Into the Inklands,Disney Lorcana’sthird set, brought 204 new cards to the popular trading card game, along with a brand new card type called Locations. Each of the two starter decks is designed to showcase the expansion’s new cards, mechanics, and strategies, giving you a taste of what Into the Inklands has to offer.
The Amber/Emerald deck, also known as Dogged and Dynamic, is a nice sampler platter of the expansion’s characters and Locations, with a strong go-wide strategy meant to overwhelm your opponent with numbers. If you’re looking to get down and dirty with some doggies, or you just like a deck that lets you play lots of characters, this might be the starter deck you’re looking for.
Flotsam - Riffraff (x2)
Jetsam - Riffraff (x2)
Kida - Atlantean (x3)
Lucky - The 15th Puppy (x1)
Wildcat - Mechanic (x2)
Hypnotize (x2)
Improvise (x3)
Key Cards
Pluto, Friendly Pooch
This deck has three copies of Pluto, Friendly Pooch, which you should aim to get on the board on turn one as often as possible. Similar to Lantern, Pluto’s ability, Good Dog, acts as ramp for this deck, allowing you to cheat out cards a turn early, or play extra cards during your turn that you otherwise wouldn’t have had enough ink to play. This is a key card for acquiring an early board advantage and keeping momentum throughout the game.
If you’re on the play,your best playline following Pluto on turn one would be to play Kit Cloudkicker on turn two, allowing you to bounce your opponent’s turn one card back to their hand, giving your two characters on the board while your opponent has none. you may then use Pluto’s ability again on turn three tocheat out a high-value four-cost card like Lucky, The 15th Puppy or Tinker Bell, Generous Fairy, or combine it with one of this deck’s many three-cost characters to effectively play a one-cost location for free.
With only three copies you won’t always be able to get Pluto down on turn one, so try to play him turn before you need him. As a one-cost, it’s easy to work this character in with other plays, so sometimes it’s better to play Pluto alongside a two-cost character on turn three just so you can play a five-cost Nani, Protective Sister on turn four.
You can alsouse Pluto’s ability to shift him into Pluto, Determined Defender a turn early. Normally you wouldn’t want to exert a shift target before playing a Floodborn on top of them, but in this case, Determined Defender is a Bodyguard, so it’s actually advantageous for him to come out exerted. You’ll lose the ability to quest immediately with him, but the trade-off is being able to play an eight-Willpower Bodyguard (that heals itself) on turn four instead of turn five.
Both Lantern and Doc, Leader of the Seven Dwarfs, have similar ramping abilities, and they’ve both been staples in Amber decks previously. Pluto, Friendly Pooch is a great tool that helps this deck put the pressure on, and I expect it will have a place in the Into the Inklands meta as well.
Lucky, The 13th Puppy
This deck excels at having a wide board with too many characters for your opponent to deal with, and Lucky, The 13th Puppy helps you accomplish that, then rewards you for doing it. His first ability, Good as New, allows you to look at the top three cards in your deck and keep any that cost two or less. A quarter of this deck, 15 cards, all cost two or less, soyour chance of finding at least one with this ability is quite high. If you manage to find two or three, you’ll likely have a significant card advantage over your opponent.
Lucky helps you refill your hand with cheap characters, which is important for this deck because its strategy relies on playing more characters than your opponent to overwhelm them. Combined with the abilities of characters likeTinker Bell, Generous Fairy and Pongo, Determined Father,you can starve out your opponent by ensuring you always have more cards in hand than them. These characters offers both card draw and the ability to filter your deck for specific characters you’re looking for, which is always a powerful ability in Lorcana.
Getting four other characters on the board can be difficult, but this deck has some useful tools for that.Characters with Ward like Jetsam, Riffraff and Flotsam, Riffraff (if you have Jetsam in play) are particularly sticky, while Evasive characters like Don Karnage, Prince of Pirates and Wildcat, Mechanic can be hard for your opponent to remove. This deck’s Locations can also function as useful distractions while you set up your Lucky, keeping your characters safe while your opponent focuses on removing them.
If you’ve managed to build a wide board already, Lucky can help you close out games quickly with his second ability, Puppy Love. As long as you have at least four other characters on board, they all earn an additional lore from questing after Lucky, so playing this character on curve can be extremely powerful. Ideally, you wouldplay a Bodyguard like Nani, Protective Sister or Pluto, Determined Defender the turn you quest with Luckyto keep him safe from challenges.
Don Karnage, Prince of Pirates
Don Karnage, Prince of Pirates is an Evasive character with same stats as Tigger, Wonderful Thing, but costs one less. If you think about how useful Tigger is in Evasive-themed decks, it’s easy to see why Don Karnage is so valuable here. There are a couple of decent questers with high Willpower and high lore value in this deck, like Robin Hood, Daydreamer and Starkey, Devious Pirate, butmore often than not you’ll get more value out of steadily questing with an unanswered Don Karnagethan you will with an intimidating late game bomb.
