Updated May 14, 2024: Ursula's Return brings two new Lorcana starter decks, bringing the total up to nine. Here's the most up-to-date ranking of all the decks.

Starter decks are one of the most readily available Disney Lorcana products you'll find on store shelves, and the first experience many new players will have with the game. Ursula's Return introduces two new starter decks this week, so players will now have to choose between nine different decks when they first start out. Here's our ranking of every starter deck from worst to best.

These ranking don't only take into account the relative strength of each deck, but also the usefulness of cards in the decks for the broader game. Starter decks are a great way to pick up and play Lorcana, but they're also the beginning of a collection, and some decks have incredibly useful, meta-defining cards in them that will save you from having to buy a lot of singles.

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10 💯 Into The Inklands - Plenty Of Pluck - Ruby Sapphire ✱

Only two cards in this entire deck ended up becoming playable in the meta during Into the Inklands, and even then, one of them - Maui's Fish Hook - only appeared in some Ruby/Amethyst lists, but not all. That's pretty incredible when you consider that this ink combination, Ruby/Sapphire, was arguably the strongest archetype throughout the entire Into the Inklands season.

This starter deck is all over the place. It has items, locations, Reckless challengers, Huey-Dewey-Lewey combos, and a couple of Rise of the Floodborn cards that weren't playable back then and still aren't playable now. It does have three copies of Gramma Tala, Keeper of Ancient Stories, a common card that's a staple in Ruby/Sapphire decks. The card is only worth a penny though, so there's no use buying an entire starter deck for it.

This can be a fun deck to play when everything goes right, but it's a starter deck, so things won't go right often. Only pick this one up if you're really invested in Ducktales characters and want to get an early start on collecting them. Otherwise, every other option is going to be better.

9 Ursula's Return - Madrigal Magic - Amber/Amethyst

Throughout Lorcana's history, Amber/Amethyst has always been the hyper-aggro color combination. The Madrigal Magic deck is a typal deck with very little aggro potential, which can make it feel like it isn't playing to the archetype's strengths. It would be great to see Amber/Amethyst break out of its shell and reach new heights, but this deck doesn't present a lot of opportunity for success.

What's strange is how much of the core Madrigal synergy is missing from it. Starter decks are meant to be upgraded of course, but this deck doesn't give a good sense of what the Madrigal characters can do together. It needs both Alma Madirgal, Family Matriarch and Bruno Madrigal, Undetected Uncle at a minimum, but even when those two are included, the strategy still doesn't really come together.

Madrigal Magic is a richly-themed deck, and for a lot of people that's all they're looking for in a starter. However, it's not competitive with most of the other starter decks and it doesn't seem to have any important meta staples that will make this deck worth picking up for the sake of your collection. That remains to be seen, but for now, it would seem that - other than one Look at this Family, Julieta Madrigal, and Ariel Singing Mermaid - there's nothing in this deck that will help you build better decks. This one is for the Encanto fans only.

8 🐻 The First Chapter - Aurora And Simba - Steel/Sapphire

The objective worst of the original three starter decks is an incredibly fun one to play. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Steel/Sapphire deck is all about filling up your inkwell quickly and playing big cards fast. If you can get your heavy-hitters like Mufasa, King of the Pride Lands and Simba, Returned King out fast enough, you can overwhelm your opponent with sheer size and win the game before they even have enough ink in their own well to deal with you. It's a fun deck if you like to win games quickly and slam down big cards to intimidate your opponents.

The problem wit🌜h ♛this deck is that it relies heavily on specific cards in order to be successful. You need to spend your first few turns playing cards like Mickey Mouse, Detective, Gramma Tala, Storyteller, and the song One Jump Ahead in order to ramp up your inkwell faster than your opponent.

Then, you need to get your high-cost cards like Maui, Demigod, and Simba, Rightful Heir on the board right away, before your opponent has enough ink to answer them. When it works, you can run wild and leave your opponents without any recourse. When it doesn't work, i.e. when you fail to ramp your Inkwell and play high-cost cards early, this deck completely loses its big advantage.

There are only seven ramp cards total (two One Jump Ahead, two Gramma Tala, and three Mickey Mouse, Detective) which can make it difficult to ensure you get them in your opening hand. If you draw them later in the game, they're essentially dead cards that won't provide any value to you or power to your board.

For this reason, Steel/Sapphire is the most inconsistent of the three original starter decks. With this deck, you either win quickly, 🀅or lose slowly. More often than not, it struggles to ke🅘ep up.

7 Rise👍 Of The Floodborn - 🌌Tactical Teamwork - Amber/Sapphire

Rise of the Floodborn's Amber/Sapphire is a Seven Dwarfs-themed deck that specializes in playing on curve and building strong synergies between the characters on your board. A good starting hand will give you plenty of Seven Dwarfs to play that will all benefit each other to help you control the board or gain an early lore advantage, depending on your matchup. It also has a few card draw tools that are highly situational, but can help you refill your hand in a pinch.

This deck's only real problem is that it doesn't have good answers to a couple of the stronger starter decks. Your Launch and Cruella de Vil, Fashionable Cruiser are the only tools you have to deal with the Emerald/Ruby deck's Evasives, and launch requires you to play and banish an item, and you only have seven of those. Likewise, this deck's draw power is limited to a single copy of Hiram Flaversham, Toymaker, two copies of Judy Hopps, Optimistic Officer, and a few Pawpsickles, which only replace themselves. Compared to the Amber/Amethyst deck that has multiple copies of Friends From the Other Side, as well as Part of Your World, Hades, Lord of the Underworld, and Dr. Facilier, Agent Provocateur, this deck will almost certainly run out of cards faster.

