It’s fair to say that Disney Lorcana has been a huge success, both commercially and critically.
Launching in one of the most exciting years there’s ever been for CCGs/TCGs (that’s Collectable Card Games and Trading Card Games, which both essentially mean the same thing!), with 2023 being the 30th anniversary of Magic: The Gathering, amongst numerous other developments in the sector, Lorcana brought Disney’s a wide range of characters and settings to the trading card game players and collectors.
Fans of Disney in general have also been lured into playing Lorcana, with the game’s Starter Decks being the best way to get into the game, regardless of skill level or previous experience with TCGs.
With numerous sets now available and a selection of Starter Decks available for each, we’ve taken a look at each of them to determine which are the best, whether you’re a newcomer or seasoned card game player, or even somewhere in between!
The First Chapter Starter Decks
There are three Starter Decks for Lorcana’s The First Chapter set.
As the first ever set for Lorcana, The First Chapter’s Starter Decks cover all six ink colours, making any of them a great introduction to the game and its mechanics.
With three to choose from, however, you may get stuck on knowing which one is right for you, so come with us as we give you a few pointers on where to begin.
Amber & Amethyst (Moana and Mickey Mouse): Best For TCG Newcomers
Though any of the three decks are a good starting point for new players, given that later sets add new mechanics and keywords, we think that the Amber & Amethyst deck, which is led by the Moana, of Motunui and Mickey Mouse, Wayward Sorcerer cards, is the best option for absolute newcomers to trading card games.
That’s because it features lots of low Ink cost cards, primarily in the Amber colour, which also has decent healing too, allowing you to keep your character cards (or ‘Glimmers’, in the in-game terminology) in play.
The cost of cards being low is important, as it allows you to get cards into play at a faster rate than your opponent, giving you the opportunity to Quest and Challenge more effectively.
The Amethyst cards in this deck balance out the Amber cards nicely, with more powerful, higher cost cards that can even bring cards back from your discard pile.
The two cards heading up this deck are the aforementioned Moana and Mickey Mouse cards.
Moana, of Motonui, is an Amber card that costs 5 Ink to get into play. Though it doesn’t have good Strength (1 is, of course, the weakest it can be without it being zero!), its 5 Willpower gives the card very good defense.
That defense is definitely something that Moana needs, because with 3 Lore points gained per turn when she Quests, she’ll definitely be a target for Challenges from your opponent!
She’s able to Ready other Princess characters whenever she Quests too, though she can’t immediately send them Questing again!
The other headline card is the Amethyst coloured Mickey Mouse, Wayward Sorcerer.
At a cost of 4 Ink, Mickey is slightly easier to get into play than Moana.
He’s also more balanced, with 3 Strength and 4 Willpower, making him a reasonably good card to use aggressively as well as defensively.
Mickey also gains 2 Lore when Questing, as well as giving you the ability to pay 1 Ink less to play Broom characters, and even return Brooms directly to your hand if they’re banished in a challenge!
So he’s a great all rounder and a perfect complement to the more defensive Moana.
All of which just goes to demonstrate why we think this Amber & Amethyst deck is perfect for Lorcana beginners, or even newcomers to trading card games altogether.
Sapphire & Steel (Aurora and Simba): Best For Players With Some TCG Experience
If you’ve already got some experience with other CCGs/TCGs, then Sapphire & Steel is almost certainly the right deck for you.
You’ll need to have some patience, as it’s a slower paced deck than, say, Amber & Amethyst.
Sapphire cards help you to get Ink into play faster and Steel cards are pretty strong, so by combining those two aspects, this deck is able to help you to get to the really powerful, high cost cards.
This deck’s two showcase cards are the Sapphire Aurora, Dreaming Guardian and Steel Simba, Returned King.
Aurora, Dreaming Guardian has a cost of 5 Ink, but can be played on a different Aurora card for the reduced cost of 3 Ink, using its Shift ability.
If you have experience of other TCGs, this is probably a reasonably familiar mechanic to you, as it’s similar to evolving a Pokemon.
Aurora, Dreaming Guardian also gives all other characters on your side the Ward keyword, which stops them being chosen as the target of any effects by your opponent. They can still be Challenged, but even so this is a pretty powerful ability.
With 3 Strength, 5 Willpower and even 2 Lore, Aurora, Dreaming Guardian is an excellent, well balanced card that provides excellent support to your other characters too.
Simba, Returned King is the headline card for Steel in this deck.
Though Simba does have a pretty eye-watering cost of 7, its abilities and stats more than justify that high Ink requirement!
In terms of stats, Simba can Quest for 2 Lore, has 4 Strength and an impressive Willpower of 6.
That’s not all though; Simba gets a +4 bonus to Strength when Challenging, giving him a huge 8 Strength in total.
