Hello and welcome back to Illumination, the Disney Lurkana podcast. My name is Max. And I'm Sam. And we are back at you. This is episode 41. And we are here to talk about Fabled, the newest, ninthest set coming to Disney Lurkana. And we are pretty excited about it. It's a pretty unique set for Disney Lurkana. So we want to talk about it. We want to talk about the things we're excited about. We want to talk about the things that are a little bit of a letdown. we want to talk
about some things that we hope to see. Before we jump too far into that, of course, we're in the middle of set champs for Return of Jafar, the eighth -est set from Disney's Lorcana, and the team is doing... Pretty good, I would say. At this point, we have three top eight finishes, two top four finishes, and two playmats. So that is pretty exciting. Sam, you're one of the playmat getters. Yeah, I just got one this past weekend. And where did you get this playmat? At Dragon's
Vault. One of our favorite stores. Yep, my favorite store. Shout out to Dragon's Vault in Vineland, New Jersey. If you're ever out that way, definitely worth your time to stop by and say hi. A great little shop for sure. Sam, what were you playing at this set championship? I was playing Amethyst Emerald. Oh, I bet you a genius got you onto that deck. Oh yeah. Yeah, certainly did. I also have been playing Amethyst Emerald. I've been
on it both versions. I started off on the Art of Bax version and switched off of it early in the format because I didn't like its match into Amber Steel and switched over to the Diablo style discard variant. Later on the discard, a little
bit more board presency. And the reason for that is because I think that the Diablo deck has a really good ability to ditch pull the lever so that you can set up extremely fast wrong levers because you do have to watch out for a three or four drop that might be able to dispatch your Diablo. And being able to wrong lever their Genie or their Peter Pan or something along those lines is very, very strong. So I like the fast wrong lever. So Sam did indeed play the deck I was
playing. You had a couple differences in yours. Neither of us play Prince John, which is one of the big things that differentiates. the way we do it. I play go -go Tamago. You drop go -go Tamago in favor of Iago. I have an extra Iago, so I'm playing three Iagos and as well as two improvises. Improvise, yes. And we're both playing one singular seven drop shift. Ursula in our deck. So we can do those kinds of things because we're playing a little bit more to the board.
I play go -go for the extra reach in the deck. It is the card that I'm the most on and off about in the build right now. There are some leanings towards wanting to move into something like chip. I think it's quick thinker, the new chip that when it comes in, they have to discard a card. I like that into the predominance of blue red decks, particularly the DKP style decks. We are starting to see more. and more often. I think there were four of them in Dragon's Vault's set
champs out of a room of 20 -ish. Yeah. So it was not ridiculous, but there was that. It was a mix. We're in a pretty flat meta still at this point. So anything that you want to play seriously, if you are comfortable playing with it, has a shot. There are some wild brews we've seen take home playmats. There are some very standard, by -the -book style meta decks that we've seen
taking things home. In my strong opinion, and I think in your strong opinion, as well, we would say play the deck that you're going to make the least mistakes playing and that will give you the best chance of winning. You can't help your matchups. I have been getting devastated. I've had to play so much Amethyst Ruby and so much Blurple while I have been going through set champs. It's been a nightmare. I've been blocking all the bad decks for Sam so she can perform better
than me this set champs. So big shout out to the team Illumination folks for doing a really good job so far and more weeks of this to come. more exciting events to jump into and I'm excited now that we have a mat for the podcast and for the stream. You can check us out on twitch .tv slash superilluminalfilms. I can start playing shenanigans, which is one of my favorite things
to do during set champs. After we get the mat, I can eschew the meta decks and start playing with less commonly seen decks and hope to catch some folks off guard and get some Ws that way. Just a lot less stressful and you get to just have fun. Yes, so we hope you all have an awesome set champs conclusion and I hope you all do as well as you hope. Keep pushing. yourself and keep listening to the podcast for more great tips. So on to Fabled now. We're talking not
necessarily review. We don't know what cards are in the set yet. We're talking about hype. This set is very unique for Lorkana. There is a very different way that they are handling things. In this set, we are only talking about 33 new cards. So what are they doing, Sam? Are they just releasing 33 cards? That's all that's in the sets? The 33 card set? That's all I need to buy? No, we're getting an awful lot of reprints.
