I want to start this decklist breakdown by stating that it is nearly entirely borrowed by a Disney Lorcana player who goes by the name “Humble” on the Ravensburger Play Hub. While I actively attempted to change some cards just to make it more my own, I ultimately decided I was just making it worse. This build already does a great job at spotlighting new cards from Winterspell, getting a lot out of Boost characters, and being a legitimately viable archetype for competitive play.
Simba – King in the Making is a 7-cost Whisper introduced with Boost 3 and the ability Timely Alliance which triggers whenever you put a card under him and allows you to reveal the top card of your deck, and play it exerted for free if it’s a character card. This effect is reminiscent of Mufasa – Betrayed Leader, an Amber card no longer legal for core constructed play which had a loyal following of players constantly looking to maximise the potential of this card. Two of these players, who go by the names “Wahnderful” and “Humble,” are among those in the community looking to represent the Betrayed Leader by sleeving up Simba – King in the Making to see if he can follow in his father’s paw prints.
A new card that fits nicely into this archetype is Reuben – Sandwich Maker, a 2-cost glimmer who can exert to remove up to two damage counters from a chosen character of yours. You then pay one ink less this turn for the next character you play, for each damage counter removed this way. This card fills a similar role to pre-rotation tools like Gaston – Despicable Dealer, which helped to curve into higher cost characters faster. The damage needed requires some setup, which is why we are playing Mulan – Injured Soldier, who can be played on turn one, curve into Reuben, enabling a 5-cost character as soon as turn three! Play Stitch – Carefree Snowboarder to provide card draw, or The Headless Horseman – Terror of Sleepy Hollow for fast removal!
Another new card assisting our deck with cost reduction is Grandmother Willow – Ancient Advisor, who lowers the cost of the next character you play by one, once per turn. One of the issues holding back Simba – King in the Making is his high cost of 7, Reuben and Grandmother Willow – Ancient Advisor help alleviate this cost so that we can utilize his ability sooner.
Another new Whisper we can feature in this decklist is Bambi – Ethereal Fawn who can Boost for a cost of 2. His ability Come See allows you to reveal cards from the top of your deck equal to those under him and add all character cards revealed this way to your hand. Card draw can be hard to come by within this ink combination, so Bambi’s potential to add multiple cards to your hand can be invaluable, especially since this ability will trigger every time Bambi exerts in any way.
Joining Bambi in the 4-cost slot are more new characters from Winterspell, Slushy – Glacial Gluster with the Evasive keyword and a beefy 5-5 stat line. And Sarabi – Protecting the Tribe, who can lower the strength of opposing characters, leading to more favourable challenges and synergising with our Terror of Sleepy Hollow.
If we are playing characters off the top of the deck for free with King in the making, we want to maximize that potential with some high cost high impact characters, so we are sleeving up Stitch – Carefree Surfer, who will also provide card draw, and Maleficent – Monstrous Dragon to rain Dragon Fire down upon the winter-covered realm of Lorcana. Finally, the one card I added from the original list created by “Humble” is the new Wreck-It Ralph – Raging Wrecker, who can do so for a cost of 1 and gains 1 Strength for every card under him. When banished, the Who’s Comin’ With Me ability will trigger and banish all characters in play with Strength equal or less to that of Raging Wrecker when he was in play. This can be a risky effect, but a lot of our higher-end characters have Strength greater than Ralph’s without any buffs.
This style of deck really wants to be playing majority characters, but with Amber ink comes The Horseman Strikes!, which is always tough to pass up. Lastly, Ohana Means Family seems to be one of the strongest new cards gained by this ink, with huge card draw potential.
This deck is playing fewer characters with Boost than the former, but I think it maximises one of the most fun and powerful Boost abilities we have so far, and since it is well supported by a lot of new cards from Winterspell, I thought it would make for a great theme deck to feature here!
4 Simba – King in the Making
4 Bambi – Ethereal Fawn
4 Grandmother Willow – Ancient Advisor
4 Stitch – Carefree Snowboarder
4 Sarabi – Protecting the Pride
4 Reuben – Sandwich Expert
3 Ohana Means Family
4 Rajah – Devoted Protector
3 Mowgli – Man Cub
4 Stitch – Carefree Surfer
3 The Horseman Strikes!
4 Mulan – Injured Soldier
4 The Headless Horseman – Terror of Sleepy Hollow
4 Maleficent – Monstrous Dragon
2 Copper – On the Scent
2 Fa Zhou – Honorable Warrior
2 Slushy – Glacial Guster
1 Wreck-it Ralph – Raging Wrecker
That’s all from me this time round, Illumineers! With each new set comes the potential for new competitive strategies and fun fan expression through creative deckbuilding.
I hope you’re all enjoying trying out new cards and strategies that speak to you as a fan. It’s getting far too cold for me, so I think I'll get my henchman glimmer, Fidget, to make a nice fire and get settled in for the winter. Perhaps I'll see you in Wilds Unknown, until then as always, be prepared.
