Author’s Bio: Antonio Faillace Antonio is a huge Disney fan since childhood and has been playing trading card games from a very young age. Therefore, Disney Lorcana was the perfect combination for him. Since the game’s release, Antonio has been passionate about Disney Lorcana and has shared that passion with the Brazilian player community through his articles.

Hello, everyone!

In our last few articles, we focused primarily on the decklists that made it into the Top 8 of the DLC Championship Brazil, held on September 19.

Of course, it's always good to look at decks that achieved significant results, but the final standings don't always tell the whole story.

THE HORIZON CALLS ME TO GO SO FAR

For example, among the Illumineers who made it to the Top 8 of the event, did you know that everyone from seventh to twelfth place finished with the exact same overall score? In other words, we had six Illumineers with twelve points (four wins and two losses), and what determined which two of those six advanced to the Top 8 were the tiebreakers.




Just to help explain, these tiebreakers are based on the results of the opponents you faced throughout the tournament, and are determined mathematically. We won't go into too much detail here, since that's not exactly the focus of this article, but generally speaking: the "better" the results of the people you played against, the better your tiebreakers will be.

The point I want to make is that sometimes, interesting decklists can fly under the radar simply because they didn't necessarily achieve a remarkable final placement. That doesn't mean these decks weren't good.

So today, we're going to talk about some really cool decks that, for one reason or another, didn't make Top 8 at the DLC Championship, but still deserve recognition for standing out during the tournament!

I'LL CROSS BEYOND THE SEA

10th Place: Amethyst/Emerald Retro Device

Our first highlight is an archetype built around the Retro Evolution Device card, a powerful item that, when combined with the right characters, allows for some impressive plays!

Retro Evolution Device is an item that costs 3 ink and has no effect on its own. You need to pay 1 additional ink, exert the item, and banish one of your own characters to activate its effect: play a character for free, with a cost up to 2 higher than the banished character's cost.

In other words, if you banish a character with a cost of 3, you can play a 5-cost character for free. If you banish a 7-cost character, you can play a 9-cost character, and so on.

The idea is to combine this effect with cheap characters that draw cards, such as Tod - Clever Fox or Elsa - Exploring the Unknown, allowing you to bring a 5-cost character onto the board right away. Notice that both Tod and Elsa have a cost of 3, meaning they can let you play a character costing up to 5 with Retro Evolution Device.

Another way to accelerate your early characters is with Aladdin & Genie - Mischievous Pals. Even when played using Shift, it will still be a 5-cost character on the board, which means that, together with Retro Device, it can let you play a 7-cost character!

Besides allowing you to play high-cost characters without spending ink, the deck also takes advantage of this mechanic to bring together the devastating combination of Malicious, Mean, and Scary and Prince Phillip - Vanquisher of Foes - a combination that ends up banishing all of your opponent's characters!

In short, this archetype combines low-cost characters that draw cards - and therefore generate additional resources - with Retro Evolution Device to accelerate the deployment of several higher-cost characters. It's a very interesting combination, and as we get more and more new characters in future sets, it has everything it needs to become even stronger!

20th Place: Amber/Steel Songs

Amber/Steel Songs is an archetype that has been around since the very first Disney Lorcana set, thanks to the effective combination of characters with Singer in Amber and songs that help control the board in Steel.

The idea behind this version of the deck is to combine the synergy between songs with ink acceleration through the Amber color, using characters such as Grandmother Willow - Ancient Advisor, Hamm - Piggy Bank, and the song Akood et Emuti.

In addition to these options, there's also the possibility of bringing out the Lilo & Stitch - Fun-Loving Friends duo using their Shift ability, allowing you to play a character that is very difficult for your opponent to remove from the board without spending significant resources.

Bringing high-cost characters onto the board earlier also allows you to sing songs like Strength of a Raging Fire and He Hurled His Thunderbolt more efficiently, giving you a tempo advantage: you use your ink to develop your characters while using songs to control your opponent's characters, establishing a board in your favor and taking control of the following turns.

In longer games, characters like Prince Charming - Protector of the Realm and Dale - Ready for His Shot help your characters maintain their presence on the board, while Bambi - Ethereal Fawn and Stitch - Carefree Snowboarder ensure you have more cards and resources in your hand.

A very efficient and adaptable decklist that definitely deserves a closer look and some fine-tuning to suit your metagame and achieve great results!

27th Place: Emerald/Ruby Retro Device

This was the only decklist featuring the Ruby color among the 34 Illumineers at the DLC Championship. In fact, this decklist has been under development by player Jamie Packham, who had also used it at the European DLC Championship.

The deck has an extremely ambitious game plan: combining cheap Actions, especially those that draw cards, such as Improvise, Inner Strength, and Strike a Good Match (and, depending on how much risk you're willing to take, Dangerous Plan) to fill up the discard pile.

Meanwhile, it develops characters that also draw cards, such as Lyle Tiberius Rourke - Adventurer for Hire and Tod - Clever Fox. Lyle Rourke, in particular, is very important for slowing down an opponent's fast start.

Once this setup is complete, the deck has two ways to make a devastating play, clear the opponent's board, and take control of the game. Using Retro Evolution Device, the idea is to find either the combination of Malicious, Mean, and Scary + Prince Phillip - Vanquisher of Foes (which we already saw in the first decklist featured in this article), or Olaf - Snowman of Action, which allows you to use Retro Evolution Device to play The Leviathan - Guardian of Atlantis for free!

Ideally, this means that by turn 5 or 6, you can completely turn the board around while developing a massive character that also generates 3 Lore. From there, the idea is to maintain that advantage and win the game, supported by other excellent Lore generators such as Dr. Bushroot - Evil Botanist and Milo Thatch - Getting His Hands Dirty.

This decklist is undoubtedly ambitious, with a very powerful game plan that requires a somewhat longer setup. The concept behind the deck is extremely interesting and fun, and if you enjoy playing something truly different, this list will probably surprise your opponents!

THIS LIGHT FROM THE SEA WASHES OVER ME

And those were the decks we brought you today from our DLC Championship in Brazil!

It's always worth remembering that this event brought together 34 Illumineers who had achieved outstanding results throughout Brazil's competitive season. Therefore, we know these are qualified and experienced Disney Lorcana players, which makes their decklists even more valuable - even if their final standings at this particular event weren't quite as remarkable.

We hope you enjoyed it! Follow our blog for more news, Championship deck analyses, and other updates!

Best regards!