The 9th set of Disney Lorcana, Fabled, brings also two new Single Player Starter decks, filled with both amazing new cards and reprints from the Fabled set. This is not surprising as Fabled is the first set to be released after the Set Rotation and therefore it features a lot of cards from the first four set that have ben reprinted to continue keeping the game interesting and exciting. Fabled is also the first set of the third year of Disney Lorcana and together with the beginning of Set Rotation is expected to bring a fresh start to the game.
As usual, Starter Decks are a good way to catch a glimpse of the set itself and to get into the game if you have never played Lorcana. In this case, Fabled product lines includes two very different decks. The first one, “Princess Power” is a well rounded Amber-Sapphire deck filled with Princess Characters and cards that interact with them. This Deck features the new “Mulan, Considerate Diplomat” that allows the player to search for Princess Characters from their deck and “Ariel, Singing Mermaid” that can sing almost any song with her powerful “Singer 7” ability. Interestingly, Mulan was featured as a Character also in a Single Player Starter deck of the previous set, Reign of Jafar, although it was a different Ruby-Steel card.
The 9th set of Disney Lorcana, Fabled, brings also two new Single Player Starter decks, filled with both amazing new cards and reprints from the Fabled set. This is not surprising as Fabled is the first set to be released after the Set Rotation and therefore it features a lot of cards from the first four set that have ben reprinted to continue keeping the game interesting and exciting. Fabled is also the first set of the third year of Disney Lorcana and together with the beginning of Set Rotation is expected to bring a fresh start to the game.
As usual, Starter Decks are a good way to catch a glimpse of the set itself and to get into the game if you have never played Lorcana. In this case, Fabled product lines includes two very different decks. The first one, “Princess Power” is a well rounded Amber-Sapphire deck filled with Princess Characters and cards that interact with them. This Deck features the new “Mulan, Considerate Diplomat” that allows the player to search for Princess Characters from their deck and “Ariel, Singing Mermaid” that can sing almost any song with her powerful “Singer 7” ability. Interestingly, Mulan was featured as a Character also in a Single Player Starter deck of the previous set, Reign of Jafar, although it was a different Ruby-Steel card.
The second Single Player Deck is an Emerald-Ruby Deck called “Standout Headliners”. This deck is based around the Character from “A Goofy Movie” and features the very first Ruby singers in the game. The main star of the show is obviously “Powerline, World’s Greatest Rock Star” with its ability to song a second song per turn by picking any from the first four cards in the Player deck. “Max Goof, Rebellious Teen” is a great partner of Powerline as he can sing a song cards from the discard pile when he is played. With a deck filled with Song cards, your opponents will be in for a great show!
Both these Single Player decks looked quite intriguing when they were first revealed and, thanks to the Ravensburger team, I managed to open and play both of them well ahead of the release of the set on the 29th of August. I had a lot of fun playing them with my son as usual and I wanted to share my first impressions on the decks and the new cards. Let’s have a look into the first of these two decks, “Princess Power”.
Fabled 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. In Fabled, Ravensburger made a very important change as these foil cards are now featured in a Rainbow Foil Pattern that can only be obtained in the starter decks. The same cards can be pulled as standard foil from a Booster packs but rainbow foil cards will only be featured in the Starter Decks.
All the cards included in the Starter deck are labelled as set 9 and therefore they include both new cards and cards from the first four sets that have been reprinted within Fabled. Princess Power in particular includes 6 new cards therefore the majority of this deck is composed by reprints. Together with the 60-card deck, this Starter Deck comes with a standard Fabled 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.
Lead your kingdom to Victory – Princess Power Strategic Guide
As the name suggests, Princess Power deck is filled with Princess cards and with cards that interact with them. The new “Aurora, Holding Court” is an amazing turn 1 play for this deck as she can quest on turn 2 to pay one Ink less to play any Queen or Princess card. “Mulan, Free Spirit” can be a good target for this power as well as “Hans, Noble Scoundrel” that gains one lore if a princess is in play. Both cards quests for two lore and the process can be repeated every time Aurora Quests forcing your opponents to challenge her as soon as possible.
