As you are already aware with a great new Disney Lorcana set, come great new single player decks filled with amazing new cards. These single player decks have become progressively more and more interesting as a way to explore new mechanics released within a new set or to test new combinations and mechanics. I am a huge fan of these type of Decks and I am always wondering which new combination will be released with each new set.
As usual, Reign of Jafar includes two different Decks. The first one, “Brave and Brazen” is a well rounded deck based on an engine that rewards challenging your opponents to put pressure on their board and also triggers the abilities of other cards to gain various advantages. The Deck features the new “Stitch, Alien Troublemaker” that allows the player to gain lore and cards when they use it to banish a character in a challenge and “Mulan, Charging ahead” that helps in banishing ready characters that the opponent may try to protect. “The Matchmaker, Unforgiving Expert” can also be used to slow down the opponent by making them lose lore whenever she challenges. Last but not least, this Deck also has some interesting new cards like “Cri-Kee, Part of the Team” and “Light the fuse” which take advantage of having exerted Characters in play.
As you are already aware with a great new Disney Lorcana set, come great new single player decks filled with amazing new cards. These single player decks have become progressively more and more interesting as a way to explore new mechanics released within a new set or to test new combinations and mechanics. I am a huge fan of these type of Decks and I am always wondering which new combination will be released with each new set.
As usual, Reign of Jafar includes two different Decks. The first one, “Brave and Brazen” is a well rounded deck based on an engine that rewards challenging your opponents to put pressure on their board and also triggers the abilities of other cards to gain various advantages. The Deck features the new “Stitch, Alien Troublemaker” that allows the player to gain lore and cards when they use it to banish a character in a challenge and “Mulan, Charging ahead” that helps in banishing ready characters that the opponent may try to protect. “The Matchmaker, Unforgiving Expert” can also be used to slow down the opponent by making them lose lore whenever she challenges. Last but not least, this Deck also has some interesting new cards like “Cri-Kee, Part of the Team” and “Light the fuse” which take advantage of having exerted Characters in play.
The second Single Player Deck is an Amber-Amethyst Deck called “A Harmonious team”. This deck is designed to use songs to trigger multiple powerful combos the same way single tunes come together to create a very effective harmony. The two Lead vocalists of these deck are “Tiana, Natural Talent” and “Bruno Madrigal, Singing Seer”. Tiana is not only a powerful Singer 6 but she can also reduce the Strength of each opposing Characters by 1 for each song played during a turn. Bruno, on the other hand will provide a card for each Characters in play every time a song is sung during a turn while “Pepa Madrigal, Sensitive Sister” will instead generate 1 lore. Will your characters be at risk of being removed after singing? Not if “Alma Madrigal, Accepting Grandmother” is around as her ability will ready all characters that sang in that turn. Although this ability only works one time per turn, there is no limitation on what the Characters will be able to do once they got ready….
The card-list of both these Single Player decks look quite intriguing, and I was definitely looking forward to try them out. However, thanks to the Ravensburger team I managed to sneak a copy of them ahead of the release thus I have a lot of first impressions to share after putting them against each other for a few days. Let’s have a look in detail into the first of these two decks, “Brave and Brazen”.
Reign of Jafar 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 done for all previous Starter Decks, all of the cards included are also available in the main set, and therefore no exclusive cards are included in these Starter Decks. On the other hand, both Starter Decks actually include 48 cards from Reign of Jafar plus a few other cards from previous sets. These include 10 from set 7 and 2 from the 6th set.
Inside the box, players will also find a standard Reign of Jafar Booster Pack with 12 additional cards of different rarity that can be used to boost the starter deck, a player’s guide with all the game rules, a small cardboard playmat with a lore tracker, a few cardboard damage tokens and one Lore tracker token.
Win you way to victory one challenge at a time – Brave and Brazen Strategic Guide
If we are talking about how this single player deck works, we should talk about THE ONE AND THE ONLY MUSHU! I am very exited about having some of new Mushu cards in this single player deck, in particular as I really want to use its “powers beyond your mortal imagination” in a deck for next set Championship. The first Mushu card of this deck is “Mushu, Fast Talking Dragon”, a 3 cost inkable Ruby card with a Strength of 2 and a Willpower of 3 that can quest for one lore. Its ability allows to give any character “Rush” by exerting Mushu and this can be quite handy to take your opponent by surprise and gain some Lore when they do not expect it. There are plenty of good targets for this ability in the deck and you should consider how well Rush can work in combination with cards like “Calhoun, Marine Sergeant” and “Li Shang, Newly Promoted” to either gain 2 lore or challenge Ready Characters. Both these cards can be easy targets for Songs and Action cards thus giving them Rush right after playing them can be a great way to ensure their value in your strategy.
