look, I love Goofy and one of my ultimate Disney Lorcana goals is to win the World Championship with an all Goofy deck. It could happen if the developers continue to support Goofy stans with quality cards like this Legendary. Plenty to go Around is a very solid Amber heal ability, and it has a great knock-on effect. At the end of turn, you heal everybody on your end from 1 damage and you ready everything that gets healed. This is a nice effect especially for aggro decks or when you are singing or taking actions with vulnerable characters that you really don’t want to clobbered on the opponent’s turn.
Is there ever a time when cards that make other cards suddenly appear on the table isn’t desirable? Answer, no. Lady is a card I absolutely expect to see in every Amber aggro deck moving forward. For 3 ink, she’s a typical 2/2/2 card but Someone To Care For lets you also drop a cost 2 or less character when she’s played. The possibilities are tremendous- a 1 ink quester with 2 lore, a good utility card, a Puppy, and so forth. This could be a staple in this rotation.
Amethyst
Other than this card furthering the effort to educate the public that Bambi is a male deer, this is a shockingly good Amethyst Legendary that will surely delight those who lament the loss of Merlin Goat, Madam Mim, and that whole bounce nonsense that dominated the first rotation. 3 ink, uinkable and he quests for a mighty 3 on his own. That’s fine, but Say Hello gives you a lore when he’s played and Kind of Bashful is the icing on the cake- when an opponent plays a character, he bounces back to your hand so you can again play him for the Lore. Maybe even having quested with him once or twice. This is a terrifying card, don’t let its cuteness fool you.
To be clear, I am not under duress by His Excellency to include this card. I just think it’s really good. It has the Amethyst scry ability tacked on to an always-great play a character for free function. Dark Power is, I think, a chance for the Illusion keyword that didn’t really take off in Archazia’s Island to come into its own. I also like that this card plays into the theme of the set, encouraging and Amethyst Steel build with lots of Illusions so you can take advantage of this great power.
Ah ha! So those Illumineers (Jimothy, Sadako, and Hobie?) did bring on the absolute hero of Disney Lorcana. And you know what this card is maybe actually pretty great and not just here because of my Flynn Rider obsession. This is a Very Big Day is full of promise, and I love that it plays like an update of the original Flynn Rider way back in the First Chapter. When this mad lad is challenged- very likely seeing as he’s a 3-lore quester- the opponent gets to make that awful choice of a discard or allowing you to gain 2 lore. That’s a 5 lore play for 4 ink. And, he’s got a 4 willpower which puts him out of range of a lot of direct removal.
It’s great to see that the Maui=bomb tradition continues in the new rotation and her we have a particularly nasty bomb that is going to go right into my discard deck builds from now on. Discard decks can struggle with removing things once they are in play, and this Maul gives you a choice of what you want to blow up when he gets banished. 2 damage across the board or banish outright all items and locations. THANK YOU.
Ruby
This is a wild card- I’m not sure it’s going to be meta-defining, but I can see this being a very, very troublesome card for players going against super violent, challenge-heavy Ruby Steel control decks. Shifting at 4, this Floodborn makes it so that any character you play gets Rush, Reckless, and Evasive. So they drop down, have to attack, and then they evade for this turn. Talk about aggressive. It’s the kind of card that could backfire, but also the kind that could dominate the middle to late game.
As I’ve stated here before, The Rescuers may be the only animated Disney film I hate. So it’s tough to give a card with one of its characters a nod but this very good common deserves it. Card draw isn’t common in Ruby, and this awful man gives you a solid but not really remarkable 3/3/3/1 statline. Yet Double-Crossing Crook hits you back with a card draw when he’s banished. It’s inkable, and playable across the entire arc of a game so I feel like it’s a solid pick in Ruby.
Sapphire
With all these new ramp cards in this rotation, we gotta have something big and gnarly to throw down unexpectedly as a middle game closer. This take on The Great Mouse Detective’s big bad is exactly that. A whopping 8 ink, questing at 4 and virtually unkillable in a standard challenge. And this jerk is Warded to boot. There is a catch- he self-banishes if you don’t ink on your turn, which could be a little tricky if you are card-poor from ramping. But like all of the Sapphire “oh look, I win” cards, it’s one that will assure a dramatic finish when you pull it off.
One of the best songs from one of the best Princess movies gets a great card here, albeit kind of expensive. It’s really more of an Amber effect crossing over into Sapphire, giving you a 3 card scry and a free 6-or-less character, item, or location. I really like that you get a choice of one of those 3, which increases your chances. And if you are playing a typical Sapphire deck, then you’ve likely got quite a few expensive mid-game cards to go around. I like the notion of ramping and getting big free plays.
Steel
This set has some really good Legendaries and this is one of those. She has Strategic Edge, which is basically a built-in Simba effect for a draw/discard and oh, she gets Extreme Focus. +1 strength for each card in discard. Excuse me? I’ll have to see what smarter deckbuilders than I do with this, but having a 10, 15 strength character is kind of nuts. Possibly overkill, but if you absolutely need to take down the biggest, beefiest character on the board, Namaari’s your girl.
This card is absurd and I love it. The sweats will likely call it “unplayable” and well, maybe they aren’t wrong. But like Goofy – Knight for a Day this absolute unit of a card should elicit cheers any time it’s played. We are looking at a 10/10/10/5 kaiju Mickey with bodyguard for Pete’s sake. It’s insane. You practically have to play it in Sapphire to ramp for it or in something like Mufasa Highroller to try get a free play. Either way, I’mma try to get four of these and maybe win a game with him at least once!
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