Shimmering Skies Set Review: Steel

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, finishing up with the Steel cards.

Steel has always had a deck or two represented in the top tiers of the meta, thanks mostly to its powerful direct damage actions and songs. But it also has other archetypes, such as "challenge matters" stuff, that have not had as much success. Might Shimmering Skies be where that all changes? Let's find out!

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Shimmering Skies Steel Cards

Stitch - Team Underdog

Stitch starts things off for Steel. This 4-cost card reminds me of 002-171. You are paying the same ink cost but getting a worse body but double the damage on the ping. Plus this Stitch is uninkable. But I do think that a 2 damage ping card can be useful. This is basically 003-196 that comes with a 1/4/1 body for an extra 2 ink. I'll take that deal.

Rating: 4/5

Jafar - Tyrannical Hypnotist

Getting right into the first of Steel's two Legendaries this set with Jafar - Tyrannical Hypnotist. You are paying 6 ink for a 0/7/2 which seems bad on its face. But with Challenger +7, this Jafar can swing into and banish just about anything of your opponents.

Usually the problem with Challenger is though that your opponent can then take out your Challenger card without taking too much damage in return. Oftentimes, getting a free trade in on their side. Challenger cards tend to always 1-for-1.

This Jafar gets around that problem somewhat with his Intimidating Gaze ability. Since no opposing characters that cost 4 or less can challenge while he's in play, it becomes much harder for your opponent to finish him off with a small character on their following turn. This will often let you swing twice with Jafar, making him a potential 2-for-1 threat.

This ability can also protect the rest of your board from the likes of Madam Mim - Fox or other cheap Rush cards. As such, the card could go into aggro decks as a pseudo-Bodyguard that makes it very difficult for your opponent to remove your stuff through Challenges.

But as a removal tool, he is quite slow. He's not a Floodborn and doesn't have Rush, so isn't doing anything the turn he comes into play. And as a board protector in an aggro deck, he comes down pretty late. So he's kinda stuck in the middle where he's not a great option for either of those decks.

Rating: 3/5

Simba - Lost Prince

Simba has the 002-183 ability on a 1 ink cheaper character that has 1 less Strength. It's a good ability and this is a decent enough statline. Jafar mostly saw play thanks to Floodborn synergies though, not his ability or stats. This Simba probably isn't doing quite enough to make the cut in competitive lists, but it's not a bad card.

Rating: 3/5

Rudy - Groove Disruptor

Rudy is your standard 1 cost 2/2/1. These cards really only see play as Shift targets. And I don't see a world where we ever get a Floodborn Rudy.

Rating: 2/5

Royal Guard - Bovine Protector

Another vanilla, this one at least has a unique statline. But it's a very bad one. Love the flavor text though!

Rating: 1/5

Mickey Mouse - Food Fight Defender

As a 1/2/1 with Resist +1, you can look at this Mickey as a 1/3/1 but better, in most cases. He doesn't die to a hit of 2 and 1 damage or three instances of 1 damage. He can be tough to remove and looks like a pretty solid 1-drop in an aggressive deck.

Rating: 3/5

Sleepy - Sluggish Knight

Sleepy is the first of a series of Seven Dwarfs reimagined as knights. I love the theme of this series of cards but most of them aren't great cards. This Sleepy however could be decent. As a cheap 2-cost Bodyguard with 4 Willpower, he will help protect your turn 1 card in nearly every scenario. 001-020 has been a staple card of aggro decks and Sleepy can fill a similar role.

Rating: 3/5

Kronk - Unlicensed Investigator

Kronk is a 2-cost 2/4 when challenging. We've seen a similar card before in 001-038. This Kronk is slightly better, as he at least has 1 base strength. But it's not a big enough difference to make me want to put him in my deck on his own. However, as the only viable Shift target for the new Floodborn Kronk, he very well could end up seeing play.

Rating: 3/5

Heihei - Protective Rooster

Heihei joins the ranks of 5-cost Bodyguards, of which there are quite a few. He's best compared to 004-178 but you are trading 2 Willpower for one extra Lore. In certain decks, you might be happy enough with that trade-off.

Chien-Po's 7 Willpower does protect him from being cleared in one swing by a 001-114 or being removed by 003-195. So yeah, Chien-Po is probably slightly better but this Heihei is not a bad card.

