After the reprints in Fabled and the Set Rotation, there was a great appetite in the Disney Lorcana community for something new and Ravensburger did not disappoint at all. The 10th set of Disney Lorcana, Whispers in the Well, is in fact filled with new cards, new mechanics and new themes including the movies “The Black Cauldron” and “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” and the series “Gargoyles”. Moreover, the set adds a new chapter to the story of Disney Lorcana with the discovery of a cavern behind the Great Illuminary and a new type of Glimmers, the Whispers.
From what we learnt so far, the Whispers are half-formed Glimmers from pages that have been torn from a lorebook but we do not know who was responsible for this and what role they will play in the story. In order to find more clues to solve this mystery, a team of Detective Glimmers was sent investigate. As you may have already imagined, both Whispers and Detectives are new card classifications in Disney Lorcana and they both have their own rules and impact on the game play. Whispers in particular have the new ability “Boost x” that can be used once per turn to place a card from the top of the Player deck beneath the Whisper character for a cost of 1 to 3 Ink. Each Whisper also has a different active or passive ability that only works if they have have a card beneath them making them very interesting from a gameplay point of view.
In order to learn these new mechanics, Ravensburger has designed two new Single Player Decks. The first one, “On the Case” is a Detective-focused Sapphire-Steel deck centred on cards that can interact with each other in order to create some nice interactions. This Deck features the new “Judy Hopps, Uncovering Clues” that allows the player to take a Detective Characters from the top three cards of their Deck on play and upon questing. The Whisper “Robin Hood, Ephemeral Archer” is also featured in this deck together with its ability to deal one damage to up to two Characters once he quests and assuming the player placed a card beneath him using his Boost 1 ability.
The second Single Player Deck is an Amber-Emerald Deck called “Spectacular Specters”. This deck is built around Whispers and cards that can accelerate their abilities. The main star of the show is “Simba, King in the Making” that allows the players to play a Characters from the top of their deck at the cost of placing a card underneath Simba for a cost of 3. This ability comes at a price as Simba costs a whopping 7 Ink to play but he can also quest for three Lore and he has a good strength and willpower of five. “Megara, Secret Keeper”, on the other hand, is an early game card with a cost of three that gains the ability to force the opponent to discard a card when she is challenged once a card is placed underneath it. Boosting Megara only costs one Ink which is pretty cheap considering she also gains one more Lore when questing after being boosted.
Both these Single Player decks appeared to be very interesting when I first looked to the product line pictured revealed during the summer. Thanks to the Ravensburger team, I managed to open and play both of them well ahead of the release of the set on the 7th of November and I wanted to share my first impressions on the decks and the new cards. Let’s look into the new Sapphire-Steel deck “On the Case” and let’s try to find all the clues we need in order to solve the mystery of the torn pages.
Whispers in the Well Single player Decks: contents
As usual, a Single Player Deck comes with a ready made 60-cards deck that also includes a foil copy of the two Characters depicted on the starter deck box itself. As seen in Fabled, a Rainbow Foil Pattern has been used on the two main cards featured in each Deck. This type of foiling is different from the standard foil version that can be pulled a Booster packs making the ones from the Single Player Starter Decks more collectibles.
All the cards included in the Starter deck are labelled as set 10 and therefore they do not include cards from previous set. However, it is important to remind that Whispers in the Well includes also a couple of cards from the first four sets that have been re-printed with a different artwork.
Together with the 60-card deck, this Starter Deck comes with a standard Whispers in the Well Booster Pack with 12 additional cards of different rarity, a summary of the game rules with some strategic guidelines, a small paper playmat with a Lore tracker and a few cardboard tokens to keep track of damage and Lore. While this content is very standard for all Starter decks, I love that each cardboard playmat is themed as the rest of the set so that they are actually all different.
New powers Awaken – Spectacular Specters Strategic Guide
Spectacular Specters, the second Single Player Deck released in Whispers in the Well is a very interesting and balanced deck focused on exploiting the new Boost mechanics. As you may remember, Boost is an ability of the new Whispers that allows the Player to place a card from the top of their Deck underneath the Whisper itself by paying the related Ink cost of the ability. Each Whisper can use this ability once per turn and they gain new abilities or improve their stats once they have a card under them.
The Single Player Deck includes four different Whispers although obviously more can be pulled from the Booster packs. The main start of this Deck is “Simba, King in the Making”, a 7 cost Character (!) with a Strength and Willpower of 5 that can quest for 3. Once per turn, Players can pay 3 to place a card underneath Simba in order to reveal the top card of their Deck and play it for free if it is a Character. Simba may take some time to join the playing field but once there it can be a good play to play more characters every turn, in particular if there are a lot of them with a cost higher than 3 in your Deck. Spectacular Specters includes in fact a lot of them ranging from vanilla cards like “Hook Hand, Unexpectedly Friendly” and “Penumbra, Moon Alien” to cards with great abilities like “Jetsam, Opportuistic Eel” (7 cost!) and “Baloo, Carefree Bear”.
“Megara, Secret Keeper” is the second Whisper card featured in the Deck and she can be Boosted for just 1 in order to quest for one more every turn and to force the opponent to discard a card when she is challenged. Stats and abilities are not bad at all considering Megara costs only 3 to play and one to be boosted. “Flynn Rider, Spectral Scoundrel” is very similar to Megara as he can be played for just one and boosted by 2 in order to gain 2 in Strength and to quest for one more to two. Both Flynn and Megara are very solid early game cards as your opponent will need to deal with them to prevent you from getting too far ahead.
