Disney Lorcana’s latest spoiler season is nearing its end, and Ravensburger has officially revealed the first-ever Legendary Action! Before we dive into the bizarre Emerald effect, another variation of the Shift mechanic also appeared.
The Tides Keep On Shifting
Continuing from the introduction of the new Universal Shift mechanic earlier in the month, Archazia’s Island adds another shift subset, Puppy Shift. Thunderbolt is one of the new dual ink (amber-sapphire) cards introduced in the set. He's geared to support players favoring the 101 Dalmatians franchise and their focus on the little ankle biters.
Thunderbolt himself has a modest stat line, and his bodyguard ability allows players to protect the core of their team composition, namely the aforementioned puppy characters. With the likes of soon-to-be-released contemporaries such as Pongo - Dear Old Dad and Perdita - Playful Mother, Ravensburger is making good on their word for creating more support for less represented deck archetypes.
Will this make amber-sapphire puppy-focused decks a lot more competitive? It would be hard to say at the moment as there is little data to work on. There has been no representation of the canine-focused archetype in tournaments as of late. Despite the potential of having an advantage in numbers due to their cheap cost, possible recursion, and fast ramp, they still fall prey to full board wipes like Be Prepared, or Sisu - Empowered Sibling.
It's Time to go the Distance
The Return of Hercules was revealed this past week, proudly displaying its legendary rarity status as it shares the spotlight with the likes of Lucky Dime -the first and currently only legendary item of the game- and the horde of Disney Lorcana characters who were awarded such an illustrious position.
Surprisingly, The Return of Hercules is not a dual-ink card. This is perhaps a little odd given how Archazia’s Island was geared to promote the new dual-ink mechanic.
According to data provided by InkDecks.com a majority of recently organized tournaments show that top cuts are usually populated by decks sporting amethyst, ruby, and steel ink. There are a few emerald decks that make it to the top 32 of larger tournaments, sometimes even winning the event, but that is relatively few compared to their rivals.
The Return of Hercules does offer any deck splashing emerald an option of cheating out a huge body for a modest cost of 5 ink. This action card combines nicely with characters that have an on-play effect, like Maleficent - Monstrous Dragon, that can hit the board early and get rid of any robust mid-game problems right away.
As we dive deeper into this new legendary card, we also spot its one glaring drawback. Like Ink Geyser before it, The Return of Hercules affects the opposing player and also allows them a chance to play a character themselves. This point is further underscored by how the opponent didn’t even need to pay the 5 ink cost barrier-to-entry to get a body onto the board.
According to a design discussion featuring Steve Warner -one of Disney Lorcana's lead co-designers-using The Return of Hercules comes with a more complex decision-making process. The active player who activates this action card not only reveals their character first, but they also get to activate any triggered abilities first, as well. This puts a lot of pressure on the opponent to decide how to interact with the situation.
Given what we’ve seen of the card so far, The Return of Hercules is an interesting tool in Emerald’s arsenal. However, there will be stiff competition in the slot it occupies when it comes to deck building. Other action cards of similar cost like Dragon Fire or Let It Go can directly change the board state without needing to spend more than one card, or giving the opponent free advantage. There are also cards like And Then Along Came Zeus that can just melt their targets at a cheaper cost. We doubt The Return of Hercules will shake things up, but we could always be wrong.
We still have roughly two weeks left before Archazia’s Island is released to the public. Spoiler season has yet to conclude, and we have about 20% of the card pool left to be revealed. Even if there’s no card left in the set that will make The Return of Hercules a mainstay staple, all it takes is one undaunted player to make it viable. In the wise words of Walt Disney, “All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them”.