Rating: 3/5

Sneezy - Noisy Knight

Sneezy is one of the Seven Dwarf Knights that only really works in a Seven Dwarf Knights deck, giving another Knight Challenger +2 the turn he comes into play. That deck isn't going to be very good and this card isn't doing enough to make it better.

Rating: 2/5

Dopey - Knight Apprentice

Another one for the Seven Dwarfs Knights deck, this Dopey allows you to ping something on play if you have already have a Knight on board. Pinging is nice but, again, the deck you are putting him in is not good enough. If we get enough good Knight cards in the future and this Dopey could be a decent option for a Knight deck.

Rating: 2/5

Namaari - Resolute Daughter

Namaari is the final card in the cycle of cards this set that get cheaper when a certain trigger action occurs. And she looks like possibly the worst one. Or, at least, the hardest to discount. It is just rare to have a board state where you can banish more than one opposing character in a challenge.

If this triggered off of ALL banished opposing characters, whether through challenges or not, it could potentially be quite good. Imagine 001-128 into Namaari? That would be insane. But having to challenge the character makes it tough to see more than one discount on this on average. And is a 7-cost 5/5/3 with Resist +3 on it good enough? I don't think that it is. Especially one that is uninkable.

Rating: 2/5

Snow White - Fair-Hearted

This Super Rare Snow White is the closer card for your Seven Dwarfs Knights deck. With a ton of Knights in play, she could have buttloads of Resist. And she'll be questing for 3 lore a turn

But, with only 3 Strength, she's just going to get removed by 003-112 the majority of the time. And Medusa doesn't care how much Resist you have. Even if a Knight deck becomes playable, I don't even think you run this Snow White in it because of that key weakness. She just requires so much setup to be good and even then gets easily removed by a very common card in the meta. Not what you want out of your finisher card.

Rating: 2/5

Yzma - Unjustly Treated

Another card that benefits from banishing stuff in challenges, this Yzma lets you ping something each time you take something out in a challenge. As with the Namaari, it can be tough to setup a board where you can get more than one, maybe two, challenges off in a turn. And she is uninkable with a weak body. If you want a recurring ping, 002-175 is probably a better option.

Rating: 2/5

Kronk - Head of Security

Kronk gets his first Floodborn card in this Steel Super Rare. For a base cost of 7 ink, you get a 6/6/1 body with a Shift cost of 5. I don't love expensive, uninkable Floodborns with few Shift targets, but his ability is very appealing.

Every time Kronk banishes something in a challenge, you can play something from your hand that costs 5 or less FOR FREE. Playing stuff for free is good. If you can Shift this Kronk out on turn 5 and banish something right away, you can play an additional 5-cost character for free. That's 12 ink worth of tempo on turn 5. That is very powerful.

You will want plenty of card draw in a deck with him, to ensure you always have a good 5-cost character in hand ready to go. Thankfully, Steel has access to 001-195. You are going to have to balance the amount of uninkables you are running in your deck and so maybe this Kronk ends up being a 2-of. But he's very good and I do think he will see play.

Rating: 4/5

Grumpy - Skeptical Knight

Another Dwarf for the Knight deck, this card also requires you to run locations to get full value out of him. And with underwhelming stats for a 3-cost character, you definitely want to get value out of Grumpy's abilities. There is a Knight synergistic location coming in this set, which will definitely be one of the potential options for this deck. But you will want more locations to really ensure you can enable Boon of Resistance.

But do you really want to combine a mediocre location package into a mediocre Knight package to build your deck? I don't think so. And without those synergies this card is just real bad. Even with those synergies it's not that great. Probably the worst of these Knight cards and that is saying something.

Rating: 1/5

Pete - Wrestling Champ

There are a couple cards that are pushing this all-Pete deck. The idea is hilarious and maybe one day we will have enough Petes for the deck to be viable. But it won't be anytime soon. Bonus points for the pun in the ability name though.

Rating: 2/5

Sir Ector - Castle Lord

A big dumb idiot card for a big dumb idiot character. They love to print at least one of these cards per set. None of the others have seen any play and this one won't either. You don't want to waste uninkable spots on vanilla cards that do nothing.

Rating: 1/5

Bashful - Adoring Knight

Bashful has vanilla stats with a very niche ability. Any card that names another specific card to enable their ability needs that ability to be super powerful to warrant play. Just gaining Bodyguard is not it.