With four Strength and four Willpower, Don Karnage can take out most other Evasive and stick around for future turns. Because he’s evasive himself, it means he can freely trade with smaller characters on the board without the fear of retribution. Most often,you’ll just want to quest with Don to keep pressure on the opponent and force them to find an answer to him. There aren’t a lot of good answers to four-Willpower characters though, so in a lot of cases Don Karnage can run away with a game all on his own.
Don Karnage is also a great target for Pluto, Friendly Pooch.If you’re able to cheat him out on turn four, you can put the clock on your opponent one turn earlier, then follow it up with a Nani, Floodborn Pluto, or even your other Don Karnage on turn five.
Your Opening Hand And When To Mulligan
When assessing your opening hand for this deck, keep these things in mind:
Amber/Emerald Playstyle
It’s hard to pin down exactly what kind of archetype Dogged and Dynamic is going for because it has a little bit of everything, but that just meansit has some flexibility and can respond to your opponent’s game plan in a variety of ways.
For the most part,your goal will be to flood the board with characters and force your opponent to try to keep up. Playing on curve is important, and this deck has a nice distribution of card costs to help you keep the pressure on. If you are consistently adding cards to your board and questing often, characters like Lucky, Robin Hood, and Starkey can help you close out games with a big burst of lore gain. Pluto, Determined Defender and Nani will help keep your high-value questers safe, while Evasives like Don Carnage and Wildcat let you set the pace of the game and keep your opponent on the defensive.
While this deck does feature a few Locations and two characters that care about Locations, Peter Pan and Cubby, it’s unlikely you’ll find this combination of cards when you play simply because there are so few of them in the deck. If you’re interested in seeing what Locations can do in Into the Inklands, I would suggest checking out the other Starter Deck, Plenty of Pluck.
With this kind of deck,it’s important to keep a card advantage so you can continuously increase your board stateand put as much pressure on your opponent as possible. Hypnotize and Improvize are two actions that replace themselves, while Strike a Good Match, Tinker Bell, Pongo, and Lucky all give you card draw while also allowing you to filter your deck and select the optimum card for each situation. Prioritizing hand size when you’re ahead is essential to maintaining a lead on the board.
When you fall behind, there are some great tools to help you slow your opponent down until you can build your board back up.Kit Cloudkicker and Jasper, Common Crook are inexpensive characters that can help stall your opponent, while Cubby, Mighty Lost Boy can effectively take down opposing characters of almost any size, provided you have a Location to move him to. This deck has built-in tools that allow your cheap characters to trade up into more expensive characters, which will in turn allow you to deal with the opponent cheaply and still have ink left to redevelop your board. If you lose momentum, look to characters like Improvise, Flotsam and Jetsam, Rolly, and Patch, Intimdating Pup to help you trade efficiently and maximize the value of your ink.
You may not need to get up to seven ink to win, especially if you haven’t found one of the only two seven-cost cards in the deck. Consider your hand size and the cards you can play immediately before deciding if you actually need to keep building your inkwell each turn. It can be important to have a big resource pool in order to build a wide board, but you are also at risk of over-inking and running out of cards with this deck. While it has a lot of low-cost cards, this isn’t a hyper-aggro, go-all-in kind of deck. Your high-cost characters are incredibly useful for protecting your board and closing out games, but with only seven cards that cost five or more, you might be better off keeping your inkwell small in some situations.
Weaknesses
With any go-wide deck,you’re always going to be vulnerable to control archetypes. A quarter of this deck is made up of characters with two or less Willpower, so you have to be careful that when you go wide, you aren’t setting yourself up for an easy board clear from Grab Your Sword or Tinker Bell, Giant Fairy. If your opponent is playing Ruby, consider whether it’s wise to spend your entire inkwell on a 7-cost character like Starkey or Pluto when it’s likely they’ll have a removal action waiting for them.
Conversely, this deck is designed to put pressure on your opponent and force them to continually clear your board, soit doesn’t have any removal tool of its own. You’ll be relying on combat tricks to trade up if your opponent out-values you on the board, so this deck may struggle against more aggressive archetypes. It’s important to understand what kind of game your opponent is playing and counter their strategy with your own tools. In an aggro match-up, focus on getting more of your high-value questers like Wendy Darling, Talented Sailor on the board early, then use characters like Jasper and Kit Cloudkicker to slow your opponent down while you out-earn them on lore.
If you’re looking to upgrade your Into the Inklands starter decks, we’ve got you covered. Click here for the Amber/Emerald Upgrade Guide.
