Hello and welcome back to Illumination, the Disney Lurkana podcast. My name is Max. And I'm Sam. And we are... back once again to talk to you for the 32nd time, to be exact. That's how many times we've done this. Wow. Yeah. Appreciate you all being here. Sam, appreciate you being here. And we are going to jump right in. We've got some news to cover. Illumination's been hitting the tournament scene local to Southern New Jersey, Philadelphia, Greater Philadelphia area, and
Delaware, the tri -state area. A couple things to report. We did a case tournament. Very local to us. Shout out to Phenomenal Games. Really appreciate you all putting on a really fun time. Myself, mystery teammate, and newest teammate, the real CJ, managing to split the top four with another kind player at that tournament. And we did pretty good there. Pretty happy with that. CJ was on Blue Steel Oswald. Our mystery teammate was on the deck they are always on, and it is
always Purple Steel. And I was on... green steel, emerald steel, if you prefer. And that was a pretty fun little tournament. Really appreciate that. Then this past weekend, we went out to the, what was a 1K at Safari Zone Collectibles in Smyrna, Delaware. Shout out to them, put on an amazing event. So many people interested in playing Lurkana out that way that they actually turned it into a 3K tournament. I believe they had about 70 people out there for that one. I
did abysmally. Mystery. teammate did quite well. Our own Cliff did really a nice job hitting 16th out of all of those people. And Sam, you did even better than that. Yeah, I topped eight. Top eight? What were you playing? I was playing the Kiwi Bird style of Blue Steel. Yeah, you got the deck list, I believe, from one of our favorite content creators, Tarkana Deck Lists. Yeah, really cool deck, the Kiwi Bird style Blue Steel aggressive deck. Our own Cliff was on the
DKP list. of the Ruby Sapphire variety, and Mystery Teammate was on the deck they are always on. Again, that is always Amethyst Steel. I was also playing the DKP list. I didn't have as good of a time with it as Cliff did, but Cliff is much more experienced with Ruby Sapphire than I am. All of you out there know I am a Sapphire not enjoyer, so I did that despite my reservations, thinking that it'd be pretty good in the field,
and it really, it was. I think every match I win or lose was pretty darn close and it often came down to if the opponent had it or not on a critical turn most of the time so it was a great time the store was great really appreciate it and they're already set to have a very large projected 5k and they've proven that if the attendance is good enough they'll up the prize ante so definitely check them out safari zone collectibles really really awesome store both them and phenomenal
games really put on a great time and we Appreciate the opportunity to go out and play. Also a shout out to our friends from afar who now we actually got to meet in person, Glimineers. They are a fantastic group of folks. They were together for their first ever team event as a collected ensemble of players. All of them extraordinarily kind and supportive. If you follow them on social media, you get the idea that they are very, very much caring about the game and the community
first. And while that seems nice on social media, I can assure you after meeting them in - in person, they are 100 % authentic to their message that there's no hidden anything. It's not just hammed up for social media, both incredibly kind and the whole team, a great collection of people who are extremely kind throughout the entire day, very exciting group of folks, and we all got to hang out and have a ton of fun there. That event was also streamed, so you can go back
and check that out as well. If you so choose, I believe Myra Madness was the one who streamed
that, also got to meet them in person. very very kind tons of fun to be had by all it was a blast sam anything you'd like to add about the tournaments that we have been attending nope just i agree with you it was a fun time got to meet a lot of great folks yeah that's what it's all about at the end so your deck has one particular card in it a one drop that has a certain nickname and we were talking about it at different points during the weekend so it brought on the idea
of the topic this card in question is mickey food Fight Defender. And he has a cute little nickname. Sam, what's his cute little nickname? Sticky Mickey. Sticky Mickey. So that kind of got us talking about the idea of how the metagame is shaping up and what are good sticky threats. And what does that mean? What are you guys talking about? This sounds like a gross episode. I assure you it's not. And we want to get into all of that today in the episode proper. So what the
heck is a sticky? Threat. Sam, what's a sticky threat? Sticky threat is a card that is hard to remove. It's going to stick around for a while. Oh, okay. So it's not sticky because it's gross or nasty. It's sticky because it stays on the board. Yeah. Yes. The card stays in play. It is hard to remove, generally needing some form of very predictable removal, like a challenge from a much larger character. So it's a calculated risk. Is the lore worth losing the character?