Rating: 2/5

Arthur - Wart

Another vanilla card, this Arthur will live or die by how good the Floodborn Arthur is. On his own, a 2/2/2 for 2 is not good enough these days, even in very fast aggressive decks.

Rating: 2/5

Happy - Lively Knight

Now here is a Seven Dwarf Knight that isn't relying on Knight synergy to be good. There are more than a few characters which simply exist to remove pesky Evasive characters and most of them have seen play at some time or another. And Happy is the cheapest one we have seen yet. Plus he lines up perfectly to be able to remove a Diablo - Devoted Herald as soon as he is exerted.

If Diablo is still terrorizing the meta, Happy will be there to take care of him. A very solid tech card.

Rating: 3/5

Simba - Son of Mufasa

Finally, after five sets, we have a Floodborn Simba card! There are tons of other Simbas at various ink costs, so you have plenty of Shift targets for this card. Yes, he has 3 Strength (why does it seem like all of Steel Floodborns have 3 Strength?) and will be removed by the dreaded 003-112. But that is okay because not only can you Shift him out and challenge or quest with him immediately, but he also has the Fearsome Roar ability.

Banishing an item with this is probably slightly worse than just playing 002-174 but you also have the option of taking care of a location as well. We've seen 003-198 making lists as a way to deal with troublesome locations like 003-067 and this is Rise on a stick. That's usually going to be better because he can at least be more than just ink in matchups where the item or location removal is not needed.

And as a Steel Floodborn, Simba is also a potential singer of lots of powerful Steel songs such as 001-198 and 003-195. This card just has a lot of uses and flexibility and, as such, I expect it to see a good bit of play.

Rating: 4/5

Doc - Bold Knight

Saving the best Seven Dwarf Knight for last, this Doc is the perfect draw option for aggro decks. Aggro needs way to refill their hand while continuing to play stuff onto the board and this card fits the bill.

An aggro deck often has no cards in hand, so the downside of having to discard your whole hand to draw 2 cards is completely negated. You just play this Doc on turn 4 or 5 with an otherwise empty hand and keep the pressure on. A fantastic aggro card, Doc is exactly the sort of card the archetype needs to compete in the meta.

Rating: 4/5

Arthur - King Victorious

Steel's second Legendary, and the final Legendary from this set, is King Arthur himself. Like the Floodborn Kronk, Arthur is another uninkable 7-cost, Shift 5 character. He has an ability that activates the turn he comes into play though. Knighted by the King allows you to give a character Challenger +2, Resist +2 and, most importantly, the ability to challenge readied characters for the turn.

Removing readied characters is the key to most competitive decks out there, so this Arthur giving you more ways to do that is crucial. It's also important to note that this ability does not say "other character", so you can target Arthur himself with the ability. Meaning if you Shifted him out, he's a 5 Strength/6 Willpower character with Resist +2 that can take out a readied character. That's very strong.

It is a conditional effect though. The condition being you have to have a "dry" character in play when you play him, either an Arthur you can Shift onto or another character ready to challenge. Steel also has lots of other ways to deal with readied characters in the form of their direct damage actions. If this card was in something like Amber or even Amethyst, it would be much needed. But Steel isn't as hard up for removal.

Still, it's a powerful effect on a strong body (3 Strength of course though) that can affect the board immediately, provided you already have something in play. I suspect you will see the King knighting squires at a tournament near you.

Rating: 4/5

Pete - Games Referee

Last, but definitely not least, character card is Pete - Games Referee. He's a 3-cost 3/3/1, so more or less baseline stats. But his ability is potentially one of the most powerful and disruptive in the game. The turn after you play him, your opponent(s) can't play ANY actions during their turn. Yes, that includes songs as well.

Actions, and especially songs, have proven to be incredibly powerful in Lorcana to date so completely shutting them down for a whole turn is going to be meta-defining. And this effect is on an ETB ability? So, if your opponent doesn't remove Pete (which will be nearly impossible to do without action cards) you can bounce this Pete and play him again the following turn! That's going to be really annoying to play against.

This card will single handedly warp the meta in how powerful his effect is. It can go into just about any deck archetype. Aggro will love it as a way to protect their board from board wipes, midrange will want it to shut down efficient removals and control can use it to block card draw or other value effects. There's just so many ways to disrupt your opponent with this card. It will 100% see play and potentially be the most impactful card from the whole set.

