Shimmering Skies Set Review: Sapphire

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. We are reviewing all the cards in this new set and seeing which might make the biggest splash, moving on to the Sapphire cards.

Sapphire has seen some good success in the meta, with its strong combination of powerful draw engines, item synergies and ramp cards. While I'm sure Sapphire players would love to have more of the same, it would also be nice to see some cards that offer new avenues of play. Might Shimmering Skies bring those cards to the table? Read on to find out.

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Shimmering Skies Ruby Cards

King Candy - Sovereign of Sugar

King Candy gets things started for Sapphire. He's a standard 1-cost character with the now-ubiquitous 2/2/1 stat line. Not much to say here. He will only see play if his Floodborn card sees play.

Rating: 2/5

Chaca - Impressive Daughter

Chaca is another vanilla card, this time with a 4-cost 4/3/2 stat line. We have seen this stat line once before in 002-069. It's not a terrible stat line, it dodges 003-112, at least. But you don't want to be playing vanillas in your constructed deck. Good card in limited though.

Rating: 2/5

The Queen - Cruelest of All

This is a stat line we haven't seen before. A 2 cost 0/4 with Ward could be hard to remove. But with no additional ability and only 1 lore, not sure there is enough reason to play this card. The only real use is as a Shift target for a Queen with a Shift cost of 3, as you are nearly guaranteed to get that Shift into play. Otherwise, not worth it.

Rating: 2/5

Scrooge McDuck - Afficionado of Antiquities

Yet another vanilla card, this Scrooge offers a bit more stats than a standard 4-drop, at the cost of losing inkability. Normally we would expect a 4-drop with 5 Willpower and 2 Lore to have 2 Strength, so you are gaining 3 Strength.

Is that worth it? It does make the card harder to deal with efficiently. It doesn't die to 004-130 or 003-112, for example, and trades evenly with 001-114. But uninkables generally have to be pulling a lot of weight to want to run them in your deck and I just don't know if this Scrooge gets there.

Rating: 3/5

Prince John - Opportunistic Briber

This Prince John card offers more item synergy for Sapphire. But just gaining strength every time you play an item is not the best ability. We've seen this sort of thing before with actions in Emerald on 002-078. While this Prince John is better than that Donald (at least he has 1 Strength to start with), he's still not going to make the cut for competitive decks.

Rating: 2/5

Merlin - Back from Bermuda

One of the best Merlin moments from The Sword in the Stone is immortalized in Lorcana, with Merlin in full island garb in the fantastic art on this card. Unfortunately, the card itself is not doing the art justice. A 4-cost 1/4/2 is under the standard stat line and his ability is just too niche to really be all that impactful, even in a deck with a good amount of Arthurs. Only thing keeping him from being straight up pack filler is he is a potential Shift target for the Floodborn Merlin.

Rating: 2/5

Pacha - Emperor's Guide

This Pacha card is an intriguing source of passive lore gain for any deck with a smattering of items and locations. If you have at least one item and one location in play at the start of your turn, this Pacha effectively gains you 4 lore between his abilities and questing. That's fantastic for a 3-drop.

Obviously, that requires having those other cards already in play. Locations, especially, can be hard to keep on board. But even if you are only relying on the item synergy with Pacha, he might be worth running. The fact that the lore gain from his ability is passive makes him even better than other cards with gain the lore only when they quest. The lore gain from his abilities are not turned off by things like Reckless or freeze effects.

Now, his stat line isn't great. Zero strength is never great to see on a card. He is never trading favorably and can be targeted by a lot of strength-based removal. Four Willpower does help him survive a lot of the damage-based removal though. So there are both pros and cons to this stat line.

Overall, I think he has enough going for him that he could warrant inclusion into item decks. Or possibly a new aggressive archetype that has some item and location synergies. Very good card.

Rating: 4/5

The Queen - Fairest of All

And here's the Floodborn Queen that pairs with 005-139 as a nice on-curve Shift package. Getting a 2/6 with Ward down on turn 3 is pretty nice. But she only quests for 1 lore, unless you can get some value out of her Reflections of Vanity ability. How likely is it that you can have an additional Queen or two on board when you Shift her out? Well if you are Shifting her on curve, you can only have, at most, 2 additional Queens on board. And probably only 1. So she's usually questing for 2 lore the turn she comes down, which still isn't that exciting.

