Last week I promised to present you an expensive meta deck, just in time for the upcoming store championships that Ravensburger is running as part of their organized play expansion. I’ll be at my home shop Sunday morning to get beat into a pulp by Madam Mim decks and I’m expecting to leave by lunchtime. This Emerald/Amber deck is what I’m going to be running, and I was kind of surprised when it all shook down after a couple of edits that it’s not really that expensive. Dreamborn.Ink has it at $222 as of this writing, and that’s a far cry from my $450-priced Robin Hood-driven Emerald Steel deck. That I also don’t think would do very well at the tournament.
Self-deprecation aside, I think this one has a shot at a respectable finish if I pilot it well and get some good opening draws. It is one of those beloved and delightful discard decks that are excellent for making friends and endearing people to the game so I feel just a little grimy for playing a deck that can feel really bad for the opponent. But competition is competition, and if I’m gonna have to sit and watch someone flip Madam Mim back and forth…then maybe the best thing I can do is to just take her out of their hand.
My discard philosophy is pretty simple and focused. The whole goal is to strip the player’s hand down as quickly and efficiently as possible. Get them top decking and calling on the Heart of the Cards as early as possible. Sometimes this strategy is suicidal, and a well-timed A Whole New World can shut it right down. But when it works, it can deliver a crushing victory. Here’s what I’m working with:
Into the Inklands has been very, very generous to the discard archetype with a few cards that really push the strategy into overdrive. Cursed Merfolk is a perfect example. This 1/uninkable 0/2/2 monster is an immediate threat that often requires the opponent to take a discard to remove it- it’s like an earlier, cheaper Flynn Rider, Charming Rogue and I think you go four each on these, non-negotiable. Flynn is also pivotal to shift the Floodborn His Own Biggest Fan early so that when your opponent has no cards, he quests for 4 and it’s a stroll to victory lane. Ursula, Deceiver is essential to eliminate impactful songs like AWNW or Be Prepared before they can be played and is another direct assault on the opponent’s hand. She also shifts up the expensive Legendary Deceiver of All, which lets you play songs twice- more on that in the song section. If cards do make it to the table, Kit Cloudkicker is a tidy removal versus low strength characters and Wildcat, Mechanic 86’s items with impunity.
There is some Dalmatian support: Pongo to help filter for a clutch HOBF or Ursula, Perdita to bring back said HOBF if one has been deleted from the board. Mufasa is another great character filter; you might luck out and pull the 4 lore Robin Hood, Daydreamer for the win. Rounding out characters is four Prince Johns, a discard deck staple that lets you earn card draws for all those discards.
Actions and songs are critical to this deck. Hypnotize is always solid and You Have Forgotten Me is a brutal two card discard- leverage that for drawing two or more cards with those Prince Johns. The Bare Necessities and Sudden Chill are singable, which means that Deceiver of All can sing these twice which is borderline unreasonable. Mother Knows Best turns into a lethal play when she sings it here- remove two characters back to hand, then play a discard action or two. It’s fun.
The item section is thin; Sleepy’s Flute is a little Lore boost to help keep you in the running as this deck can be a little slow to develop. Airfoil is another card draw function, requiring two or more actions to draw a card. Remember, songs are actions so that Ursula singing ploy can also net you some cards.
Now, playing this deck can be a lot of fun if you are careful and focused about what its objectives are. You are not going to win a control matchup and you will struggle against extreme aggro builds if you can’t get ahead early. There’s always a strategic consideration early in the game whether to blow Sudden Chills and other discard effects early or to wait. In an ideal situation, you want the Merfolk and Flynn on the board ASAP and should mulligan intensely for them. Ursula Deceiver is a crucial early play as that will take out songs before they can be played. Around turn three is when I liked to start really ripping the cards out the other player’s hand. Once you can play multiple discard effects in one turn, which is usually from turn three and on, you can quickly set up the desired position of the other player struggling to play the game because they are drawing one card and either inking or playing it, if they can.
The midgame kind of makes or breaks this deck. If you’ve gotten ahead early enough and the other player is on the ropes, it’s just a matter of holding position to get those Flynn Riders or the no-frills/no conditions Robin Hood out to win with big quests. This is very much a deck where you might be down ten or more halfway through and then suddenly you are getting 8, 9, 10 lore in a single turn. And yes, this is the kind of deck where it feels spectacular to win.
But it can really be a struggle. There are definitely some edits that could be made if you aren’t comfortable with this really intense focus on one strategy. Pete is a surprisingly good choice in this deck with all the actions being played to power him up. Classics like Kuzco and The Mad Hatter are totally valid 5 ink alternatives. I would avoid the Amber healing approach as I feel like it would distract from the intense focus, but cards like the Amber Hades that bring cards back from the dead so to speak could be worthwhile.
The biggest issue I’ve had, however, is that once you have your opponent dead to rights and with no cards in hand, the discard cards aren’t super useful. The good news here though is that means that those cards become easy ink choices, and with a lot of card draw happening in this deck you shouldn’t often be faced with handful of cards that really aren’t very useful. This is why I also included a couple of filtering characters, to try to get those game winning characters (chiefly Flynn and Robin Hood) to float to the top.
Next week- Report from the Store Challenge!
