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Control decks are coming out strong in the first meta showing of Lorcana and Emerald/Steel brings discard to the forefront. Denying your opponent resources and options sounds like the most straightforward path, but this deck has had a slow climb through the trenches to reach top tier meta.
Emerald/Steel Discard
- Characters (40)
- 4 Beast - Tragic Hero
- 4 Bucky - Squirrel Squeak Tutor
- 2 Genie - On the Job
- 3 Flynn Rider - Charming Rogue
- 2 Flynn Rider - Confident Vagabond
- 2 Flynn Rider - His Own Biggest Fan
- 3 Jafar - Dreadnought
- 2 Jafar - Royal Vizier
- 2 Lucifer - Cunning Cat
- 4 Prince John - Greediest of All
- 4 Simba - Future King
- 4 Tinker Bell - Giant Fairy
- 4 Tinker Bell - Tiny Tactician
- Songs (12)
- 2 Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo
- 3 Grab Your Sword
- 3 Strength of a Raging Fire
- 4 Sudden Chill
Our fundamental play pattern is to deny our opponent resources early and mid-game so that, eventually, we out pace them. We don't rely on many heavy-hitters or high lore cards to get us over the finish line. Instead, we rely on a war of attrition on small characters that also take advantage of our discard tenants.
Our discard suite centers around three pieces; Bucky - Squirrel Squeak Tutor, Flynn Rider - Charming Rogue, and Lucifer - Cunning Cat. Bucky makes our character plays more efficient, benefiting from 17 of the cards in our deck. Normally, Bucky needs to just sit on our side of the board and trigger his ability. Challenging, questing, or singing only puts a target on his back for my opponent to take out. Sometimes drawing their attention to a small target like Bucky can save another important card, but by and large just let him live. This brings us to little Flynn. As a 2 lore character with a 2-ink cost Flynn creates a decision point on your opponent's turn. The 1 damage that Flynn offers on the trade can easily be looked over in the mid-game. The discard presents a proper punishment for the deck. On the other hand, Lucifer does his thing when played which means that we can take advantage of his 2 lore and quest as needed. With these characters in conjunction with Hypnotize and Sudden Chill we only need a few turns of set up to start running our opponents out of cards in hand. Hypnotize might be one of the most underrated cards in this deck. I try to avoid using it as ink whenever I can because of the initial gap it creates in card advantage, but with a 3-ink cost it's placed where I would also need to put characters down to have bodies on the field.
To dig for these pieces we have some draw options. Not only does this help us find our key cards in the early game, but they'll keep widening the card advantage gap in the midgame as we reduce our opponent's hand. Simba - Future King and Tinker Bell - Tiny Tactician are early cards that will help us cycle through the cards in our deck. Draw and discard isn't raw component advantage, but it helps us improve the quality of our hand. Jafar - Dreadnought will help us remove an annoying character and draw us at least one card in the meantime. With 4 Willpower you might even be able to take out two smaller enemies. We also have Beast - Tragic Hero like any good Steel deck should, but we also have a substitute that fits into this deck perfectly with Prince John - Greediest of All. Keep our hands full and our opponent's hands empty.
Our removal suite is the same as other Steel decks with nothing out of the ordinary. We rely on Smash for straightforward damage, and maximizing single target damage with Strength of a Raging Fire. If our opponent ends up with a large board we can have Lucifer or our other high ink characters sing Grab Your Sword in an attempt to even the playing field. At the top of our list is the reliable Tinker Bell - Giant Fairy. She comes equipped with a little Grab Your Sword and even more removal when she sticks around for a little.
This deck has tweaked over the last few months. Lots of little changes along the way. Originally, lists ran Belle - Hidden Archer but ultimately cut her to make room for inkable cards. This is a shame since Belle is a better version of the Charming Rogue and is also Floodborn to further trigger Bucky. Other lists I've seen cut Daisy Duck - Secret Agent which is a shame since she's one of the most straightforward assets to discard. It's impossible to protect her after the first quest with this list - she's too easy of a target.
New additions to this list include Genie - On the Job. While expensive, allowing you to recur a character is another instance of card advantage and lets you get a key piece back. Replaying Lucifer or Flynn can lead to a cavalcade of gains. This picks feels like it could go either way, but a 6-ink that's uninkable is a hard sell in a deck as slow as this one.
No matter what tweaks you're looking to make here, be sure to check out the Into the Inklands spoilers. This will be a very different deck in the coming months with the release of the third set. After climbing its way toward the top, there's no telling where the cards will land with this shake up.