Or oftentimes more cards than the - character so mickey food fight defender is a great example because for one cost you get a one two body and you get resist one yeah playing this card this weekend was really nice because i was not afraid to play a one drop on one even in the face of a bell or anything that could sing a removal spell and just you know before he got any value just remove it yes and that is the important thing and part of the reason why we wanted to
talk about these for Cinderella, Ballroom Sensation, Diablo, Devoted Herald, or Belle, Inventor's Apprentice? Apprentice Inventor? The new Belle. To all be able to come down very quickly and either shift or immediately on turn two sing Let the Storm Rage On or Strength of a Raging Fire. So as much as two damage in most cases to one of your characters. So anything that's too small in terms of willpower can be removed
very, very easily. So having... the ability to stay on the board despite the powerful opening lines that are presented in the first turn or two out of certain decks is extremely important right now in the Lorkana meta. So it gave us a good chance to talk about something and kind of turn this into a bit of a foundational episode, but with a very current meta lens. So if you're not familiar, the current decks of the day are the Ruby Sapphire deck, as well as the Sapphire
Steel deck, the old blue steel. Zoolander special, many different flavors of both of those decks. And there is a lot of requirements for a character coming down in the first couple of turns if your opening line isn't something super duper powerful. So it really requires a lot of demand. So for the steel meta, obviously we're going to want certain things like the sticky Mickey card. We're going to want things that have four willpower. We're going to want something like a bell of
our own, perhaps. Even a one drop with three willpower, something like an Olaf or a Minnie Mouse. Those kind of things are really nice to have. Madam Mim Snake is a nice early drop to recover your one drop before they can sing if you're on the play. That's a little bit different than what was a little bit stickier a couple sets ago when red kind of was the overwhelming menace in terms of removal. We kept talking a lot about things that would die to Brawl, things
that would die to Madam Medusa. These cards. Little Sisu. These cards were extremely impactful at that point. They still are, but they had other cards come to the forefront at that point, right? We saw a lot more other Sisu, Emboldened Warrior, because of the high potential. And this card's still quite good right now in this current meta. One of the few cards with high strength and willpower early. We had a lot of Smee, Bumbling Mate, everybody's favorite, Steel Two Drop. And we also saw cards
even like Argus. The reverse 1 -4, this was a 4 -1. Not only kept you free, from Flynn Riders, but was not brawlable. So depending on what the removal looks like, that is going to help define what cards can stay on the board, hence become these stickier threats. So that's kind of what we're looking to delve into and what we're looking to tackle. So all that's lovely, but we have steel removal now and we have ruby removal. What card am I supposed to play? It's a tough question.
It really is. I think that one of the first things you need to start to understand unpack is the deck you're playing. Which type of removal is worse in this case? Like what removal do you really not want to see? The ruby removal is so potent in a lot of cases because it's either stapled onto a character or it's on a non -song action like brawl where we can't disrupt that card very easily or that kind of style of card
very easily. So we have to lean more into something as far as something like bare necessities goes to take one. of these non -song actions out of a player's hand or be able to have these additional bumps like Lumiere is a good example, two drop Lumiere that gives you additional strength, something to help you shield yourself from at least low strength characters that are so susceptible to the ruby cards. You also have to learn if your deck is more susceptible to that or is it more
susceptible to the steel removal. So we're talking a much more lower willpower card. So there are cards that kind of dance in the middle and they are just proving themselves to be, I think, a little bit above rate right now. I think there's a certain keyword that helps us all a lot, no matter what kind of removal it is, because early on, it's going to have to be a chosen character. And Ward lets that character not be chosen. So we're seeing a lot of early Ward characters.
Sam, your deck played one particular early Ward character that has become kind of a menace in the metagame right now. Who is that? Yeah, Alice. I am not sure of her subtitle. Some kind of sailor.
