Table of Contents
Into the Inklands has been a control oriented metagame for the most part, with Ruby/Amethyst and Ruby/Sapphire capitalizing on the red color's incredible control tools to protect a value oriented gameplan.
For the most part, the way to face these reactive decks has been to rely on 001-195 to constantly develop tempo while punishing them for trying to keep a large hand. In this guide, we're exploring the other way to annoy control decks, emptying their hand rather than trying to build ours.
Indeed, while Lorcana has been a fight based on card advantage and never running out of steam, Emerald/Steel decided to take another route, forcing everyone to play with very few cards, if not just your draw at the turn.
I love this type of archetypes, which reward you for building tempo, and understand how to leverage the resources available in a match. I know it can be a very frustrating experience for the opponent, who simply can't do much when they draw an unplayable card as their only option for the turn. Yet, it was about time Lorcana stopped being about who can draw the most, and instead reward a different type of resource management.
Decklist & Card Breakdown
Key Synergies
Emerald Steel is more based around disrupting the opponent's synergies with the discard mechanic, rather than pushing for its own agenda. However, we have a few cards we want to maximize in order to control the flow of cards in both player's hand:
- 003-091 plus any of your songs will give you a great discard (001-098), draw potential (002-199) or a solid removal (002-201)
- 002-089 is the main draw engine for this deck, meaning you might want to keep your discards for once it is in play.
What to Ink?
Because our curve with this deck is very low, every card can feel playable soon, which sometimes makes it difficult to know what to ink. The key to choose is to know which phase of the game you are in, either the disruptive phase, meaning your discard and songs are the key, or looking to gain some lore, which then emphasizes on characters more.
Then, you probably want to ink 003-073, 002-0076 or 002-077 early in the match, while 001-098 isn't very useful once you emptied your opponent's hand already.
Outside this consideration, we have a few match-up oriented cards we can safely ink whenever the opponent isn't playing a specific deck:
- 002-174 can be inked if your opponent isn't a Sapphire deck.
- 003-090 is mostly used to annoy Steel, Amber, and Ruby decks.
- 003-198 only serves against locations, which can be in Ruby or Amethyst decks.
Alternate builds
Based on 002-073, this deck featured a more synergistic approach, with 002-070 included for massive lore gains late in the match.
This deck needs more ink to function, and typically is slower out of the gate, which makes me prefer the more tempo oriented build. Yet, if your strengths as a player are closer to this type of play style, you should give it a try.
Alternate Cards to Consider
First, let's start by saying the list has many two or three of certain cards, so you can play with the balance of the deck there. For example, I like to be very aggressive when it comes to emptying the opponent's hand, so I have two 002-098 and two 002-076 instead of more removal options.
Tinker Bell - Giant Fairy
A late game, inkable card you can use against aggressive decks to leverage the board, and keep gaining lore instead of challenging with your other cards.
Robin Hood - Daydreamer
A big potential lore gain down the line to close the match. It too often ends up in the inkwell to my liking, but I might consider it as a one-of inclusion.
Lucifer - Cunning Cat
I would play it if it was inkable, but we usually want to play more flexible cards in our discard kit. This one can really stick in your hand if you don't need the discard ability, while it isn't even that good to gain lore with a weak [2/2] body.
Tiana - Celebrating Princess
A resilient lore gain, Tiana helps a lot to race against fast-paced decks which struggle to deal with the Resist +2.
The list from Ryan Miles in the 5K SCG Atlanta tournament featured 002-077 and 002-076 instead. I like the ducks, but you should test both options and make your own opinion about it.
Robin Hood - Champion of Sherwood
A nice finisher atop the curve against decks where you can leverage the "Skilled Combatant" ability. The card is inkable so it makes it a safe inclusion if you find the room for it. I wouldn't mind removing 003-073 for it if you find yourself constantly being the player with more cards in hand.
How to Play
Your primary goal with this deck is to disrupt your opponent's play pattern as much as possible, ideally limiting them to their card drawn every turn. In this scenario, ramp-oriented decks can't ink as they would like to, while fast-paced decks cannot develop the required tempo to pressure you.
There are two areas we need to control to create the perfect situation: their hand and their board.
Most of the time, especially against a slower build, we will start with their hand, as we have plenty of characters we can summon to force our opponent into discarding something. 003-070, 001-074, and 003-090 are our go-to trio for early discards. The first two are either free lore gain for us, or fewer cards available to our opponent. They will get you behind on the board as they are very weak in challenges, but this isn't our goal yet. As for 003-090, she reveals their whole hand to us in addition to removing a song, plus, we can use it to sing 001-098 if they are already running low on cards.