Reprints? What is a reprint? A reprint is going to be cards that... we have seen in our previous sets so i'm guessing cards that we had in sets one through four that are going to be rotated out makes sense because if you're not familiar with the rotation cycle that is going to be happening core constructed will be five to eight sets total ever in size which gives you two years on any card unless it gets one of these special reprints where it will be then again in the game for another
few years to come so that when the cycle gets to eight sets it chops itself back down to five with the set that would be a essentially would be the ninth if it stuck around. So in this case, Fabled, the ninth set. We are looking forward to seeing what gets reprinted. It sounds like all of the reprints will be in terms of look, the same artwork as what was previously available. So talking over something they've talked about and we've seen a little bit is something like
Tinkerbell, the giant fairy. We know that that Tinkerbell is going to have the same art that it always did. If you buy the gift set, you'll get a special bordered version a la something
like the Lilo Escape. artist that is pretty cool to see coming out and it is cool that if you get a card in fabled it'll just have the little nine at the bottom so you'll be able to differentiate it that way so if i got a tinkerbell out of set one it'll have a little one at the bottom that is how you differentiate the reprints but you can still use your tinkerbell from set one in core constructed even though set one will be rotated out the only cards that are truly rotated
out are the ones who do not receive this graduation according to the lorecast that's the way they've been phrasing it i like it so they're graduating some of these cards over into the new set. I think that helps really stand behind some of the designs that they've chosen and some of the things that they want the game to do. It really helps us learn what the game designers want from
the game. I think these reprints are going to tell us a lot about how they want Lurkana to be played and the types of gameplay that they really want to see at the constructed level. So that's very exciting to see. So we have 33 new cards. However, when it comes to the highest rarity, that is not a special rarity. We're talking legendary. We're going to have six new legendaries just out of 33 cards. That's quite a lot, right? And we're going to have six legendaries that
are returning back from previous sets. So a lot to get excited for, a lot to speculate on. We'll save you from some of that. If you're in our Discord, you know we've been specking, we've been talking, we've been sharing information. So that's pretty exciting. You can also catch us over on Facebook, talking about things frequently as well. We won't overload your socials. We're not much for socials. here. We basically post
when we need to or something excites us. But on the whole, we just like to ingest the content the way you do and hope that this podcast helps you improve. Talking about the rarities here, we have Enchanteds. A little bit of news about Enchanteds is Enchanteds won't be redone. So I won't have to worry about an Elsa Spirit of Winter Enchanted coming out in Fabled. Yeah. Because there will just be that particular Elsa,
which is really exciting. Knowing that these Enchanteds are kind of one and dones makes them
more collectible. So if you're into the game for collecting that's something to get excited about something else to get excited about are some new rarity levels we have epic which falls between enchanted and legendary so they're going to be open more frequently than an enchanted but less frequently than a legendary and they have basically a borderless style treatment to them above that and above all else now beyond enchanted the highest rarity of card we have
the newly coming iconic which is going to be impressive to get these are going to be hardcore Because you're going to have to open a lot of product or get insanely lucky, Charlie Bucket style, to get one of these iconic cards. So that's very exciting to see coming. So there's reasons to open packs, even if you've already been a longtime stalwart of the game, because there's some new shiny things to go after. And we're also getting six enchanted that are going to
be reprints. So six cards that we didn't have enchanted before, we're going to get now. So I think that's pretty exciting. It is exciting. released one of the example of one of these cards was a winnie the pooh honey wizard an absolute fan favorite not necessarily from a playability perspective but from a delight ability perspective
so that's pretty awesome to see. So let's kind of get into the meat of this because I know, like all things, when something new happens, there are a lot of varying opinions about that thing. So why is this good? Why is this bad for the game? In my opinion, I think in Sam's opinion, as we wrote these notes together, I know I can shout out our good buddy Cliff HyperHippo, who also shares a lot of these opinions as well.
There is a lot more good from a decision like this than there is bad from a decision like this. We'll start with the bad things we could think of. I think that part of the feels bad is for someone like players who have been there since the beginning. Sam, myself, we have everything that we need in terms of playable cards for 171 of these. If we buy a pack of Fable, there is a good chance that we could open a booster pack
of cards that are completely useless. Maybe the foil is something spicy, but other than that, we could open a pack that is a total dud. So it is a lot more of a quote -unquote pack lottery for this set than there ever was before. However, Ravensburg are clearly trying to incentivize collectors of the game to want to buy packs because enchanted were difficult to get, but we were basically pulling them at a rate which equated to about one a case. So one out of every four
booster boxes. If you are buying them in a case quantity, so this is a sealed cardboard box that contains the four booster boxes, you are going to get an enchanted most likely. Now we have other rarities that will incentivize people to maybe want to buy a little bit more product. If you're a competitive player, you might be able to avoid buying a whole lot of the product. Maybe you have a friend who is a collector, and they'll be able to gift you a lot of these cards
for very little. Or maybe you just trade them one of your fancy cards that you don't need to use to play, and you get all of the cards you need to play from this set. So there's benefit to... everybody ingesting and enjoying the game a different way. Having the availability for people to enjoy things in a different way than you do opens up the ability to be able to get cards and trade for cards and do things like
that. Like Sam and I will often trade our enchanted cards because we want to trade for cards that are playable and we don't want to break the bank trying to fill in the gaps that we've already broken the bank trying to begin to create. So this kind of high roll aspect with the new cards
collectability can lead to some feels bad. I know there are going to be people who are going to go on and say, I've bought loose booster packs, like blister packs hanging up in different stores, or I've bought non -sequential booster boxes, like one at a time ad hoc, and I haven't opened anything really good, or I've gotten one Epic card and that's it. It's going to create a bigger feels bag because we're going to see more pictures of carpools. Do not get me started on carpooling.
