Lorcana: Shimmering Skies starter decks review — The Great Illuminary’s guest list gets bigger

Set 5 of Disney Lorcana is here. Shimmering Skies brings our favorite characters back for the Great Illuminary’s party and introduces some new ones. Like previous sets, we have two starter decks to choose from. The Emerald-Steel deck features the villainous Scar and misguided Kronk while the Amethyst-Ruby deck features a brand new Elsa and a never before seen in Lorcana, Wreck-It Ralph.

If you are new to Lorcana, the starter decks are complete decks that come with a paper playmat, a basic rulebook, and some tokens. Everything you need to start playing the game immediately is included. With 10 decks to choose from now, I’d recommend picking the ones with the characters you like the most.

The Emerald-Steel deck is mostly themed around Scar and the hyenas. Kronk doesn’t bring a significant amount of other Emperor’s New Groove characters to play but synergizes well with the play style of the deck. This deck is all about protecting your key cards with the Steel bodyguards and spreading damage around with your Emerald cards. Once you’ve spread damage around, you can pick enemies off with Kronk enabling free card plays, Scar giving you card draw, and Robin Hood extra lore. It’s a fun playstyle that can be challenging to pull off but rewarding when all goes as planned.

The Amethyst-Ruby deck is an interesting combination of control and aggro. The Amethyst cards in the deck provide multiple opportunities to exert enemy characters and to get card advantage through additional draws. Meanwhile, the Ruby cards in the deck feature a lot of Rush abilities and some lore-draining abilities. Used together, you can force your enemies to exhaust with an Amethyst card and then follow up with a Ruby rush to take them out. The various racers from Wreck-It Ralph feature heavily along with some fun new Frozen cards. Olaf: Happy Passenger, is a really fun card that can be a game-winner if you can get him out early.

Both of these decks are fun to play and will give you a nice introduction to what Set 5 has to offer. Besides the gameplay, the artwork remains top-notch. The theme for this set is Shimmering Skies and that is reflected in many of the cards with characters dressed up for the party and fireworks in the background. It’s a festive theme and the cards are bright and exciting looking to match.

My only critique is the same as my previous starter deck reviews. I’d like to see the decks have a more cohesive character theme. For example, a deck that is all Frozen or all Lion King. Lorcana isn’t really intended to be played or constrained that way, but it’s something I enjoy. If you’re like me, the good news is that with 5 sets out it’s easier than ever to build the themed deck of your dreams. If the designers keep it up, one day my HeiHei deck will be complete.

Both of these decks are available now at your local game store and everywhere else on August 23rd.

Unless otherwise stated, the product in this article was provided for review purposes.

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