September is an amazing month for Disney Lorcana: tons of news still to digest from D23 events, Cards and Product reveals for the upcoming Hyperia City set, EU continentals and, most important, Attack of the Vine! Set Championship Season!!!! The competitive scene for this set is pretty exciting as there is a wide range of decks that can perform very well in the meta game as a result of the most recent set rotation and of all the great cards released in both Wilds Unknown and Attack of the Vine! sets.
I know I am not the only one that has been enjoying toying with all new cards in an effort to make new Monstrous decks (no pun intended). To be honest, playing with set 13th cards has been so much fun that I couldn't wait for Set Championship events to start to see what everyone else has been cooking. In fact, I was so excited that I caught right away the fantastic opportunity Ravensburger offered me to get a Set Champ one day earlier than everyone else. This invite felt even more special as Ravensburger was hosting the annual European Content Creator Set Championship at the Disney HQ building in London.
Playing Lorcana in a Disney Store or location adds always something magical to the usual excitement. Plus, this event is a great opportunity to catch-up with Content creators from outside the UK and learn more of their local realities and events. Obviously, the invitation to this event also brings the usual challenge: which deck shall I play?
Attack of the Vine! Meta – Too many decks to choose!!!
As I mentioned, I feel today there are a lot of meta relevant decks including some very weird ones based on cards that you would not have expected to become so popular within the Players (Yes, Kevin, I am looking at you!). Together with the weird Item/Action filled deck based on “Kevin, Flightless Bird”, we have seen a surge in Players using Amethyst-Emerald decks based around the item “Retro Evolution Device”, together with more standard decks like Emerald-Steel, Amber-Amethyst, Emerald-Sapphire and Amber-Steel.
When Attack of the Vine! released, Players' perception was that Amber decks would be very popular, with Amber-Amethyst, Amber-Emerald or Amber-Ruby likely to dominate the Meta. However, as the season unfolded, everyone realised that other Ink combinations could easily become great contenders. Emerald, for example, is likely one of the most present Ink colour in any competitive events today as we recently observed in the US events.
I was very curious to what decks we would see at the EU Content Creators Set Championship. During the last round of the event, Alex from Ravensburger helped me to satisfy my curiosity to see which decks were more represented on the day:
Amber Amethyst: 8
Amber Emerald: 7 (of which 2 based on Toy Story Characters)
Amber Ruby: 1
Amber Steel: 3
Amethyst Emerald: 1
Amethyst Ruby: 4
Amethyst Sapphire: 1 (Hunny Deck!)
Amethyst Steel: 2
Emerald Sapphire: 3
Emerald Steel: 2
This break down was not completely a surprise to me as I was expecting the European scene to be different from the US one. However, I was not expecting to see just two Emerald-Steel and just one Amber-Ruby decks. Not surprisingly, the majority of players went for Amber-Amethyst. I must admit I was very temped to do the same as I love this deck play style but, at the end, I went for something slightly different.
Set Champ First attempt – Amethyst-Ruby
After a lot of considerations, my choice for the first Attack of the Vine! set Championship fell on Amethyst-Ruby. As you may know I love Amethyst and, in general, the flexible game style this Ink colour provides to the deck. After rotation, Amethyst lost a number of great cards but the newer sets opened up different interesting strategy. For example, “Isis Vanderchill, Ice Queen of St. Canard“ is a great 4-cost play that helps exert one of your opponent's Characters in order to challenge them with your other ones. “Mrs. Incredible, “ and “Ursula, Whisper of Vanessa” also fit the overall late-game strategy by offering very good stats together with the flexibility to quest for two Lore or to be evasive. Last but not least, I love the new “Vixey, Expert Fisher” as it can be used to slow down your opponent or to bring back one of your characters if you ever need it. It feels a bit like the old bounce mechanic I so much loved in the early sets.
On top of this, you still have your Rafiki, your Demona, your Dumbo, and your Cheshire cat that have been instrumental in any Amethyst decks since their release.
