Disney Lorcana’s third set, Into the Inklands, is quickly approaching, and I’ve spent the last two weeks testing, tweaking, and theory-crafting the two new starter decks: the Amber/Emerald Dogged and Dynamic, and the Ruby/Sapphire Plenty of Pluck. ﷽As usual, these starter decks are a great way to kickstart your collection and familiarize yourself with all the new mechanics Into the Inklands introduces, including the locations, the game’s newes🦋t card type.
For some, these decks will be their first introduction to the game, while more seasone🍷d players may only want to buy 🃏a starter deck if it has enough playable cards to use in more competitive decks. Rise of the Floodborn’s Amethyst/Steel starter deck included a number of cards that ended up being meta-defining; including staples like Madam Mim, Snake; Merlin, Goat; a Merlin, Rabbit; and a Madam Mim, Fox; making it a worthwhile investment for anyone looking to kickstart a top-tier deck. For Into the Inklands’ starters, the big question is whether or not they’ll have as many valuable cards for the new meta.
If you already have an ink color you like anꦿd feel committed to, you can’t go wrong by picking up the deck that matches your main. I’m only looking at the value of the decks from a color agnostic perspective here.
Since we can’t predict the meta before the full Into the Inklands set has even beꦓen revealed, let’s start by looking at the rares. You get the same number of Rare and Super Rare in both decks. The Amber/Emerald deck will give you a single copy each of Peter Pan, Lost Boy Leader; Lucky, The 15th Puppy; Helga Sinclair, Vengeful Partner; Robin Hood, Daydreamer; and Pluto, Determined Defender, as well as one Super Rare: Pongo, Determined Father. That’s three Amber and three Emerald characters.
In the Ruby/Sapphire deck, you get one copy each of Maui’s Fish Hook; Simba, Scrappy Cub; Moana, Born Leader; Hu🌠ey, Savvy Nephew; Gyro Gearloose, Gadget Whiz; and one Super Rare: Scrooge McDuck, Richest Duck in the World. Three Ruby and three Sapphire🍨, a 50/50 split, just like the other deck.
Disney Lorcana: Into The Inklands 🎀Ruby/Sapphire Starter Deck Gu🐼ide
Ducktales an🎉d Moana come together in this combat-focused sta⛄rter deck.
After playing with both decks and trying out these cards in some others, I can tell there&rꦏsquo;s a few standouts here. Starting with the Amber/Emerald deck, all three Amber cards seem like they have the potential to see play this season. Lucky fits perfectly into the aggro archetype and provides some explosive lore-gaining potential that can help close out games quickly, or, alternatively, high volume card draw (as many as four per turn!) to help your aggro deck avoid running out of gas.
I’m less sold on Pluto and Pongo due to their high cost and low Willpower respectively, but they have enough broad utility that it seems likely they’ll at least see some experimen🅺tation in the early meta. On the Emerald side, Helga Sinclair strikes me as the most playable, both as an anti-control card and a potential shift target for the new Floodborn Helga, which I adore. Those four cards alone make this deck interesting enough to pick up.
If you’re interested to♒ know which of the two starter decks is more competitive on its own, the Amber/Emerald deck is by far the more consistent. Much l꧑ike The First Chapter’s Amber/Amethyst starter deck, this deck is built to go wide and dump your hand on the board, which will lead to quick wins often against the slower, more combo-focused Ruby/Sapphire one.
Over on the Ruby/Sapphire side, there’s one clear outlier among the rares. Simba, Scrappy Cub is a two-cost 1/1 that quests for three, just like Pinocchio, Star Attraction from Rise of the Floodborn. That card is a meta staple in Amethyst aggro decks, and if Ruby Aggro becomes a thing this season, I can almost guarantee that Simba will be an essential card. If not, the Amethyst ཧbounce package can still make use of him on a Ruby/Amethyst deck. Of every card in both decks, Simba might end up being the most expensive single 𒊎as well.
The other rares don’t strike me as being particularly playable. Moana, Huey, Scrooge, and Gyro are heavily situational, relying on either locations, items, or synergies with ⛦specific cards to find value. Maui’s Fish Hook will probably find a place in Ruby/Amethyst control, considering players have started using You Can Fly! recently to make Maui Evasive anyway. Ruby/Amethyst pl🔜ayers have been using a number of tools to deal with Evasive targets, so Maui’s Fish Hook may be the one-size-fits-all solution they’re looking for.
I don’t think either deck has anything as essential in it as the bounce package from Rise of the Floodborn’s🌄 starter deck, but the Amber/Emerald deck has a nice pile of cards that I think will se🎀e play. Other than the rares, you also get three copies of Pluto, Friendly Pooch; two Wendy Darling, Talented Sailor; two Wildcat, Mechanic; two Kit Cloudkicker, Tough Guy; two Don Karnage, Prince of Pirates, and five total locations cards. That’s 20 cards, or a third of the deck, that will likely find a place somewhere in the meta.
On the Ruby/Sapphire side, you get two Sumerian Talisman, which could be useful in a challenge-focused deck. There’s also two copies of Voyage which will be important if locations are strong, as well as one Vault Door, an item that gives locations an✤d the characters in them Resist +1. Those five, plus the five locations, Simba, and Maui’s Fish Hook make for a total of 12 cards that migh𝐆t be playable.
If I was only going to buy one starter deck this expansion, it would be the Amber/Emerald deck by a huge margin. It’s got the more interesting r🔯ares and the wider range of playable cards between the two decks, and I suspect a month from now we’ll see a 🅘good chunk of its cards show up in the meta. The Ruby/Sapphire deck has a lot of cards that will work well in location, item, and challenge-focused brews, but they’re all unproven archetypes and may fall out of favor as the season goes on. They’re both fun decks and I recommend both if you just want a stack of good Lorcana cards to play with, but I’m confident that the Amber/Emerald deck has the higher value overall.