She only gets really exciting if you can Shift her out while you have 3 or more other Queens in play. But that is going to be tough to do. The best deck for her is probably with Amber, as they have the cheap 1-cost Queens and the other strong Floodborn Queen. With those two Queens, plus a few more from Sapphire, you could have a solid Queen package but getting them all out on board and keeping them there is a tall order.

Ultimately, I think the dream of a full Queen deck is probably a ways off from being a reality. This card on its own is not bad though, just as a Shift 3/Cost 5 Floodborn that can be hard to deal with.

Rating: 3/5

Sheriff of Nottingham - Bushel Britches

This Sheriff card is a huge payoff for item decks, a deck archetype that already has seen a ton of play in Lorcana so far. Being able to play this 5/9 with 4 lore on it for 5, 4 or even 3 ink is not out of the question. Getting him down cheaply and then immediately hitting him with Lucky Dime can be game winning.

The question becomes, is he worth running over the usual item deck payoff cards of 001-159 and 004-139? Tamatoa has the added benefit of giving you some item recursion and can theoretically get you more lore per quest. Ariel also offers more lore and has Ward to boot. Sheriff only has Support, which is not going to be relevant 99% of the time. He is also uninkable, unlike those other two (although this is less of an issue in Sapphire with 001-168 and now 005-157).

The finisher slot for item decks is getting very crowded. And it might be that this card, despite being quite good, just doesn't beat out the other options. Time will tell.

Rating: 3/5

Chicha - Dedicated Mother

Card draw hasn't generally been an issue for Sapphire, thanks to 002-149. But running that draw engine does sort of commit you to playing an item deck. For Sapphire decks that don't want to run the full item package, draw options have been harder to come by. But now those decks have Chicha as a potential solution.

She is draw for ramp decks; allowing you to draw an additional card each turn, provided you can ink twice in a turn. This means she pairs well with cards like 001-164, 001-154 and 005-157 (which is thematically appropriate). And, of course, 001-168. And if you are running Quill, maybe you do want the full item package anyway?

To be honest, Chicha can find a home in any deck with ramp cards, either with item synergies or not. I mean, you can really never have too much card draw.

Rating: 4/5

Prince John - Gold Lover

Prince John offers some item ramp or item cheat. You can exert him to play an item from your hand or discard with cost 5 or less for free. That's a strong effect. Especially if you can leverage him to play an item from your discard, where he is effectively drawing and playing you a card for free.

The question then becomes what items do we have that work with this Prince John? The answer is: not much. There is currently only one 5-cost item in the game, introduced in this set, 005-167. There are quite a lot more 4 and especially 3-cost items, although the cheaper you go, the less valuable his effect becomes.

So the card is good, but these types of cards only really become staples when they are abusable. And right now, there isn't a way to abuse this effect. If we ever get a really strong 5-cost item, then things might change for this Prince John. But for now, he's just an okay card.

Rating: 3/5

The Queen - Crown of the Council

Here is some card draw for the Queen deck. This Queen lets you look at the top 3 cards of your deck and add any named The Queen to your hand. That means this Queen's ability can be a "draw 3 cards" on play, which would be broken. But realistically you won't be hitting 3 Queens every time and you might not even hit one, depending on how you build your deck. The more Queens in your deck, the better this card becomes, but the weaker the deck becomes, overall.

Essentially, this card lives and dies on how good a Queen deck will be. And I'm already leaning towards the full Queen deck being a bit of a meme. So I don't think this card sees any serious play.

Rating: 2/5

Kuzco - Selfish Emperor

One of Sapphire's Super Rares this set is this interesting Kuzco card. There is a lot to evaluate with this card. Firstly, he has two abilities that are very different in usage and application. His By Invite Only ability is the first time we have seen a repeatable ability on a character. Since you don't have to exert him to use this ability, you can do as many times a turn as you have ink to spend.

Now, at 4 ink, you won't be doing it multiple times very often. In fact, you might not even use it once. Four ink is a lot to spend for this effect. But it's nice to know the option is there and, in the future, we might see even cheaper repeatable abilities.

