Into the Inklands launches this week, so it’s time to bid adieu to Lorcana’s first expansion, Rise of the Floodborn. It’s been a blast to watch the game evolve over the last three months, and the card pool doubled and the meta shifted around all the new strategies available.
Before we dive head first into the new expansion this Friday, let’s take a look back at Rise of the Floodborn to see what worked, what didn’t, and attempt to get a sense of where the game is going from here.
Winner: Ruby/Amethyst Control
The undisputed champion of Rise of the Floodborn is none other than Ruby/Amethyst control. Whether playing at a local event, an organized tournament, or online, Ruby/Amethyst held a stranglehold on the meta all season, with arguably even better results than it had during The First Chapter’s meta.
A variety of new tools in Rise of the Floodborn helped this deck maintain its dominance. It can’t be overstated just how much the Merlin/Mim bounce package has impacted this game, and will continue to serve as the core to practically every competitive Amethyst deck. The addition of Lady Tremaine, Imperious Queen gave Ruby even more hard removal, while Minnie Mouse, Stylish Surfer is an early game quester that helps this deck maintain pace until it builds up its inkwell and takes control of the game.
It’s said that Ruby/Amethyst’s dominance comes from its flexibility and forgiving playstyle. While other decks must be piloted perfectly to succeed, you can draw poorly and misplay occasionally and still come out ahead with Ruby/Amethyst. Be Prepared continues to be the great equalizer, and once it builds to seven ink, it’s hard for anything to break out of Ruby/Amethyst’s ruthless control.
Hyper Aggro can sneak by, but with so many popular Steel decks in the meta, Ruby/Amethyst was free to run wild throughout all of this season. We’ll see if anything new can compete with this deck in the new meta, but, right now, it’s hard to imagine a world where Ruby/Amethyst doesn’t reign supreme.
Loser: Anything Emerald
Poor Emerald, my favorite ink color could not find its footing in The First Chapter, and it still didn’t get the tools it needed in Rise of the Floodborn. Two different archetypes emerged this season: a discard deck paired with either Amber or Steel, and an Emerald/Steel ping deck built to constantly spread damage around the board. Unfortunately, neither deck was able to rise above the b-tier in the meta. Discard does have some advantage against Ruby/Amethyst and it showed up in some top 16 and top eight positions at organized events, but it’s too inconsistent at the moment to be competitive.
Looking ahead, there’s hope for Emerald in the new season. Ursula, Deceiver is the silver bullet for Be Prepared and A Whole New World, and optimistic players hope that a new-and-improved discard deck will help keep the top deck in check. There’s also a new semi-infinite combo that uses Beast, Relentless; Sheriff of Nottingham, Corrupt Official; and The Bayou to clear the opponent’s board and build a giant lore total in a single turn, so expect to see a lot of Emerald/Steel ping decks being played, at least early in the season.
There’s also an ‘action matter’ archetype waiting in the wings to find its niche. A few pieces have trickled in the last few sets, and there’s more on the way with cards like Ursula, Deceiver of All and Airfoil. With some new card draw tools from Strike a Good Match and Shenzi, Hyena Packleader, there’s a chance this theoretical action deck finally sees some play.
Of course, the card everyone has their eye on is Morph. It’s one of the biggest question marks in the game right now, and I’ll be excited to see if Morph alone can make Emerald a more popular ink color.
Winner: Pawpsicle
A one-cost item that simply replaces itself may have been the most exciting card in the entire expansion. Pawpsicle, along with Hiram Flaversham and Nick Wilde, unlocked an entirely new archetype and ink combo that had previously never existed. And while the Ruby/Sapphire Pawpsicle deck was eventually determined to be a less-potent control deck than Ruby/Amethyst, falling to wayside just a few weeks into the meta, the spark of excitement around it was a defining moment for Rise of the Floodborn.