Limiting their hand early will make our future plays much safer, particularly 003-091, so we can sing as much as possible with it. Use 002-201 to remove opposing characters, or 002-199 to mix in some draw as well.
Also, aggressively emptying our opponent's hand will stop them from inking their cards, which can completely block certain decks, such as the ones with Ruby control tools, which require at least six ink to play most cards.
The other route you can pick is to take care of their characters first, using 001-174 and 003-184 to seize the board. Then, develop 002-089 before transferring to your discard abilities to simply out value your opponent. This is better suited against fast-paced opponents, which can develop too much before you manage to get their hand empty.
Once we reach four or five ink, we should have managed to build the card advantage, which we will leverage for the rest of the match. From this point, you can either keep discarding whatever is in their hand, limiting their ability to take out your questing characters. Or focus on your own draw, and become sort of a tempo deck, which will play two to three cards per turn while the opponent will only have one.
In that second portion of the match, card draw is key to never running out of steam, constantly playing characters to gain lore. We've already discussed 002-089, but once their hand is empty, there won't be much to discard. Then, you want to transfer to 002-173 and 002-077 to keep playing cards.
Most of the match will be determined during that early phase of disruption. The more effective you are then, the easier the match will be in the later turns.
Key Turns
Most of the key turns for Emerald Steel are early in the match, as once we managed to empty our opponent's hand and get a few characters in play, we are basically set. Then, the key turns you need to keep in mind with this deck are based around the cards you really want to get in play.
Turn three will be important, as we have both 003-091 and 002-089 we want to play, taking all our ink for that turn. Similarly, we need to build up enough tempo to be able to play 002-173 later on, and choose whether we want to damage it through a challenge or keep it healthy for some more draw.
Outside these considerations, because we are a tempo based deck, there aren't any set in stone turns with this deck.
Mulligan
Both 003-090 and 003-091 are cards I would always keep, as you can ink them if you get multiple copies. Even against a color combination typically not running any song, seeing all their hand early on is insane value.
002-089 is our third influential card, but it cannot be inked, plus, needs us to hold on the discard until we get it in play. With a fine hand, I would always keep it, but you can consider mulliganing it if you have nothing else to play or ink early on.
003-070 and 001-074 are good against slow opponents, as we force them to either let us gain lore early, or lose some cards to remove our characters. On the other hand, 001-0174 and 003-184 will serve to keep an aggressive opponent in check, limiting their lore gain or ability to sing multiple times in the early stages of the match.
As for match-up specific keeps, 002-174 is nice to have against Sapphire, and it can be inked if you can't keep it until a good item gets played. 003-198 follow the same logic against Amethyst and Sapphire, in order to deal with their location.
Cards I would never keep are 003-195 and the 4-cost characters, except if you are willing to ink those early. Even with a great hand, these represent support tools, so it's often more beneficial to have more copies of your early tools to make sure you will dominate the first and most important turns for this deck.
Weaknesses to Be Aware Of
The worst thing that can happen to Emerald Amethyst is falling behind on the board and being forced to play control. Indeed, we have very limited control tools. Unless 003-091 is already on the board, ready to sing 002-201, we can't deal with anything above three health. In that scenario, the best route might be to aggressively discard our opponent's cards and hope they run out of steam before they can win the game.
Against decks with a lot of draw potential in particular, certain draws can refurnish their hand (001-195 is a prime example) so we need to build the lead as soon as their hand doesn't allow them to keep up with our development.
The other weakness of this deck is the relatively weak body of our units, which are clearly in the deck because of their ability. As such, against an opponent you know runs Rush characters, be careful when singing or questing with your cards. Amethyst/Ruby is the big one to have in mind, but Ruby decks in general will play 001-114 at the very least.
Closing Words
Compared to disruptive, discard based archetypes I have played in other card games, Emerald/Steel has scary potential. Indeed, in a game where you basically use two cards per turn through inking and the one you will play, there already is a need for a lot of card draw. If you start discarding your hand in addition to the game requirements, running out of cards by turn four or five isn't so difficult to imagine.
This is exactly what Emerald/Steel discard tries to do, and the consistency it showed so far is nothing short of impressive. The list might not be fully refined yet, as Ryan Miles himself, the originator of the featured build in this guide, said in an interview that there were still some cards he was testing and moving in and out of the deck. Once we get to the perfect list, the metagame better be ready to play with few cards available each turn, because it will be the only way to win at Lorcana.
I hope this guide was helpful in mastering Emerald Steel. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out through my Twitter page.
Good Game Everyone!