With some minor upgrades, such as Snow White, Unexpected Houseguest and⭕ Nick WIlde, Wily Fox, this deck can quickly become a lot more viable. Out of the box, it unfortunately struggles against some of the more well-rounded starter decks that have a bit more utility.

6 ﷽ The First Chapter - Aladdin And Cruella - Emerald/Ruby

Of the three base set starter decks, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Emerald/Ruby is the most challenging (and rewarding) to pilot. It utilizes sneaky tactics to surprise and confuse your opponents. Many of its cards allow you to buff your characters, so they can "swing up" and make favorable trades with your opponent's more expensive cards. You'll also be playing many cards that drain lore from your opponent's point total. Emerald/Ruby is a control-style deck that has some strong advantages in multiplayer and does a great job stalling the Steel/Sapphire starter deck in particular.

One of this deck's greatest strengths is its Evasive options. With Pongo, 'Old Rascal and Peter Pan, Never Landing, you can stick cards on your board early and generate lore unchallenged, every single turn. Evasive can win games if your opponents don't have an answer for it, which gives this deck a strong advantage in many situations. It's a somewhat demanding deck that will require you to plan your Challengers well and save valuable resources for the right moment, but it's also a fun deck that can be made much stronger very easily by swapping in a few more Evasive cards, like Genie, On the Job and Goofy, Daredevil. Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw makes this deck a wise purchase all on its own if you intend to build a Ruby deck, as it's one of the most high-value cards in the game.

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4 Into The Inklands - Dogged and Dynamic - Am﷽ber/Emerald

This deck has a lot of really useful stuff! Most notable is Pongo, Determined Father, a Super Rare card that shows up in a lot of Amber/Ruby lists. You get a foil version of it here. You'll also get two Tinker Bell Generous Fairy; three Wendy Darling, Talented Sailor; one Robin Hood, Daydreamer; three Kida, Atlantean; and two Kit Cloudkicker, Tough Guy. Altogether this is probably less than two dollars worth of cards, but these are all useful, playable cards that you won't have to hunt down singles for.

As far as actually playing the deck, there's fun to be had. Card draw is a struggle and it's easy to run out of steam with so many low-cost, low-impact characters, but it's a puppy-themed deck that lets you flood the board with adorable dogs, so it gets a huge pass on its relative lack of synergy.

The Inklands starter decks were tasked with showing off a lot of new mechanics at the same time, so it's no surprise that neither of them come together very well. This one is right down the middle, not the worst, not the best, but it gets huge bonus points for its theme and for actually delivering some playable cards.

3 Ursula's Return - Stand Together - Sapphire/Steel

I've been smitten by this deck from the moment I first laid eyes on it. Stand Together is a hero-themed deck that showcases a number of incredible synergies, including some that - knock on wood - are destined to become staples in the meta. This deck is exactly what a Lorcana starter deck ought to be. It presents a core with a clear strategy you can upgrade over time simply by adding hero cards to it. Sapphire/Steel is already a potent color combination, so there's a good chance you can take this deck and turn it into something great.

I'm ranking this one right on the cusp of the release of Ursula's Return, so it's difficult to make predictions around the price and popularity of the cards here. However, both Philoctetes, No-Nonsense Instructor and Ling, Imperial Soldier are obvious core cards for any kind of Hero-focused Steel deck. I can also see Anna, True-Hearted finding a place in the meta. She's the Super Rare foil in this deck, so a good one to get early. One other Rare, One Last Hope, seems like the kind of card that will be essential in both Sapphire/Steel and Ruby/Steel challenger decks. Early calls, but it seems like there's a lot of good stuff in this deck.

The deck itself is not great. The only card draw it has is an eight-cost uninkable song, which feels like a bit of a cruel joke in a starter deck. Its top end is a bunch of unimpressive vanilla cards like Li-Shang, Imperial Captain and Wise Friend, but they are at least all Heroes. This deck will make you think differently about every Hero card in the game, which is a big reason why it's so high on the list.

2 Rise Of The Floodborn - Might And Magic 🌊- Amethyst/Steel ꦡ

When Rise of the Floodborn was first released we had this deck at the very bottom of the list because of its glaring flaws that made it non-competitive with other starters. It has since become apparent that this deck is full of incredible cards that have been in the meta for Amethyst decks for six months now - including some rares. For that reason alone, this deck takes our number two spot. It's not much fun to play, but the cards it has are staples you'll need if you want to play some of the best decks in Lorcana. Here's the rest of our original critique of the deck:

While the Merlin/Madam Mim Bounce package is strong and will surely see play in the new meta, there aren't enough of them in this deck to create a reliable strategy. You need to add quite a few Madam Mims before you can start to see the benefit of bounce, which makes the few you do have feel more like a liability than a strategy.

With the exception of a single copy of Kronk, Junion Chipmunk, this deck caps out at four ink-cost cards, which means it's meant to be played with a small inkwell. This can help you sustain your hand somewhat, but this deck suffers greatly in top deck mode. Merlin, Rabbit is the only card that allows you to draw, and while Tiana, Celebrating Princess does provide some benefit to an empty hand, the problem is that every card you draw of the top will cost less than four ink and be fairly low impact. Every other starter deck has bigger characters that will run this deck over, even with its variety of Resist cards.

There's some great cards in here that will be useful in your Rise of the Floodborn collection, particularly the Merlin and Madam Mim cards, but otherwise this is the least competitive deck you can get.