Shimmering Skies Set Review: Amber

Introduction

Shimmering Skies is the fifth set of Ravensburger's Disney Lorcana Trading Card Game. At this point in the game's lifecycle, the card pool has grown significantly. For cards to make an impact, they will either need to bring something new to the table or just be an all-around powerful card. Let's review all the cards in this new set and see which might make the biggest splash, beginning with the Amber cards.

Amber has been mostly a support color so far in Disney Lorcana. Its lack of removal options and card draw has meant it has to rely on other colors for these key components of any successful deck. Will this change in Shimmering Skies? Will Amber finally be able to stand on its own as an ink? Read on to find out!

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Shimmering Skies Amber Cards

Koda - Talkative Cub

Brother Bear is a new franchise joining the ranks of Disney Lorcana this set. Unfortunately, none of the cards are very good. Koda here is a very narrow tech card that is only really going to see play if lore steal decks are prevalent in the meta. Considering there have been exactly zero of those types of decks seeing play so far, and none of the cards from this set are really pushing the archetype, I'm not seeing that happening any time soon.

Rating: 2/5

Nala - Mischievous Cub

This Nala is the first time we have seen a 0/4/1 stat line on a 1-drop. I would probably rather have a 1/3/1 on my 1-drop. It still can survive 2 damage actions such as Ba-Boom! and Let the Storm Rage On, but actually has some strength to be able to challenge, if necessary. Unless or until we get a Floodborn Nala, I don't think this card is going to see play.

Rating: 2/5

Prince Naveen - Ukulele Player

The first of Amber's two Legendaries this set, this Prince Naveen has what has been the most important keyword for Amber cards in Lorcana: Singer. And that's not all. His It's Beautiful, No? ability allows you to play a song card with cost 6 or less for free, the turn he is played. Any time the words "for free" appear in a card's text, you have my attention. Doubly so, when those words are included on an enter the battlefield (ETB) effect.

Prince Naveen effectively acts a Singer with singing Rush. For 4 ink, you get a decent body that can immediately sing a song 6 or less from your hand, but with the added bonus of not needing to exert him. So he will usually stick around until next turn to sing again. But even if he is removed immediately, you've already gotten value out of him. That's the power of having mana cheat on an ETB.

Now, singing for 6 isn't all that relevant right now. Most of the best songs have been 5 cost or fewer. But that is fine. You are perfectly happy to play a We Don't Talk About Bruno or A Whole New World with Naveen. But this card will get even better if and when they introduce some powerful 6-cost songs.

He reminds me of Jim Hawkins - Space Traveler but for songs instead of locations. And Jim saw some competitive play in decks with a few locations. And since songs are way, way, way better than locations, this Amber Legendary is looking very strong indeed. Naveen will be an auto-include in any midrange or control Amber deck that includes a decent amount of songs, which at the moment are the only Amber decks seeing any real play. Overall, this is a very powerful Legendary.

Rating: 5/5

Rutt - Northern Moose

Support has been a bust in Lorcana so far. There is not enough reason to want to play it and since you aren't getting anything else with this card other than worse-than-vanilla stats, this moose is nothing but pack filler.

Rating: 1/5

Kenai - Big Brother

Another Brother Bear card, Kenai is the big brother to Koda. That makes his ability quite flavorful, but in practice he's just a card with Bodyguard for only one specific card. Now if Koda was a super powerful card you desperately wanted to protect, maybe you would think about running this. Even then though, I'd probably just rather an actual Bodyguard that can protect my whole board.

Rating: 2/5

Vanellope von Schweetz - Sugar Rush Champion

Shimmering Skies is introducing a whole host of cards from Wreck-It Ralph and this Vanellope von Schweetz is the first one we are looking at in our set review. We aren't really kicking things off with a very exciting one though, as she is just a basic 1-cost 2/2. She does have the Racer tag, which quite a few other Wreck-It Ralph cards also have, although there curiously is no payoff for that tag in this set. Otherwise, she's pretty unremarkable and will only see play as a Shift target, provided there is a strong Floodborn Vanellope out there.

Rating: 2/5

Tuke - Northern Moose

Tuke and Rutt have a nice bit of connecting art, which is about the only thing noteworthy about either of these cards. You aren't playing a vanilla 4/4/1 for 4 ink.

