Ursula’s Return Set Review: Steel

Introduction

Ursula's Return is the fourth set of Disney Lorcana. With 200 plus new cards coming into the game, the meta is sure to be shaken up. But which of these cards are worth their salt and which are just fool's gold? We will be attempting to answer that question for all the cards in the new set in our series of set review posts. In this post, I will be reviewing all the Sapphire cards from Ursula's Return.

Steel has been one of the best all-around colors in Disney Lorcana up to this point, if not the best. Their combination of efficient songs and powerful Floodborn characters has allowed Steel to be paired with multiple other inks to make strong, meta-dominant decks. Will this trend continue in Ursula's Return? Let's find out.

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Ursula's Return Steel Cards

Aladdin - Brave Rescuer

This Floodborn Aladdin is the alternate Shift card for Steel. To Shift him out, you need to discard a location card. You probably won't pay this most of the time, simply because you aren't going to have a location card in hand that often. And he's a completely fair 3 cost at a base price. His ability offers item removal, which you can perform each turn each time he quests.

Will he supplant Benja - Guardian of the Dragon Gem as the item removal of choice for Steel decks? I don't think so. I think you'd rather have the item removal attached to an ETB (enter the battlefield), rather than on quest. And Benja questing for two lore means he is a decent threat, even against decks that aren't running items.

Only scenario where this Aladdin would shine over a Benja would be if there were a lot of items you wanted to remove and you could plan to pick them off one-by-one with Aladdin. But even then you'd be better off just playing the new Steel song that banishes all items in one go. Yeah, this feels very meh to me.

Rating: 3/5

Aladdin - Resolute Swordsman

Steel gets another Aladdin, which is this 1/3 for 1 ink. A potential Shift target for the previous Aladdin but otherwise nothing to write home about. As far as vanillas go though, this is one of the best stat lines.

Rating: 3/5

Arges - The Cyclops

From one of the best vanilla stat lines to potentially one of the worst. 4 Strength on a 2 drop is a lot, but at only 1 Willpower, this is going to die to a lot of stuff. It does, however, dodge all the Strength-based removal. So maybe if the meta is dominated by removal like Sisu - Daring Visitor and Brawl, this card could be an option as an early game threat that is tricky to remove? Nah, seems doubtful.

Rating: 2/5

Ariel - Determined Mermaid

We've seen a similar stat line and ability on a 3-drop like this before in Tinker Bell - Tinker. That card was decent and did see play, although more because she was a Shift target for the powerful Tinker Bell - Giant Fairy. You typically weren't activating the card filtering ability on that Tinker Bell.

Card filtering is just not as good as straight-up card draw. And it doesn't help that all the card filtering cards are found in the same color with the single most powerful card draw song in the game, A Whole New World. But, if you are looking for card filtering, this Ariel activating every time you play a song is pretty nice and makes her one of the best options for that effect.

Rating: 3/5

Ariel - Sonic Warrior

Ariel gets a Floodborn character this set and it's a cool one. She's a 3/8/2 for 6, which is a nice stat line, and you can Shift her out for 4. That curves very nicely off of Ariel - Spectacular Singer, so this one looks like it would be a great fit for Steelsongs. And then you get her ability, which lets you pay 2 ink each time you play a song to deal 3 damage to chosen character. Yup, that's a Steelsongs card.

Setting aside everything, this card just has a really cool design. It fits so well as a card that combines Steel's direct damage themes, with Steel having just a lot of songs, with Ariel being this undersea warrior who uses her voice as a weapon. Just a really interesting, well-thought out design that ties a whole lot of things together into one package.

But is it a good card? While dealing 3 damage every time you play a song is great, you are somewhat restricted in how many times you can activate this ability due to its 2 ink cost. If we compare it to Smash, you are getting a 1 ink discount off of what you'd normally pay to deal 3 damage, so it's not a bad deal. But it does cost you a bit of tempo in exchange for the removal.

I think the card is powerful and will certainly see play. But I question how often you will be able to sneak in the 2 ink needed to activate her ability. And if you aren't taking advantage of her ability, is it even worth including her in the deck? If this ability was free, but could only be triggered once per turn or something, this card would be amazing. I think having the cost attached keeps her balanced, but does put a limit on how powerful this card can be and how meta-defining she will become.

