Welcome to my share of the Azurite Sea Coolstuffinc.com Review. While last time I gave my full opinion on every card, it did seem to be a bit of a word jumble. So this time I am going to shorten it up a bit. I decided to take all the Ruby cards and place them in my preference order. After that my cut was based on page space and word count, not some arbitrary Top X. I just knew that if I said Top 5, I would really want to include number 6.

I will include this disclaimer. My mind is casual environment geared, so some of my picks are based upon potential tricks that may or may not be viable in a real competitive tournament. With that being said, the Azurite Sea is full of cards for guys like me. I feel that the Meta isn't really going to shift much unless a cool Location deck is developed. See below for why.

Number 8

I feel these two Villains (hint) are a good spot to place my cut. I can see playing Hades with a wide character deck. Three ink for removal of choice could be nice but you would need to overcome the card loss. I could see a Perdita questing after Hades removal returning the easy to play character of your choice. If that character has an enters effect it could get interesting.

I'm including Scar because of the 3 lore for 5 which is a good ratio for Ruby. I've heard a lot of grumbling about his 2 Stamina but it had to be to force you to target another character while still allowing you to play him like a 5 Ink Ba-Boom! If you're desperate.

Number 7

While I don't know the exact slot in a deck that Raya will grab, I recognize that she just has very solid stats. Also, all the cards that grant benefits for just playing ink seem to be breakable. I personally haven't found the right recipe for that new spice but I will be looking for it.

Number 6

I don't put these together to say you should use the Song to grab the Location but you could. I do believe the game is reaching a critical mass for Locations and I really feel that Ruby is becoming the central color just as Amber is for Aggro Lore. If you find yourself playing with a lot of Locations, The Islands I Pulled From The Sea is must in the deck. I haven't seen anyone nickname this card yet but I plan to tell my opponent that I'm "going fishing" when I play Pulled.

Number 5

If you haven't got the gist yet, I believe there is a location based competitive deck on the horizon and it will be using Ruby. Therefore, your opponents need to be deciding on how they're going to remove your locations. That's when Minnie comes to save the day, allowing you to play and replay your best locations and forcing double removal efforts from your opponent.

Number 4

Three Ink, inkable cards that provide 2 Lore per turn is good value in Ruby. While that is a strictly aggro viewpoint, when you add in her "You'll Never Miss It" ability you actually start looking a bit more control oriented. If you've carried a Ruby/X control deck that ran Be Prepared, ask yourself how many times have you been one ink away from owning the board state. Jasmine will do that for you by dampening your opponents growth. Ruby has had dampeners but most do not gain you anything but time. Jasmine gives you both time and aggro clock.

Number 3

At 7 cost, the value just isn't there; but, as with many Shift style characters she is more than worth it at 5. The significant bummer is the Moana you Shift onto could have been an extra lore. Also, you should include in your personal Calculus effects like Taffyta Muttonfudge and Ruby HeiHei. It would be really powerful if there was some Location where you would normally spend big ink to move a character there (cough Sugar Rush Speedway - Finish Line cough).

Number 2

With both 4 toughness and Evasive, this guy will be hard to remove. Now we just need to find some way of putting enough action cards in our deck to take advantage of "Swash Your Buckles." I think songs are kinda popular, right? Oh, if you can wait till my #1 Ruby card you'll see an extra fun way to make Tigger Purr. By the way, I still am boiling red that there isn't an Eeyore on the ship! I mean Gopher is on board and he makes holes in Ships. I am sure some older Ravensburger designer is laughing at a Love Boat joke (go ahead, look it up).

Number 1

Finishing off the list, we find this craziness. First of all, 7/5/1 is not bad for 6 inkable. Add to that Evasive and you have a great draft target. While those are good enough, "CheeeeHoooo!" becomes abusive. Note that it triggers on Challenge not banishment. So even if you're running into a Chernabog you still gain card advantage. Of course, you want to be able to challenge with him multiple times. Enter stage left, Fan the Flames. Now you can challenge until you have no opposing exerteds (assuming Maui is tough enough). But wait there's more! He gets ANOTHER ability! "Wayfinding" is a passive lore gainer like no other. We can now gain 6 or 7 lore off our repeated Fans.

If you're worried about the damage building up too fast or your opponent not exerting until Lethal, mix in Steel and play One Last Hope. Now Maui will survive longer and knock out their readies. (Didn't I mention he was a Hero?). Alternatively, you could go Amber and mix in Rapunzel for Heal/Card gain and Kida - Protector of Atlantis. Sure, the Half Shark will only bite for 4 but there aren't many cards that will be able to bite back. Maybe you want to Sapphire rush him to 6 before big stuff hits the table. Mix in Pawpsicle and Ice Block but not the Lucky Dime.

I feel I could write a whole article of tricks you can play with this card but then I would have to go back and delete. So, I will save it for a potential deck focus article in the future. Of course, I could be totally wrong like I was with Merlin - Intellectual Visionary.