That will be, oh my God, iconic. Oh my God. enchanted oh my god three booster packs two epics and then enchanted yes there's gonna be more of that kind of stuff being shared across social media but that is exciting for people it also incentivizes absolute maniacs like sam and i to buy these loose hangy blisters off of the shelf because there's no allocation to them we don't know it could be an enchanted that one because it wasn't part of a booster box so it's not a bad thing
from a sales perspective but it definitely can create a lot more of a feels bad environment that's it i'm out of at things yeah i agree what about good stuff sam hit us with some good stuff there's less of a need to buy a bunch of product to be able to play which you did touch on yes with the bad right so for you and i if we wanted to seek out singles we could just buy no sealed product potentially of this set which is pretty interesting right like what's neat about that
for me is it offers me a reprieve I can save up for whispers in the well now. I don't feel like it's just punching me in the wallet trying to consistently cash grab. It also means that all the money I spent way back means something. Yeah, definitely. So it has like this echoing value because I get to reuse the old version of the card. So I do like that it can help. And also remember, one thing to call out too is when this game came out, product was very hard to
get. I mean, I remember early on upon release, you and... and I running around seeing the same group of additional maniacs trying to get cards at Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, local game shops, everywhere and anywhere we could go that a booster pack had one time sat for any game, we were going to knock on the door and ask if they had any Lurkana. Camping at Walmart, watching for Winda. The person comes to refill the card section.
You did do that. Yep. You went to Walmart, I think, for a week straight to find the person who refilled it. And then you did. I did. And you had to wait for her to refill the shelf for you. Yep. And then there's somebody else who came strolling in and you both kind of split the lot, which was really cool. Yeah. So a lot of newer players can't get access to those cards. They're very hard to get even now, outside of the recent lottery and things that were done.
Some singles, stuff like The Wardrobe, for example, right? Not to besmirch a good limited card, but The Wardrobe. or pack tactics and things like that. Sure, you can get those very easily. People will just give them to you, perhaps. But when it comes to harder -to -get cards, Rapunzel Gifted with Healing, these legendaries that are harder to get, especially if you want foils of older things, it's difficult. Now it will be easier
to get. Yeah. We personally know some people who have gotten into the game recently and they're just like, I'm not going to buy these older legendary cards that cost a lot of money because who knows if they'll get reprinted or if it'll be easier for them to get now. I'm not buying Diablos right now. Right. Are you crazy? Except you just did. I did a little while ago. I made out on that deal though. They went way up after I bought them. I bought them when nobody wanted that poor
Raven. And now look at them. They all want it. Yeah. I think it's exciting that new people can get into the game easily. Easily -er. Yeah, definitely. Definitely easily or as bad a good word as ninth or ninthest. So lots of fake words being used today on the podcast. Fabled words, made up words. We also have cards that can last, which just increases confidence of the players. So these cards lasting. Now I bought this card and it's going to get reprinted. And now I have more time
with that card. Adds even more value. It's just really good. It also, one of the things I'm most excited to see how they proceed with these reprinted cards. And we're going to talk about this kind
of transitioning over is what strategy. strategies did they want to be good that maybe missed the mark or didn't quite have a deck that was strong enough to hold its own ground against such strong cards like we're talking Prince Johns, Diablos, Hiram Flavershams, these absolute... pinnacle of power level for this game so far these cards couldn't compete now they might be able to one thing that stands out to me as you say that is with purple with moving damage we don't see that
too too much and maybe that's something they'll push i don't know right we've seen a lot of little cards be able to get that we've seen like the four drop panic get that it's not just the bell accomplished mystic anymore that can throw damage counters around we've gotten a lot more rares uncommons things that will willingly deal damage to your own characters it seems to be the identity that Ruby Amethyst is falling into. Self -damaging for a benefit, which is cool. I'm intrigued to
see it. So what else do we want to see? What do we have to see? What's the card, Sam? What's coming? What is it? What's going to be reprinted? What do you want? This isn't a guess. This is just a want. This is a wish. So for Amber and Emerald both, I think we're both looking forward to seeing some card advantage get printed or reprinted. Absolutely. We're losing Rapunzel
