It’s been a month since Archazia’s Island hit store shelves. Since then, Sapphire has carved out its place in the metagame as the ink color to beat this cycle, but it's only fair to see how the other ink colors have been doing since then.
So, today, we will be looking at the top five Ruby cards being used since the release of Archazia’s Island. Before we start, we’d like to offer our thanks to InkDecks for always collecting and compiling data from across the world.
5. Sisu - Daring Visitor
Generally unimpressive on her own, Sisu - Daring Visitor is normally paired up with a Sapphire Coil. This gives Sisu’s controlling player a turn 3 body alongside direct board removal for anything with a strength of 3 or less, should Sapphire Coil activate.
Sisu’s Evasive protects her from most challenge-based board removal, but her low stats make her susceptible to popular staples like Steel’s Strength of a Raging Fire, Ruby’s own Brawl, or even an opposing Daring Visitor.
However, Daring Visitor’s presence does open a shift line to her bigger counterpart, Empowered Sibling.
4. Sisu - Empowered Sibling
Assuming Sisu’s controlling player can keep Daring Visitor on the board for long enough, Empowered Sibling can come in two turns earlier than normally anticipated.
Offering more robust stats than Daring Visitor, Empowered Sibling would need a higher damage investment to take out if direct board removal is not available. With a 3 lore score tacked onto her, Empowered Sibling cannot be left alone for too long, or else she’ll run away with the lore race.
As if that wasn't good enough, Empowered Sibling’s most fearsome effect is that it’s a one-sided board wipe for any opposing character with a strength of 2 or less.
Even without strength manipulation, any deck that likes to build wide with a lot of low-strength characters can see their board presence dwindle to nothing the moment Empowered Sibling hits the field.
Both Daring Visitor and Empowered Sibling tend to be played at an average of 2-3 copies in most Ruby decks. Their uninkable nature does little to justify running either Sisu at maximum copies.
Even with ink well acceleration cards existing in the game, you don’t want to see either Sisu card too early into the match.
3. Be Prepared
One of the oldest cards on this list, Ruby’s Be Prepared is a costly 7 ink board wipe for either side. Being a song, Be Prepared does enjoy the benefit of using characters as its source of ink cost. This frees up the controlling player’s inkwell to re-establish a board presence after Be Prepared has done its job.
Useful against almost every type of deck being used competitively, Be Prepared finds a nice home in any Ruby deck at 2 copies. This is just enough supply to make sure it doesn’t become a brick in the early to mid-game while stacking the odds to raise the chances of a copy’s appearance in the mid to late-game.
2. Maui - Hero to All
Maui - Hero to All is the first inkable card on this list, and he’s Ruby’s mid-game answer to any of the aggressively questing opponents. With a strength of 6 and willpower of 5, only the most robust units can survive first contact with this demigod.
Rival ink colors like Steel would need to expend a precious copy of And Then Along Came Zeus to efficiently deal with Hero to All, while other ink colors would need to find a way to directly banish this heavy hitter if trading via challenges looks to be a losing proposition.
Regardless of when in the game Maui - Hero to All comes to the hand, his inkable nature allows any interested player to run him at a higher number of copies, usually at 3, but some players may prefer him at maximum.
Maui - Hero to All is as blunt an instrument as it comes; board removal on legs, but Maui does his job well for being a 5 ink cost card.
1. Brawl
Brawl is Ruby’s answer to most early to mid-game characters. This card’s direct banishment bypasses any of the more robust early-game characters or anything with Resist, like Amber-Steel’s The Troubadour.
On top of that is Brawl’s similarity to Maui - Hero to All, in that it’s an inkable card, meaning that even in the mid to late game where characters are well outside Brawl’s targeting parameters, it can still be used to fuel the ink ramp.
Easily played at 3-4 copies, Brawl is usually a must-have for any deck fielding Ruby. Its cheap cost overshadows the fact that it can’t be sung like Be Prepared, and its overall versatility at any stage of the match ensures it’ll be useful as a resource if it can no longer function as an offensive tool.
That’s our list for the Top 5 Ruby cards being used since the release of Archazia’s Island. We’ll eventually take a look at each ink color as well as how the meta and experimentation of the players continue to evolve through this cycle.