Rating: 4/5

Beast - Thick-Skinned

They really don't want to print a 2-cost Beast, do they? If this card was 2-cost, and we had to lose a stat or two, it would still absolutely see play as a Shift target for Beast - Tragic Hero. But being a 3-drop, it loses alot of it's potential. It could still work as a Shift target, but I'd really love to curve Sad Beast out on 3 consistently and this isn't helping us do that.

As a standalone card it's just okay. A 2/3 with Resist 1 is similar to a 2/4 and we've seen that stat line on a 3-drop a lot and it's not really constructed viable. So yeah, if this card were a 2-drop, I'd love it. As a 3-drop though, it's not nearly as exciting, although still potentially playable just because the Floodborn Beast is so good.

Rating: 3/5

Chi-Fu - Imperial Advisor

Chi-Fu, without any damage on him, is a 3-cost character that can quest for 3 ink. That sounds good until you realize we have that already in Caterpillar - Calm and Collected and that card is not good enough for constructed. This one is even worse thatn Caterpillar, because despite having a higher Willpower, only needs to take 1 damage and then it becomes a 0 Strength character that can only quest for 1. Not ideal.

Rating: 2/5

Chien-Po - Imperial Soldier

Chien-Po is a big, beefy Bodyguard character that crucially has 4 Strength, dodging Madame Medusa - The Boss and Minnie Mouse - Musketeer Champion. But with only 1 lore, he's not doing much outside of protecting your smaller characters. And if that's his role, then I think turn 5 is too late for him to come down. It seems turn 3 is the sweet spot for Bodyguards. He could be a good target for Just in Time in an aggressive Amber/Steel deck. But that's the only place I could see him making the cut and, even there, he's not essential.

Rating: 2/5

Donald Duck - Buccaneer

Steel gets this Pirate Donald Duck as one of their Legendaries this set. And it's a bit underwhelming, I would say, for a Legendary card. He's Mulan - Imperial Soldier with -1/-1 for 1 less ink. I guess for a Pirate deck, he can come down with Rush, provided you have a Jolly Roger - Hook's Ship on board, which is pretty good. But outside of Pirate decks, I feel like he may just be unplayable. And even in Pirate decks he's merely okay. Disappointing.

Rating: 3/5

Hercules - Beloved Hero

This Hercules is another big-bodied Bodyguard, but with a worse stat arrangement than Chien-Po. I'd much rather this have 4/7 than 6/5, for the fact that it dodges Minnie and higher Willpower is better on Bodyguard characters, for obvious reasons. This one does have 2 lore and Resist +1, however, so he's arguably better overall than Chien-Po. Resist plus Bodyguard is a good combination. But again, I prefer my Bodyguards to be cheaper and come down earlier. This one is too expensive, I think, to see serious play.

Rating: 2/5

Lefou - Opportunistic Flunky

LeFou as a 2/3/1 for 3 cost would be unplayable. But his ability means you can play him for free, most of the time. My experience from past card games, and from Lorcana so far, tells me that any time you can play something for free, it is usually very, very good. And Lefou's ability shouldn't be that hard to activate since challenging and banishing your opponent's characters is something you want to be doing anyway.

The drawback with this (if you can call it that) is you are using up your cards quicker and your hand will empty faster. But what does Steel like to do anyway whenever their hand is empty? Oh yeah, draw 7 cards from A Whole New World. In fact, there will be times you have to spend five ink to hard cast A Whole New World but it doesn't even end up costing you any tempo because you end up drawing a Lefou or two to play for free! And with 3 Willpower on him, he even dodges a lot of the damage removal in the format like Ba-Boom!, Let the Storm Rage On, Teeth and Ambitions and even Grab Your Sword, the card that is the killer of most go-wide strategies. He's also more or less immune to bounce effects, since you played him for free any way and will just play him for free again next turn.

All that plus he costs 3 so can sing a lot of the best songs in the game? Yeah, this card is nuts and may just end up being the best card in the set.

Rating: 5/5

Li Shang - Imperial Captain

Li Shang is a vanilla 5/5/2 for 5, which is great in limited formats, but in constructed you need more to be playable. He is a Hero, at least.

