The best Disney Lorcana starter decks, ranked

The Into the Inklands set introduces an entirely new card type, so players wanting to keep up with the times should invest in a more recent starter set. Of the two, we prefer Ruby and Sapphire. It’s pretty powerful as far as starter decks go, and it’s a challenging yet rewarding introduction to Disney Lorcana.

Rather than one clear strategy, this deck gives you a large number of options for overtaking your opponent. It’s stuffed with Disney Lorcana location cards and items, as well as plenty of character abilities to help with questing and challenging.

This is a versatile deck, suitable for newer players who still want to pack a punch. However, it’s too early to tell how this deck will perform competitively, as the meta is likely to shift with Into the Inklands’ release. The overall value of its cards is also likely to drop as the set ages, and we’re not sure there are enough high-power singles in here to draw in experienced players.

The Amethyst and Steel starter deck is an excellent gateway to competitive Lorcana games. Beginners will have to grapple with a bit more complexity upfront because of this fact, but the payoff is you get to learn about one of Lorcana’s latest and most exciting deck archetypes.

We’re talking about ‘bounce’ decks, as the community calls them. These rely on Amethyst cards featuring Merlin and Madam Mim, who trigger effects when cards enter and leave the battlefield. With some careful planning, you can set up some enormously powerful combos.

The deck does sacrifice a bit of punching power to pursue this strategy, though. Amethyst and Steel may feature some fantastic cards, but its lack of beefy characters means it may struggle against other starter decks. And, without some substitutions, the starter deck can’t stand alone against competitive custom decks either.

If you and your buddies are picking starter decks to play against each other, the Amber and Amethyst deck is likely to win you plenty of games. Easy to learn and well-balanced against other starters, this is a deck for Lorcana players who don’t want to feel left behind because they prefer simple strategies.

Character cards take center stage, and your game plan involves playing a lot of them. You won’t be setting up uber-complex combos or interacting with your opponents much, and you won’t learn much about the newer mechanics featured in Lorcana. But you will have cards to play every turn, keeping the pressure on your opponents as you draw and play more and more characters.

If you couldn’t tell, this is the ultimate beginner deck. Lorcana players who aspire to upgrades and competitive play will find less to be excited about here. A handful of the Amethyst cards still get played in the game’s top decks, but there’s not much else to work with once you’re ready to build a custom deck of your own.

Since Into the Inklands introduces a whole new card type, it’s handy to have a starter deck that can teach you how these work. Amber and Emerald offers this, as well as plenty of strong and exciting cards to play with. The only problem is that, when combined in a standalone starter deck, these cards don’t function all that well.

The Dalmatian puppies introduced in this deck offer some delightful new play options, including the opportunity to add 99 copies of Tail Wagger to your deck (you’ll need to buy 94 extra cards of that name if you want to make it happen, though). Combine this with some card draw and search options, and you’ve got the beginnings of something beautiful.

The starter deck unfortunately doesn’t go quite far enough for our tastes. There’s a lot of fun to be found here, but we wonder how fondly we’ll look back on the Amber and Emerald deck once the competitive meta has adjusted to Into the Inkland’s new cards.

If you’re looking for consistent wins, the Sapphire and Steel starter deck might not be for you. But if it’s strategy and silly fun you’re after, it’s not a bad choice. This Lorcana deck lives and dies on the strength of your card pulls. With the right hand, you’ll absolutely dominate against other starters – without it, you’re pretty much toast.

The strategy here resembles ramp decks in other trading card games like Magic: The Gathering. You want to fill your inkwell fast so you can get big, beefy characters on the board at speed. After that, your prowess with attack and defense will see you outlast your opponents.

That only applies to games against other starter decks, of course. Sapphire and Steel is a competitive ink combination, but few of the cards in this starter deck see top-level play. Besides, the lack of balance means this deck would never cut it against custom creations.

In the short term, Amber and Sapphire is a solid choice of starter deck. It’s full of strong, interesting cards that strike a good balance between strategic complexity and beginner-friendly simplicity. And it can certainly hold its own against the other starter decks – in some games, that is.

Truth is, too many unlucky draws in a row can slow the deck down massively. Many cards have Shift or abilities that rely on certain types and numbers of characters being in play (we’re looking at you, Seven Dwarfs). There are some strong card draw options in here to balance things out, but it can’t always save you from the deck’s random elements.

Problems also begin when you’re a little more familiar with Disney Lorcana. If you’re ready to build a competitive custom deck, you’ll need to buy an awful lot of singles and sacrifice much of your existing starter cards. Long-term, Amber and Sapphire is fun but not all that viable.

On the bottom of the pile is Emerald and Ruby, a starter Lorcana deck that offers a fair amount of complexity for not much competitive value. It offers you a sneaky strategy to play with, where you’ll steal opponents’ lore and interfere with their board state while buffing your own questing and challenging characters. This can be oodles of fun.

Against other starters, the deck can be quite successful in the hands of a savvy player. And if you want a wallet-friendly foundation for future deck-building, this is a great choice. The upside of being underestimated by competitive players is that many of your best cards don’t cost much.

It has its upsides, but there are too many ‘downs’ for us to really rate this starter deck. Beginner players might yearn for a more approachable deck, or one that teaches them more important rules and mechanics for play. Meanwhile, veterans won’t see too much value for money.