and Amber. That's a huge thing. We are losing, I'm not 100 % on Julieta, Madrigal for Amber, but I know we, on the Emerald side of the coin, we're definitely losing Prince John, Greediest of All, and Diablo, Devoted Herald, both the pinnacle of some of the most unfair cards in this game and some of the only Emerald. card
advantage engines we have. I think right now we have a pirate daisy duck that deals with both pirates and locations simultaneously, which is not enough of a draw engine to support something like an entire color identity like emeralds. So I'm hoping to see more card advantage absolutely in those ink identities. Yeah. In Amethyst, I'm really hoping we get the bounce back. So I'm hoping we see either a new card entirely that
bounces or a snake or fox come back. Sure. If the cards that are being bounced are less good, so for example, a white rose over a... Merlin Goat, we could potentially see a bounce card come back as long as something in that synergy engine is weakened because it is just one of the strongest in the game. But that's definitely my favorite way to play Lorkana. So I'm really hoping we get to see that again. That would be lovely. In Ruby, I think we need a board wipe.
So either B prep stick around or get a new one entirely. Yeah, it's interesting, right? Like we've seen some cards that have been officially or kind of officially spoiled. We saw on the side of starter products, there's a powerline that can shift and sing very quickly, which would let a B prep happen like in a snap if you needed to, way faster than we're used to, way faster even than a shifted Sisu in some cases, especially
if you combine it with Ramp from Sapphire. So will they allow something like powerline singing be prepared or will they push to a different style of board wipe? I do think a board wipe of some effect is going to happen. We've seen it in other colors a la something like an Under the Sea. So I do think that... A board removal card of some kind will happen in this game. What will it look like? I don't know. Be Prepared
is very iconic for the game. Yeah, because right now we're losing both Be Prepared and Sisu, as far as we know. And Under the Sea. Yeah. So all the board wipes right now are getting kind of sent back to the Stone Age a little bit. So we'll see. Oh, and Grab Your Sword's going too, by the way. Yeah. In Sapphire, I think we're going to need cheap items. We're losing Popsicle. So I think all we're left with that we know of is
Shield of Arendelle. That's a sssss. steel yes it's a one cost so yeah and there's like the new sword there's a few things not in sapphire directly that can help or some things that are just kind of forgettable but happen to cost one i do think that there will likely need to be some item that hits similar to Popsicle. And then last, we have Steel. And I think we both want to see some removal songs since we're losing
our most powerful songs. So what are they going to either reprint or what will we see as far as Steel removal? I would love to see the concept of challenging ready units matter because we've had many cards that allow that to happen, but we have not had anything really game defining
with that ability printed. on it it's either very hoop jumpy or the card is very underwhelming like we had a legendary namari that had that ability it was underwhelming we had a legendary piglet that had it but the condition was very hard to meet and i just think that i get the concept that they're worried about that being very very good because it kind of feels like i'll play a character and if they can just take out my character every time i play when i never
get to play the game i understand the feels bad that they are trying to prevent but to introduce that even on solo actions that give it till end of turn and things they feel like they've come up they failed at it every possible way they could so they either have to back off of that existing and just go you know what it was it was a failed experiment or they need to step up and go okay we're gonna make this a real thing now yeah i agree so i'm interested to see how
that will end up landing in either direction but i hope to see some sort of move right now we're down to basically tug of war and twin fire for steel or hot potato like there's not a lot of really good options we're losing smash we're losing fire the cannons we're losing grab your sword we're losing strength we're losing let the storm rage on zeus along came zeus all these things go away with the rotation so how will they choose for steel to damage things like obviously
we know tinkerbell's coming back so what else will they put there and how do they want to handle the way steel can banish characters. Pretty intriguing. I'm excited to see how they tackle a lot of these. Only 33 new cards. You have to believe a lot of these issues will be addressed via reprints. Right. So I do think like if bounce were to come back, we'd likely see it on an old favorite versus
a brand new mechanically different card. So we shall see what fabled brings to core constructed, what new strategies lie within the ink identities we're familiar with and what cards will allow us to. Keep questing.