Rating: 1/5

Lilo - Junior Cake Decorator

Another Support card, which already has me underwhelmed. And this one has a horrible stat line for a Support card, with only 1 strength. No thanks. Adorable art though.

Rating: 1/5

Vanellope von Schweetz - Candy Mechanic

Another Vanellope card and this one is also a 2/2/1 but it costs you 2 ink. For that extra ink you are getting an ability which lets you remove 1 strength from an opposing character whenever Vanellope quests. Meh. I don't think this card is good enough on its own to see play, but if the Floodborn Vanellope is good, maybe you want this card as your Shift target instead of the 1-drop.

Rating: 2/5

Fix-It Felix, Jr. - Trusty Builder

Here is an adorable little Fix-It Felix card. We have seen this stat line before, a 3-cost 2/4 Bodyguard, in Little John - Robin's Pal and that card saw no play, even with an added bonus effect. So I don't see Felix making the cut except as maybe a Shift target. Sorry, baby Felix.

Rating: 2/5

Gazelle - Pop Star

Gazelle, the Shakira-voiced singer from Zootopia, makes her debut in Lorcana as a 3 ink 2/3/2 with the keyword Singer 5. Five is a big breakpoint for songs. We've seen Amber lists running 002-008, just to have more Singer 5 options, and Gazelle could be a straight up replacement for him. Depends on if you value the extra lore or extra strength, which means it can dodge cards like Brawl. Decent card, either way.

Rating: 3/5

Fix-It Felix, Jr. - Niceland Steward

Fix-It Felix, Jr. gets a second card in this Floodborn Felix. His ability gives Locations a nice buff to their Willpower. One of the big issues with a lot of Locations is how easy they can be to take out in one swing, especially with a card like Maui - Hero to All. So having that extra Willpower on them is nice.

But we still have yet to see a strong deck that relies heavily on Locations. At best, they are an optional inclusion to decks that sometimes give you a bit of lore or other additional value. I'm not sure you want a card like this that has otherwise vanilla stats, simply to slightly improve a small handful of cards in your deck.

If there is ever a Location-heavy deck that is looking to flood the board with Locations and wants to keep them around longer, Felix could find a home there. But for now, he's not worth adding to your deck.

Rating: 2/5

Kristoff - Reindeer Keeper

This Kristoff is the first of a cycle of cards in each ink color where the character has a very expensive base cost, but gets progressively cheaper based on a certain condition. For Kristoff, that condition is how many songs you have in your discard, which is very on brand for Amber. Any card that you can discount is one to keep an eye on and all of the cards in this cycle are worth experimenting with, for sure.

You'd probably want at least 4 songs in your discard, so you could play him for 5 ink, to feel good about it. Is it possible to achieve that on curve? Possibly, but you might not have much of a board to protect. He quests for 3 lore though and can sing nearly every song in the game by himself, so he's never a bad character to have around.

All that being said, his susceptibility to Madame Medusa - The Boss is going to be a big problem. Doing all the work of getting songs into your discard to make him cheap enough to play only to have him immediately and efficiently dealt with is pretty backbreaking. That plus the fact he is uninkable makes me question how reliable a card he can be.

Rating: 3/5

Mirabel Madrigal - Family Gatherer

The second Amber Legendary from Shimmering Skies is this Mirabel Madrigal card. Mirabel is the first card in Disney Lorcana to have a base value of 5 lore. That's so much lore they didn't even have room to fit all the lore pips on there! As a 5 ink 5/5 with 5 lore this Mirabel would be a much better version of Robin Hood - Daydreamer if she had no other text. But, unfortunately, she comes with a pretty significant downside where you need to have 5 characters in play to play her.

Five characters is a lot. Especially in a game without tokens or many ways to play multiple characters with only one card. There is Perdita - Devoted Mother, but that is pretty much it. The other thing to consider is, if you already have 5 characters on board, you probably don't need Mirabel. You are likely already in a good position and close to winning the game anyway. She's the definition of a "win more" card.

The only way I think she sees play is in a deck built around just trying to get her out as quickly as possible with a card like Zero To Hero. Obviously, since her condition requires you to have 5 characters on board already, if you can sing Zero to Hero with one of those characters, you can play her for free. Maybe there is a deck out there that can reliably get her out as early as turn 3? That would be very strong, but I just don't think it will be consistent enough to build a deck around the idea.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a place for this card. Maybe in the future, with better ways to flood the board with cheap characters, she could find a home. But for now, I think she's too hard to play consistently and too "win more" even when you can play her.

