We’re just over a week out from the local game store launch of Disney Lorcana’s next set, Shimmering Skies, and the full list of new cards has finally been revealed. I’ve been poring over the list looking for the next big thing, or rather, the next thing with the potential to overthrow the current, very annoying big thing, and I found myself searching for the same thing I’m always searching for when a new set comes out: a viable aggro deck that can outrace the oppressive control decks that consistently dominate Lorcana’s highest competitive tier.
The aggro archetype has never managed to really get off the ground in Lorcana. Amber/Amethyst is the go-to ink color combo for decks built around slamming down lots of cheap characters and turning them sideways, but it’s had limited success so far. The one time Amber/Amethyst saw a lot of success was at DLC Atlanta, where Joshua Paultre won the entire event with a fairly low-to-the-ground deck, and his was the only Amber/Amethyst deck in the top 64.
The main problem Aggro decks face is that Steel is way too efficient at dealing with wide boards. Aggro’s best shot at making a splash in the meta was during the first two sets when the slow Ruby/Amethyst control deck dominated the meta, but there were just enough Amber/Steel Steelsong decks around to keep Aggro at bay. A single Grab Your Sword or Tinker Bell, Giant Fairy is usually enough to shut down an Aggro deck completely. When your strategy involves dumping your hand onto the board with weak bodies, all it takes is one well-timed board wipe to set you back far enough that there’s no recovering.
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PostsAggro is tricky to design for, though. If it becomes too powerful, it can have a terrible impact on the game. Lorcana seems to have a bit of a coin-flip problem already when it comes to going first, something the two-game competitive format is meant to address, so a meta dominated by aggro decks would only exacerbate that problem. After seeing how Bucky terrorized the game until its inevitable nerf back to the Stone Age, the last thing we need is a deck with low potential for interaction that can win the game in five turns.
At the same time, a balanced meta requires Aggro decks. During Ursula’s Return, we saw Sapphire decks rise to the top and stay for months, until a more aggressive Ruby/Amethyst strategy brought them back down to earth. Both Sapphire/Steel and Ruby/Sapphire use a similar game plan - control the board while ramping up their inkwell, then once they have enough ink, drop the Lucky Dime/Tamatoa combo and win the game on the following turn.
You need an aggro deck to answer a ramp deck, but so far, we haven’t been able to build one good enough to consistently beat Sapphire; at least not without also completely falling over to the rest of the field. I’m hopeful that Shimmering Skies can finally give Aggro the tools it needs to stand toe-to-toe with the top decks. My list of the most intriguing Shimmering Skies cards includes two Aggro cards that I think could be key players.
Daisy Duck, Donald’s Date is a one-cost character with two lore and a 1/4 stat line, meaning it has significantly more survivability than the one-cost, two lore options we currently have. Daisy Duck can survive a Big Tink and a Grab Your Sword, and still get another quest in before she’s banished. While she gives the opponent a chance to draw an extra card every time she quests, you probably don’t mind doing that since you plan to win before those extra cards become useful. Plus, against a Sapphire deck, you’ll usually have at least a 25 percent chance that they draw an item instead, which they’ll have to put on the bottom of the deck.
I’m interested to see if Gathering Knowledge and Wisdom, a new Amethyst card that instantly gives you two lore, will be useful in helping Aggro decks cross the finish line once the control decks inevitably lock down the board. There may even be an opportunity to combine it with action recursion like Do It Again for repeated, non-interactive lore gain. Again, you don’t want those kinds of strategies to dominate the entire game, but cards like Gathering Knowledge can be a good counter to Sapphire/Steel, which relies on A Whole New World to reload and disrupt. Sapphire/Steel is traditionally a bad matchup for Aggro Decks, but presenting the threat of instant lore gain with this card might help close the gap.
There are a lot of Aggro pieces coming in Shimmering Skies worth considering. Aggro decks struggle when they aren’t able to keep the pressure on after a tempo shift because they typically don’t leave you with many cards in hand to rebuild with, so a character like Doc, Bold Knight can stop you from running out of gas when played from an empty hand. I could see an argument for Bruni, Fire Salamander, an Evasive two Lore character that draws you a card when banished. I’m interested in trying Rapunzel’s Tower in combination with Stitch, Rockstar to see if my exerted one and two-drops can get some cheap survivability.
It feels like we’re right on the cusp of Aggro viability, and we already have a lot of great tools like Kida, Protector of Atlantis; Perdita, Devoted Mother; and Arthur, Wizard’s Apprentice. Hopefully, Shimmering Skies can tip Aggro over the edge and give us a way to combat the ever-expanding threat of Sapphire and its despicable Lucky Dime.
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