To avoid your Princess cards to be banished, the deck offer the Player have a few choices. The first on is the new “Beast, Gracious Prince” that increases the Strength and Willpower of all Princesses by one. The new “Alice, Accidentally Adrift” has an ability that can reduce the Strength of one opposing Character by 2 upon questing and this can be definitely reduce the risk for your Characters to be banished. The deck is also filled with items and Characters that can remove damages making this strategy more efficient and you can try to look for the cards you need the most by having “Aurelian Gyrosensor” in play to go pick the first card of your deck every time you quest. The new “Queen, Mirror Seeker” can also work as a good alternative to the Gyrosensor while also being quite difficult to remove with her Willpower of 5.
Making sure you always have more princesses to play is key for this deck to succeed and that is where questing with “Mulan, Considerate Diplomat” can come in handy. Singing “Be our Guest” or “Look at this Family” with “Ariel, Singing Mermaid” can also be of great help to make sure you never run out of cards to play. Remember also that “Cinderella, Gentle and Kind” can not only sing songs up to a cost of 5 but she can also remove up to three damages from a Princess Characters. Other cards in your deck will then support your strategies in various way although you should pay attention to keep your focus on your main Princess engine and to consider all these cards as additional ways to get lore or to support to your main plan. Having a lot of redundancies in this type of decks is a good thing as it helps with the consistency but you should always keep your eye on the bigger picture and on your strategy.
Final thoughts – Could this deck be competitive?
Since the release of Disney Lorcana there have been many attempts to make good and Competitive Princess decks. Unfortunately, even after the release of Queen’s Sensor core in set five there was still not enough synergy among Princess cards to create an effective deck engine. However, I think now may be a good time for the Princesses to shine in all their glory considering the new Princess cards released in Fabled and the loss of strong removal in the upcoming meta due to the Set Rotation. If you are interested in testing how competitive your Princesses can be, there are a few consideration to make.
The first main aspect to factor in your Princess deck is that a large portion of these cards is Amber as well as the Queen’s Sensor core therefore you should consider which Ink colours can synergize best with Amber. Sapphire seems a great choice not only due to the Characters available but also because of the Items, Song and Action cards available therefore we should focus on how to improve this Starter Deck keeping the same two Ink colours it comes with.
Considering the main strategy of this deck, it goes without saying that adding more Princesses on top of the Queen’s Sensor core can be a good idea to improve the efficiency of your strategy. The Core only works if there is a high chance to hit a Princess as the top card of your Deck thus you should aim to have as many as possible. Among the cards you can consider the most interesting one from my point of view is definitely “Tiana, Restaurant Owner” due to its ability to reduce the Strength of any Challenging Characters by three unless the opponent pays 3 Ink. Tiana can come to the board as soon as turn two thanks to the ability of the new Aurora and can protect your board easily. The four cost “Snow White, Fairest of the Land” is also worth to be considered as she can quest for two and cannot be changed. Snow White is already decently good but can become a thorn in any opponent side considering how much direct removal has been reduced by the rotation, the chances of getting this Princess removed are pretty low. “Belle, of the Ball” or the Floodborn Aurora “Dreaming Guardian” can also be good options to protect your cards by unwanted effect by providing them “Ward”.
In terms of support, your deck should likely include as less non-Character cards as possible. Queen’s Sensor core is a must and you can consider some location to provide some variability to your strategy. “Motunui, Island Paradise” can be a good option as it can provide more Ink to play your Princesses but it may end up slowing your strategy down too much. “Hundred Acre Island, Pooh’s Home” or “Rapunzel’s Tower, Secluded Prison” may be better choices in order to gain more Lore every time a character is banished or to make your Princesses harder to banish. Depending on which decks will be more represented in officials events, other options should be considered.
Overall, I think there are quite a number of options to make your Princess deck more interesting than before and this is without considering switching Sapphire for another Ink colour. In this case, Ruby may be an interesting option as it allows to add any of the Vanellope cards to your deck. I would also keep a close eye to see if more Princess cards will be released in the next sets by Ravensburger. Zatu blog will be a good source of information on this topic as well as the official Disney Lorcana website at http://www.disneylorcana.com/.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
95%
