We have the full set of Rise of the Inklands in our hands now and folks: It’s wild. Who could have expected that there would be so much Tailspin representation, let alone several cards from The Rescuers – quite possibly the most depressing and moribund Disney flick of all time? Seriously, watch that thing on D+ and see if it doesn’t bring you down. It’s got this murky, stagnant atmosphere and it just feels like a musty old corner of the 1970s. Madame Medusa is certainly no Cruella De Vil, but she’s got a card here along with her lawyer. Maybe great for draft, but I’m not putting them in a deck.
But as we looked at last week, themed or typal decks are starting to become much more of a Done Thing whether you are looking to do a Sorceror’s Apprentice thing with a ton of brooms, a movie or character-based build, or something that leans more completely into ink color identities. I can’t wait to see what folks cook up from this set to counter my all-Robin hood deck.Two themes that are looking particularly strong are tres Disney- puppies and pirates. Advance reveals have gotten cogs turning and theorycrafting is in full swing so let’s have a look.
Pirates
Pirate as a operable keyword goes back of course to Hook, Smee, Starkey, and John Silver in the First Chapter but so far nothing has really put the arrgh in pirate until now. What’s more, the Captain keyword is going to offer a lot more synergy than just giving ol’ Starkey +1 lore if he’s captained, with a new Mr. Smee that offers a 2/3/3/2 statline but needs some leadership or I guess he eventually dies. Piglet, Pooh Pirate Captain gets +2 Lore as a 2 drop if you’ve crewed up your field with at least 2 more characters. And he’s got both keywords. I’m especially pleased to see other pirates from the great Treasure Planet on board, and I didn’t really think of Moana’s Kakamoras as pirates but I suppose that’s exactly what they are. Steel is the most pirate-heavy ink color with some Ruby and Emerald scoundrels abound, and that Piglet is an Amber buccaneer. And by the way, it’s Don Kar-naahhdge. You can’t say “carnage” on a kid’s show, I guess.
Dreamborn.ink
All them pirates have a key Location that benefits them quite a bit. Jolly Roger, Hook’s Ship doesn’t provide any Lore but Pirates can move there for free and any there get Rush. This boat’s made for aggro decks to be sure. It’s a 1-drop card, but with Map of Treasure Planet it’s free- meaning you might be able to pull off an unexpected blitz with a couple of low-cost pirates. With the On Your Feet Now! Action, those characters could ready again and go a-raidin’ a second time at the cost of a damage point on each.
The pirate typal is still not quite all there in my opinion- the only pirate-focused item is Captain Hook’s Rapier, which offers a card draw and gives any Captain Hook Challenger +1. That’s quite good, but I’d like to see more- and really, there’s no “A Pirate’s Life For Me”? I suppose it’s not in an animated film, but still, a missed opportunity for now. I think pirates will be fun to play particularly in a heavily aggressive Ruby/Steel configuration that makes the most of that Jolly Roger combo for clearance and leverages the full suite of Captain Hooks. There’s a lot of Rush, Evasive, and Challenger going on there so it should make for a very hostile deck- and one that could give those Lore-producing Locations a real threat. Your opponent might be wishing they brought on the new Peter Pan, Pirate’s Bane- he takes no damage from pirates.
Puppies
In some ways, I think 101 Dalmatians is Disney’s most underrated film. Sure, everyone likes it, but I wonder if folks really appreciate how amazing it is. The scene where Cruella shows up with her “Miserable as usual, darling” greeting while Roger composes her theme song upstairs is just brilliant. It’s an incredibly well animated film, one of the ones that the great Bill Peet worked on and if you haven’t seen it you’d better because these puppies are about to explode into Lorcana.
The Seven Dwarves were a pretty specialized bunch in Rise of the Floodborn, with a lot of hardwired synergy. But Dalmatian Puppy, Tail Wagger goes to a new level. There are five different versions of this common card (2/2/3/1) and their special ability Where Did They All Come From is that you can have up to 99 copies of it in your deck. This is insane. It’s a pretty solid 2-drop as it is, but with the way Amber thrives in getting characters on the board, out of discard, and supports them this could be a very viable deck. If not viable, at least it’s going to be a lot of fun to play.
There are other puppies, and yes Puppy is a keyword. Lucky, The 15th Puppy is key to this whole concept. Puppy Love activates when you quest with him and have 4 or more characters out. They all get +1 lore. So even with the minimum of 4 Tail Waggers out, that is a 9 Lore play. Patch, Intimidating Pup is sort of a mini version of The Queen, Commanding Presence that knocks down a character’s willpower so that they may be eaten by a puppy, and Rolly, Hungry Pup offer his 3 strength as Support.
Pongo and Perdita are also around to help out their brood. Pongo’s Twilight Bark helps get characters into your hand, Perdita’s Come Along, Children enables you to play a character with a cost of 2 or less for free (therefore, a puppy). If you veer just slightly off-theme, Pluto, Friendly Pooch gives you a 1-ink discount on a character (which would stack with Doc or Lantern) and his Floodborn Determined Defender is an insane bodyguard with 8 Willpower that heals 3 damage per turn. And you can also send the pups over to Tiana’s Palace, where they can’t be challenged at all.
I think the puppy thing looks pretty appealling but the almost impossible resist desire to actually run 99 puppies could very well be disastrous for your league standings. The key is going to be using cards like Be Our Guest to filter the deck, using Part Of Your World or Hades to get important support characters back into play, and using anything you can to play as much as possible for free while also having the means to refill your hand. Thing is, all of this is Amber. I think an effective puppy deck will very judiciously pair up with another color for very specific effects- I could almost see going Steel just for 4 A Whole New Worlds to keep your hand full of puppies. We’ll see where the meta goes- so far, the game has not really favored this kind of fun-first play which I think is unfortunate. I’m sure the netdeckers have already worked out the optimal decks and I doubt Robin Hood, pirates, or puppies are going to top the big tournaments, but those playing them will likely still have plenty of good times.
Next time: Why I hate the Lorcana meta
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