He also has the Evasive keyword on your turn, which means he can Challenge characters who have Evasive themselves.
So if you’re a player with a bit more experience, able to weather the storm of a faster opponent with clever play of the other cards in your Sapphire & Steel deck, this might just be the best choice for you!
Emerald & Ruby (Cruella de Vil and Aladdin): Best For Expert Players
Lastly, we have the Emerald & Ruby deck, which relies on more complex tactics for players to get the most out of it.
Returning cards to your opponent’s hand or banishing them from play altogether is something this deck is able to do, as well as stealing your opponent’s Lore to keep them away from winning!
In terms of the deck’s featured cards, you’ve got the Emerald Cruella de Vil, Miserable As Usual and Ruby card Aladdin, Heroic Outlaw.
The cost difference between these two is eye opening, with the Ink cost for Aladdin being a massive 7, yet only 2 Ink is required to get Cruella de Vil to the table.
So what do they have to offer?
Cruella de Vil, Miserable As Usual doesn’t seem impressive at first glance; befitting a 2 Ink cost card, her stats are quite low. 1 Strength, 3 Willpower and just 1 Lore is all you get with her, but her ability is what counts.
When she’s Challenged and then banished, Cruella’s ability allows you to return a chosen Character to their owning player’s hand.
This is hugely powerful and flexible, allowing you to remove a powerful opposing character from play or even one of your own, if it’s running low on Willpower, just as a few examples of how you can use this ability.
At the other end of the scale is the 7 Ink Aladdin, with a solid 5 Strength and 5 Willpower, as well as 2 points of Lore.
As Aladdin has a Shift ability, it can instead be played for 5 Ink rather than 7 if you play it on top of another Aladdin card that you already have in play.
Lastly, Aladdin also has a really impressive ability that he can use whenever he banishes another character in a Challenge on your turn; this gives you 2 extra Lore and reduces your opponent’s current Lore by 2 in the process!
If you’re a player who can cope with, and thrives on, more complex strategies with your decks, the Emerald & Ruby deck is definitely the one for you.
Rise of the Floodborn Starter Decks
The second Disney Lorcana set was Rise of the Floodborn, which arrived with a choice of two different Starter Decks.
Characters from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Zootopia/Zootropolis, Basil: The Great Mouse Detective, The Jungle Book and Raya and the Last Dragon made their first appearances, as did the new keyword Resist.
Given that the only new mechanic is Resist, there’s only the slightest rise in complexity over The First Chapter in general.
However, with only two Starter Decks available for Rise of the Floodborn, there’s less choice for new players and that means that you won’t quite get the taste of the set overall just from the Starter Decks themselves.
Both of the decks on offer are fairly slow moving, certainly in comparison to The First Chapter’s Amber & Amethyst deck.
However, they do offer different combinations of Inks than were seen before, so it’s a great way to check out how they work in new ways to the previous decks.
You can find more details in our Lorcana Ink types guide.
Amber & Sapphire (The Queen and Gaston): Best For Players With Some TCG Experience
If you want to start with Rise of the Floodborn, rather than The First Chapter, your best way in is with the Amber & Sapphire deck.
There isn’t a great deal more to learn in the set, aside from the Resist keyword, which allows a card to absorb damage when Challenged.
So for example, if a character has or is given Resist +2, they can ignore two points of Willpower damage in any Challenge.
Amber & Sapphire is the fastest playing of the two Rise of the Floodborn decks and a bit more aggressive, which is why we feel it’s more suited to beginner players.
Aggressive strategies and speed lend themselves well to players who don’t know the ins and outs of different combos and strategies, and that’s what you get with this Amber & Sapphire deck.
So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the two main cards that are included in this deck.
First up, there’s Amber card The Queen, Commanding Presence. She has an Ink cost of 5, a Strength of 4 and a Willpower of 3, along with 2 points of Lore for Questing.
Her cost reduces massively to just 2 Ink, when using Shift to place her card on top of another card named The Queen.
Another reason we’d recommend this deck for intermediate players, rather than absolute beginners, is that the main cards have slightly more complex abilities to use than any of those seen in The First Chapter’s Starter Decks.
With The Queen’s ability, she gets to reduce a chosen opposing character’s Strength by 4 for a whole turn when Questing, as well as increasing another chosen character’s Strength by 4.
It’s this ability which really sets The Queen apart and makes her a very good choice of character.
The other main card in the deck, Gaston, Intellectual Powerhouse, is a Sapphire card with an Ink cost of 6.
However, just like The Queen, Gaston has Shift; he can reduce his cost to 4 when using this.
He’s got a decent 4 Strength and 4 Willpower, plus an excellent 3 Lore points too.
When you play Gaston, you can look at the top three cards of your deck, choose one to put in your hand and then place the other two on the bottom of your deck.
