Sapphire and Emerald Midrange Deck List and Strategy

Disney Lorcana has barely been out, and already the community is excitedly attempting to establish a meta. However, changes and innovations are happening rapidly, and previous decks that got no recognition are now considered among the best Lorcana decks right now.

One of these decks that placed in top eight of a recent, large tournament is the Disney Lorcana Emerald and Sapphire combination.

To see what exactly that deck was made out of, you can see our Disney Lorcana best decks article.

In this article, we’re going to be diving into one of our own deck builds that you can use leveraging the unique and powerful Sapphire and Emerald combination. Or to call it by its two stars – the Mother Gothel/Aurora Dreaming Guardian deck.

By leveraging the strengths of these two vastly different Ink colors, players can gain access to a new realm of options that will fair well against the most popular deck out there right now – the Amethyst Ruby control deck.

In this strategy guide, we’re going to share the Disney Lorcana Sapphire/Emerald deck list we built, as well as a few key cards that make it work.

Disney Lorcana Sapphire and Emerald Deck List

• Characters (43)

  4 Aurora - Dreaming Guardian

  4 Aurora - Regal Princess

  4 Gramma Tala - Storyteller

  2 Hades - Infernal Schemer

  3 Belle - Strange but Special

  4 Flounder - Voice of Reason

  2 Genie - On the Job

  2 Hans - Scheming Prince

  4 Mother Gothel - Selfish Manipulator

  3 Peter Pan - Never Landing

  4 Mickey Mouse - Detective

  4 Mufasa - King of the Pride Lands

  3 Mad Hatter - Gracious Host

• Actions (6)

  4 Develop Your Brain

  2 Steal from the Rich

• Songs (9)

  3 Mother Knows Best

  3 Let It Go

  3 One Jump Ahead

• Items (2)

  Eye of the Fates

Sapphire and Emerald Basic Strategy

While Sapphire has everything you need to win the battle in the late game, it lacks an early game. Emerald, however, is good at keeping your opponent off balance at any point of the game. Using it to gain the upper hand while building up your Inkwell.

Here’s how the flow of the game works for using this deck.

Early Game Help from Mickey Mouse Detective, Gramma Tala and Aurora

These three cards are going to be your key to unlocking late game success in the early game. Using Gramma Tala, you can Quest for Lore each turn while threatening your opponent with yet another card in your Inkwell should they choose to challenge her. Aurora is also strong, enabling you to Quest for two Lore while getting you ready to setup for a shift into Aurora – Dreaming Guardian later.

Lastly, Mickey Mouse – Detective is this deck’s secret sauce, enabling you to add a card to your Inkwell whenever he’s played.

Mickey Mouse – Detective

Mickey Mouse – Detective is one of this Sapphire Emerald deck’s best cards.

In addition to these character cards that you are going to look to get into play as quickly as possible, Sapphire also has one of the stronger draw cards in the game. This deck runs three Develop your Brain cards to help you draw the cards you need as early as turn one.

Midgame is this Decks’ Strongest Area

Although Emerald does a lot to bolster Sapphire’s otherwise lackluster early game, it’s as you reach the middle of the game that this deck really starts to pick up speed. Here you can take advantage of Jasper’s underrated Puppynappping ability to slow your opponent, and then double down on this deck’s core combo – the Aurora – Dreaming Guardian/Mother Gothel – Selfish Manipulator gridlock.

Aurora – Dreaming Guardian is a Key Card

Aurora goes a long way to counter many of the threats posed by Amethyst Ruby decks. As long as she’s in play, effects like Dragon Fire, or even Elsa’s Deep Freeze can’t harm your band of characters.

Mother Gothel – Selfish Manipulator Is the Perfect Pair to Aurora

Once you have Aurora – DG in play, Mother Gothel is her perfect partner, limiting your opponent to only challening while she is in play. And due to her high Will Power, that can be a lot to ask of most decks until the very late game.

Sapphire Emerald Also Has Late Game Threats to Challenge Your Opponent

The longer you can keep up the Mother Gothel/Aurora DM situation the better, enabling your characters to safely quest or take strategic challenges against your opponent’s characters. When challenging isn’t a good option, you can also play Let it Go to send strong characters or readied ones quickly to the Inkwell, facedown where they can’t cause any more harm.

Your two strongest plays, late game, however, have to do with Hades and Belle.

Hades has an effect that also works like Let it Go, sending chosen characters to the Inkwell, while Belle has perhaps the most broken ability of all in this deck – once per turn she can actually send one card to the Inkwell. If 10 cards or more are in your Inkwell, she has an almighty five Lore when Questing.

Belle – Strange but Special is the Strongest Card in this Deck

Use Belle to get cards into the Inkwell and quest for five Lore late game.

Last but not least, this deck runs one copy of Steal from the Rich. As it’s relatively easy to get cards into play thanks to Sapphire’s ramp-up capabilities, you can shoot off a Steal from the Rich and quest a bunch of characters to really mess with your opponent’s Lore.

While there’s plenty more you can do with this deck, starting with these combos is a great place to start, and will help you tackle some of the best decks in the format right now.