But realistically, you are playing this Kuzco for his first ability, Outplacement. It is item removal and location removal on a stick. It's 003-198 with a body attached. And when you look at it that way you are getting a 3/5/2 body for only 3 ink, which is nice. Now, there is the downside to the removal where you are ramping your opponent by one. But the card also comes with the small upside for you of being able to target your own items or location if you want to gain a bit of ramp.

But the majority of the time, you will be using Kuzco to remove a troublesome location or item while developing a decent body. And that is more than good enough for him to see play.

Rating: 4/5

Mufasa - Ruler of Pride Rock

It's time to look at one of Sapphire's Legendaries this set, both of which are pretty spicy. This Mufasa card boasts some amazing art to go along with some amazing abilities. But first, let's evaluate the stats and cost. For 8 ink, you are getting a 4/9 body that quests for 4 lore. That is already quite good. 4 Strength dodges all the strength-based removal while 9 is a lot of Willpower. This Mufasa, once he's on board, will be hard to remove.

But then we have his two abilities. First, A Delicate Balance ensures that this card does something the turn he is played, drawing you two cards on play. Now it does come with some drawbacks, you need to lose two ink and you are forced to exert any remaining ink in your inkwell to play him. But you can easily get around this drawback by just utilizing any additional ink before playing Mufasa. And while "unramping" for 2 ink is punishing, that cost is offset by his powerful second ability.

Everything The Light Touches may just be the single most powerful ability in all of Lorcana. Being able to ready all your exerted ink every time Mufasa quests effectively DOUBLES your inkwell. Let's assume we are playing Mufasa on curve and the turn after you play him you are sitting on 6 ink. That's normally pretty limiting but with Mufasa, you are really working with 12 ink. Now you can't spend more than 6 ink at a time, in this scenario. You can't exert 6 ink, quest with Mufasa, then exert 3 more to play a Maleficent - Monstrous Dragon, for example. So there are some limitations to this doubling of your inkwell. But the effect is still very, very powerful.

To maximize the amount of ink available to you, you want to ensure you have cards in hand to play. So it's great that Mufasa also draws you the two cards from your inkwell the turn he comes down. Not only is he drawing you two, but they will be cards that you inked earlier in the game, so usually they will be more expensive, late game cards. Being able to recall those cards to your hand right before you have tons of ink to play with is a perfect bit of synergy between these two abilities.

This card's effects are just so, so powerful. And they are attached to a character with an amazing stat line. And in a color that has tons of ramp and can get him out soon and start taking advantage of that extra ink? Yeah, this Mufasa is the perfect top-end for Sapphire decks. Amazing card.

Rating: 5/5

Ludwig von Drake - Self-Proclaimed Genius

This is the first time we have seen this stat line on a vanilla card. And it's not the worst. He quests for 3 lore and can't be killed by 003-112 or 001-200. But it's still a vanilla, so you probably can find a better card for your constructed deck.

Rating: 2/5

Minnie Mouse - Quick-Thinking Inventor

Minnie Mouse is 001-026 that comes with a "free" 1/2/1 character. Control Your Temper is not good, but could it be good with a character attached? I mean, it's better, for sure. But probably still not good enough to see play.

Rating: 2/5

Basil - Practiced Detective

One of these days we will get a good Basil card. That day is not today because this 1-cost 2/1/1 with Support is not doing it.

Rating: 2/5

King Candy - Sweet Abomination

King Candy gets a Floodborn version in this 5-cost 3/3/2 that can Shift out for 3. And when you play him you "draw" 2 cards. I put draw in quotes because you are essentially trading this King Candy and another card in your hand for two new cards. That's still decent though. Anything that replaces itself is worth a look.

It's also nice that this ability triggers whether you are Shifting him out or not. Sapphire can definitely afford to play expensive and uninkable Floodborns, even without their Shift targets. So I can see this King Candy being included over something like 002-147, just for a bit more draw/card filtering potential. I think he is pretty good.

Rating: 4/5

Donald Duck - Focused Flatfoot

This Donald Duck has the 001-154 ramp ability on a 5-cost 3/4/2 body. Generally, we like ramp better earlier in the game. Coming down on turn 5, it's not as valuable. Mickey has also been powercrept out of most Sapphire decks. So I don't think this card will see play, despite it not being too bad.