Rating: 2/5

Minnie Mouse - Drum Major

Minnie Mouse is like Alma Madrigal - Family Matriarch, except she can do it for any character, not just a Madrigal. That is pretty nice, but you have to Shift her to trigger the effect. That can be tough, especially since there aren't any great Minnies you want to be running on their own. Her stats aren't anything to write home about either.

This tutor effect that isn't really a tutor effect since you don't get the card into your hand probably is not good enough to see play. Especially not when it's conditional like this, where you need to stick a Shift target to the board. So yeah, I'm not super impressed.

Rating: 2/5

Daisy Duck - Donald's Date

Now this card is impressing me. A 1/4/2 for only 1 ink? That's a crazy stat line. 4 Willpower is a lot on a 1-drop, especially one that can quest for 2. There are really only a couple cards in the game that can easily take this out before turn 3, so you are almost guaranteed 4 lore off of Daisy and probably more.

Now, this card does have a drawback, which is that every time she quests you are potentially giving your opponent extra card draw. But even this drawback can sometimes work in your favor. Since they only draw the card if it is a character, you may end up revealing an action or song that they would want to play, only for it to get sent to the bottom of the deck. There are also ways to turn the drawback into a benefit, with cards that care about your opponent's hand size such as Remember Who You Are and Clarabelle - Light on Her Hooves.

But even if you aren't utilizing these synergies, Daisy is just an excellent aggro card. In an aggro deck, you mostly don't care if your opponent draws a few extra cards. The goal is to finish the game before those cards can even make a difference. And Daisy can definitely help finish a game very quickly.

I expect Daisy to be meta-warping, in that slower decks are going to have to tech in early answers to Daisy or just auto-lose to her. Finally, aggro gets a 5/5 card.

Rating: 5/5

Fix-It Felix, Jr. - Delighted Sightseer

The third Fix-It Felix, Jr. card and this one seems like maybe the best of the bunch. A 1/3/1 stat line for 2 ink is not great, but good enough. And he draws you a card, provided you have a Location in play. He's obviously meant to go into the Location deck with the Floodborn Felix, but I also kind of like him in an aggro deck that wants to play a Location on 1. He then curves out nicely, putting more pressure on the board without costing you card advantage.

One of aggro's biggest problems right now is they just don't have too many cards that replace themselves, so once their early characters all get removed, it's game over. Having cards you can play on to the board that also refill your hand is great. I don't know if there is a Location you really want to play on turn 1 yet, but if and when that card comes, Felix will be a perfect card for that deck. Just an okay card for now but with a lot of potential down the road.

Rating: 3/5

Moana - Determined Explorer

Moana is a Mickey Mouse - True Friend that trades inkability for one extra Willpower. It's honestly not the worst card in the world. There is definitely a point where you put enough stats on a vanilla card and it becomes worth playing. I'm not sure if this Moana is quite there, but she's getting close.

Rating: 2/5

Vanellope von Schweetz - Sugar Rush Princess

This Floodborn Vanellope is the main reason you would want to play the other Amber Vanellopes. Shifting for only 2 ink is quite nice, letting you get some strong early tempo, as well as a 4-cost singer out on turn 2. She's obviously not as good as 002-026, but that card is kind of busted, so this Vanellope could still be playable.

Her ability is not too spectacular though. It is only triggering off of Princesses but wants to go in an aggro deck, but most Princesses aren't really aggro cards. Maybe there is an aggressive Hero/Princess deck in Amber/Sapphire that could emerge? Just about all Princesses are Heroes too. This Vanellope would be a great fit in a deck like that, but I'm not suspecting it to be any good, at least not yet.

For now, you are probably playing this Vanellope if you really value having a consistent turn 2 Shift for singing or just some decent tempo. Nothing too amazing, but borderline playable.

Rating: 3/5

Alan-A-Dale - Rockin' Rooster

Alan-A-Dale is a minstrel and a member of Robin Hood's Merry Men. In Lorcana, his talents for singing translate into gaining you 1 lore every time you play a song. Note I said every time you play a song. So unlike Sleepy's Flute, which gains you only 1 lore per turn instead of 1 lore per song, there is no limit to how much lore you can get from Alan in a turn.

