Disney Lorcana’ssecond expansion, Into the Inklands, features a pair of starter decks built to show off the set’s Disney Afternoon-themed cards, as well as its core mechanic, Locations. The Ruby/Sapphire Deck, Plenty of Pluck, is a challenge-focus, synergy-filled showcase of one of the expansion’s most anticipated franchises, Ducktales.
If you like decks with lots of cool combos and card interactions, and you don’t mind mixing it up on the battlefield with your opponents, then this might be the starter deck for you.
Flounder - Voice of Reason (x3)
Voyage (x2)
Agrabah - Marketplace (x3)
Key Cards
Sumerian Talisman
This deck is filled with Reckless, Support, and anti-Evasive characters, which meansit’s designed to focus on board control through efficient challenging. Whenever you sacrifice your characters to control your opponents' boards, the Sumerian Talisman will feed you a free card, ensuring that you always have more ammo to fire at your enemies.
There are 18 three-cost cards in this deck, but theSumerian Talisman is arguably the most important. If you can get it in play early,you’re likely to outdraw your opponents simply by making smart trades. It’s a good idea to prioritize this card in your opening hand, and set yourself up to play it if you draw it late too. Both Scrooge McDuck, Uncle Moneybags and Scrooge McDuck, Richest Duck in the World can help you play items for a discount or even for free, and if your opponent manages to destroy it, Gyro Gearloose, Gadget Expert can let you put it back on top of your deck to be played again. This item is so important to this deck’s survivability that you must prioritize playing it when you can.
If you’re not able to get Sumerian Talisman into play, you’ll have virtually no way to replenish your hand. Gramma Tala, Keeper of Ancient Stories replaces herself, but beyond that, the only card draw you’ll find in this deck comes from Huey, Savvy Nephew - a one-of that also requires you to have both Louie and Dewey in play as well. It’s very unlikely you’ll meet the conditions to draw cards from Huey, so make sure you play Sumerian Talisman when you may.
Maid Marian - Delightful Dreamer
Maid Marian, Delightful Dreamer may be unassuming, but if played correctlyshe can represent a turning point for this deck’s core strategy, allowing you to pivot away from board control and start and start to push for lore. Much like Scar, Mastermind - an underrated Amethyst card from The First Chapter, Maid Marian has an on-play effect that can take your opponent by surprise, giving you a chance to trade with their board for free, and establish a well-statted character that can start questing the very next turn.
Maid Marian works because she throws off the opponent’s math. When they think their exerted character forces an even trade with one of yours, you can use Maid Marian’s Highborn Lady ability to Challenge them and keep your character alive. Of course, this means you need a character on board that can initiate the challenge before Maid Marian gets value, but there are 11 4-cost characters that all have decent Strength values, so it isn’t hard to get something down the previous turn that can take the Challenge.
You can also try to get a Support character like Huey or Dewey out on turn two or three to ensure that your four-cost character can banish whatever Maid Marian targets, but a Maui, Soaring Demigod will almost always do the trick.Maui synergizes well with Maid Marianbecause she allows him to banish anything with three or less strength and survive to fight again.
Vault Door/ The Location Package
Vault Door is another high-impact item, but unlike Sumerian Talisman, it relies on a few specific cards to reach its full potential. First, you need a Location. There are five in this deck, two Motunui, Island Paradise and three Agrabah, Marketplace.You’ll want to move as many characters to that location as possible, prioritizing characters with Reckless challengers, low Willpower questers like Simba, Scrappy Cub, and, if you may find her, Moana, Born Leader, who will ready all your other location-bound characters every time she quests.
Voyage is an excellent, low-cost action card that will let you move two characters to the same location for free, which becomes an invaluable tool once Vault Door is in play. Ideally, you’ll want toestablish Vault Door after your characters are able to quest, but before playing a location, to ensure that the location doesn’t get banished before Vault Door can protect it. A good playline would be to play Vault Door on four after you’ve built your board with some characters, followed by either location plus Voyage on turn five to move your character over to it. You’ll have one extra ink to move a third character too if you still have three in play. Keep in mind that both Scrooges can help you get Vault Door out for a discount or even for free.
It’s a tall order, but getting both Vault Doors into play would mean all of your locations and characters would have +2 resist, and that would be an incredibly difficult thing for your opponent to overcome. Even if you only have one, that would give Agrabah 5 Willpower and +1 Resist, meaning your opponent would need to commit a lot of resources to remove it. In the meantime, your characters can challenge your opponents' with the benefit of +1 Resist. For a Challenge-focused deck like this,Resist can make a huge difference.
