Lorcana TCG Rise Of The Floodborn: Amber / Sapphire Starter Deck

2x Bashful – Hopeless Romantic, 1x Belle – Inventive Engineer, 1x Christopher Robin – Adventurer, 3x Cruella De Vil – Fashionable Cruiser, 2x Doc – Leader of the Seven Dwarfs, 2x Dopey – Always Playful, 3x Gaston – Baritone Bully, 1x Gaston – Intellectual Powerhouse, 1x Grand Duke – Advisor to the King, 3x Grumpy – Bad-Tempered, 2x Happy – Good-Natured, 1x Hiram Flaversham – Toymaker, 2x Judy Hopps – Optimistic Officer, 2x Lefou – Bumbler, 3x Owl – Logical Lecturer, 2x Philoctetes – Trainer of Heroes, 3x Sleepy – Nodding Off, 3x Sneezy – Very Allergic, 2x Snow White – Lost in the Forest, 3x The Nokk – Water Spirit, 1x The Queen – Commanding Presence, 3x The Queen – Regal Monarch, 1x Winnie the Pooh – Having a Think.

Actions:

2x Four Dozen Eggs, 2x Launch, 2x Painting the Roses Red.

Items:

2x Fang Crossbow, 2x Gumbo Pot, 3x Pawpsicle.

Characters

This Starter deck is mostly themed around Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We take a look at them in a bit more detail further into the article as some of them synergise with each other. When played, Snow White – Lost In The Forest can heal 2 damage from chosen character which is pretty useful if you like a good challenge. Bashful, Grumpy, Happy and Sneezy all have decent Willpower. Bashful, Doc, Happy, and Sleepy are good questers.

There are a couple of shift options with The Queen – Regal Monarch into The Queen – Commanding Presence and Gaston – Baritone Bully into Gaston – Intellectual Powerhouse. The Queen – Commanding Presence can shift for 2 ink which makes her extremely good value for money and can be played turn two.

There are a number of Item cards in the deck and there are some characters that interact with them quite well. Whenever you quest with Belle – Inventive Engineer you pay 1 less ink for the next item you play this turn. When you play Judy Hopps – Optimistic Officer, you may banish chosen item. Its player draws a card. This can be used on yourself should you need more cards in your hand or against your opponent should they have an item on the board which you want to dispose of. And finally, when you play Hiram Flaversham – Toymaker and whenever he quests, you may banish one of your items to draw 2 cards. This can get you out of a tight spot should you need more cards in hand.

Items

Fang Crossbow is a cool looking item card which costs 3 ink to play. It has two different abilities which you can choose depending on the scenario. Its main ability ‘Careful Aim’ lets you exert and spend 2 ink to give chosen character -2 strength this turn. This is pretty useful should you like to challenge. Its second ability ‘Stay Back!’ lets you banish chosen Dragon character. Although there are no Dragon characters in either starter deck, there are several within The First Chapter and Rise of The Floodborn.

Pawpsicle is a 1 cost inkable item card which lets you draw a card on play which is pretty strong. You can banish the item to remove up to 2 damage from a chosen character. A cheap item which can heal damage is pretty useful. It works particularly well with Nick Wilde – Wily Fox from the Rise Of The Floodborn set however this character is not included in this starter set. Gumbo Pot is another healing item card. You can exert to remove 1 damage each from up to 2 chosen characters.

Actions

Launch deals a mighty 5 damage to a chosen character however you have to give up one of your items to do so. There are a total of 7 item cards in the starter deck so you are unlikely to get this off every game. You are also having to give up that item. Make sure to use its ability first before playing Launch to maximise both card uses. This of course does not work for Pawpsicle or the ‘Stay Back!’ ability on Fang Crossbow as you have to banish the item for those abilities. It will be situational depending on how the game plays out whether you want to Launch 5 damage into your opponent or benefit from the item card itself in future turns.

Four Dozen Eggs is an Action card which can also be sung with a character that costs 4 ink or more (Or Gaston – Baritone Bully who has the Singer 5 keyword). All your characters gain the Resist +2 keyword until the start of your next turn which means you can use this offensively on your turn to challenge your opponent but also provide some protection should your opponent challenge you on their turn. Having to deal an extra 2 damage to get through the Resist is pretty tough making this a very strong Action/song card.

Painting The Roses Red gives up to 2 chosen characters -1 Strength this turn so can be used against your opponent to challenge them and save yourself from being whacked back so hard. As it is a song, it can be sung by any character with the exception of the 1 costs – The Queen – Regal Monarch and Owl – Logical Lecturer.

Combos / Synergy

There are a number of combos/synergy plays in this starter deck and they mostly revolve around the Seven Dwarfs:

Bashful – Hopeless Romantic can’t quest unless you have another Seven Dwarfs character in play so you will be wanting to get one of them out as soon as possible unless you plan on challenging or singing with him; With a quest value of 3 lore though it would be a waste.

Grumpy – Bad Tempered gives your other Seven Dwarf characters get +1 Strength. Should you be able to get several of them out, your Seven Dwarf characters will become quite powerful for challenging.

Whenever you play Sneezy – Very Allergic or another Seven Dwarfs character, you may give chosen character -1 Strength this turn.

When Dopey – Always Playful is banished, your other Seven Dwarfs characters get +2 Strength until the start of your next turn so you would be aiming to challenge with him where possible.

The remaining Seven Dwarf characters Happy – Good Natured, Sleepy – Nodding Off, and Doc – Leader Of The Seven Dwarfs don’t have abilities that rely on having or playing the other Seven Dwarf characters.

Inking

With 57 inkable cards and 3 non-inkable cards, you shouldn’t find yourself having trouble inking each turn.

While there is only one copy of Winnie The Pooh – Having a Think, he allows you to add an additional card from your hand into your inkwell whenever he quests. It is worth holding on to him should you find him in your opening hand.

There are also several ways to get characters out cheaper than their initial cost which will help and may mean you won’t need to ink so often:

Whenever Doc – Leader of the Seven Dwarfs quests, you can pay 1 less for the next character you play this turn.

Lefou – Bumbler costs one less to play should you have either Gaston – Intellectual Powerhouse or Gaston – Baritone Bully in play.

Strategy for

There is fun to be had playing the Seven Dwarf characters. Less than half the deck comprises of Seven Dwarf characters (17 in total) so it may depend on what cards you draw.

There is also the item cards and the cards and characters that interact with them. These equate to less than the Dwarf characters so are even less likely to see these.

Strategy against

The downfall of this starter deck is that it flirts with several gameplans: Seven Dwarfs and Items. There aren’t enough of either to make it consistently viable. Capitalising on this will help. Your opponent may take time to get going as they look for specific cards. Keeping an eye out for which game plan they choose to take will be key.