Rating: 2/5

Ling - Imperial Soldier

Ling is the Grand Duke - Advisor to the King for Heroes. Manipulating Strength seems to be a theme this set and it can be quite relevant to give a lot of your other characters +1 Strength. In the "Strength matters" deck, you'd probably rather Lumiere - Fiery Friend, who provides an unconditional Strength buff. But this one is decent too. There are a lot of Heroes. Maybe a Ruby/Steel deck could run both? Not a bad card, overall.

Rating: 3/5

Luisa Madrigal - Rock of the Family

Luisa Madrigal is a 4/4 for 3 ink, provided you have another character in play. This is somewhat reminiscent of Lawrence - Jealous Manservant, in that he is also a conditional 4/4 for 3. Lawrence quested for two though and his condition encouraged you to not challenge with him, whereas Luisa wants to be challenging. And as a challenger, she is decent, able to take out a lot of stuff that is 3 cost or less.

Maybe a better comparison would be Madam Mim - Fox. Both attack for 4 on a 3 drop and both require a character on board the turn you are swinging in. But Fox having Rush makes her so much more powerful. As far as 3-drop board control tools go, Fox just overshadows everything else, that it can be hard for cards like Luisa to see play. Would you rather have a 4/4 without Rush or a 4/3 with Rush? The latter, of course. So while Luisa may be a decent card, she still may not end up being constructed viable.

Rating: 3/5

Magic Broom - Aerial Cleaner

Steel and Amethyst are the Broom colors, it seems, and this is a new Steel, 2-cost Broom. You are just getting a vanilla stat line with the small upside of being able to challenge Evasives on your turn. Steel generally doesn't have as much of a problem with Evasives since they can just use cards like Ba-Boom! to take them out. But, hey, it's cheap and it's a Broom and that just might be enough for the Broom deck.

Rating: 3/5

Magic Broom - Brigade Captain

Now here is a Broom bomb. This Broom has 2/6/2 with Resist +1 and it quests for 2, those are some solid stats. And its Strength gets buffed by 2 for each other Broom you have in play. Having this as a 4/6 most of the time seems reasonable and can go higher still to help deal with locations and the like.

The main issue is the cost. You will want to get your Broom cost reductions online to help with playing this, because paying 6 is a bit pricy. But it can definitely be a nice finisher for the Broom deck, especially if you can get it to The Sorcerer's Tower - Wondrous Workspace and have it questing for 3 lore a pop.

Rating: 3/5

Mickey Mouse - Playful Sorcerer

Steel is also getting a new Sorcerer Mickey in this set with this Floodborn card. A base 5-cost that you can Shift for 3 is exactly what we like to see. Be able to sing most of the best songs in the game on turn 3 is super powerful. Plus when you play him you get to deal damage to a character based on how many Brooms you have in play. This is exactly what the Broom deck needed, the ability to cash in on their wide board of Brooms, in this case as some damage-based removal. Oh, and you get a pretty solid 3/4/2 body with Resist 1.

This Mickey should definitely help push the Broom deck towards playability. Will the deck get there or not? It's hard to predict, but this Floodborn is definitely going to be doing a lot of work in that deck either way. Love this card.

Rating: 4/5

Mickey Mouse - Standard-Bearer

Here is a Mickey that can also go into the Broom deck, as a Shift target for the Floodborn Mickey. He's a 1/3/1 for 2, which isn't great, but you get to give another character Challenger +2 when you play him. So he is effectively a 3/3 for 2, but 2 of that Strength has "rush", in that it effects the board immediately. That's pretty good. It does require that you have something in play to utilize though.

It's a bit like Merlin - Crab just not as good. But in a deck, like the Broom deck, that has a bunch of smaller character lying around, the ability to allow one of them to trade up can be useful. I think this one could be good enough.

Rating: 3/5

Mulan - Armorer Fighter

With this and Hades - Meticulous Plotter coming in this set, it seems 3/6/1 for 4 is the new base line stats for vanilla 4-drops. It's not a terrible stat line, to be fair, and this Mulan works very well as a Shift target for Mulan - Elite Archer. The rare vanilla card that could see some competitive play.

