Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies Starter Deck Reviews - Party Time!

As we rejoin the story of Lorcana, there’s great cause for celebration! Ursula nearly took over the realm, but brave Illumineers and glimmers defeated here! Now there’s nothing left to do but party! That’s the theme behind Shimmering Stars, the latest set for Disney Lorcana! Ravensburger sent us two starter decks, as well as some other great new accessories to check out, so read all about them in my review!

Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies Starter Decks

To kick things off, we're going to dive right into these two Starter Decks and do a quick run-down of how they play, while highlighting some key cards from each deck. Also included in each Starter Deck are two booster packs for Shimmering Skies, but those are (obviously) all random, so I won't be factoring in the cards I opened when evaluating these decks.

Here at TechRaptor, my colleagues and I have previously checked out the Starter Decks for Ursula's Return (linked above), as well as the Rise of the Floodborn set and the Into the Inklands set! For more info on those, click those links! Now that's enough blabbing, let's jump in!

Amethyst And Ruby Starter Deck

First up is the Amethyst and Ruby Starter Deck. This deck is led by Wreck-It Ralph in his card "Wreck-It Ralph, Demolition Dude," (who makes his Lorcana debut along with many other characters from his franchise) and by Elsa with her card "Elsa, the Fifth Spirit." Now, when I say "led by" I'm really talking about the two cards on the front of the box. But check out their cards above, they serve as a kind of blueprint for what this deck wants to do.

Now, at first glance, this may not look like these cards have much to do with one another, or point toward an overall approach to gameplay. But this deck is a perfect distillation of Ruby's aggressiveness and Amethyst's tricky nature. Let's take a look at the rare cards included in this deck to get a better sense.

With these cards, we can see a pattern start to emerge. The Sword Released wants you to have big, bulky characters on the field - and with cards like Wreck-It Ralph not minding taking damage, you're encouraged to get out there and start swinging at your opponents. Add to that the amount of Ruby cards with Rush, and Ruby's truly doing its job here (aka... to smash). 

As for Amethyst, this tricky color is up to all its normal... well, tricks! With tons of cards sporting the Evasive ability, the idea here is that you let your Amethyst cards start piling up your lore while being relatively free from attack. Plus other Amethyst cards, like Elsa, can help lock down your opponents.

Taking a look at some of my favorite Common and Uncommon cards from this deck (psst... need help figuring out Disney Lorcana rarity? Check out the Disney Lorcana Rarity Guide we put together), this two-pronged approach is driven across the finish line even further.

You'll see as you play this deck that it's just Evasive card after Evasive card, Rush attacker after Rush attacker. All in all, it's a very straightforward, but very potent recipe for victory.

Emerald And Steel Starter Deck

As you can see from the above lead cards, "Kronk, Head of Security" and "Scar, Vengeful Lion" playing the Emerald and Steel Starter Deck isn't necessarily cheap. But if you can hit your ink every turn, you'll be in for a fun ride where it's easy to overwhelm your opponent.

While Kronk's ability is fun, the card's pretty much unplayable at 7 unless you can shift him onto a cheaper Kronk. But Scar... ooh what a card!

In my playtesting with this deck, my wife (who piloted the deck) drew so. many. cards. with Scar. And while there are some pretty good Steel cards in this deck, all this deck really wants to do is have damaged opponent characters on the board. A very fun new approach to a Starter deck. Let's look at the Rare cards.

"Tug-of-War" is great at sending out pinging little damage across the board to your opponents, which will fuel your strategy - and it doesn't hurt that, in a pinch, it can wipe out a lot of evasive enemy characters.

All of these other rare characters, including Robin Hood (I love Robin Hood cards in Lorcana, he's always running away with tons of Lore), really benefit hugely from damaged opponent characters.

Of all the cards I'm showing off here as my favorite common and uncommon cards from this deck, don't sleep on Tropical Rainforest. While this card is on the table, if the rest of your deck is doing what it's supposed to be doing, you can essentially stop your opponent from having a viable win condition... that's just absurd.

In summary here, this is certainly a more complicated deck to run than the Ruby and Amethyst deck, but it is - in my opinion - way more powerful. Sure, there are times when your combo-esque cards don't really come up in the right sequence, but that's pretty rare.

What will usually happen is the benefits of all your different cards wanting to do the same thing will begin to compound, and soon you'll find yourself sporting an eight point lore gap ahead of your opponent. Pretty nice!

Bonus! Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies Accessories

While I'm at it, I wanted to speak for a moment about some really fun new accessories and other bits and bobs that Ravensburger sent along for me to check out! Some of the items I'm most excited for are these two large folders, these are Portfolios for the game, meant to keep your cards safe.

For the budding player who's excited about both the game and the collectible nature of the cards, these Portfolios are a Bear Necessity. They feel sturdy, do a nice job of holding sleeved and unsleeved cards in their pages, and I really like that they come in two designs - one featuring characters from across the world of Lorcana, and the other featuring the cardback artwork.

And finally, above you'll see the Illumineer's Trove for Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies. I always love these Troves. First off, they're a fun way to get a batch of packs (each includes 8 packs), but I also really love the dice that come with each one. They're always different for each set, and this set of dice matches the celebratory, sparkly nature of the Shimmering Skies with its gold flecks and purple numbers.

I've said it before, but if you're looking to get a gift for someone who loves Lorcana, there's no better gift than an Illumineer's Trove.

Disney Lorcana Shimmering Skies - Final Thoughts

Both of these Starter Decks are a lot of fun for different reasons. If you're newer to the game (or maybe even thinking of getting a younger player into the game), I would absolutely start with the Ruby and Amethyst Starter Deck. Once you understand the core mechanics of the game, it's so, so easy to run this deck.

As for the Steel and Emerald deck, this is one for more experienced players. It also feels, to me at least, like it would be easy to upgrade into something pretty over-powered with the right additions. This definitely feels more like the kind of Starter Deck you could use as a skeleton for a competitive deck.

Between these two decks, and the accessories I've touched on above, Shimmering Skies is really a fun, celebratory entry in this game that hasn't yet missed its mark at all! If you're a fan of the game, keep going with Shimmering Skies. And if you're new, there's really no better set to jump into (that's readily available, at least) than this one.

All products used in the creation of this review were provided to TechRaptor by Ravensburger. All photographs courtesy of the author.