The new Disney Lorcana set, Archazia’s Island, is just around the corner with the early release on March 7 at local game stores, followed by the wide release on March 21. With this seventh set, the trading card game introduces dual color cards for the very first time. Two new starter decks also accompany the new booster expansion: a Ruby/Sapphire deck featuring characters from Beauty and the Beast, and an Amethyst/Steel deck featuring characters from Aladdin. Disney Lorcana starter decks have been a good way to tease what the new meta could be with its new mechanics, but one of these new decks seems stronger right out of the box than its counterpart.

Starter decks are, of course, not optimized for super competitive games, but they’ll get you part of the way. So generally, playing starter decks out of the box may feel slow. With that said, there are synergies with certain cards if you can find them in time. The Ruby/Sapphire deck, for instance, relies on the use of items whether they are on the field or not. The new dual-color Belle can be cheaper to play based on how many item cards are in your discard. When she quests, she also allows the player to put three items from the discard back into the deck. Outside of getting rid of your items normally, you also have characters like dual-color Beast, who banishes two items to deal damage to an opposing character. Then there’s Cogsworth, who becomes stronger if there’s just one item in the discard. So now you have this engine where you’re using your items as normal, benefitting from them in the discard, and putting them back into the deck to do it all over again. With so much opportunity for interactions, a player has to be careful about the order of their plays. For example, you don’t want to put back items into the deck if a character benefits from them being in there in the first place. Outside of that, the usual Ruby and Sapphire tendencies are there in the deck, like building up your inkwell or dealing damage and rushing down characters.

As for the Amethyst/Steel deck, this gets the most interesting mechanic from this set with the Vanish keyword. A character that has Vanish is immediately banished if it is targeted by an action, which are like single-use spells. For example, the action card Double Trouble deals 1 damage each to up to two characters. If your opponent has two cards with Vanish on the field, this action card will make both of those powerful characters go away for cheap – and they don’t even need to damage them to do so. This keyword is seen on characters that are Illusions, which is also a new attribute to Lorcana. So like Illusions, they disappear as soon as they are waved away. This sounds pretty bad, of course, but the Illusion characters themselves are quite strong considering the cost for them. In this deck, for example, we have a 4/4 Mufasa that costs four ink to play. The Illusion Iago is 4/6 with evasive and also costs four ink to play. Generally, these Illusion cards can wreak some havoc as long as the opponent doesn’t have the necessary cards to get rid of them easily. The main beneficiary of these Illusion cards is the dual-color Jafar, who can return any Illusion cards that are banished on the opponent’s turn. Considering the value and threat these Illusion cards pose, Jafar is crucial to making this deck perform. Otherwise, playing an Illusion to only get banished immediately feels pretty bad.

So far, the introduction of dual-color cards seems to be an obvious addition to a deck if you are playing the right colors with the right playstyle. As expected, they’re strong with new cards and a whole expansion, but they are locked with the deck color of choice, unlike Star Wars Unlimited, where you can splash other colors in the deck but incur an extra cost. In regards to deck brewing, it doesn’t leave too much room for creativity. For instance, if you run Illusions, you kind of have to have a card like dual color Jafar to give you the extra value with the negative kickback of Vanish. On the other hand, Illusions can be cheap throwaways to banish any opposing characters before they quickly disappear. Out of the box, though, Illusions are very susceptible to actions, and with one Jafar, those characters are not lasting too long in any game.

Both Archazia’s Island starter decks showcase the new mechanics of the upcoming set well, but the Ruby/Sapphire deck just has a more consistent engine than what the Amethyst/Steel can pull off. Unfortunately, the featured characters are ones we’ve seen already in the game, but that does allow for some room to mess around with the older Belle or Jafar cards in this upcoming meta. With that said, these starter decks are always a good chance to see what the game has to offer so far. For more on Disney Lorcana, check out our interview with one of the game designers on how the card game came to be.

Each Archazia’s Island Starter Deck comes with:

60 cards11 damage counters1 paper playmat1 paper tracker tokenGame Rules

Ruby & Sapphire (An Inventive Pair)

2x Beagle Boys – Small-Time Crooks1x Beast – Frustrated Designer1x Belle – Mechanic Extraordinaire3x Cogsworth – Climbing Clock2x Cy-Bug – Invasive Enemy2x Edgar Balthazar – Ambitious Butler1x Lyle Tiberius Rourke – Crystallized Mercenary1x Maurice – Unconventional Inventor2x Moana – Island Explorer2x Sir Kay – Unruly Knight3x Stabbington Brother – Without a Patch3x Toby – Dogged Companion2x Gold Coin*2x Longboat*3x Maurice’s Machine2x Ruby Coil2x Unconventional Tool3x Belle – Apprentice Inventor2x Chaca – Impressive Daughter*2x Donald Duck – Focused Flatfoot*2x Gaetan Moliere – The Mole3x Jebidiah Farnsworth – Expedition Cook1x Kida – Creative Thinker2x Marie – Favored Kitten2x Monsieur D’Arque – Despicable Proprietor2x Robin Hood – Eye for Detail1x All Is Found2x Ever as Before*2x Helping Hand*2x Medal of Heroes*

*Part of a previous set

Amethyst & Steel (Feathered and Feared)

3x Giant Cobra – Ghostly Serpent1x Iago – Giant Spectral Parrot1x Jafar – Newly Crowned2x Kashekim – Ancient Ruler1x Madam Mim – Cheating Spellcaster2x Pain – Impudent Imp2x Panic – High-Strung Imp3x Rajah – Ghostly Tiger2x Tanana – Tribal Elder2x Te Kā – Lava Monster2x The Carpenter – Dinner Companion*2x Treasure Guardian – Foreboding Sentry2x A Very Merry Unbirthday*2x Magical Maneuvers1x Restoring the Crown2x Amethyst Coil2x Retrosphere*2x Akela – Wolf Pack Elder2x Arthur – Wart*1x Fa Zhou – War Hero3x Heihei – Rambling Rooster2x Helga Sinclair – Tough as Nails3x Jafar – Aspiring Ruler2x King Hubert – Phillip’s Father*3x Mufasa – Respected King1x Raya – Guidance Seeker3x Razoul – Menacing Guard2x Royal Guard – Bovine Protector*2x Double Trouble2x Training Dummy*

*Part of a previous set