But yeah, Alice, which also when she quests, gives another character ward which is really powerful yeah she's a one four with ward and she quests for two when she quests she gives another character ward and the ability to quest for an additional lore when they in fact quest really really powerful card i think it's savvy sailor i think you're right okay so that is a really powerful one we're seeing the three drop emerald prince philip start to get played prince
philip's just a three two two for three inkable with ward starting to see all up tick in prince john stocks right now he's looking better than he ever has in a lot of cases and of course we have the old stalwart on four is the muses right we love the prince john muses perhaps we sing a sudden chill line here draw a card bounce the prince john back to our hand sometimes to save us or something that could challenge our prince john over on the other side so lots of ability
to get around these things with something like ward all of these cards very very much stick to the board after they're played another good niche of is something along the lines of Lawrence and Pluto, who has bodyguards. So these characters have generally less stats, but they get a big
bump. when they are not damaged so they come down and they're very hard to remove so they have to either if they even if they eat a let the storm rage on to shrink them they still might get a quest off before anything else happens to them requiring a character challenging them and the card out of their hand it's all time so in an aggressive strategy that's exactly what you're looking for is another turn where you're allowed to quest and gather lore in addition
to that we're seeing an uptick in the new two drop queen of hearts in ruby she's a one four two inkable that when she's damaged she gets plus three additional strength she's very very above rate i think a card that flew under everybody's radar but she's really doing a nice job of helping fill that two drop gap alongside of the old kuzco that replaces itself in the ruby amethyst decks that are still being played which is really cool we're also seeing pete as well as the new space
pirate pete who both pete just stops your opponent from doing anything with an action which is very convenient and then the space pirate Pirate Pete stops them from exerting to sing songs, so it slows them down and really taxes their ink supply, making them choose to either advance their board and add more threats of their own, or answer your opponent's board. But you can't do both like you normally could with the power of singing
a song. So these cards really help a lot. Play patterns like Diablo into Ursula, for example, in the green deck. It's a powerful place to be because a lot of the times you might have a bell and an item and a song in your hand. The Ursula comes along kind of... of wrecks that plan, make sure that Diablo can get shifted in quest and start to gain back some card advantage. So there's a lot of cool things going on here. I think right now another card with stocks that have never
been higher is Calhoun. Calhoun is a nightmare card for many a deck right now. Very good at using that resist mechanic like the Mickey did. We also have the shift steel Mickey that can go on top of the food fight defender. That's the maybe apprentice wizard or something like that, but it's the steel one, the classic Fantasia Mickey. And that card is seeing a home in some of these kiwi bird style decks. Playful sorcerer. Playful sorcerer, of course he is. And that really
helps a lot. And of course we have the mighty Cogsworth Grandfather Clock, who is just absolutely hard to deal with having Ward himself and giving everybody else resist just as a benefit for playing him. So lots of sticky threats that we can all choose from, which is pretty awesome. Sam, anybody out there you'd like to call out in card land who we didn't touch on here? that you think was pretty good and pretty hard for your opponents to take out? I don't think we missed any cards.
I think just along with what you said, just having a couple different options in your deck could help. Like for example, me playing this weekend, I had Ana, a two drop, and I also had Mr. Smee. So if I was playing against a red deck, I was more likely to choose Mr. Smee because it didn't have the one strength as opposed to playing Mr. Smee who had a three. So in order to take him out with like a little Sisu or a Brawl, they needed another card. a coil in order to remove
them. Right. And Ana better against the steel decks because she can take a couple song hits and keep on questing. Yeah. And on the same turn, they're both aggressives. They both quest for two on two. Very good cards that bring strong presence out of the gate. Seeing an uptick in a lot of the cheap. purple or amethyst locations. We're seeing fairy ships. We're seeing forbidden mountains. Shout out the forbidden mountain. And we are trying to figure out how to deal with
those. Those little small amounts of incremental damage can't be hit by songs. And even with Bell out there playing a fairy ship, playing a Smee and then saying, well, if you hit the fairy ship with your Bell, I'm going to take it out with my Smee or any other Calhoun even worse, right? Like in the purple steel decks, you can definitely slam a fairy ship, slam a Calhoun and go. bring it on. And they have to go, okay, this is bad. I can't just simply let the storm rage on the
Calhoun. She's got resist one. I can't just run the bell into the ferry ship because it has four willpower. So there's a lot of really good strategic choices that your deck can make right now in the metagame. So how important are these sticky cards really in my deck? I think there's a couple of key questions you need to ask. And I think the first one is how proactive are you? How much are you valuing characters on board? Something like Kiwi birds, that's a pretty important part
of the puzzle. You don't draw cards as efficiently and it's not as inherent as something like Amethyst is where your characters are questing and gaining you lore in some cases and drawing you cards. That doesn't happen as much. You have to kind of work for it a little bit harder. So giving up these characters very easily or for nothing, like play Mickey Go if it didn't have resist. Like you said, I play Bell, sing my Let the Storm Rage On, you're Mickey's con. That's really bad
for me. I'm now down a full card. You have played the bell and your storm replaced itself. So you have a big character on board, I have nothing and I'm behind now very much on board immediately. Right. Which is why when I was playing Amethyst Steel, I was waiting till turn two to play anything most of the time in the face of a bell. Right. You could play maybe a Diablo, the purple Diablo and be like, well, at least I get a card if they
have it. Yeah. Although like you were saying, having options like fairy ship is definitely a different way you can approach it to where you're getting that lore. Right. There's a lot of cool ways people are starting to overcome the steel. and especially the Strong Sapphire Steel opening line, which is really cool. Other questions you need to ask yourself, if you run character cards or you run win cons, I guess, win condition cards on the lighter side of things.