The strategy for the deck I chose was to pair the Amethyst flexibility with Ruby ability to control your opponent. However, there are a few different directions this deck can take depending on which cards you play. One possibility is to control your opponent by challenging using characters like “Mr Incredible, Super Strong”, “Luisa Madrigal, Confident Climber ” and “Hercules, Mighty Leader“. Alternatively, you can use “Peter Pan&Tinker Bell, Fast Friends”'s ability to make all your other characters evasive to prevent them from being challenged and banished. Both decks work very well and are very solid list to use at any set champ.
The list I used is slightly different from both these more standard approaches and I have to thank a friend from our locals, Charley, for suggesting a different build. With respect to the previous two lists, the deck Charley and I worked out is still very dependent from Evasive characters but it does not have Peter Pan&Tinker Bell. The deck is also quite good in removing any threats using “Headless Horseman, Terror of Sleepy Hollow” and “Scrooge McDuck, Ghostly Ebenezer” but it relies less on shift Characters like Luisa and Hercules. The result is a very balanced deck that can take efficiently any Amber deck combination but that struggles against Emerald-Steel, Amethyst-Emerald and the vicious Kevin deck. Considering in the end I was right expecting a lot of Amber-Amethyst decks at the tournament I think I made a good choice overall.
How did it go – Final standings
Let's start from the most important part: the European Content Creator Set Championship was one of the best events I attended in a while and I had tons of fun! The community is always great and there was a great atmosphere that turned a very long day into a very nice experience. Unfortunately, I was not able to get into the top 8 as I actually came only 24th. Interestingly, this result was driven by facing three times Amber-Amethyst and drawing twice against this deck.
As discussed with my opponents, I feel the Amethyst-Ruby – Amethyst-Amber match-up is very balanced as both decks use the same key cards from the shared Ink colour. As a result, each game becomes very strategic with both sides of the table spending a lot of energy and time in order to try overcoming the opponent. As a result, most of my three games against this deck ended with a draw due to time. I must admit all games were actually quite exciting thus I really enjoyed them even if I was not able to turn them into wins.
My two losses were against Amber-Steel and Amethyst-Ruby (mirror game). In the firsts case, I lost 1-2 as a result of not finding pretty much any decent cards while my opponents played an army of Lilo&Stitch. The Amethyst-Ruby I faced was the Peter Pan&Tinker Bell version and I think the games were all decided by whoever found the most evasive cards. My opponent was faster due to the shift line thus I ended up (again) losing 1-2 against them.
Attack of the Vine! First Set Championship – Aftermath
Overall, I was quite happy on how my deck performed. There was a fierce competition in the room but I feel I played decently well. Thinking back to my deck and my strategy, I don't think there is much I would like to change. I quite like the more balanced and fast list Charley suggested and I would likely bring it to more events this month to continue playing it.
The addition of the shift “Dash Parr, Super Fast” was a genius idea as it provided a very clever way to play more characters in the late game when you are top-decking. It can also take your opponent by surprise turning a 1/1 Character like “Dash, Dodgeball Dynamo” into a stronger character that can challenge and survive a lot of other Characters.
The only card I would like to consider adding is “Sisu, Daring Visitor”. This re-printed card is a 1/1 Character that can help your Dumbo drawing engine by being evasive. Most important, it can remove on play any Character with a strength of 1. In late games, pulling this Sisu will likely not be great even if you have a Dumbo on the filed. However, considering it costs only 3, it can be played early in the game to remove a Grandmother Willow or a Stitch which can put a massive dent into your opponent's strategy. Having to wait for turn 4 to use Isis for the same effect costed me a number of games hence the idea of potentially adding this card. Unfortunately, Sisu is un-inkable that makes it quite painful to have around.
I will need to think carefully before making this change and perhaps I will let you all know at the end of the season how my games and strategies evolved through all Set Champs. In the meantime, make sure to check Playhub in order to find Set Champ events close to you to attend and if you are in the area, make sure to take a look to the one hosted by Zatu!