That makes him quite a bit better than Flute, although as a character he is easier to remove. But generally you are going to play him the turn you have a bunch of songs ready to be sung for a nice burst of lore gain. In that scenario, he is going to be fantastic. He is going to be a great inclusion to Steelsong or really any Amber deck with a decent amount of songs. Very good card.

Rating: 4/5

Wreck-It Ralph - Admiral Underpants

The big guy himself makes his Lorcana debut in this set with a couple cards, the first of which is this Amber Wreck-It Ralph. As a 7-cost 6/7 that quests for 2, he is indeed quite a big guy. And his ability gives you a bit of card recursion, that can gain you some lore if you pull a Princess card. The nice thing is you don't even need to build a full Princess deck for that to be good. Just put Ralph in a deck with Rapunzel - Gifted with Healing and you are set for card draw.

The big glaring issue with this card is it is uninkable. A 7-cost card that you can't Shift out is going to get stuck in your hand a lot of the time. While his stats and ability are nice, he's just so expensive that I don't know if he will be making too many lists.

Rating: 3/5

Maid Marian - Lady of the Lists

Maid Marian looks like a strictly better Scar - Mastermind; same cost and stats (although swapped) but her ability lasts through the opponent's turn. So you can use her to protect your stuff as well as set up favorable trades. But I just don't see that being worth a 6 ink investment. You want to be doing more powerful things at that stage of the game.

Rating: 2/5

Sven - Reindeer Steed

Sven is another card that can protect your board, by readying one of your characters so they can't be challenged. He can also be used to allow your singers to sing twice in one turn. He curves nicely off of Ariel - Spectacular Singer, setting her up to sing two 5-cost songs on turn 4, which is a very strong line of play. Plus he has a solid body for 4 ink that will be a decent questing threat after you've already gotten value out of his Reindeer Games ability. A flexible card that I think will see play.

Rating: 4/5

Minnie Mouse - Compassionate Friend

The final character card for Amber this set is Minnie Mouse here. She has the Rapunzel - Gifted with Healing stat line and cost but with a much, much worse ability. Both heal your other characters, but without the card draw attached, healing is just not that valuable. Plus Minnie only heals for 2 and does it on quest instead of on play. There's simply no reason to play this card, especially when Rapunzel is right there.

Rating: 2/5

Try Everything

The one and only song from Zootopia gets a card which is Sven - Reindeer Steed's readying ability with some healing attached. The readying effect is nice. As we mentioned, you can use it to double sing or just protect a character from a challenge. And while the healing isn't too relevant it can sometimes be useful.

The problem with this card is the cost. 4 ink is an insanely high price for these two effects. If we look at Sven again, he has the stats of a vanilla 3-cost character, which means the readying effect is costing you 1 extra ink above baseline. So on this card, the heal 3 is costing you a whopping 3 ink. That doesn't make any sense. This card should have cost 2 ink and it might have been decent. At 4, it is nearly unplayable.

Rating: 2/5

Healing Touch

Another over-costed healing card. This one cycles itself at least, which is nice. But 3 ink to cycle and occasionally get some healing value just isn't good enough.

Rating: 2/5

Revive

Now this is an interesting action card. Getting to play something from your discard is a powerful effect. You can almost look at it like a Just In Time that you are paying an extra 2 ink for, except it draws you nearly any card in your deck when you play it. I say nearly any card in your deck because you are not playing this Revive unless and until the card you want to target is already in your discard.

For this reason, the card may get stuck in your hand at times. But if you have ways to add characters to your discard, say with something like A Whole New World, you should find the perfect target for this regularly.

And what kind of targets do you want to hit with this? In Amber, cards like Mufasa - Betrayed Leader and Rapunzel - Gifted with Healing come to mind. But in other inks you have stuff like Maui - Hero to All, Cogsworth - Grandfather Clock or Beast - Tragic Hero. There are so many good cards that cost 5 or less ink that Revive is bound to get you good value.

A card like this provides so much flexibility for doubling up on ETB effects or just recurring your most important characters. It's uninkability and requirement of having to have that character in your discard does mean you may not want 4 copies of this card in your deck, but I think it will certainly see play as a powerful recursion tool.

Rating: 4/5

Blast From Your Past

Blast From Your Past is another sort of recursion and is the first time we are seeing recursion for multiple cards. The caveat, of course, being that those cards need to have the same name. Name refers to the first part of a card's title, so just naming "The Queen" would draw you both 002-027 and 002-026, for example.