Rating: 3/5

Tanana - Wise Woman

Tanana has the stats of a 1-drop, at 1/3/1, but she costs two. So her ability will need to carry her and I don't see healing for 1 being worth spending an extra ink. Being able to heal a location is nice, but 1 damage is negligible. I don't think so.

Rating: 2/5

Tipo - Growing Son

Turn 2 has long been an important ramp turn for Sapphire decks. Typically, they've relied on One Jump Ahead to get their turn 2 ramp but now they have a new option in Tipo. Tipo allows you to ramp while developing a body on board, which is huge.

The drawback is you have to spend an extra card from hand. But in a deck with the hyper-efficient Pawpsicle-Hiram Flaversham draw engine, that is usually a small price to pay. 001-168 has been a hugely powerful ramp card that also spends cards from our hand.

You just don't mind losing a bit of card advantage to ramp when you know you can come back from that with your late game draws. And this Tipo lets you do that while continuing to contest the board. Very good card.

Rating: 4/5

Belle - Of the Ball

Sapphire has always gotten a couple aggro cards sprinkled into each set, alongside their usual ramp and item synergy stuff. This set they get Belle of the Ball. She gives your board Ward for a turn, while she herself also has Ward. This can help them all live through the turn to be able to quest for you next turn.

The thing I don't like about this setup is if you have a wide board of aggro characters, your opponent is not likely to want to remove them one by one. They are going to be looking for AoE effects. And this Belle doesn't help protect your board from that.

She's also uninkable and expensive (for an aggro deck), so I'm not in love with her. Ward is a strong keyword though, so I won't write her off completely.

Rating: 3/5

Merlin - Intellectual Visionary

And here is the other spicy Sapphire Legendary. Merlin's Overdeveloped Brain ability is the first time we have seen a true "tutor" effect in Lorcana. Tutor is a Magic the Gathering term (as most card game terms are) for searching your deck for a specific card and then drawing it or adding it to your hand. We've had effects that search for stuff and put it on top of your deck and last set we had 004-002, which let us search for a Madrigal card. But Merlin lets you search for any card and add it to your hand. That can be insanely powerful, it means you can get exactly what you need for the stage of the game you are in.

The one big thing holding this card back: you HAVE to Shift Merlin out to trigger this effect. And that is going to be a problem. Sapphire would love to play this Merlin by himself as an uninkable 6-cost card that can find whatever you need when you play him. But since you have to play other Merlins with him and you have to get one of them to stick to the board for the tutor effect to trigger makes things a bit clunky.

And there aren't really any good Merlin Shift targets in Sapphire. If you are playing Amethyst, sure, you have a bunch of options. But Sapphire only has 001-153 and 005-142, neither of which are good cards on their own. So you are weakening your deck overall to enable Merlin's tutoring.

That alone will likely hold him back, despite being a very powerful effect on a solid body. So I don't know how much play he will see right out of the gate. But there will definitely come a time in the future where he becomes a staple card in the right deck.

Rating: 4/5

Vision of the Future

This card is like a super charged 001-161. Develop has been a decent card but is adding 1 more ink to the cost worth being able to look at two extra cards? I don't know if it is. Unless you are a deck that is really relying on a specific card or two that you absolutely have to find. Otherwise, the cheaper option is probably better.

Rating: 3/5

Royal Tantrum

Royal Tantrum is card draw for item decks. But it's competing with the best card draw in the game in 002-149. And in that comparison there is no contest. They are both the same ink cost but Hiram is inkable, draws you two cards per item banished and comes with a body on board that can repeat the effect each turn. This card is uninkable, only usable once and only gets you one card per item banished. So yeah, you are never running this over Hiram in your item deck.

Rating: 2/5

Ever As Before

Every time I see a healing card in Sapphire I'm reminded, "oh yeah, Sapphire has healing synergies". It's not an archetype that has seen much success. This card does work great with 002-148 since you can heal as many character as you have with it. But it's just not a good deck right now. So you won't be seeing this card any time soon.

