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 previous article, we analyzed the decklist used by the July DLC Champion, Christopher Oyola, who won the event with his "Royal Dogs" deck. You can check it out here.

In today's article, we're going to analyze the deck used by Zan Syed, the runner-up of that same DLC! Even though he lost in the finals, Zan's list features a very different playstyle from what we're normally used to seeing in Disney Lorcana, making it an excellent starting point—both for creative deckbuilding and as a potential choice for the next event.

RUBY-SAPPHIRE ACTIONS: A "COMBO" DECK IN DISNEY LORCANA

In the world of trading card games, strategies are commonly divided into three major archetypes: aggro, control, and combo.

• Aggro: Usually refers to decks that aim to end the game quickly, taking the initiative early and constantly pressuring the opponent.

• Control: Represents the opposite end of the spectrum—a slower, more methodical strategy focused on dictating the pace of the game while limiting the opponent's options.

• Combo: Short for "combination," combo decks are different because their primary goal isn't to win quickly or slowly, but rather to assemble a series of synergistic plays involving two or more specific cards to achieve a winning position.

Throughout Disney Lorcana's metagame, we've seen plenty of aggro and control decks, but combo strategies have been quite rare. That's exactly what made Ruby-Sapphire Actions stand out: it introduced a very different way to play that, in many ways, caught the metagame completely off guard.

THE DECK'S GAME PLAN

As mentioned before, this is a combo deck, meaning its goal is to assemble a combination of cards that creates such an overwhelming advantage that winning the game becomes almost inevitable.

Unlike many other Disney Lorcana decks, whose early turns are focused either on quickly developing characters to gain Lore or on answering the opponent's board before deploying larger characters to control the game, Ruby-Sapphire Actions spends its early turns simply buying time and setting up.

Typically, the first few turns are spent playing Actions that draw cards or filter the top of your deck, such as Develop Your Brain and Vision of the Future. Another common line is to take advantage of Sapphire ink by playing ramp Actions like Sail the Azurite Sea and Tipo - Growing Son.

Properly developing your ink during the first three or four turns is absolutely crucial—perhaps even more so than with other decks.

Starting around turn three or four, the goal is to chain together multiple low-cost Actions in the same turn. Since many of these Actions replace themselves by drawing cards, you rarely end up running out of resources.

Once you've played at least three low-cost Actions during the same turn, you immediately gain access to playing every copy of Lilo - Causing an Uproar in your hand—for free.

Notice that Lilo normally costs five ink, but her ability allows her to be played at no cost if you've already played at least three Actions during that turn. So if you've only spent three ink on three one-cost Actions, you've effectively already saved at least two ink. And if you happen to have multiple copies of Lilo in your hand, you might end up saving seven, or even twelve ink in a single turn!

Besides the "little" Lilo, another character that greatly benefits from all these low-cost Actions is Olaf - Snowman of Action. Olaf normally costs nine ink, but his special ability reduces his cost by one for each Action card in your discard pile. In other words, once you have nine Actions in your discard pile, Olaf can also be played for free!

That may sound difficult to achieve, but in reality it's very common to reach that point by turn four or five. After all, the deck isn't called "Ruby-Sapphire Actions" for nothing! Zan Syed's list contains forty-one Action cards, including thirteen one-cost Actions and fourteen two-cost Actions, allowing you to fill your discard pile with Actions from the very beginning of the game.

To complement all of those Actions, one of the deck's strongest cards is Maui - Half-Shark. His powerful ability allows you to retrieve and replay the best Action cards from your discard pile. Whether it's removal like Grab Your Bow or Let It Go, or additional card selection through Vision of the Future or Dig a Little Deeper, Maui ensures your best Actions keep coming back.








In the end, as mentioned earlier, Disney Lorcana's core mechanics prevent combo decks from being "true" combo decks in the traditional sense, since assembling your combo doesn't immediately win the game. Because of that, the deck also incorporates several control elements, mainly because it needs to buy enough time to reach its explosive turns—those turns where you chain together three or more Actions and suddenly flood an empty board with multiple characters played completely for free.

ZAN SYED'S DECKLIST

Finally, let's take a look at the complete decklist used by the runner-up of the July São Paulo DLC!

THINKING ABOUT THE POST-ROTATION FORMAT

Like most decks in the current metagame, rotation will remove several key pieces from this strategy. Lilo - Causing an Uproar, Maui - Half-Shark, and especially Vision of the Future have a significant impact on the deck's current form.

However, since many of the deck's core elements remain legal—particularly its large number of low-cost Actions and Olaf - Snowman of Action—there is definitely room for adaptation. With enough testing and refinement, the archetype could continue to have a place in the metagame.

During the DLC itself, we even saw versions that leaned more heavily into Songs, incorporating both Powerline - Taking the Stage and Powerline - World's Greatest Rock Star. This could become a viable direction after rotation, giving the deck a more controlling playstyle by focusing on dealing with opposing characters through Songs.

Another option, which was already explored in Zan Syed's own list, is making greater use of Ward characters such as Scuttle - Birdbrained. This opens the door to cards like Merryweather - Feisty Fairy and Hades - Meticulous Schemer. With this approach, the deck can continue using its Actions to constantly disrupt the opponent while deploying Olaf - Snowman of Action to stabilize the board before eventually closing out the game with Ward-protected characters.

Finally, the arrival of several new Action cards from Attack of the Vine! may help replace some of the cards lost to rotation. For example, Red Alert and Prophetic Vision are both strong Ruby Actions that can fill some of those gaps.

DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOWMAN?

And that wraps up our analysis of the runner-up deck from the July 2026 São Paulo DLC!

As we've seen, not only is this deck quite different from the standard Disney Lorcana strategies, but it also has the potential to evolve into a new form in the post-rotation format alongside Attack of the Vine! It's definitely an archetype worth keeping an eye on!

I hope you enjoyed it! Be sure to follow the blog for more DLC deck analyses and the latest Disney Lorcana news.

See you next time!