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Disney Lorcana’sRise of the Floodborn expansion gave us a pair of starter decks to introduce new players to the game and help everyone start to build their set two collection. The Amber/Sapphire deck, called Tactical Teamwork, is a Seven Dwarfs-themed deck with an emphasis on combat tricks and characters that buff each other while in play, as well as some nice item synergy for card draw, healing, and removal.
While the deck has some nice synergy built in, there’s a lot that can be done to help refine it. This guide provides three different versions of the deck: a budget deck that slims down the variance without adding too many rare or expensive cards, a better version that includes some super rares and even stronger play lines, and a best version that will represent all of the strengths of this Amber and Sapphire matchup with the strongest cards available.
Dinglehopper (x2)
Lantern (x2)
Pawpsicle (x4)
Scepter of Arendale (x2)
Snow White, Unexpected Houseguest (x3)
Zero To Hero (x4)
The budget version of this starter deck is a more refined list that focuses on the two things it already does well: flood the board with characters and draw lots of cards. you’re able to replace a lot of the one-off cards in the starter deck like Grand Duke, Advisor to the King and Winnie the Pooh, Having a Think to make it more consistent.
The most important cards you’ll want to add in first areSnow White, Unexpected Houseguest and Nick Wilde, Wily Fox. Snow White will allow you to play your Seven Dwarfs for cheap, while Nick Wilde will allow you to retrieve your Pawpsicles from your banished pile, ideallyafter Judy Hopps or Hiram Flaversham have already discarded them for more cards.
A lot of the cards you can add to this deck will support the item synergy and the go-wide strategy simultaneously. Lantern is a ramp card that will allow you to play your important four-cost cards like Bashful, Grumpy, and Nick Wilde a turn early, and it can be discarded later for additional card draw. You can add in Maurice, Wold, Famous Inventor and Ariel, Whoseit Collector to get even more value out of your items.
Other items that make this deck work well include Scepter of Arendelle, which will allow you to make favorable trades with your cheap Dwarfs, and Maurice’s Workshop, which has great card draw synergy for this deck.
Pawpsicle is important for card draw and Nick Wilde synergy, but any low-cost item can work. Consider Dinglehopper, Magic Golden Flower, Coconut Baskets, and Gumbo Pot if you want to experiment with different items.
This deck’s strategy is straightforward but not simple. Your goal is to fill your board with characters that can quest quickly or overwhelm your opponent’s board if need be, while resupplying your hand with more cards so you can keep playing more characters.You want to get cards like Pawpsicle, Snow White, and Doc onto the board as quickly as possible,which will help you draw cards and play more characters for a discount. Once you have a few characters down,Zero To Hero is a great way to cheat out Maurice,who will allow you to immediately start playing items and drawing cards. If you’re able to play multiple items in the same turn with the help of Maurice, Belle, and Nick Wilde, Ariel can quest multiple times, potentially earning you lots of lore with a single character.
This deck may focus on low-cost characters and items, but it can still put up a fight. Both Happy, Good-Natured and the Scepter of Arendelle will help you bulk up a low-cost character like Sneezy, or Dopey for a big hit, while Four Dozen Eggs is a fantastic way to protect your board during a turn where you are going to challenge your opponent.
And while Dinglehopper, Gumbo Pot, and Pawpsicle are meant to be discarded, they can also help you heal your characters and maintain control of the board.
Finally, we’ve traded out the Launch for a more consistent removal tool, Last Stand, which will allow you to challenge an opposing character with a low-cost character and banish them immediately.
Scepter of Arendelle (x4)
World’s Greatest Criminal Mind (x3)
The mid-cost version slims down our list even further, utilizing just the most essential Seven Dwarfs to make room for more potent item synergies that will help maintain card draw and set up big lore-gaining turns.
Noi, Orphaned Thief is a great addition to any item deckthat can be difficult to remove early on, especially if you can play a Scepter of Arendelle or Pawpsicle on turn one. You can also replace Last Stand with the song World’s Greatest Criminal Mind, a singable three-cost card that can banish any character with five Strength.
Keep in mind that the character you want to banish needs at least five Strength, souse Happy, Good-Natured or Scepter of Arendelle to give strength to the character you want to banish if necessary.
With a third song added to the deck, you can get a lot of use out of a new item, Sleepy’s Flute. Since it is free to use,multiple copies of Sleepy’s Flute can let you draw multiple cards every time you play a song.Keep this in mind when you’re deciding which items to discard with Hiram Flaversham and Judy Hopps, and prioritize your Pawpsicles, which you can always get back with Nick Wilde.
You can also make use of the Super Rare card Tamatoa, So Shiny! in this deck. Though it was often considered too expensive to use in the previous meta,Zero To Hero allows you to play Tamatoa for a discount and start questing for big lore value.You won’t always be able to get enough ink in your well for this monstrosity, but Tamatoa can be a game-winner if you have a good amount of items in play.
Ariel, Whoseit collector and Belle, Inventive Engineer are both great in an item deck, so you can experiment with using both. We chose Ariel here because it makes a great mid-game target for removal that could scare your opponent into overreacting, potentially giving your more-important Tamatoa a little breathing room.
Zero To Hero (x2)
You’ll notice some pretty major - and costly - changes to the top-tier version of this Seven Dwarf item deck. If money was no object, you could work in three high-value Legendary characters: Snow White, Well Wisher, Rapunzel, Gifted with Healing, and Alice, Growing Girl.
If you’ve already been using Snow White, Unexpected Houseguest,you’ll get a lot of value out of shifting her into Snow White, Well Wisher as early as turn four.Her ability allows you to retrieve any character from your discard pile, allowing you to recover valuable characters, or even just cards you can add to your inkwell.
Unlike Hades, Lord of the Underworld, Snow White lets you do this every time she quests, which could result inmultiple cards being added back into your hand.
Rapunzel, Gifted With Healing was an all-star in the previous meta, and we fully expect that she’ll be a top-tier card in this set too. Rapunzel can take some of the pressure off of Hiram Flaversham to draw cards while giving you the ability to make a nice trade on the board.
Hiram Flaversham, Tomatoa, Maurice, Happy, Bashful, Alice, and Snow White are all characters with a lot of Willpower that can give you the maximum value from a well-timed Rapunzel play.
The final piece of the puzzle is Alice, Growing Girl, a Legendary Sapphire card that is sure to be Rise of the Floodborn’s chase card.
Alice won’t have a hard time getting up to ten Strength in this deck thanks to Ariel, Whoseit Collector, who can quest multiple times in a turn as long as you have items to play, and can give her Strength to Alice each time she does it.You only have to play two items with both Ariel and Alice on the board in order to quest for a total of eight lore in a single turn.
This version of the deck won’t have as much of an explosive start as some other options, nor will it go as wide with low-cost characters, but with so much card draw shared between Rapunzel, Hiram Flaversham, Maurice, Snow White, Tamatoa, and Pawpsicle,you’ll have no problem building your inkwell each turn as you fill your board with discounted charactersthanks to Snow White, Doc, and Zero To Hero.
Your items can be used to give support, heal, buff Tamatoa, or to draw cards, so you have a lot of flexibility in how your approach each match.