Rating: 2/5

Hide Away

Hide Away is the 005-149 effect as a standalone card. You are probably more happy to just play Kuzco, as he has more flexibility. But if you want more of this effect or want it cheaper, you could run this card. It's essentially Sapphire's version of 003-198, a card that has seen some play.

Rating: 3/5

All Funned Out

Ramp is good, but we don't want to sacrifice our own characters just to ramp for one. We especially don't want to spend an additional card from hand to do it. This card is bad, real bad. Might just be the worst card in this set.

Rating: 1/5

Medal of Heroes

This item is a beefed up version of 001-167. Eye can activate once per turn though, whereas this item is used once and then must be banished. But as a surprise burst of 2 lore on a character, it could find a home in a combo deck.

Rating: 2/5

Basil's Magnifying Glass

Basil's Magnifying Glass is some item draw for item decks. It's a bit pricy at 2 ink for the upfront cost and then another 2 ink each time you wish to use the effect though. That's probably enough to keep it from seeing a lot of play, but maybe you a couple in a deck with enough items.

Rating: 3/5

Merlin's Carpetbag

Merlin's Carpetbag is doing a similar thing to the Magnifying Glass, except it pulls the item from your discard instead of searching the top of your deck for it. The recursion from your discard is generally going to be better and you are paying 1 less ink for it. Imagine recycling Pawpsicle with this each turn for consistent draw.

But at 5 ink to play, it is costing you a lot up front to get that consistent recursion online. I think it will probably prove to be a bit too slow to make the cut in most item decks.

Rating: 2/5

Sapphire Chromicon

Sapphire's Chromicon is an interesting one. An item that can give you instant lore gain, at the cost of banishing your other items, is a cool finisher for item decks. But it is super slow. It costs 4 ink to play and enters play exerted, so you have to wait a turn to use it. Then you are paying 2 ink to, once per turn, banish an item and gain 2 lore. If you have ways to ready this item or you have multiple in play, you could trigger this multiple times though and gain 4, 6, 8 lore a turn. But it's a lot of work to get all that setup.

Right now, this item is competing with Lucky Dime as a finisher for item decks. And Dime just pairs so well with cards you want to run in your item deck anyway like 001-159 and 004-139 that I don't see this item usurping it as the finisher of choice.

Rating: 2/5

The Great Illuminary - Radiant Ballroom

Support has not been a very good keyword so far in Lorcana. It needs some... uh, support. Enter The Great Illuminary. This location buffs your Support characters with additional lore and willpower while here. But at a movement cost of 2 ink, it's gonna be tough to get characters there consistently without losing a ton of tempo.

Yes, you can use the various movement reduction cards available right now, but doing so is just more setup to make this location work. I don't want a bunch of mediocre and inconsistent cards in my deck just to make a mediocre and inconsistent keyword slightly better.

Rating: 2/5

Merlin's Cottage - The Wizard's Home

Closing things out with this very interesting and unique location. I love that Merlin's Cottage completely changes the way both players play the game. Giving you insight into not just your next draw, but also your opponent's next draw, sounds like a really fun way to play. Skill testing as well, as you will be able to know exactly what is in your opponent's hand after a few turns with this location on board, as long as you are paying close attention to what they ink and what they play.

There are also certain cards, like 004-039 and 002-016, that care about the top card of your deck and, with Merlin's Cottage in play, you can guarantee you always hit with those cards.

But outside of those niche decks and card interactions, is the card worth running? It doesn't really affect the board at all, it has no lore and there's no reason for characters to want to move there. And it's the sort of card that will only benefit you if you feel you have a skill edge on your opponent. If you don't, you're not really tipping the playing field in your favor by playing it. And if you do have a skill advantage, do you even need to play this card to give yourself a better chance of winning? I would say probably not.

So ultimately, while it's a very cool and fun card, I don't know how much play it will end up seeing. But it's the kind of card that will be fun to try out, especially in more casual settings.

Rating: 3/5

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And that's a wrap on Sapphire. Certainly some interesting cards for Sapphire this set. The two Legendaries, in particular, are intriguing with 005-159 providing something new to Lorcana and 005-150 being a contender for best card in the set, at least from a raw power level standpoint. On top of that, more draw tools and ramp support will keep Sapphire in good shape moving forward.

Next, we finish things up with the Steel cards!