Disney Lorcana: Azurite Sea Review – Rising Tide
Entering its sixth wave of content, Lorcana shows no signs of slowing down with Azurite Sea bringing a card set that ramps up the depth of the game without a noticeable increase in complexity. The flagship release of this wave are two decks; an Amber/Ruby built around synergising Pirate characters with aggressive options and an Emerald/Sapphire focusing on Inventor characters, items and some passive lore gain. Also available are an assortment of sleeves, deck boxes, an Illumineer’s Trove and a Stitch Gift Set including a card portfolio and Alien Buccaneer promo card.
As the first new Lorcana release following the positively reviewed Gateway set, Azurite Sea throws off the idea that each set of pre-constructed decks needs to be a starting point for newcomers – a quick glance shows that Shimmering Skies will have been the last wave to tow the ‘Starter Deck’ line, as Azurite Sea has newly labelled these ‘Single-Player Decks’ instead. When quizzed about this change, Richelle Brady, the Global Disney Lorcana Community Manager reached out to confirm my suspicions, stating “As Gateway is our ideal “Starter” product, we wanted to avoid potential confusion for newcomers and add more clarity by referring to the Single-Player Decks more accurately to what they are”. This is a fairly huge shift going forward and perhaps a key decision being made to keep experienced players purchasing the pre-con decks which will still contain a Booster Pack (as a side note, no Boosters were included in our decks, presumably due to the generous lead-time afforded to reviewers). Unlike some of the previous pre-con decks put out in the Ursula and Shimmering Skies waves, there are far fewer ‘old’ cards to be found here – the Amber/Ruby deck containing 14 cards from Shimmering Skies while Emerald Sapphire only contains 8. With scant things more dangerous for a young TCG than a stagnating meta, it’s logical to see the publisher pushing newer cards to players and avoiding going back to the well of previous waves too frequently.
When diving into the decks, it’s clear Disney and Ravensburger have outdone themselves in art and theming this round. Nowhere is this more obvious than the Amber/Ruby deck, one I suspect may become as popular as the Into the Inklands Amber/Emerald Starter Deck which, as far as pre-cons go, was dynamite right out of the box. Sumptuous, bright illustrations which incorporate numerous nautical elements in the visuals abound making Azurite Sea easily my favourite theming thus far. Assembling a pirate crew of Winnie the Pooh and Treasure Planet characters captures the swashbuckling, high-seas adventure that Azurite Sea is going for, although the increased interplay between the cards in the deck compared to some previous ‘Starters’ can lead to slower play, as evidenced when testing them out with a friend well-versed in both MtG Commander and Lorcana – usually able to defeat me handily even when given an unseen deck, our first game was a slow battle of attrition, with his Emerald/Sapphire Inventor deck struggling to overcome the camaraderie of my scurvy crew of anthropomorphic animals in perhaps one of our longest matches to date. Further play saw a few wins go the way of the Inventors but it felt far more important to have a game plan from the beginning compared to the Pirate deck which can be played a little looser.
Slow Lorcana is almost an oxymoron given how much speed is emphasised in the base design; few games reach in excess of 10 turns, so the shift in tempo with these decks contrasted against previous pre-cons is quite noticeable. The Inventor focused Emerald/Sapphire especially struggles to get going as many cards are reliant on spending extra Ink to use their abilities and would benefit most from a good understanding of the deck from top to bottom as well as synergistic draws. The Amber/Ruby deck by contrast is perhaps a bit more ‘standard’ Lorcana to date, with only a handful of cards offering any Keyword synergy meaning the first drawn hand will likely inform the player how viable pushing for a Pirate party will be. Overall, both decks will benefit from some Booster-based tweaking to focus their goals as they currently try to do too many things at once, diluting their efficacy.
With roughly 45 out of 230 new cards on display across just four of the six Ink colours, the Azurite Sea Single-Player decks are really just an appetizer for the full set of this sixth wave of content. Now close to 1500 cards in the pool, Lorcana is well established and now in a position to shift focus from opening the Gateway to keeping the existing fanbase excited and engaged. An Azurite Sea Single Player Deck or two is not the ideal entry point for Lorcana – like the creators themselves, I would defer to the Gateway product which more than achieves its purpose – but it’s an exciting release for every Illumineer itching for adventure beyond the horizon.
Azurite Sea launches in dedicated Hobby Shops in Australia on the 22nd of November and other retailers on the 25th. Lorcana Azurite Sea Single-Player decks were reviewed using product kindly supplied by PR.
