What Ratio of Inkable and Non-Inkable Cards Should You Use in Lorcana Decks?

Posted on July 23, 2024

While it's not much of an Intro hook I present you with this table.....

Aren't spreadsheets exciting? (insert sarcasm). Seriously, I think you will want to reference back to this article while building your own Lorcana brew. Maybe even click back here for every deck you devise. While you're at it, click on this guy twice or even three times today. Click from your work computer, click from your phone, tell your friends to click, post a link on your favorite social media. Have you noticed I love it when I get clicks on my articles?

Aside from the number of clicks this article gets, one of the most critical ideas you must take into account when building a deck is the concept of Inkable/Uninkable ratio. The chart above will hopefully help with that in your builds.

For the chart to work you must first ask yourself two serious questions.

First, what is my critical ink amount for my deck to fully operate? Take the standard speed lore deck with Lilo - Making a Wish and Simba - Protective Cub. A list I saw recently showed the highest Ink requirement for any card was 4 for a Hades - Lord of the Underworld and that was a one of. In that deck the critical mass of Ink would be three or maybe even two. Compared to decks running Tamatoa - So Shiny! and Lucky Dime which really want to hit 8 ink as comfortably as possible.

Second, knowing that almost nothing is guaranteed, what percentage are you willing to accept as a minimum? Using the same decks as before the Lilo deck MUST get three in three turns. If it misses an ink drop early you can be well assured of the game loss. However, the Tamatoa deck can miss drop 7 and still prevail as long as it has other gas in hand. So, let's say the Lilo player wants at least 97% successful drop rate and the Tamatoa player is comfortable with 80%.

Both of these players can reference the chart in the following matter. Start by reading the top row and go over their critical number. Then slide down that column until you find the percentage you are comfortable with. Now go back to the left column and that number is the amount of noninkable cards you can comfortably pack. You'll notice that my chart goes by fours, this is to avoid filling your whole screen with spreadsheet noise. Hopefully, you can ascertain that if your percent is between two values then your number of non-inks is between as well.

As for our examples...

Lilo plus Simba Speed lore- Critical drop 3 - Comfort 97% - Non Inks?= 28

Tamatoa and Lucky Dime- Critical drop 8 - Comfort 80% - Non Inks?=25

Of course, it doesn't end there. The game isn't designed to be played in a vacuum of Ink Vs. Non-Ink. But before I go into in-game effects I want you to know a couple of assumptions. These stats are based on a 60-card deck. If your critical turn is 6 the numbers are based on 6 draws while if your number is 3 we assume 3 draws. Mulligan effects are not considered but if done correctly will increase the comfort percentage.

In the process of playing the game we can alter our percentages. The most simple one to understand is just playing an inkable card. Upon being played the inkable card becomes non inkable and therefore lowers the comfort percent. But in game we have already built the deck and can't change our other non-inks but we need to realize it does affect our comfort percentage in a negative manner. So, when given a choice between playing a Flynn Rider - Charming Rogue or Piglet - Pooh Pirate Captain sometimes the best choice is the Flynn. Leaving you the flexibility for future inks with the Piglet.

What about a card like Friends on the Other Side? While it does lower our comfort percent it allows us to see two extra cards from our deck. The easiest way to approximate the change is to look out the critical turn column and move to the left for every two extra cards we draw. This would allow a Mim/Merlin player to transpose their critical column from 4 to 3. At 20 non-inkables this has little effect but at 28-32 your ink curve becomes much more reliable.

Now let's look at Mickey Mouse - Detective. Because the card added to your inkwell is random and unknowable the direct percentages are only slightly changed. However, your critical 8 inks just became only 7. Now scroll up and look at those numbers. Notice that at higher critical the jump becomes greater. This makes sense when you think about it. What type of deck is going to benefit more from accelerating their ink? The deck that needs it the most.

Now for the card that inspired this article. Hidden Inkcaster. I am a polluted swamp with this card. Every time I go through my collection, I seem to find another one. They are like the green Gremlins from that 80's movie, only I didn't water them or feed them after midnight. But they do have an interesting and most pronounced effect on my table. Once played, every percentage is 100%. The flexibility and resource management are crazy. To be honest, when I read it for the first time I was like "what would I do with the second one?" Now I say to myself, "Use it for INK!"

What I use it for is protection of combo pieces. I have a crazy one I am going to share with you today. When I first started with it, I found myself often forced to ink one combo piece to be able to play the other. I decided to throw some Inkcaster fodder in and behold, my comfort percentage skyrocketed. So, you are aware, after drawing two cards for turns you have about a 38% chance of being able to play a Hidden Inkcaster on turn two.

So, what's the crazy idea? It's a three-card combo using Beast - Relentless, The Bayou - Mysterious Swamp, and Sheriff of Nottingham - Corrupt Official.

If it isn't immediately apparent the play goes like this; have a ready Beast, play Bayou, move Beast to Bayou, play Sheriff, quest with Beast, draw-discard, deal one damage, ready Beast, repeat. If your opponent has a total of 9 toughness on the field, you can gain 20 lore in one turn. The rest of the deck is just about being the guy in multiplayer who isn't about to win but will slow everyone else down.