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Into the Inklands isDisney Lorcana’sthird set, and, as always, the starter decks are the best way to kickstart your collection and get an introduction to its cards and strategies. The Ruby/Sapphire deck, Plenty of Pluck, is a Ducktales/Moana mashup that specializes in items, locations, and a challenge-focused strategy meant to shut the opponent down and outplay them through strong resource management.
Unlike the Amber/Emerald starter deck, this starter doesn’t have a clearly defined strategy, instead offering a window into a variety of playstyles that can be utilized in the Into the Inklands season.
The Budget deck can be built with commons, uncommons, and some choice rares. The mid-cost deck includes all the rares that fit into the archetype and a couple of choice Super Rares, and the top-tier deck uses all the available cards to construct a more competitive deck that maintains the core strategy and themes of the original starter.
Cards mentioned in each category can work well in any other category, even if they aren’t mentioned. This archetype is open to a lot of flexible choices, so consider every card mentioned in this guide as potential inclusions in this deck, even if they don’t come up in each specific build guide.
Pawpsicle (x4)
Sumerian Talisman (x4)
Voyage (x2)
This deck already looks considerably different, but these changes will help the deck achieve the things it’s focused on. We’ve maintained a strategy that centers around items, locations, and an emphasis on challenging, whilenarrowing the list down to the best choices to achieve those goals.
We’ve tried to keep the Duck and Moana themes in wherever possible, but ultimately strategy must trump flavor when the goal is to upgrade.
The budget deck is designed to be sparing on anything rarer than Uncommon, but there are a few key Rares you need to make this style of deck work.
For any kind of item deck, Hiram Flaversham is indispensable. The card draw he produces from banishing items is the best in the game, and with Gyro Gearloose, you have reliable recursion for any item Hiram banishes. You won’t always be able to draw cards from challenging, and Hiram provides a good backup to keep your hand healthy.
This deck is built around challenging opponents with low-cost cannon fodder, but challenging alone does not earn you any lore points. If all you ever do is wait for the opponent to quest and challenge them after, you’llquickly fall behindand be unable to catch back up.
The core to any challenger deck is Shere Kha, Menacing Predator, a lore generator that rewards you points every time one of your characters challenges. Getting one or more of these in play early will ensure that you’re earning lore while also controlling the board.
Finally, you may swap out Maui, Winged Demigod for Maui, Hero to All. This ensures you can still activate Haui’s Fish Hook,while giving you a powerful Rush characterthat can deal with most locations in a single hit. Maui is the big playmaker in a challenger deck, and you wouldn’t want to build one without him.
TheSumerian Talismanwill be your main source of card draw in this deck. Every time you play a wimpy rush character like Queen of Hearts, Impulsive Ruler or Stitch, Little Rocket, the Talisman will let you replace them. Queen of Hearts, Sensing Weakness has the same effect, but your characters don’t need to be banished in the process of challenging to draw cards. Together, the Sumerian Talisman and Queen of Hearts should keep your hand healthy and full of minions to rush out and neutralize all of your opponent’s characters.
Cogsworth is here to give Reckless characters the ability to quest when there’s nothing to challenge, and his job is even more important here with the addition of Gaston, Arrogant Hunter; Maui, Hero to All; and Felicia, Always Hungry. If you find you have too many Reckless characters on the board at once, it might be a good idea to add more Cogsworth to the deck.
The Jolly Roger, Hook’s Ship will give all of your other characters the ability to rush too. While it does cost two ink to move them there (except Kakamora, because they’re a pirate) your Reckless characters are generally over-stated, so the movement cost normally won’t represent too much of a tempo loss.
you’re able to also play a couple of cheap Reckless characters like Gaston and Della Duck, then use a Voyage to move both of them to the Jolly Roger for just one ink.
Using extra ink to move your characters to Motunui before sacrificing them in a challenge is also a great strategy, since every one of your characters that’s banished there will move to your inkwell instead of your discard pile.
This will help youincrease your resource pooland play even more characters, flooding the board with challengers that won’t ever allow your opponent’s characters to survive more than a turn.
This deck is all about controlling the board by challenging every single character your opponent plays while using tools like Sumerian Talisman, Queen of Hearts, and Hiram Flaversham to constantly refill your hand.
It’s astrategy of attritionthat forces your opponent to play out all of their cards while you continuously oppress their board until eventually, they run out of resources.
Vault Door (x2)
Voyage (x1)
In the mid-budget version, there are some new tools to help put pressure on the opponent. One of the most important is Mulan, Imperial Soldier, a character from The First Chapter who never really found a place in the meta, but finally comes to her own in challenge-focused decks.
Mulan can enable you to have an explosive turn, gaining lots of lore unexpectedly, especially if she moves to the Jolly Roger when you play her. This character can havea huge impact on the gameif played at the right time.
This version also adds Captain Hook, Master Swordsman, another pirate that can take advantage of the free movement cost to the Jolly Roger. Captain Hook will get multiple turns of challenging value thanks to his Nemesis ability, which allows you to ready him after he banishes a character in a challenge. With a Jolly Roger in play, Captain Hook is almost as powerful as the seven-cost Scar, Viscious Cheater.
This mid-cost version loses some of the card draw and isn’t quite as low to the ground as the budget version, but it adds high-impact characters that will help turn the corner quicker starting turn five. This is a safer strategy since you never know how long your opponent keeps refilling their hand, especially when playing against Amethyst.
Scrooge, Gyro, and Hiram continue working together to play items, banish them, and retrieve them from discard. This version reintroduces Vault Door, which will help the Jolly Roger and the characters there stay alive longer.
Sumerian Talisman (x3)
With Lengedaries on the table, there are a couple of rockstar additions you can make that help bring this entire archetype together. Any challenger deck must surely include Scar, Viscious Cheater - a seven-cost character with Rush that readies himself every time he banishes a character.
Scar fell out of the meta in favor of a simple Be Prepared, but in a deck like this where challengers reap lore and card draw benefits from Sumerian Talisman, Queen of Hearts, and Shere Khan, he is an incredibly powerful board-clearing tool.
Similarly, Hydra, Lethal Snake will spread all the damage it takes to other targets as well, which can turn him into another board-clear tool if used correctly. You’ll likely want tomake use of the Jolly Roger to get the most value out of the Hydra, but the benefit of this character is that it can reflect the damage it takes onto the opponent’s characters even if they aren’t exerted.
Hydra also counters ping damage from Steel actions and characters, aswhittling him down with Grab Your Sword or Smashwill just cause your opponent to soak damage with their own characters too.
One of the best things about a Rush/Reckless deck is that it’s filled with high-strength characters that can take down high Willpower locations easily. As the meta shifts to incorporate Locations, decks like this that have lots of ways to deal with them should see more play.
The version of the deck is less about flooding the board with cheap brawlers, and more about using Rush and Reckless characters to hold your opponent off until your high-cost closers like Mulan, Scar, and Hydra can come in and help you secure a dominant position.
Along the way, you’ll still use plenty of the same card draw tools as the other version of this deck, but with a higher curve, you won’t necessarily need to over-exert yourself to lock down the opponent in the first few turns.
The Jolly Roger is this deck’s secret weapon, both because its lack of lore will make your opponents underestimate it, and because its low cost allows you to surprise your opponents by playing it alongside other characters, giving them rush and allowing them to immediately interact with your opponent’s characters.
While challenger decks, and in particular Pirate typal decks, may be better suited for Ruby/Steel, this color combination offers some great item synergy and card draw that will help keep you from running out of resources.
