Under the right circumstances, it’s possible to build a Lorcana deck that will never lose. That doesn’t mean it always wins, mind, just that it has the power to keep the game going indefinitely and never actually lose. Ruby/Amethyst control decks, with their abundance of removal tools, board wipes, and card draw, are so incredibly well tailor for extending gam🔴es, that in situations where two Ruby/Amethyst decks are playing against one another, the game only ends when someone runs out of cards.
To avoid this, players have figured out that adding a Befuddle and a Ma𝔍gic Broom, Bucket Brigade to their deck will prevent them from decking out. The Befuddle is used to return the Broom to their hand from the board, then they can play the Broom to move the Befuddle from their discard back into their deck to be drawn again. If both players use this method, they can go back and forth forever, turn after turn, they could keep the game going until they both die of old age. Then, two more people could pick up where they left off, and the game could keep going like that forever until the sun explodes and wipes out every living thing on Earth.
Interview: Pixelborn Creator Pavel🌟 Kolev Talks Success, Influence, And The Fear Of Getting Shut Down
Pavel🉐 Kolev created Pixelborn to help people find and connect with Lorcana, a game that he lovꩵes, but he'll shut it down if he has to.
So why isn’t everyone playing the deck that can never lose? A lot of people are. You’ll see the Ruby/Amethyst control deck at any local event you play in. It shows up in the top eight at every big money tournament around the country. It’s the second-most popular archetype in Pixelborn among the top 100 players, . Yet despite its power, it’s not as ubiquitously played as you might expect. That’s because the deck has one critical wꦉeakness that no amount of skill or luck can ever overcome: the ceaseless march of time.
If you’re just playing a match at home, you could very well play a game for an hour or more. But in any kind of formal setting like a tournament, or even casual league night at your LGS, you’re at a disadvantage if you can’t build a deck that can win within the time limit. The official rules for Lorcana state BO3 matches are 50 minutes and BO1 matches are 30, but even if your store doesn’t play by those rules, they’ve gotta close up shop eventually. As the meta has been shifting and evolving over the last seven weeks, people are starting to figure out that tying is closer to losing than winning. No matter how good their deck is, it doesܫn’t matter if they aren’t able to beat the clock.
I see this first hand every week ✱at my LGS, and I experienced this myself this past Monday when I tried playing my own version of Ruby/Amethyst control. I play quickly in general and I’ve never tied in any BO3 match before, but this week I tied with my opponents twice. My final match was a mirror, and knowing how long games can take, we both played like demons. I was slamming cards down like it was blitz chess, and he was doing the same. Our second game finished in overtime, tying up the match and knocking us both out of a top three finish.
A lot of people think Ruby/Amethyst’s star is falling as decks like Amber/Steel and Sapphire/Amber gain more popularity, but if time wasn’t a factor, I’m confident that control would be the undisputed top deck in the meta. I’ve seen debates about whether or not this is good game design. This isn’tဣ something exclusive to Lorcana - lord knows Pokemon has its fair share of time-consuming decks in the meta - and some think it’s a sign of poor design when the clock plays such a big factor on the viability of deck archetypes. As far as I’m concerned it’s a moot point. Time is always going to be a factor, there’s just no way around it.
If you want to get good at Lorcana and take it seriously competitively,🍨 you should play every game like you’re on the clock. It may seem minor, but it’s already ဣhad a huge impact on the viability of the strongest deck in the game, and we’re only at the beginning.