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 products line 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 products line 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 sing 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 card 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 second of these two decks, “Standout Headliners”.
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. Standout Headliners in particular includes 20 new cards therefore two thirds 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.
Sing to your heart content – Standout Headliners Strategic Guide
Standout Headliners is a very interesting Starter Deck as it is filled with the very first Ruby singers.
The two star of the show are obviously Powerline and Max Goof and this deck includes two versions of both Characters. “Powerline, Taking the stage” would be your first front-liner with its ability to sing Songs up to a cost of four even when it only costs 2 to play. “Max Goof, Rockin’ Teen” can then be played on turn three to add its Singer 5 ability to the mix. Max and Powerline can both sings powerful control songs like “Be King Undisputed” to banish a character chosen by the opponent or “Mother knows best” to send any character to their player’s hand. The new Fabled song “Stand out” or the reprinted “You can Fly!” are also good options for our Singers as they both provide Evasive to any Character while “Stand out” also increases their Strength by 3.
“Max Goof, Rebellious Teen” is also a very good Character to play once your show is on the road. While this version of Max is not a Singer per se, it allows the player to get back a song from the discard by paying one Ink. This ability can be particularly effective when you have a singer in Play to keep your hand filled with songs. However, you will need to be careful as the additional cost to use Max ability means that it only makes sense to play Max on turn four.
However, on the same turn (and for the same amount of Ink) your best play would likely be “Powerline, World’s Greatest Rock Star” that can be shifted for four on top of the cost two Powerline. The Greatest Rock Star lives up to its title not only because is a Singer 9 but also because it can play a second song for free from the top four cards of the Player’s deck after playing any other song. This ability can only be triggered once every turn but it means you have the possibility to chain multiple effects one after the other.
In order to make Powerline ability effective, you obviously need a deck filled with Songs to increase the chance to hit one among the first four of your deck. Standout Headliners includes 12 songs in total that means you have a statistical probability to find a song every five cards. This is likely a bit too low to properly fuel your strategy efficiently but we will get back to the topic when we review how this deck can be improved. In the meantime, it is worth mentioning the deck comes with two high-end songs that can be extremely important to beat your opponent. The first one, “A Pirate’s Life” has been a staple in a lot of Ruby deck as it allow a player to gain two lore while each opponent loses the same amount. The second one is another new song from A Goofy Movie, “I2I” (yes, it should be read as eye-to-eye,). This song has an interesting wide effect that allows each player to draw 2 cards and gain 2 lore therefore it should be used carefully to avoid providing an advantage to your opponents. However, if multiple Characters sing this together they can all ready themselves and perhaps sing “A pirate’s life” right after in order to gain more Lore and partially even out the advantage previously granted to the opponent.
Looking to the deck composition so far, it is pretty clear that the main strategy of Standout Headliners strongly relies on Singers and Songs. However, this deck takes this mechanic a little further by including a number of cards whose effects trigger once Actions or Song are played. “Roxanne, Powerline fan”, for example, is a new card that increases her strength and questing by one making her a very good well-rounded Character for a cost of two. Another new card from A Goofy movie, “P.J. Pete” and the reprinted “Donald Duck, Sleepwalker” also increase their Strength when a Song is played. Considering they both have a willpower of 5, these cards can be very useful to keep pressure on your opponent by challenging their characters. If needed, “Le Fou, Instigator” can be played to have them Challenge a second time. Le Fou is actually a great addition to this deck as he can also ready any of your Singers to sing a second time (or a third time in Powerline’s case).
Last but not least, this Starter Deck also includes some support abilities to increase card draw. The first one if “Donald Duck, Perfect Gentlemen” that allows all players to gain a card every turn and the second one is the new “Goofy, Set for Adventure”. That can draw a card after moving to a location as far as he can also take another Character with him at the same location. I almost can hear this cards saying “Let’s go fishing, Maaaax”
Final thoughts – Could this deck be competitive?
Before Fabled, the only Ink colour to have Characters with the “Singer” keyword was Amber and any player knows very well that Amber-Steel Song has been playing a major role in competitive Disney Lorcana since day one. The release of Singer Characters in Ruby and the removal of a number of key Amber Singer cards due to rotation is a major shift in the game and it opens up to a number of possibilities. Players can obviously try to create some “Ruby-Steel” or even “Amber-Ruby” Song decks but considering Emerald today has a number of very good Control songs, an Emerald-Ruby deck feels a but more interesting. Considering this is also the Ink colour combination of Standout Headliners Starter deck, I will focus on how this can be improved without looking to alternative Ink colours.
The first main aspect to factor in order to make a more competitive Emerald-Ruby Deck is which Characters from the Starter Deck you should keep and which one you should remove. As a start, I think you should have four copies of all Singers Characters included in the Starter deck. Four copies of six-cost “Max Goof, Chart Topper” should also be included as its ability allows to play a song from the discard for free every time it quests. The ability is limited to Song with a costs of four or less but nevertheless Max can come in handy to re-play songs like Mother knows best or Be king Undisputed while also getting two lore for questing.
As this deck strongly relies on controlling your opponent board using Songs, “Maui, Half Shark” and “Clarabelle, Light on her Hooves” can be very strong addition to your deck. Maui’s ability can provide one lore for every Action/Song played while also retrieving one from the Discard for every Character that he banishes in a challenge. Clarabelle, on the other hand, allows the player to draw cards to match the opponent’s hand at the end of their turn providing a well needed way to keep their hand stocked with Songs. Both these cards are unfortunately pretty expensive on the market today thus you may consider to add some other Ruby and Emerald cards that can benefit from any Song or action that has been played like Roxanne or that can add some Aggro to your decklist like “Cursed Merfolk, Ursula’s Handiwork”.
The amount of Songs in your deck will also need to be improved with respect to the amount you have in the Starter Deck. Personally, I think there should be at least 20 Song cards in your deck making very likely to hit one every time Powerline sings. Among those available post rotation, “Be King Undisputed” and “A pirate’s Life” are a must-have but then you should consider to have other like “You’re Welcome”, “Mother knows best”, “Sudden chill” or even “Stand Out”. “Under the Sea” can also be a great addition considering how hard it can hit an Aggro deck and I saw a few lists that also considered “Nothing we won’t do” as a way to extend your turn further. You should also not underestimate the value of low costs songs like “Sudden Chill” or “Heffalumps and Woozles” as an easy way to gain more Lore through Maui.
Overall, I think Emerald and Ruby Songs will be a great and very thematic deck to try. There are so many cards you can consider in your deck and so many different ways this deck can evolve that I expect we will see it played quite a lot in competitive events. I would also expect more support to this deck will come out in future sets therefore if you are looking to also join the Goofy band soon, make sure to keep an eye on the official Disney Lorcana website at http://www.disneylorcana.com/.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
95%