So looking more at like the DKP list that tend to run like Maui Shark as a win con. If that's kind of the only win con, you definitely want something that will be able to stay on board as long as possible. If you put down a Maui Shark, this is what kept happening to me over the course of the weekend, put down a Maui Shark and they
along came. Zeus it immediately it's very hard to win a game it's very hard to win a game so you want something that can stay on board when you're late on win conditions because if they remove too many of those win conditions you get stuck in an awkward position I know this happened to Cliff too going uh how the heck do I win this game yeah like he only had what one Maui shark left or something like that or one man or left to try to yeah you're trying to like just juice
every little lure out of everything you can I hope they quest so I can smack it and give up my goofy just for two lure there's all kinds of little things you can do but you can run out of cards so sticky important end game cards need to be as big and as hard to deal with one for one as possible obviously not going to be as important for the combo decks outside of maybe like very very specific cards reasons we see like prince john having ward for example because
the discard deck needs the ability to actually start to do something and if you play prince john Prince John immediately gets answered. That's a lot harder for you. And obviously mid -range is kind of predicated on this concept, right? Every turn in a mid -range deck, I want to play a card that costs all of my lore and is the best character on the board. Turn after turn after
turn. That's kind of the style. of true mid range so having these very hard to answer cards is great and when it really comes to these sticky cards there's always going to be a card that answers everything right be prepared in the format this could get dragon fired because it simply doesn't have ward the idea is you want your character to not be answered by a card that is cheaper especially a lot cheaper so if i spend six or seven ink i don't want my opponent to be able
to answer that with a let the storm rage on i would prefer they have to answer it with like a maleficent dragon because at least they are spending more ink to answer my board than I was spending to build my board. Now, if I play this very expensive card and all of a sudden they just go brawl and then they follow up with one or two more cards, that's how I get back footed
very quickly. So when it comes to the idea of analyzing a card, don't just go, oh, well, it's gonna, of course, there's gonna be a piece of removal that takes care of that character. It's just the nature of card games. But what you want it to be is something that's relatively reasonable
costed. I don't mind losing my two drop to a three cost brawl, but I do mind losing my... seven drop to a three cost brawl so it's very important when you're analyzing these things to make sure you get value and that's why when you see cards that when they come into play they do something they're so coveted in trading card games. Like Baymax that I was playing this weekend could come in and heal Smee for two and gain two lore immediately. Right. That's worth being
able to get brawled. There are definitely times I'm sure that you were able to pay five and win the game or put yourself in a very close to winning position because of it. And that's huge. Now imagine that Baymax had to quest to do that. Much worse, right? Because now you have to just sit there and go, well, please don't kill it. Don't brawl it. Don't kill it. Don't brawl it. But at least you're getting something out of it. You can choose to ink it if you're not going
to get anything out of it. Yeah. Yeah. Being able to, one, you're saving your Smee because it had two damage on it and it can keep questing and two that was not the end of the episode you're gaining the two lore which in the aggressive strategy is really important any lore matters yeah yeah we see this all the time there's a reason why when medusa came out everybody was like oh my gosh what's this card do it's three cheaper than maleficent dragon and it takes care
of most of the things that matter before it in the game yeah so these enter comes into play style effects are very very strong because it allows you to immediately get value and when you're playing cards and your opponent is just taking them out for free and you're losing board position while they're gaining or maintaining board position, that pretty much stops you from winning the game. It certainly stops you from... Keep questing.