Rating: 3/5

Philoctetes - No-Nonsense Instuctor

Now this card is exciting. A 4-cost 2/3/2 is not great but Phil also gives a small buff to your Hero characters in play. More importantly though, every time you play a Hero while he is on board, you instantly gain 1 lore. I love any cards that let us gain instant lore and this one allows us to do that and then some.

I am envisioning a deck with Stitch - Rock Star and a bunch of 1- or 2-cost Heroes. You get Stitch and Phil out onto the board and then you just start pumping out a ton of cheap Heroes for a bunch of lore in one turn. Aggro decks have needed ways to just burst for a lot of lore in a single turn, and this Phil lets you do that.

Now this may end up being a meme more than a real deck. You have to have everything set up just right for the Stitch/Phil dream to pan out. And go wide strategies have not had the best of times in Lorcana so far. Way too much efficient removal and not enough efficient card draw. But I still want to give it a try and this card giving me some hope it could work is still exciting to me.

Rating: 4/5

Piglet - Sturdy Swordsman

Steel's other Legendary this set is this absolutely adorable Piglet. He's a 5-cost 3/5 with Resist +1 and which quests for 3. And he has the ability Not So Small Anymore, which lets him challenge ready characters if you have no cards in your hand.

Challenging readied characters is fine, but I don't love having to empty our hand to do it. And with only 3 Strength, you might find it hard to banish anything with Piglet. The other problem with having 3 Strength? He gets dealt with easily by Madame Medusa - The Boss. That is a problem.

All those downsides, plus the fact that he is uninkable, has me leaning towards this being another dud of a Legendary for Steel this set. A shame too, as the card art is fantastic.

Rating: 3/5

Rajah - Royal Protector

Another card that wants you to have an empty hand to gain a benefit, this Rajah is protected from challenges by characters that cost 4 or less if you have no cards. I don't love these "empty hand" abilities. Yes, Tiana - Celebrating Princess sees play, but that is because stopping your opponent from playing any actions is very powerful. But just blocking challenges against this one specific character is not worth emptying my hand for. This will most of the time just be a vanilla 3/4/2 for 4 ink and that's not good enough.

Rating: 2/5

Raya - Unstoppable Force

This Raya Super Rare feels like it should be a Floodborn character. At 7 cost, she is quite expensive. Yes, you get a 3/6/2 that also has Challenger +2 and Resist +2, meaning she will take out most anything and live to tell the tale. And when she does, you even get to draw a card. That is all very good.

But having to pay 7 for this and you don't get any immediate effect when you play her is just very slow. If she was Floodborn, and you could Shift her out, you could challenge immediately with her and banish something important and get your card draw right away. Instead, you'll mostly play her and then just have her die to removal before she does anything.

Maybe this is one that can work with 004-074? But even then you aren't getting her out until turn 5 and then still have to wait until turn 6 before she can challenge. She's just too slow for constructed, unfortunately.

Rating: 2/5

Yao - Imperial Soldier

So this is just a straight-up worse Jafar - Wicked Sorcerer. That Jafar saw a little bit of play in the early days of Lorcana, but has since been power crept out of the meta. He wasn't even seeing play in the decks that really wanted to Shift out a Jafar on turn 5. So this card, with worse stats and no Shift target, is definitely not constructed worthy.

Rating: 1/5

Avalanche

A "deal 1 damage to all opposing characters" action would be great. But bundling the banish location effect to this card is kinda pointless. And is likely driving the cost up in the process, making this quite expensive for an AoE ping effect. Plus we can't ink it or sing it? Oof.

I don't want to immediately write off any sort of AoE effect, but this one has a tough hill to climb to be playability.

Rating: 2/5

I Find 'Em, I Flatten 'Em

The ultimate item hate card, this 4-cost song banishes ALL items. Yes, that includes your own items but you'd obviously never run this card in a deck with items. This card is the very definition of a tech card, meaning a card you add or remove from decks simply to help counter other strategies. If item decks are powerful and prevalent in the meta, this card will be a hugely important counter to them. If item decks are bad, this card will not see any play.

Rating: 3/5

One Last Hope

This card reminds me of Pick a Fight. A card that I'm pretty sure most players forgot exists and possibly even the game's designers as well. (How come we haven't gotten any other Wreck-It Ralph cards, Ravensburger?) Now, you need the character you choose to be a Hero to get the Pick a Fight effect, but presumably you are playing this in a Hero deck. You also give Resist +2, which is a nice bonus, hopefully allowing the character to survive the challenge.

