Disney Lorcana Ghent: Dogs Deck Dominates

On a weekend in early March, Disney Lorcana came to Ghent, Belgium and over 4,000 players competed to become one of the chosen few earning an invite to the second World Championships at the end of the season.

This event was special for its sheer size, as well as for being one of only three Disney Lorcana Challenges (regional-level events) in Europe this season.

But it was also the first big event in Europe where the latest expansion Winterspell would be legal for tournament play. So, fun in the snow or disappointing sleet? 

Suggested article: Top 3 Disney Blind Bags

Dog Day Afternoons

The big deck of the weekend was undoubtedly the Amber/Emerald deck, known simply as “Dogs” among the community.

Of course, when the deck features three different versions of Lady (Elegant Spaniel, Decisive Dog and Miss Park Avenue), as well as two different Tramps (Enterprising Dog and Street-Smart Dog) at its centre, this should come as no surprise. It is a deck that plays an awful lot of dogs.

 

The thing is, we’ve had these cards for a while. None of them were in Winterspell. The Dogs deck has seen play but it’s not been a dominant deck.

In Ghent, the tournament actually ran as two separate events. On Friday, over 2,000 players would compete to gain a record of 6-2 to advance to Sunday; and on Saturday another 2,000 players would compete for the same.

On Sunday these events would continue to run as separate, parallel events, with the winner of each battling in the Grand Final for a single World Championships invite.

The Friday event was won by Dogs. The Saturday event was won by Dogs. The Grand Final was won by Dogs – obviously, as both the Grand Final decks were Dogs!

So, what happened in Winterspell to turn our crafty canine compatriots from a good deck to the very best deck in the game?

Grandmother Willow – Ancient Advisor

At first glance, an uninkable 2-cost card with a stat line of 1 Strength and 2 Willpower seems rather unimpressive.

Don’t worry, Grandmother Willow isn’t here to Quest for Lore to get you to the magic number of 20 to win the game. Nor is she here to challenge and banish your opponent’s characters to the discard pile.

In fact, most of the time you don’t want to do either of those, because that will leave the character exerted and able to be challenged and banished herself. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen.

This card earns its place in the deck for the absurdly fantastic ability Smooth the Way. Once per turn you may pay 1 less for the next character you play.

You don’t have to pay. You don’t have to exert Grandmother Willow. You don’t even have to wait for the ink to dry as this is a static ability. You can’t quest with a character on the turn you play it.

You can’t challenge with a character on the turn you play it. But you absolutely can play this wise old tree with 2 ink in your inkwell and immediately play a 1-cost for free as a bonus.

On your next turn, you only have 3 ink, but your advisor allows you to play a 4-cost character.

It's not just for Dogs, though. Yes, it works fantastically in that deck, but almost any Amber deck can find some lovely uses for this wise old weeping willow.

Nani – Stage Manager

Everyone loves Stitch. And I mean everyone. Seriously, does anyone not love Stitch? I’ve never met anyone. What about Nani though, the older sister of Stitch’s best friend and partner in crime Lilo?

Well in Winterspell we were treated to Nani – Stage Manager, a 3-cost, inkable card with 3 Strength and 3 Willpower that Quests for 1 Lore. All fairly standard so far.

That’s Your Cue, however, is an ability that lets you, when you play the card, search the top 4 cards of your deck for a 2-cost character and pop it into your hand. Well, two of those three Lady cards I mentioned above can be searched out here. So can Tramp – Enterprising Dog. As can a whole host of other cards in the deck.

This might be a good time to remind you of the cost of that Grandmother Willow card... It’s not unusual for 35-40 of the 60 cards in a deck to fit the description of being a “2-cost or lower” character. Searching four cards from the top of your deck gives you fantastic odds of hitting what you’re looking for.

You will miss occasionally, but the odds are so good you have my permission to be grumpy when it happens!

So, we have a way to search our low-cost characters more easily and a way to play all the characters in our deck more cheaply, saving a lot of resources and allowing us to play the entire game with a surprisingly low amount of ink.

I guess that might have something to do with the Dogs' domination...

Angel – Experiment 624

It’s not all about Dogs, though. Sometimes it’s about pink, alien, genetic experiments. Like Angel – Experiment 624.

This card doesn’t have amazing stats (it’s an inkable 4-cost 3/3), but it is worth noting that the 3 Strength stops it from being hit by Under the Sea, which is most players’ favorite board-wipe against aggressive, low-cost decks.

The thing that turns this card into a true star, however, is the Good Aim ability that allows you, once per turn, to discard a card from your hand to deal 2 damage to a character.

This will straight up banish a character with 2 Willpower (or less) remaining, but can also be combined with challenges from your other glimmers to banish characters that would otherwise stay tantalisingly just out of reach.

Good Aim then combos very nicely with the card’s other ability, Untouchable, which gives Resist +2 while you have no cards in hand.

This decreases any damage done to Angel by 2, making that 3 Willpower look rather more impressive. What happens if you have too many cards in hand? Well, let’s hope your aim is true.

Raging Storm

As an expansion, Winterspell hasn’t brought us many brand-new decks. What it did do was breathe new life into some older decks and completely shake-up the metagame.

Dogs is the obvious winner, but Angel has made many decks better and that’s before I even mention that Raging Storm gives us a no-questions-asked board wipe that we haven’t seen since the rotation of Be Prepared.

Now Amber has the proverbial big red button (or, yellow button I suppose) to reset the board, and you’d better believe that many players have been finding ways to play amber and take advantage of it.

We will soon be talking about the next expansion Wilds Unknown as this expansion brings Toy Story and other Pixar properties to Disney Lorcana for the very first time.

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