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The Lorcana TCG ‘The First Chapter’ starter deck: Sapphire and Steel brings the brains and the brawn. Hard hitting Steel and the strategy of Sapphire offer a balanced play style. Ramp your inkwell and then swing big with powerful characters while protecting them with items.
This starter deck contains 60 cards from the Sapphire and Steel glimmers. There are a total of 33 Sapphire cards and 27 Steel cards.
Full card list:Â
Characters: 3x Aurora – Briar Rose, 1x Aurora – Dreaming Guardian, 3x Aurora – Regal Princess, 2x Beast – Hardheaded, 3x Captain Hook – Forceful Duelist, 2x Flounder – Voice of Reason, 2x Goons – Maleficent’s Underlings, 2x Gramma Tala – Storyteller, 2x Hercules – True Hero, 2x Jasmine – Disguised, 2x Kristoff – Official Ice Master, 3x Maleficent – Sinister Visitor, 1x Maleficent – Uninvited, 1x Maui – Demigod, 3x Mickey Mouse – Detective, 2x Mufasa – King of the Pride Lands, 2x Prince Eric – Dashing and Brave, 1x Scar – Mastermind, 1x Simba – Returned King, 2x Simba – Rightful Heir.
Actions: 3x Develop Your Brain, 3x Fire The Cannons!, 1x Grab Your Sword, 2x One Jump Ahead, 2x Ransack, 2x Smash.Â
Items: 3x Coconut Basket, 2x Frying Pan, 2x Magic Golden Flower.
Characters
Aurora – Dreaming guardian gives your other characters some slight protection as they gain the keyword Ward with her protective embrace. This means opponents can’t choose them except to challenge. Protecting your big characters such as Maui – Demigod and Simba – King of the Pride lands this way can really stifle your opponent and slow their game down as their high willpower can be a real slog to chip away. They can both quest for three lore each turn meaning your opponent will want to take them out as soon as they can.
Hercules – True Hero can also protect your characters as he has the bodyguard keyword. At the cost of three, he is a cheap option for this. Make sure to exert him on play to benefit from his ability straight away.
Actions
Steel is great for dealing damage straight from hand. Cards like Fire the Cannons, Smash and Grab your Sword are perfect examples of this. These types of cards are particularly great as they are unexpected and can banish opposing characters in one fell swoop.
Fire the Cannons deals 2 damage to an opposing character, for the cost of just one ink. Looking further ahead past the starter decks, it is an auto-include in most of our steel deck builds. There are 3 copies of this in the starter deck which allows you a greater chance of seeing it in a game.
Grab your Sword is a song, which means you can exert a character with a cost of 5 of more to play the card rather than spending your ink. It is such a powerful play as you can deal 2 damage to each opposing character. This can be devastating if your opponent is playing a wide board.
These action cards are also useful as this deck does not include any evasive characters which means they are the only way to take out opposing evasive characters.
Items
The item cards in this deck help protect some of the bigger characters in play.
Magic Golden Flower is a one time use item card that allows you to remove up to three damage from a chosen character. Similarly Coconut Basket is another item card that removes damage from a chosen character, removing up to two damage every time you play a character.
The Frying Pan item card stops a chosen character from challenging during their next turn. This minimises the risk of your main characters being targeted.
Combos / Synergy
When challenging, both Captain Hook – Forceful Duelist and Prince Eric – Dashing and Brave can both increase their strength by two. By playing Scar – Mastermind you can decrease an opposing character’s strength by five this turn, meaning you can utilise some of your cheaper characters as they won’t be hit back. Their quest value of one lore and their challenger +2 skill means they are best used for challenging, leaving your other characters to quest.
Inking
The Sapphire/Steel contains a total of eleven non-inkable cards. Too many non-inkables in a deck will clog your hand but this seems like a fair number.
There are several cards which allow you to ramp your inkwell fairly quickly. Gramma Tala – Storyteller is useful to have in your opening hand which will allow you to play a character early on in the game due to her low cost. You should not be too concerned about challenging opposing characters or being challenged by them as she is added to your inkwell facedown should she be banished.
Upon playing Mickey Mouse – Detective or One Jump Ahead, you are able to put the top card of your deck into your inkwell facedown and exerted.
Inking quickly will allow you to play some of your bigger characters sooner.
Strategy for
Ink quickly and play your hard hitting characters. In your opening hand, you should be looking for Gramma Tala – Storyteller, Mickey Mouse – Detective and One Jump Ahead in order to build your inkwell quickly.Â
While you are focusing on building your inkwell, control your opponents with action cards Fire the Cannons, Smash and Grab your Sword.Â
Then it’s time to play your hard hitters. Maui – Demigod, Simba – King of the Pride lands, Simba – Rightful Heir, Scar – Mastermind, Maleficent – Uninvited.
Aurora – Dreaming guardian and Hercules – True Hero are great at offering protection. As are items Magic Golden Flower and Coconut basket.
Strategy against
The Sapphire / Steel starter does not contain any evasive characters. It may be worth focusing on playing such characters when facing off against this deck. The only answer to evasive is Simba – Returned King which on their turn this character gains evasive. However there is only one copy of this character. Also not forgetting Steel is great for creating damage from hand which ignores keywords such as evasive.
Sapphire and Steel are not known for their card draw and this can be a problem for this deck.
Although Steel can create damage form hand, the focus is on playing big cost characters and can be fairly slow in getting them out despite the inkwell ramp.