So this can be a very powerful card draw/recursion tool. And it's on a song, which I like. My only hang-up is that 6 cost is quite expensive and, again, it's uninkable. Meaning you may be sitting with this stuck in your hand for a while, waiting to get maximum value out of it. You probably want to draw at least 3 cards with this for it to be worth playing. Ideally more like 4 or 5.

Much like Revive, I don't envision this being a 4-of in a deck. But maybe a couple copies could make for a decent way to refuel in longer games.

Rating: 3/5

Invited to the Ball

Lots of card draw actions for Amber this set, which is great to see. Invited to the Ball is very efficient card draw for character heavy decks. It can work like a 001-064 for 1 less ink, provided you hit two character cards off the top of your deck. But Friends is singable, so usually will cost you zero, whereas with this you have to pay the ink to play it. The fact that it can whiff completely is a bit scary as well.

Ultimately, it's card draw so it's not bad, but its downsides will keep it from being any sort of staple in Amber decks. You might play a couple of these in a Mufasa deck but not sure where else it could fit.

Rating: 3/5

Healing Decanter

Healing Decanter is 001-032 but with +1 to the cost and healing. Dinglehopper is bad and one that costs one more is probably even worse.

Rating: 1/5

Queen's Sensor Core

Now this is an interesting item. You are only going to be playing it in a deck with a decent amount of Princesses and Queens. But you can easily build a deck that includes a bunch of both. And then this item gives you a bit of extra lore gain that can be hard for your opponent to stop, while also providing you with some additional card draw.

It's important to note that the card draw from this does not trigger Diablo - Devoted Herald, since it says to "put" the card into your hand instead of draw. So that's a nice bonus.

As a card draw tool it is a bit slow and expensive. So you mostly will want this in control decks. It remains to be seen if a Princess/Queen control deck can be viable, but if so, this could be an option.

Rating: 3/5

Amber Chromicon

Each ink color is getting a Chromicon item that has an ability that fits with that ink's themes. In Amber that theme is healing, of course. Which probably makes this the worst Chromicon out of all of them. This item is notably better than Healing Decanter, especially in a 002-148 deck. But still, I don't think this will see any play.

Rating: 2/5

Rapunzel's Tower - Secluded Prison

When this location was revealed, some were saying it is a better Pride Lands - Pride Rock since it's inkable and gives characters here +3 Willpower instead of +2 while having one extra Willpower itself. But the lack of passive lore gain is a huge bummer, plus you are missing out on the potential for ink reduction. So I don't think this card replaces Pride Rock.

Some thought it could be an aggro card, moving your low Willpower characters here to make them more resilient to board wipes like Grab Your Sword. But the tempo loss of having to play this and then move your characters here is too much. Plus, again, no passive lore gain.

It feels most at home as a Location for healing decks, giving your characters more Willpower to ensure they survive challenges and have damage on them you can heal. But I don't see these decks being very good so I don't see this location being very good.

Rating: 2/5

Pride Lands - Jungle Oasis

Last Amber card from Shimmering Skies is another Pride Lands location, this one the Jungle Oasis. And this location offers more character recursion with its Our Humble Home ability letting you play any character from your discard for free.

But the setup and investment required to get that ability online is massive. You have to pay 3 ink to play the location and then another 6 ink to move three characters there and then you have to banish the location? That is a huge commitment. Yes, there are cards which can make moving to locations cheaper or even free, but then you are throwing even more resources at this Location for a one time recursion effect. It's just not worth it.

At least it has the passive lore gain on it and if it sees play at all it will probably only be as a Location that is hard to banish which can gain you lore each turn. But I'm guessing this card will mostly remain in your binder.

Rating: 2/5

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Amber is an ink that has struggled in the meta of late so the hope here is that some of these cards can bring it up to snuff. I think Steelsong got some very nice new toys in Prince Naveen - Ukulele Player and Alan-A-Dale - Rockin' Rooster while aggro decks are going to love Daisy Duck - Donald's Date. I also like the look of Revive in midrange and control decks.

Amber has received a solid amount of card draw or card recursion this set, which does shore up some of their weaknesses. They still will need to rely on other colors for interacting with their opponents' board though. But the strong cards they are getting look very strong indeed, so I do think we will see Amber doing just fine in the upcoming meta.

Next, we will look at the Amethyst cards!