The main premise of the deck is to take advantage of the Shimmering Skies card Prince John, Gold Lover to play a game of Lorcana on an axis that is different from anything else in the game. In order to do this we are mostly playing items that can be used while exerted to get immediate value when they get brought back to either control the opponent’s board state or refill our hand without having to actually use any resources from the hand. Eventually, because the opponent needs to use resources from hand to progress the game state while we don't have to expend as much, you reach a board state where you can answer almost everything the opponent does for the rest of the game while slowly winning the game at the same time. 

  Prince John, Gold Lover is a card that gets repeatable value out of the discard pile while also having a reasonable statline for the cost. By being a 3/4 inkable body for 4 ink, there aren’t many cards on curve that can answer it before you get back at least 1 item which at that point you’ve already traded 2 for 1 or maybe even more if he survives for more than one turn which is very likely given the removal and board control suite in the deck. It also means he is a reasonable body if needed to be used in challenges and synergizes well with Pawpsicle since if it is used to heal the damage off of himself, he can recur it on future turns to keep drawing cards or making favorable challenges.  

 The engine of this deck to lock the opponent out of the game involves the character Prince John, Gold Lover and the combination of the items The Plank, Sword of Truth, and Poisoned Apple to answer any character based threats that could be problematic as well as Pawpsicle to keep our hand filled while healing off any damage sustained from challenges or opposing songs.The Plank allows the deck to answer any of the ever present heroes for only 2 ink if brought back with john or for 5 ink (3 to play 2 to activate) if played from hand which conveniently is right on curve after John or before john comes down which can set up a double removal on turn 5. The Plank also doubles as a ready effect for Villains to either keep characters safe or make challenging math difficult for the opponent.

Sword of Truth answers a lot of problematic cards like Tamatoa as well as the many other villains that see play and doesn’t require any additional ink to use when brought back with John’s effect. Poison Apple is likely going up to 2 copies after the event as the 61st card replacing the current 61st card which is Noi mostly because this was one of the most important cards in answering the many Allies in the format in the form of exerting them to be challenged or taking over the Steel Song match up due to the many princess characters they run since those get out right banished instead of just exerted. Pawp allows the deck to keep cards flowing if we either have our removal pieces in play already or don’t need them at a given moment, essentially letting us see 2 to 4 cards in a turn depending on if Hiram is also involved.  

 The rest of the deck is there to either keep aggro down early or dig us deeper into our deck to find everything we need for a given situation. King Candy and Smart Gaston give us the ability to put reasonable questing characters into play to pressure in the lore race while also immediately replacing themselves. Gaston, Small Candy, Cruella, and brawl give us early game answers into aggressive decks. Lefou is super versatile either letting us take out multiple characters in challenges, letting Candy take out a turn 1 daisy on the draw, or by standing up our exerting combo pieces to keep a chain going. Triton is a good removal bait target that can challenge reasonably well or end games if disrespected thanks to the many ready effects and item recursion. Tipo allows us to accelerate our game plan by a turn cycle while leaving a body behind. As for Kuzco, Medusa, and Maui, they are just more removal for otherwise annoying cards to deal with but Kuzco also doubles as protection vs Steel song since you can get to a point where you stop playing cards from hand and just use his By Invite Only ability multiple times in a turn making your board immune to most of their cards. 

Written by

Micah Ehlers