It’s time for the end of an era, with Disney Lorcana’s very first full on errata of a card’s ability to squeak!
This very important news update comes straight from Disney Lorcana’s very own site! Bucky – Squirrel Squeak Tutor has received an errata! Here is the updated version!
Bucky – Squirrel Squeak Tutor
3 Cost | Emerald | Character
Strength 1 | Willpower 1 | Lore 1
Storyborn · Ally
SQUEAK: Whenever you play a Floodborn character, if you used Shift to play them, each opponent chooses and discards a card.
“There’s a lot of nuance to squirrel.”
– Kronk
Changes made to the card:
- Change of card’s cost from 2 to 3 ink
- Loss of Ward
- Change of ability for SQUEAK: Whenever you play a Floodborn character, if you used Shift to play them, each opponent chooses and discards a card.
These errata changes will take effect alongside the release of set 5 – Shimmering Skies, which releases on August 9 at LGS. Do note that even though the Toronto Challenge held on August 24 does not have Shimmering Skies legal for play at that event, Bucky will still have his errata in effect for the Toronto Challenge.
The following context is shared by Ravensburger regarding the errata:
Ursula’s Return gave Bucky players the opportunity to discard multiple cards from opponents’ hands as early as turn 2 while building up a board that was very difficult to interact with, creating a stressful environment that just wasn’t fun. Ward also made Bucky close to untouchable, taking away player agency to deal with a powerful and cheap threat. For these reasons, we’re increasing Bucky’s cost to 3 and removing Ward from him. Additionally, we feel that requiring Shift better represents the Floodborn experience, as many decks utilizing Bucky have mostly ignored using the Shift mechanic (outside of one sinister bird).
If you have played in any Lorcana event in the past month, chances are you either played, or have gotten acquainted with Bucky and his ability to force his opponent into top decking mode. The above shows his current version, pre-errata.
Bucky has been released since set 2 with Rise of the Floodborn, and many players have played this deck since with decent success, myself included. At the time though, the earliest you got to discard a card using Bucky is on turn 3, and most often only on turn 4, starting with Jafar – Dreadnought.
That said, Bucky having Ward made this a very viable strategy, since not much could be done to him if he stayed unexerted, with the exception of cards like Grab Your Sword clearing him away.
That has however changed with the release of Ursula’s Return and the release of Diablo – Devoted Herald, since his ability to shift by discarding an action card allowed you to play your first Floodborn and get to discard by turn 2. The release of the 3 cost Diablo and Aladdin – Brave Rescuer also provides Emerald Steel decks with the ability to consistently gain a discard on turn 3.
This propelled Emerald Steel into a top meta deck, taking the most slots among the top 64 of the Disney Lorcana Challenge Bochum event held last weekend. Even now in the Ursula’s Return Set Championships, many copies of Ursula are being claimed by Emerald Steel players.
This errata to Bucky is huge, since it removes all the advantages I share above.
Changing Bucky to 3 ink pushes the earliest discard possible by 1 turn, while removing his Ward also makes him vulnerable to all forms of removal, such as Brawl, Ba-Boom!, Sisu – Daring Visitor and many many more.
The biggest change however is the change of Bucky ability to require the Floodborn to be shifted before Bucky’s ability can take place. Requiring the Floodborn to be shifted means the user effectively also loses the first character that they shifted over, so the Bucky player also loses a card when discarding a card from the opponent.
That final change essentially makes the Bucky strategy impossible to play effectively and personally feels overkill in the attempt to nerf this card. The change to cost and removal of ward were sufficient in my opinion and I wish that last change wasn’t made so that the strategy would be still viable, even though a lot more vulnerable.
However, erratas are a very common part of trading card games and the over domination of a deck is always bad, so Bucky in a way had it coming for him. With that in mind, excuse me while I play my squirrels and birds deck for the final 4 weeks.