So is a singable Pick A Fight that costs 1 more ink and gives Resist +2 good enough to see play? It's not terrible but it is quite situational and probably isn't worth a deck slot, most of the time. Steel has plenty of other ways to deal with unexerted characters that this sort of effect isn't necessary.

Rating: 2/5

The Mob Song

Kill the Beast! Kill the Beast! Kill the Beast! This Sing Together song can definitely kill the Beast and some other stuff besides. Dealing 3 damage across 3 characters and locations is a lot of damage. And if you can sing this out with Ursula - Deceiver of All? That's an insane 18 damage to your opponent's board.

But 10 cost is really expensive. You will need to stick a lot to the board to be able to sing this reliably. And if you can't sing it, it's going to just be a dead card in your hand, because you definitely do not want to pay 10 ink for it. Now Steel does have some very good and very powerful 5-cost Floodborns and if you can get two of those on board together, they alone can sing this song. That is going to be some huge, game-winning tempo if you can make that happen.

But this card feels a bit like a "win more" card to me in that if you have 10 ink worth of characters on board already, you likely are already winning anyway. Playing this will allow you to win faster, but it's not a card that is going to turn the tide on your opponent and snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat. So I suspect it may be tried out in the Steelsongs deck, but ultimately will end up being cut.

Rating: 3/5

Triton's Decree

This card is, most of the time, just a worse Fire The Cannons!. It does get around Ward though, so can be an answer to Prince John - Greediest of All or Bucky - Squirrel Squeak Tutor. If those cards are prominent in the meta, this could see play. Otherwise, you'd rather just play one of the other "deal 2 damage" cards in Steel.

Rating: 2/5

Fortisphere

This item looks like a good one for Sapphire/Steel decks. It's inkable, costs only 1 ink, draws you a card when you play it and has an "on banish" effect. It's a Steel Pawpsicle, is what it is. The "on banish" effect is worse than Pawpsicles, most of the time. But you want to hit this with Hiram Flaversham - Toymaker, not use its effect anyway. This card fuels your Hiram, pumps up your Tamatoa - So Shiny!, ensures your Ariel - Treasure Collector can quest for 5, can be drawn with Scuttle - Expert on Humans. Yeah, it's a Sapphire/Steel card and an excellent one at that.

Rating: 4/5

Imperial Bow

Another item that requires you to pay to use its effect. Again, these effects have to be really worth it for me to want to include this in my deck. Just giving my Heroes Challenger and Evasive is not enough. We have other, better ways to deal with Evasives in Steel.

Rating: 2/5

RLS Legacy's Cannon

Not another one! This card is even pricier than Imperial Bow and I have to discard a card on top of paying 2 ink to activate its effect? Um, no thanks.

Rating: 1/5

The Wall - Border Fortress

The Wall is, appropriately, here to protect your other locations. If you have an exerted character here, your other locations can't be challenged. But you have to pay to 2 to move a character to the location and pay 4 for the location itself. And even then your opponent can just take out the character at The Wall instead of having to deal with The Wall itself. Cool idea, but too expensive and clunky.

Rating: 2/5

Thebes - The Big Olive

Thebes is a bit like 004-135 in that it has no passive lore gain, but you can gain lore by moving characters here and then challenging. Now with Thebes, you have to actually banish the other character to gain the lore, but you get 2 lore every time you do. Plus it has a cheaper move cost, making it easier to get characters there. It's an interesting location, for sure, and it could be that these two end up going in the same "challenge matters" deck.

Rating: 3/5

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And that's it for Steel and closes the book on our Ursula's Return set review! I think Steel got some cool new stuff this set. I love seeing the support for the Broom decks. I'm really excited to see if we can finally live the Broom dream. Also I'm stoked to try out the Hero aggro deck with Philoctetes.

Plus some existing decks got potential new tools, in stuff like the Floodborn Ariel and Fortisphere. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned what may end up being the best and most played card from this set, Lefou.

All in all, very excited to get some Ursula's Return cards and get to building some new decks! Be sure to check out our recent article on some new decks to try and stay tuned for even more coverage of the Ursula's Return meta!