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Reign of Jafar is making its presence felt in the competitive Lorcana TCG scene with powerful new cards introducing shifts in the metagame. With a healthy amount of events already in the books, we can take a look at how the new meta is shaping up as we head into the game's first ever World Championship in three weeks.
Check out the latest snapshot of the Lorcana Constructed Set 8 metagame along with featured decks below.
Tier List
| Tier | Deck | Meta Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 |   Amber Steel Steelsong | 17% 🔼 |
  Ruby Sapphire Pawpsicle | 12% 🔼 | |
 Amethyst Sapphire Ramp | 11% 🔼 | |
| Tier 2 |  Emerald Steel Discard | 9% 🔼 |
| Amber Steel Aggro | 9% 🔼 | |
| Amethyst Steel Bounce | 7% 🔽 | |
| Amethyst Emerald Discard | 6% 🔼 | |
| Tier 3 | Amethyst Ruby Evasive | 5% 🔽 |
| Amethyst Emerald Bounce | 5% 🔼 | |
| Amethyst Ruby Bounce | 4% ↔️ | |
| Amber Emerald Chernadog | 3% 🔽 | |
| Amber Steel Dwarf’s Mine | 3% 🔼 | |
| Sapphire Steel Aggro | 2% ↔️ |
Meta Overview
It should be fair to say that Amber Steel is the biggest winner from Reign of Jafar. Its Steelsong, Aggro, and Dwarf's Mine versions are all looking pretty competitive so far and it should take no time for players to figure out the new optimal list from here.
In contrast, Ruby Sapphire gained practically nothing from the new set, at least as far as recent event results show. Despite this it's still solidly in the second spot with two strong versions: Items or Maui.
The Steel pairing of the Emerald discard decks is seeing more play at the moment, though the Amethyst version featuring new Set 8 cards seem more promising as the meta develops.
Amethyst Ruby is not having a good time as both of its very competitive decks from the previous meta are now way less popular. Blurple on the other hand is looking good, thanks to a really scary whale.
Tier 1
Amber Steel Steelsong
Steelsong unsurprisingly keeps its spot at the top of the meta with potent new additions from Reign of Jafar. 008-030-rhino-power-hamster and 008-202-beyond-the-horizon have quickly taken slots in the deck to complement the strengths of the song-driven archetype.
The Power Hamster can come down as early as turn 2 thanks to 008-015-rhino-one-sixteenth-wolf and threaten any early questers with its ridiculous Resist +2. It scoffs at cheap removal like 002-199-let-the-storm-rage-on and becomes doubly annoying if it gets healed by Rapunzel.
008-202-beyond-the-horizo is amazing in the right situations, such as refilling an almost empty hand or chopping the opponent's hand. With so many powerful singers its cost isn't a problem, getting you closer to your next 001-195-a-whole-new-world faster.
This deck went 8-1 winning a 52-player event:
Ruby Sapphire Pawpsicle
Ruby Sapphire continues to be the premier control ink duo in Lorcana, though there are two distinct versions seeing a lot of success recently.
The first is really a Maui deck. 001-114-maui-hero-to-all challenges with reckless abandon, while 006-124-maui-half-shark recurs actions, letting you dig for answers or simply race for the win through 004-128-a-pirates-life.
The second is item-based, with 007-162-tamatoa-happy-as-a-clam taking advantage of as many as 20 total items in the deck. 001-159-tamatoa-so-shiny is the main win con, and it has way fewer copies of Maui overall.
Aside from 004-125-sisu-empowered-sibling, some card choices need to be made at the top end, with 001-147-hades-infernal-schemer and 001-113-maleficent-monstrous-dragon fighting for slots.
This went 8-0-3 to win its event:
Amethyst Sapphire Ramp
Blurple is pulling ahead of other Amethyst decks since it can get 008-064-monstro-infamous-whale onto the board the fastest with Sapphire ramp cards. The powerful whale is an effective board-clearer as long as you have the cards to spare, and you can keep it alive longer with 004-036-belle-accomplished-mystic and 002-169-pawpsicle.
007-159-belle-apprentice-inventor is a welcome early drop that's indispensable against aggro decks like Amber Steel. The evasive characters in the deck are great at dealing with the opponent's. Plus all the ramp means you can drop threats and play card draw effects on the same turn.
It's refreshing to see less bounce-focused strategies from Amethyst as it seems to finally be evolving after relying on that strategy for so long.
This 4-of only deck went 7-0-3 at a 94-player event:
Tier 2
Emerald Steel Discard
Emerald Steel is slightly the more popular choice for discard enthusiasts, since it has tools to deal with characters that make it to the board more efficiently with Steel songs and 002-173-beast-tragic-hero. So far, 008-202-beyond-the-horizon and 008-097-chip-quick-thinker from Set 8 have found its way to the deck.
With 003-091-ursula-deceiver-of-all doubling songs and 002-089-prince-john-greediest-of-all really putting the hurt with every discard, Emerald Steel promises a lot of card advantage, especially with an unanswered 004-070-diablo-devoted-herald.
003-081-morph-space-goo lets you drop 002-173-beast-tragic-hero or 007-114-pete-space-pirate earlier. 004-101-hidden-cove-tranquil-haven gives the fragile characters in the deck just a tad more survivability.
Here's a 9-1 decklist at an 89-player event:
Amber Steel Aggro
The more aggressive version of Amber Steel is seeing a resurgence with the arrival of 008-011-lady-family-dog. She enables faster starts to get more characters in play for 003-016-piglet-pooh-pirate-captain and get 005-193-doc-bold-knight value sooner.
008-030-rhino-power-hamster works great with healers like 007-021-penny-bolts-person and 001-018-rapunzel-gifted-with-healing, which further empower relatively cheap and strong bruisers such as 002-186-lawrence-jealous-manservant and 006-186-pluto-guard-dog.
The pressure this deck can produce with a good opening hand is hard to deal with since it can recover nicely from speed bumps.
This clean list went 8-0-3 at one of the biggest events since Set 8's release (113 players):
Amethyst Steel Bounce
Speaking of bounce strats, tempo-oriented Amethyst Steel takes advantage of Madam Mim to get ahead on cards and board control. Paired with Steel damage songs and strong early drops and you get a solid midrange deck that has the tools for every matchup.
004-054-peter-pan-shadow-finder headlines the evasive-rush portion of the deck that makes it board control so effective. Bouncing damaged challengers that also provide value when played like 006-053-genie-wish-fulfilled feels great.
So far, this version of the ink duo hasn't found noteworthy Reign of Jafar cards to include yet, which might make it pretty unexciting to play.
A 108-player event saw this 8-0-4 deck finishing in first place:
Amethyst Emerald Discard
The Diablo deck received some really good, flexible tools from Reign of Jafar that should see it rank higher in future meta reports. can either nab a card or score you two. can either bounce your stuff (maybe sometimes) or combo with the former to take out big threats.
The flexibility of the ink duo along with proactive answers to opposing Diablos should give the pairing the edge in discard mirrors. Add to that having double the shift targets for and you have a more reliable method of gaining an advantage.
Non-discard focused Amethyst Emerald decks have been gaining some momentum prior to the release of Set 8, and we might see this develop even further.
The largest event yet in this new meta is a 286-player tourney that saw two Amethyst Emerald decks battle for 1st place with nearly similar lists:
