Taking a deeper look into Lorcana involves examining ink color pairings and knowing what would work well together. There is much room for skill expression in Lorcana because of how using color pairings enable players to combine strengths of a given color or mask the weaknesses of another. In the game, character cards, item cards and locations that are currently in play are referred to as “Glimmers”. The Glimmers offered by two ink colors greatly determine the kind of strategies most enabled by a given ink color pair. This is largely because Characters are the most common type of card and are the backbone of every strategy. Character cards quest to gain you Lore which will win you the game. They also challenge opposing Characters to prevent your opponent from winning the game.
This Color Pair Spotlight series focuses on the Glimmers available to each ink color, their strengths and how these best synergize with Glimmers of a different ink color. Additionally, it will highlight Action Cards and Songs in the given colors which best synergize with the overarching strategy recommended for those colors. Today’s article will be on Amber and Steel, one of the most popular color pairs in Lorcana.
Amber’s strength lies in its ability to develop the board quickly through cost-reduction effects. Being able to deploy your hand as a faster rate provides a significant advantage especially if your opponent can only add one ink to their inkwell each turn. Higher-costed characters which can impact the board significantly can be put in play earlier, further amplifying the effects of their abilities. One area of the game where Amber truly shines is in being ahead on tempo. Being able to play multiple characters at a discounted rate pressures opposing characters which usually cannot challenge the turn they enter play. That said, when Amber is able to deploy characters first, opponents are on the backfoot, left having to decide whether to Quest in order to catch up on Lore or Challenge to clear the board. We’ll touch more on this later in the article when we discuss supporting Actions and Songs.
The other ink color we will feature in this article is Steel. The Glimmers in this color showcase raw power and are very resilient. Steel Character assign massive amounts of damage to other characters when they challenge, providing you with a viable source of removal for opposing characters with pesky abilities. The downside to Steel Characters is that they are usually highly costed large bruisers, which delays when they can make an impact on the board. Another key feature of Steel which is usually sought after in card games is the ability to draw more cards. More cards lead to more options and longer, drawn-out games are usually won by the player who makes the more correct choices or plays more cards.
Combining Amber and Steel enables you to hit the ground running with two of the most efficient 1-costed Characters in Cinderella – Ballroom Sensation and Robin Hood – Beloved Outlaw. In general, being able to start the game on the character is highly advantageous especially when you are going first. The early Character enables you to build an early advantage on Lore and to keep opposing Characters at bay. Another way Steel keeps opposing Characters at bay is through the Song “Grab Your Sword.” which deals 2 damage to each opposing character.
Playing lots of efficient early game Characters, Actions and Songs quickly depletes your hand. Fortunately, playing Steel gives you access to ways to draw more cards. At the forefront of this is “A Whole New World” which enables you to draw a new hand of cards when you have already depleted yours, thereby negating its drawback. Moreover, Cinderella has Singer 3 which enables her to count for 3 when paying for the cost of a Song card, enabling you to replenish your cards in hand faster.
Early game characters tend to fade in relevance as the game goes long. But with the mechanic Shift which allows players to play other versions of the character on top of that character card for less, your Cinderellas and Robin Hoods which served you early in the game will still be relevant late. Both Cinderella – Stouthearted and Robin Hood – Champion of Sherwood are excellent late game closers which generate a lot of Lore with their abilities.
Hopefully through this article, you were able to read some of the ways where mixing two ink colors in a deck accentuates the strengths of a color or compensates for the weakness of another one. Check back again next time for another featured color Lorcana pair and deepen your understanding of the game.
