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Disney Lorcana’sstarter decks are a great way to get your feet wet in the trading card game. If you’re prepping for a tournament, getting ready for an event at your local store, or just want to get a leg up in your home games, this guide will get you started.
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The Aladdin and Cruella starter deck is a Ruby/Emerald deck that excels at buffing your characters, stealing lore from your opponents, and controlling the board through songs, items, and Evasive characters. This is a great deck if you enjoy messing with your opponents' head by using unexpected tactics, or you just want to frustrate them by stealing their lore and undoing all their hard work
Stampede (x2)
Key Cards
Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw
One of the most powerful cards in Ruby, Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw has the ability to create a four-lore swing in your favor every time it challenges and banishes another card. With a decent body and the ability to be played for a reduced cost thanks to Shift, Aladdin can enter the game late and still turn things in your favor. Even if you only get one successful challenge, the value is still there for this character.
However, if you canplay a Shield of Virtue ahead of time, you can use it to protect Aladdin for multiple turns, whittling your opponent’s lore down as your quickly raise your total. Aladdin is much easier to play if you have either Aladdin, Prince Ali or Aladdin, Street Rat on the board already, but you’llget more value if you Shift on top of Aladdin, Street Rat.
Don’t put all your eggs in the Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw basket. It is not recommended to start with this card in your hand as it’s very expensive to play, and spending too many turns trying to keep a cheap Aladdin alive for this to Shift onto could put you too far behind.
Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw isn’t this deck’s only win condition, and it’s always best to play the cards you have rather than try to force a strategy.
This is a character-heavy go-wide deck, which meansyou’ll often need to play more characters than your opponent to maintain board control. If you find yourself running low on cards early, Mad Hatter, Gracious Host is a great way to build your hand back up. Because it has three lore, it will be a high-value target for your opponent to take out, sotry to play it on curveandquest with it every turn.
If you’re lucky, your opponent will need to use multiple cards to take it out, which will allow you to draw multiple cards in return. Your opponent may opt to use removal actions to prevent you from drawing cards, but this will only cause them to use up resources that would otherwise have been used to take out your Evasive characters. It’s a win-win.
Card draw is incredibly powerful in Lorcana, so Mad Hatter, Gracious Host is one of the best cards you can play in this deck.
Pongo, Ol' Rascal And Peter Pan, Never Landing
With five Evasive characters (three Pongo, ‘Old Rascal, and two Peter Pan, Never Landing), this deck hasthe most Evasive options of the three starter decks. If your opponent isn’t prepared to deal with Evasive characters, these two characters can be a win condition.
Play them early and quest with them every turnto take the lead from your opponent and force them to find an answer. If they don’t have their own Evasive characters or hard removal actions, you can easily run away with the game. This deck has no healing options, so make sure you keep your Evasive characters safe.
Steal From The Rich
Steal From The Rich is a five-cost, uninkable action, and this deck only has one copy of it.This is not a strategy you may rely on, but if you manage to draw in a particular way, Steal From The Rich can easily win you the game.
The strategy is to fill your board with characters and keep them alive long enough to play Steal From The Rich and quest with all of them on one turn.
This iseasier to pull off if you have multiple Evasive charactersto play, like Pongo, ‘Old Rascal and Peter Pan, Never Landing. If you’re able to manage to pull this off with four or five characters, the resulting lore swing will be so devastating to your opponent, they may not be able to recover.
Dragon Fire
Dragon Fire and Stampede are your only options for removal, but luckily, Dragon Fire is one of the most powerful removal spells in the game. You have three of them in your deck, so there’s a chance you’ll draw at least one of them, and it’s important tosave this action for high-value targets.
You want to use this when your opponent plays something big, expensive, and essential to their strategy, or at the very least save it until you’re in a desperate position and need something to slow your opponent down.
Don’t underestimate the soft removal you get from Mother Knows Best and Cruella De Vil - Miserable as Usual. Putting a card back in your opponent’s hand isn’t nearly as good as banishing it, but if it’s a big enough card it may force them to waste an entire turn playing it again. These are relatively cheap ways to control the board.
Your Opening Hand And When To Mulligan
You can only mulligan (known in Lorcana as ‘altering your hand’) after your first game. In the first game, you must take whatever opening hand you draw.
When assessing your opening hand for this deck, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind:
Ruby/Emerald Playstyle
This is a versatile deck that gives you a lot of options for slowing your opponent down and taking control of the board. You will want to try to get cheap cards out of the board as fast as possible because you have cheap tools likeVicious Betrayal,Stolen Scimitar,Megara, Pulling the String, and He’s Got a Sword!that will allow you to trade up by Challenging your opponent’s more-expensive characters with your cheaper ones.
You also want toprioritize getting Evasive characters on the boardsince this deck has more than any other Starter deck. Both Peter Pan, Never Landing and Pongo, ‘Ol Rascal can earn a lot of lore if they’re uncontested, or force your opponent to use valuable resources.
Don’t underestimate lore-drain cards likeRapunzel, Letting Down Her Hair, Aladdin, Street Rat, and especiallyAladdin, Heroic Outlaw.Removing five or six lore from your opponent throughout the game can buy you a lot more time to gain control of the board.Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw pairs great with the Shield of Virtue.
Finally, use cheap tools likeMother Knows BestandCruella De Vil, Miserableas Usual to help you keep control of the board.
Weaknesses
This is a very character-heavy deck, which means you’ll be playing a lot of cards to fight for the board, andit’s easy to run out. Mad Hatter, Gracious Host can help, but that’s your only card draw tool, so use it wisely.
Dragon Fire is this deck’s only reliable removal tool, so you can really only afford to use it on massive threats, which makes mid-cost cards with large bodies difficult to deal with. Rapunzel, Letting Down Her Hair and Scar, Fiery Usurper, and Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw are the deck’s only real brawlers, so its important to maintain your presence on the board and try to control it as early as possible.