Pawpsicle is definitely here to stay, and in the waning weeks of the meta we’ve seen Sapphire/Steel make a huge push thanks to the Pawpsicle/Hiram combo. If we had a few more weeks with this set, we may have even seen Sapphire/Steel start to overtake Ruby/Amethyst. Just as the bounce package is the core of Amethyst, the Pawpsicle package makes Sapphire a feasible pairing for almost every other ink color. We went into Rise of the Floodborn wondering who the new Big Tink would be, but going into the Inklands, I’m wondering what the new Pawpsicle will be.
Loser: The Legendaries
It’s interesting to compare the legendary characters from The First Chapter to the ones we got in Rise of the Floodborn, because there’s a glaring difference. All of the Amber, Amethyst, Sapphire, and Ruby base set legendaries all became meta staples and are still being used into competitive decks today, leaving only the Steel and Emerald as outliers (and even then, Emerald decks did use John Silver, Alien Pirate quite a bit).
For Rise of the Floodborn, only two of the twelve legendaries see any play: Beast, Tragic Hero and Mufasa, Betrayed Leader. Scar, Viscous Cheater may yet have his moment in a challenger deck, and Beast, Relentless is part of the conversation for Into the Inklands thanks to that Bayou/Sheriff combo, but the first expansion had overwhelmingly useless legendaries.
Legendary cards shouldn’t necessarily be the best cards. Co-designer Steve Warner has explained that legendaries are designed to have unique abilities, often build-around mechanics, but aren’t designed to be the most powerful by default. It wouldn’t be good for the game if the rarest cards were always the best ones, either. TCGs are pay-to-win by nature, so players are better off not needing playsets of every expensive legendary in order to build competitive decks.
At the same time, it feels like the poor playability of this set’s legendaries did hurt the set. It made opening packs less exciting. When you open a TFC pack and hit a Rapunzel, Elsa, or Maleficent, there’s a sense that you’ve found something really useful. You just don’t get that feeling with Rise of the Floodborn, and it gave the entire set a bit of a disappointing aura.
It doesn’t look like we’ll have that problem in Into the Inklands. At first blush, Ursula, Jafar, Perdita, Kida, Robin Hood, and Jim Hawkins all seem extremely playable, while Hydra, Maleficent, Milo, Lucky Dime, Mickey, and Gramma Tala could have a place in the right deck. There are no legendaries in the new set that strike me as unplayable the way Namaari and Donald Duck did last set. Anything can become powerful later on with the right synergies, but it’s nice to look ahead at Into the Inklands with a sense that there are powerful, valuable legendaries to hunt for.
Winner: Floodborn
As its name implies, Rise of the Floodborn gave us plenty of new Floodborn characters to play with, adding twice as many in the first expansion than were in The First Chapter. Shift is one of the most interesting and dynamic keywords in the game, because it opens up the decision tree and allows for surprising and explosive turns. They’re also the most visually and thematically interesting part of Lorcana, which connect to the narrative and give the game its own identity.
Rise of the Floodborn showed us the depth and creativity of Ravensburger’s design, and gave us our first taste of how Lorcana will continue to expand exponentially as new Floodborn and Floodborn targets are introduced to the game. Old cards find new play lines and different utility as new opportunities to Shift or being Shifted onto are introduced, and with plenty of new Floodborn to experiment with, it started to feel like they were an integral part of the game this season, rather than just another keyword some cards have.
In deck building and playing, Floodborn are the most interesting mechanic in Lorcana, and focusing the first expansion on them turned out to be the best decision for the game.
With Jafar, Striking Illusionist, Into the Inklands gives us our first character with multiple Floodborn. This extra flexibility adds a layer of deception to the game that will surely keep things interesting moving forward, especially with the introduction of Morph as a universal Shift target.
Rise of the Floodborn was marked by small changes that will have ramifications as Lorcana continues to grow. From a distance it may look like more of the same, but the way this set developed on the themes and strategies that are core to the game set Lorcana up for a brighter future. With supply issues seemingly resolved and the new location cards to experiment with, Into the Inklands is primed to raise the bar for Lorcana once again. As long as it doesn’t just make Ruby/Amethyst even better, that is.
Next:There’s A New Pseudo-Infinite Loop In Lorcana, And This Time you’re able to Actually Do It