Though this is only a one off, it can really help to turn your luck around, as having a choice of card to put in your hand, as well as knowing which two cards won’t be coming up, can be invaluable.
Amethyst & Steel (Merlin & Tiana): Best For Expert Players
Though not as complex as The First Chapter’s Emerald & Ruby deck, Rise of the Floodborn’s Amethyst & Steel deck is definitely one with a bit more strategy than the Amber & Sapphire deck.
It relies on combos and timing when to play your cards, with several of the included characters triggering their effects upon entering or leaving the play area.
Merlin, Shapeshifter, the first of the two main cards in this deck, has an Ink cost of 4, a low Strength of 1 and an excellent Willpower of 5. Additionally, he has 1 point of Lore.
His ability allows for some really interesting combo opportunities, as he gets an extra Lore point for the turn, whenever one of your other characters is returned to your hand from the play area.
The second of the showcase cards for this deck is Tiana, Celebrating Princess. She’s a 4 Ink cost card, with 1 Strength, 4 Willpower and 2 Lore.
She’s also got Resist +2, as well as a pretty cool ability that needs a bit of preparation to use, but can really hamper your opponent’s plans.
That ability is triggered when Tiana is exerted and you have no cards in your hand; once those conditions are met, your opponents can’t play Actions at all!
Into The Inklands Starter Decks
Just like Rise of the Floodborn, there are two Into The Inklands Starter Decks.
Amber & Emerald and Ruby & Sapphire are the two new Ink colour combinations for this third Lorcana set, which is focused around adventurers and explorers.
That theme continues with the new card type, Locations, which we go into in a bit more detail in our how to use Location cards in Disney Lorcana guide.
One of the most interesting features of Locations is that they have Lore, so they earn the controlling player Lore points at the start of each turn while they remain in play!
They also have Strength and Willpower, which means they can be Challenged and destroyed by your opponents too.
So, let’s take a look at the decks for Into The Inklands!
Amber & Emerald (Pongo & Peter Pan): Best For Beginners
Despite featuring Locations and a few ever so slightly complex mechanics, we’d highly recommend the Amber & Emerald deck for players new to Lorcana.
One reason is that Into the Inklands is the latest set for Lorcana, so if you get hold of one of the Starter Decks for this set, you’ll be up to date with all of the mechanics that have been introduced into the game so far.
It’s a great way to immediately bring yourself up to speed and Amber & Emerald does so in a way that’s slightly friendlier than the other Into the Inklands starter deck.
Speed of getting characters into play and boosting your existing characters is the order of the day here, with the Locations being really straightforward to use too.
The first spotlight character is Pongo, Determined Father, which costs just 3 Ink to play. He has 3 Strength, 2 Willpower and 1 Lore, which isn’t great by any means; however, it’s in the ability that Pongo excels.
When Pongo is in play, you may pay 2 Ink once per turn to reveal the top card of your deck; if it’s a character, you can put it straight into your hand. If not, it goes to the bottom of your deck.
This is a great way of keeping your hand stocked with characters to get into play and should give you a definite speed advantage over your opponent.
Emerald character card Peter Pan, Lost Boy Leader has an Ink cost of 4, 3 Strength and 3 Willpower, plus 1 Lore.
Additionally, Peter Pan takes advantage of Location cards; once per turn, when you move Peter Pan to a Location, you can immediately gain Lore that’s equal to the Location’s Lore value.
Ruby & Sapphire (Moana and Scrooge McDuck): Best for Players With Some TCG Experience
Finally, we have the Ruby & Sapphire deck for Into the Inklands.
Slightly more complex to use than the Amber & Emerald, this deck plays pretty quickly and also does a good job with supporting and boosting other characters.
The Duck Tales cards it includes do a nice job of working together, making it feel especially thematic too.
Moana, Born Leader is the first of the main cards in the deck. She has a pretty high cost of 5 Ink (which can be reduced to 3 with Shift), along with 4 each of Strength and Willpower, plus 2 Lore.
Moana’s ability allows her to ready other characters at a Location when she Quests there too, though they aren’t able to Quest themselves in the same turn.
Scrooge McDuck, Richest Duck In The World has a 5 Ink cost that, unusually, can’t use Shift.
He has 3 Strength, 5 Willpower and 1 Lore. On your turn, he gains Evasive, which means he can Challenge other characters with the same keyword.
He also has a further ability, which can be used on your turn: whenever Scrooge McDuck banishes another character, you can play an Item card for no Ink cost!
So there you have it: all of the currently available Disney Lorcana Starter Decks, with our recommendations for the best deck to choose depending on your skill level.
If you have yet to play Lorcana, check out our how to play the Disney Lorcana Trading Card Game guide, so you’re prepared when you do pick up your own Starter Deck!