Dragon Fire
I hate to say it, but the inclusion of good ‘ol Dragon Fire in this decklist takes it up a full tier on the power chart. While it’s not very exciting to The First Chapter uncommon cards in the new starter deck, this is an incredibly useful tool for the playstyle. You want to control the board by eliminating every card your opponent plays, andDragon Fire allows you to get rid of a high-value target that would otherwise be difficult to Challenge down. If you’ve already gained control of the board by turn five, Dragon Fire will let you automatically elimate anything your opponent plays and freely gather lore with your characters.
Don’t be afraid to keep a Dragon Fire in your opening hand if your curve looks good and you have plenty of cards to add to your inkwell. It’s a simple, no-questions-asked removal tool that will always come in handy eventually.
Your Opening Hand And When To Mulligan
When assessing your opening hand for this deck, keep these things in mind:
Ruby/Sapphire Playstyle
Plenty of Pluck goes all in on characters, locations, and items from Ducktales and Moana, but you’ll need a keen eye and some luck to find a successful playline with this low-to-the-ground, Challenge-focused value deck. To defeat your opponent, you’ll need tofocus on making favorable trades and squeezing every last drop of value out of your interactions. This means playing the right cards together, and sometimes holding back until you have the right synergies available.
The three items in this deck,Maui’s Fish Hook, Vault Door, and Sumerian Talisman, will be the cornerstone of your strategy. Whichever ones you get in your opening hand should have a big influence over how you play the match. The Talisman allows you to Challenge and build your inkwell more aggressively, meaning you can control the board and develop more resources than your opponent. Reckless cards with large Attack values are more powerful with the Sumerian Talisman in play, while your nimble questers like Simba and Duke Weaselton, Small-Time Crook should be reserved for closing out the game.
Landing on a Vault Door means developing Locations and getting your characters to move there, either by paying the move cost or using Voyage to Ferry them. Other than Heihei, who can drain some of your opponents’ lore when he moves between locations, Moana and Vault Door are the only cards in the deck that cares about Locations. But,when either of those cards is in play with a Location at the same time,everythingcares about Locations. Lean into this advantage when it comes up in the draw, and you’ll put your opponents in a very difficult position.
This is a deck that takes a lot of practice and some lucky draws to play effectively, but the more time you spend with it the more opportunties you’ll find for clever lines of play. One relatively cost-effective strategy I’ve used is combining Simba, Maui, and Maui’s Fishook. As long as Maui survives, you may use the Fish Hook to give Simba Evasive for free every turn. You can start this lore engine as early as turn four, then dedicate the rest of your resources to controlling the board while Simba rushes the scoreboard.
Synergies are important to this deck, but don’t get so stuck on a cool combo that you end up throwing the game for it. Getting Moana on a location with another character and a Vault Door in play can deliver a huge pay-off, but if you’re letting the opponent run away with the game while you try to set up all of those pieces, it just isn’t worth it.
Both versions of Scrooge McDuck can help get this deck’s expensive items in play, so it’s usually a good idea to get this character on the board as soon as possible. Even if you don’t find much Location synergy, Agrabah is a 3-cost card that earns to lore every turn and has five Willpower. It can slow your opponent down simply by existing, since they’ll need to dedicate resources to removing it, which usually means opening their characters up to be Challenged. Location synergies are great, but they’re also just an inexpensive way to force an interaction with your opponent.
Weaknesses
Plenty of Pluck caps out at 5-cost cards and the vast majority of its characters have three or less Strength, soany deck built for long back-and-forth matches is eventually going to outvalue this deck. In the face of high Willpower six, seven, and eight-cost cards, this deck has very few answers. It’s also not equipped for an aggro playstyle, since most of its characters have only one or zero lore value, so it’s not going to be able to sneak under the more action-focused control decks either.
This deck’s biggest weakness is its own variance. With so many disparate little synergy packages, its difficult to find a strategy that works consistently and reliably. Sometimes you’re going to be able to clear off your opponents board and draw plenty of cards while you’re doing it, but other times you going to fall behind right away and never find the means to catch back up. That’s TCGs across the board, but with limited copies of each card and so many strategies that rely on finding multiple pieces of a puzzle, this deck tends to falter against its own lack of focus.
If you’re looking to upgrade your Into the Inklands starter decks, we’ve got you covered. Click here for the Ruby/Sapphire Upgrade Guide.