If one Mushu is not enough, you can have a second Mushu and none else that Your Worst Nightmare! “Mushu, Your worst Nightmare” is a Ruby-Steel Floodborn Character that can shift for 4 on a card named Mushu. Its ability is an evolution of the one just mentioned for Fast Talking Dragon card as it grants Rush, Reckless and Evasive to any Character on the turn they are played. This ability can be an amazing combination with the ability of “Mushu, Majestic Dragon” from set 7 that provides Resist +2 to any of the player Characters that challenges while also gaining 2 Lore if they manage to banish an opponent Character. Terrifying!
The third best card of this deck is the one-cost action “Light the Fuse”. Together with marking an iconic moment of the movie Mulan, this Ruby-Steel action has an effect similar to Strength of a Raging Fire as it deals one damage to chosen character for each exerted Player Character. Considering it only costs 1 Ink to play it and this Deck’s engine favours having multiple characters in play, this Action card would easily become one of the staple in Ruby-Steel Decks. The only disappointment is that this card isn’t a song but other than that it is a perfect toy for your Mushus.
Considering the cards mentioned above, it is clear that this Deck strategy revolves around keeping pressure on your opponent by Challenging and Questing. Early cards like the re-printed “Captain Hood, Forceful Duelist” and “Thumper, Young Bunny” will provide strong Challengers that can remove pretty much any opponent in the early turns of the game. “Granmother Fa, Spirited Elder” and Friend Owl, Cantankerous Neighbour” will also provide a way to build up lore early while your other characters remove any Character that can threat them. The ability of the new Cri-Kee, Part of the Team to quest for 3 when thre are 2 or more exerted characters seem quite interesting too and reminds me of how efficient the Amber Piglet with a similar ability has been its deck.
The Item “The Sword of Shan-Yu” can also be used to ready any of the Player Characters by exerting another one to ensure your strategic cards will stay as protected as possible.
Considering that the aim of this Single Player deck is to control the opponent board as long as possible having some cards dealing direct damage can come in handy. In this case, we have the very handy Light the Fuse plus a new 2-cost action “Quick shot” will deal one damage and draw the player a card. After turn four, we will then exploit “Mulan, Charging Ahead” to also challenge Ready Characters ensuring that no cards will be safe from your deck. On the other hand, using your Characters to challenge your opponent’s ones can put a limit on your board thus drawing will become very important to keep your edge with this deck. Although quite pricey, the 7-cost Sing together song “Beyond the Horizon” can play a good role in keeping your hand full and, potentially, to force your opponent to give away some good cards.
Final thoughts – Could this deck be competitive?
I must admit this Ruby-Steel Deck is pretty fun to play and quite consistent. I played a similar type of Deck when set 7 came out and I am quite happy there will be even more good cards to boost this strategy in Reign of Jafar. Considering the main strategy of this deck, I would seriously consider to add at least “Calhoun, Marine Sergeant”, “Mushu, Majestic Dragon” and to max out the Mushu cards from set 8 because you can never have too many Mushus in your Deck! The Majestic Dragon is a must for this deck as it protects your challenging Characters while also generating additional Lore and can work pretty well with your Calhoun to obtain easily 4 Lore while being Resit +3.
Another addition to consider for this deck is the 3-cost Li Shang mentioned early due to its ability to challenge ready characters. The Newly Promoted Li Shang is extremely efficient in removing potential threats to your board and will work in perfect synergy with your Mushu cards.
“Fa Zhou, War Hero” can also be considered in order to gain even more Lore when Challenging while cards like “Pete, Game Referee” and “Let the Storm Rage on” can be added to provide more flexibility and control. Overall, there are actually a good variety of cards that can be added to tweak and improve this Deck and I think we will likely see more Ruby-Steel Decks in the next seasons. I will definitely be very happy about this as I will likely be one of Players playing them! In the meantime, you can keep up with the new products from Reign of Jafar and the latest news by checking the official Disney Lorcana website at http://www.disneylorcana.com/.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
95%