Rating: 5/5

Tug-of-War

Steel gets another 5-cost board wide damage action in Tug-of-War. This one has two effects that you must choose between when you play it. Either dealing 1 damage to everything without Evasive or 3 damage to everything with Evasive.

Unless Evasives are really flooding the meta, you are probably better off removing them with single target removal though. And just a 1 damage board wide ping is not worth paying 5 ink for.

Rating: 2/5

When Will My Life Begin?

This song card can block an opponent from challenging for a turn, while also cycling itself. That's decent, especially in an aggro deck as a way to protect your board and keep drawing you more cards. 3 ink feels a little expensive for this effect, but it is a song, so you aren't going to actually be paying the ink most of the time you play it. A decent card.

Rating: 3/5

Duck for Cover!

A 2-cost card that works as Evasive removal but is conditional on having something on board to challenge with. I'd rather play 003-196 or 001-200 as a way to deal with Evasives. This card has much less flexibility and becomes something of a dead card if you can't stick something on board.

Rating: 2/5

Food Fight!

What is this card? You have to pay 1 ink and a card to then spend an additional ink AND exert your characters simply to deal 1 damage? It's bad enough that I'm wasting the potential for my characters to quest or sing or challenge but having to pay an extra ink for each one to ping something is truly awful. Trash tier card.

Rating: 1/5

Shield of Arendelle

Next couple items are variations on 002-203. This one is one ink cheaper and inkable but can only be used once. I've already said a few times I don't like these single-time use items, not unless there is card cycle attached to them like Fortisphere. This one doesn't have that and so is probably unplayable. Resist hasn't even proven to be all that impactful of an ability anyway.

Rating: 2/5

Plate Armor

And Plate Armor is basically 002-203 but with all costs doubled. Doubling the cost of bad cards does not make them better. At least it's not single use, but it's just too expensive for what it does.

Rating: 2/5

Steel Chromicon

Speaking of too expensive, the Steel Chromicon is a 6-cost uninkable item that pings for a whopping 1 damage. If we use 001-197 as a baseline, 1 uninkable ink should get us 2 damage. So you would want to deal 12 damage from this one card to equal the ink-to-damage ratio. Now, Cannons costs you one card for each 2 damage and this cost you only one card. But it's just very inefficient from an ink cost perspective.

The reason it's probably so expensive is because if you could play these cheaply enough you could get four of them out pretty easily and be dealing four free damage per turn. That could become oppressive so to avoid it, the designers have costed this one item quite high. You could still do it, but it is going to cost you a whopping 12 ink and take a long time to setup. As it is, this item is probably too expensive to see serious play.

Rating: 2/5

Bad-Anon - Villain Support Center

Love the Villain synergy with Bad-Anon here but the ability is just too niche and expensive to be worth it. Even in a dedicated Villain deck, you are paying 3 ink for this location, 2 ink to move a Villain here and then another 3 ink to use the ability. And unlike Shifting characters out, the Villains you can get out onto the board with this effect can't challenge or quest the turn they are played.

So it's a very slow location, even by the already-slow standards of most locations. It does have the passive lore and 7 Willpower, two important factors towards a locations playability. But I still don't think it makes the cut.

Rating: 2/5

Seven Dwarfs' Mine - Secure Fortress

The Seven Dwarfs Mine obviously wants to go into a Seven Dwarfs Knights deck but could also go into any deck that wants a consistent source of a ping. But, like most locations, you are paying a premium for this effect, 2 ink for the location and 2 ink to move a character there. It is also restricted to only once per turn. That plus its 6 Willpower being the perfect target for 001-114 will probably keep this location out of the meta.

Rating: 2/5

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And that does it for Steel and the whole set of Shimmering Skies. Phew, it's a lot of cards! Apologies for how long it took to get these out this time around. I've been quite busy with real life stuff recently. But this wraps up our set review.

I feel like overall Steel's cards are pretty underwhelming, thanks in part to the Seven Dwarfs package taking up a large part of the set. At least some of them, particularly 005-193, are playable. And they also got what may be the most impactful card in the whole set in 005-195.

Overall, I'm excited to see where things go from here. The Returns meta was definitely a downgrade over the Inklands meta, which had a pretty wide distribution of top decks. Hopefully Skies gets us back to the latter and many different decks are viable in top competitions!