Table of Contents
Overview
It's no secret that Disney Lorcana cards have been hard to get a hold of. Ravensburger underestimated initial demand and product has been sold out everywhere. Reprints and restocks are coming (or already here in some regions), which will hopefully help get more cards in players' hands, but until then building a deck by purchasing cards from the secondary market can be very, very pricy. The best performing decks in tournaments can cost upwards of $500 to buy all the cards needed!
Most people don't want to splash out that kind of cash on decks to play Lorcana. So we've compiled some of the best budget decks that you can play with friends, at your locals, or maybe even enter into a tournament. They might not be as refined or powerful as the top decks in the game, but they are solid decks that can hold their own against the meta tyrants. And, most importantly, they won't break the bank.
I have three decks here I want to highlight, with one of each Ink color represented. Each of these decks are in the $50-$70 range at the time of publication (based on TCGPlayer prices).
Best Budget Decks
Amber/Sapphire Princess Midrange
First deck I want to highlight is this Amber/Sapphire Princess Midrange deck. The deck looks to curve out in the early turns and then setup for a strong turn 3 with Just In Time on to one of our good 5-drops. To help with consistency, we have Be Our Guest, which can be sung on turn 3 to find a 5-drop to play with Just In Time. In addition, we have the Moana/Princess synergy, which can help us quest and then ready our other princesses to be able to challenge, sing, or just keep them around to quest again next turn for a final push.
The lack of card draw can be a problem with this deck so we have two cards to help mitigate that. First is Robin Hood - Unrivaled Archer, who can help us with card draw and occasionally to deal with Evasives, and the other is You Have Forgotten Me, which while it doesn't specifically draw you cards can keep you and your opponent even in card advantage.
Finally, Let It Go is our very powerful removal spell and, best of all, it is a song that costs 5. So we can play it as early as turn 4 if we managed to Just In Time out a 5-drop. It is, however, the most expensive card in the deck, so if you want to go even cheaper we could replace 1 or 2 of these with another Ariel - On Human Legs or Aurora - Dreaming Guardian.
Overall, this is a solid midrange deck that can often win thanks to some strong and aggressive starts but has the top end to go toe-to-toe in longer games with some of the more powerful decks in the meta.
Amethyst/Ruby Evasive Control
Next up is this Amethyst/Ruby Evasive Control deck. With this deck we have a powerful combination of Rush cards, to immediately interact with our opponent's board, and Evasive cards, which can often be very tricky for our opponents to deal with. Early game we want to keep our opponent's board clear by playing our 2-drops, Dr. Facilier - Charlatan and Gaston - Arrogant Hunter, and using them to remove our opponent's early game characters. We also have Rafiki - Mysterious Sage who is really good at removing a Simba - Protective Cub and letting us deal with the Lilo they've hidden behind him.
Going into the midgame, we have our own Evasive characters such as Pongo - Ol' Rascal and Goofy - Daredevil, which can often quest for us without fear of getting challenged. Plus we can still deal with anything our opponent throws at us thanks to Dragon Fire and Maui - Hero to All. And, if all else fails, we always have Be Prepared.
To be honest, when playtesting this deck, I generally was able to remove everything without needing to rely on Be Prepared. I started out playing 4 of them, but cut it to 2 after finding they sat in my hand most games. If you want to make this deck even cheaper, you could cut Be Prepared altogether and run some more threats such as Tigger - Wonderful Thing or another copy of Stitch or Aladdin.
All in all, this deck includes most of what makes Amethyst/Ruby Control such a great control deck and simply substitutes it's super expensive Legendaries for some unspectacular but surprisingly solid Evasive cards. It's a very good deck that can serve you well on ladder and in tournaments.
Emerald/Steel Aggro
Lastly, aggressive decks are often the cheapest decks you can build in most other card games and Disney Lorcana proves to be no exception. This Emerald/Steel Aggro deck is the cheapest one on this list but yet can still win a lot of games thanks to its combination of aggressive lore gain and tempo. Emerald's high lore characters help us gain lore quickly while Steel protects our board with their Bodyguard characters of Hercules - True Hero and Donald Duck - Musketeer.
Steel also gives us some great damage based removal like Smash and Grab Your Sword. We also have the strong tempo of bouncing our opponent's characters with Genie - On the Job and Mother Knows Best. The name of the game with this deck is to start fast and keep one step ahead of our opponent with our strong tempo.
The one weakness of this deck is a lack of real card draw. Because of the budget limitations, we aren't playing A Whole New World (although if you have some copies, they would definitely be great additions to this deck). But if you use your cards wisely, you should have just enough gas to get to 20 lore before your opponent can turn the tides with their superior card advantage.
This deck is for people who like to play fast and demand their opponent has answers. Sometimes they do, but often enough, they don't and we can "steel" the win.
As you can see, there are some decent deck options in Disney Lorcana for those of us on a budget. And the good news is with reprints just around the corner, those options will only continue to grow as the prices go down across the board. Good luck with your pulls and have fun deckbuilding!