In order to prevent to get rid of them, “Gaston, Frightfully Bully” is for once there to provide support to your cards by stopping an opposing Character from challenge in their turn. We have been used to Gaston cards being focused on challenging the opponent head-on thus it is quite fun to see a card that does exactly the opposite of Reckless.
Together with some good Whispers Characters, this Deck includes a number of cards designed to support and accelerate their ability. Interestingly, a lot of them are associated to Characters from the Duck Tales series that is quite a nice choice as they fit the theme of exploration and discovery very well. “Scrooge McDuck, On the right Track”, for example, is a great card to have on your board early game as it grants +1 Lore to any Characters with a card under them for a turn. Scrooge can then double down its value as he can be shifted for four into “Scrooge McDuck, Cavern Prospector”. The Prospector is a key card in your strategy as its passive ability allows to put a card under every Character with Boost right after they are played.
“Emily Quackfaster, Level-Headed Librarian” has a similar ability although her ability only allows to place a card underneath a Whisper when she is played. Emily is still a great card as she can save 3 Ink by Boosting Simba or can be played on turn two allow the Flynn you played on turn one to quest from two. The Items “Blessed Bagpipes” and “Recovered Page” are very similar to Emily (and they cost the same). The Bagpipes also bring the added value of gaining a Lore every time a Character or Location with a card under them is challenged while “Recovered Page” allows the Player to pick a Characters from among the top four cards of their Deck.
Last but not least, we should mention a few other cards that can support this Deck overall strategy. First, “Webby Vanderquack, Knoledge Seeker” that can quest for two as far as there is a Character (or location) with a card under them and “Della Duck, Returning Mother” that can ready a Character with Boost when played. The rule on the card clearly states “Boost” and not “with a card under them” that is a very important difference.
Spectacular Specters also include some very interesting damage-dealing cards including the terrifying “Bellweather, Master Manipulator” that can deal one damage to ALL opposing Characters when banished in a challenge. It may not seem much but these damages can easily add up to the three dealt by “Jetsam, Opportunistic Eel” which ability only works on damaged Characters. These two cards are actually pretty interesting in general for Emerald decks considering how many Characters in this Ink colour can benefit from Damages and Damaged Characters. I think I heard someone saying Go-Go and Robin-Hood….
Final thoughts – Could this deck be competitive?
In general, I think Spectacular Specters is a very interesting Starter Deck. The strong focus of this Deck on the new Whispers Characters and their Boost mechanics makes this deck quite good for new Players as it can ease them into the most current version of the game. Whispers in the Well will definitely bring a lot of changes to Disney Lorcana and to the current Meta Game therefore this Starter Deck in particular is a good product to have if you want to give the game or the new mechanics a try.
However, I think Spectacular Spectres may feel a bit more difficult to learn with respect to the other Starter Deck of this set. The main reason is that the cards in this Starter Deck have very good abilities but they need to be played with a clear strategy in mind in order to make an efficient use of them. As a result, this deck requires some time to learn how all cards interact with each other but it can lead to great plays and amazing results.
Considering the Whispers cards are the main focus of this deck and they gain more value when they have a card under them, it is very important to Boost them as soon as possible. Finding a way to discount the cost to boost these card can provide a great value to your strategy therefore cards like Emily Quackfaster, “Blessed Bagpipes” and “Recovered Page” should be kept in hand and played as soon as possible. The best option is obviously to Shift Scrooge McDuck in order to obtain a long term effect but the single-use effects of the other cards should not be underestimated. All this cards should be able to throw any Opponent off their game as they may define their next steps basing on the timing and cost the other Player needs to pay for the boost ability without accounting for this to be discounted.
In a similar way, using Duckburg to pay less for your Characters in order to bring out Simba or Scrooge will be a great way to surprise your opponent. Moving to this location costs two unfortunately but you can consider adding “the Transport Pod” from the sixth Disney Lorcana set in order to save the movement cost. The reprinted Lantern can also be a good addition to the Deck in order to accelerate the arrival of your high-cost Characters. A few good Bodyguard Characters may also enhance this Deck protecting your Whispers and allowing them the time to use their ability efficiently. A lot of the Whisper characters in this Deck are in fact quite weak in terms of Willpower and keeping them on the field can be a aspect to factor in order to win your games.
One aspect to consider if you are looking to update and improve this deck is how to keep it true to its design. While it should be possible to turn this deck into a Lemon-Lime deck, Spectacular Specters is a thematic deck build around the Whispers and the exploration thus my personal recommendation would be to keep this in mind when improving the Deck, or at least try.
As a start, I would suggest to review the cards that worked best after a few games and start by adding more copies of them to the Deck. Every Disney Lorcana Starter Decks tends to not have a lot of copies of the strongest cards thus adding a few extra copies of Simba or Scrooge for example can greatly affect your consistency. This is true almost for every Single Player Deck but it is more important for Spectacular Spectres as the Deck includes a lot of combos
The other detail to keep in mind is that even after a few round of improvement, this is still a Single Player Starter Deck. As such, it is unlikely to be extremely effective in a competitive environment, in particular considering how many good cards will be featured in Whispers in the Well. On the other end, it is also true that we recently saw a Pirate Action deck worth less than £70 topping a Set Championship thus there is no reason a deck based on Whispers and their Boost mechanics cannot be enjoyable also in a formal tournament. The official Disney Lorcana website at http://www.disneylorcana.com/ can be a good source of idea to improve your deck as well as the contents posted on the Zatu blog but make also sure to check the Ravensburger Play Hub to find local communities and events to join.
