The thing I love most about Lorcana is playing the game with my favorite characters. When it comes to making a deck, I want the deck to be thematic and ideally made entirely of one Disney property. This can be hard to do when new properties are just added to the game, or if that particular movie or show isn't well represented yet across the Lorcana chapters. It's also not a great strategy for winning in the competitive scene. However, for playing with friends, I find thematic decks really boost my enjoyment of the game. If you're like me, follow along as I try to wrangle together a Gargoyles deck with the latest Whispers in the Well set.
I'm going to be using Dreamborn.ink to make this deck, but you can use whatever you like best. This isn't sponsored or anything, I just like the features on Dreamborn.ink.
To start off, we have Gargoyles in Ruby, Amethyst, and Steel. Since we have to pick two colors, one of those has to go. Looking at our options, Ruby has the most characters available and therefore has to be included if we want any chance at making a 60 card deck. Amethst has two versions of Demona and a Coldstone. Not a whole lot to work with. Steel has a Goliath, Hudson, Lexington, Broadway, David Xanatos, and Castle Wyvern. With that, our decision is pretty much made for us. Ruby-Steel is the way to go.
Since the Gargoyles are new at the time of writing this, I don't have to worry about searching through previous chapters. Here are our options:
Ruby
- Bronx: 3/6/4/0
- David Xanatos: 6/5/5/2
- Goliath: 4/5/5/1
- Brooklyn: 2/3/2/1
- Elisa Maza: 3/4/3/1
Steel
- Goliath: 6/6/5/2
- Hudson: 2/2/4/1
- Lexington: 3/4/4/1
- David Xanatos: 3/3/2/1
- Broadway: 5/4/6/2
- Castle Wyvren: 2/1/5/1
If we take that list of options and just assume we include the max 4 copies of each one, we are only up to 44 cards. Right off the bat, we are going to have to break our thematic goal, but I really want a Gargoyles deck, and 2/3rds is going to have to be good enough. So what else can we add?
If we look at the Gargoyles, one thing they struggle with is Lore generation. With the majority only having 1, we might struggle to get points on the board. Luckily, we do have an abundance of Strength. Tinker Bell: Insistent Fairy stands out as a good option to help fill that gap, and in my head, a fairy is close enough to the Gargoyle theme to not break the immersion. Tinker Bell: Insistent Fairy lets us take our big hitters and use them to generate 2 Lore when played. With our Hudsons acting as Bodyguards, we should be okay.
Since we are including Tinker Bell and she doesn't break the theme too much, let's see what other Tinker Bells we can include. We are missing some low-cost cards, so the new Tinker Bell: Fancy Footwork jumps out as a great option. At 1 cost, inkable, and 3 strength, she's very versatile. She can help deal with early threats and give us time to establish our Gargoyles. Tinker Bell: Temperamental Fairy then also becomes a nice option. We can Shift her onto Fancy Footwork, exhaust our opponents' cards to make them vulnerable to our big Gargoyles, and we get another 5+ strength card to synergize with Insistent Fairy. Finally, I have to include Tinker Bell: Giant Fairy. We get another Shift target as well as more Lore potential. Plus, Giant Fairy is just one of my favorite pieces of art in the game.
With all of the Tinker Bells, we are up to a full 60-card deck with max allocations of each card. Taking a look at our card distribution, this doesn't look like a great deck. Our first couple of turns are likely going to be a struggle without more low-cost cards to play. We also have no actions to help deal with threats besides sacrificing our own cards. We are definitely good on ink, though.
We have a lot of 6-cost cards and quite a few 2s and 3s as well. I'm going to start by trading out some 6s for some lower cost options. Let's drop 2 of our Goliath: Clan Leaders. Not only is he expensive to play, but he's also expensive to buy. I really like the 2-cost Lumiere: Fiery Friend as a replacement. He fits into the theme easily, and his ability to give all of our other cards an extra strength plays well into the Tinker Bell: Insistent Fairy lore generator strategy. Now our 4 strength cards like Broadway, Lexington, Elisa, and Giant Tink can all meet the 5 strength threshold.
Speaking of Giant Tinker Bell, I'm going to take her down to 2 copies well. To be honest, she's just here because I like the card. I'm also going to drop our 6-cost David Xanatos down to 2 copies. To fill in those 4 spots, I've chosen Grandmother Fa: Spirited Elder. A nice old lady can fit into any theme, so she passes the thematic test for me. She bumps up our low-cost card count, gives us more options to trigger our Insistent Fairy, and comes with an early 2 lore generation.
At this point, we have a lot of 2-cost characters. I really like The Bitterwood location to synergize with all of our 5+ strength cards and to give the deck some card draw power. I also like Next Stop, Olympus for the 5+ strength synergy, and additional lore generation. So let's put two of each of those in and take out 2 of the Lumiere's we added and 2 of the Temperamental Fairy's. Let's take another look at the full deck.
I like this distribution a lot better. I think it could use some more 1-cost cards to make sure our first turn is as good as it can be, but I don't want to sacrifice any more Gargoyles to do it.
One of the cool things about Dreamborn.ink is the integration with TCG Player, so you can see the cost to buy all of the cards and even click through the "Missing" button to buy the whole deck. It's super convenient. At $55, this is a pretty inexpensive deck. You can take the 2 Goliath: Clan Leaders out to make it even more affordable.
The game plan with this deck is to get our Tinker Bell: Insistent Fairy on the board and then drop 5 strength Gargoyles as quickly as possible to generate Lore and thin our hand out for the Gargoyles' "3 or more cards in hand" effect. Use the locations for extra strength and resistance to take out opponents' cards, and draw extra cards if we need to.
Well, that's it. Now we have a Gargoyle deck that prioritizes thematic cards with as many allowances for deck cohesion as possible. Would you play this deck? What would you change about it? I'd love to hear down in the comments.
