1st Place Lorcana Sapphire/Amethyst Deck Guide

There’s a lot to be said about pairing Sapphire’s powerful ramp capabilities with the sheer all-around power of Amethyst. Up until Into the Inklands, however, a real powerhouse Sapphire/Amethyst deck didn’t exist. With a strong track record of online play and a recent win at a large in-card tournament, however, Sapphire/Amethyst has further cemented itself as a viable archetype in the Lorcana metagame.

What makes this deck stand out among Sapphire decks is that it doesn’t rely on items to get cards into the Inkwell. Instead, it relies almost solely on its characters – running over fifty of them in total. These characters like Mickey Mouse – Detective can help accelerate Ink while also taking advantage of unique abilities like Cogsworth Unwind – granting added resist to many characters.

Sapphire/Amethyst Deck List

1 Gramma Tala - Keeper of Ancient Stories
4 Rafiki - Mystical Fighter
3 Hades - Infernal Schemer
4 Yzma - Scary Beyond All Reason
3 One Jump Ahead
2 Elsa - Spirit of Winter
4 Friends on the Other Side
2 McDuck Manor - Scrooge's Mansion
4 Chernabog's Followers - Creatures of Evil
4 Mickey Mouse - Detective
2 Madam Mim - Purple Dragon
1 Pinocchio - Talkative Puppet
4 Madam Mim - Snake
4 Merlin - Goat
2 Merlin - Crab
4 Merlin - Rabbit
4 Cogsworth - Grandfather Clock
4 Madam Mim - Fox
4 Cruella De Vil - Fashionable Cruiser

Sapphire/Amethyst Ramp Control Strategy Guide

If you are familiar with the current way of playing Ruby/Amethyst, then this deck’s early game might feel familiar to you. It, too, focuses on a bevy of powerful characters good at keeping your opponent’s board clear while you build up resources for a powerful late game.

Primarily, turn one you have the option between Chernabog’s Followers and Rafiki.

Rafiki – Mystical Fighter

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Rafiki is basically purple Captain Hook – Forceful Duelist and plays a similar sort of strategic role in this deck as Captain Hook does in Steel decks: that being playing chicken with your opponent’s low cost characters. The really good thing about Rafiki is that thanks to his Challenger +3 keyword ability, he’s able to cut through anything your opponent is going to play on turn one, and much of what’s going to show up in the subsequent turns.

Meanwhile, Chernabog’s Followers is a helpful card. Not only does it have the option to banish it and draw, it’s got two strength, meaning it can be used to take out low cost characters or to tag team with Rafiki to take out low cost locations.

Turn two options counter popular plays

Turn two, you have few powerful cards to choose from. First and foremost, you’ll see the ever-popular Madam Mim – Snake is included in this deck. She’s great at protecting cards by bouncing them back into the hand while gaining a competitive advantage. Her three strength/willpower stat makes her quite annoying early on as she’s a threat for many characters getting banished. Meanwhile, you have one Pinocchio, helping you prevent characters from shifting or singing songs or doing any number of things that would offset your chances of getting ahead.

The most common strategy with Pinocchio is to use Madam Mim to bounce it back into the hand, then play it again to keep your opponent’s characters exerted and vulnerable to challenges.

You also can play Cruella de Ville who is a very powerful card especially in matchups against Ruby/Amethyst. That deck likes to play Minnie Mouse – Stylish Surfer to get lore pretty easily while avoiding challenges. Cruella de Ville makes dealing with Minnie easy though. She gains Evasive on your turn, and her three strength means you’ll take Minnie Mouse out in in one shot.

Mickey Mouse – Detective is key for ramp

Despite how many powerful ramping cards that have come out since the first chapter, Mickey Mouse – Detective remains one of the most effective. Just playing him guarantees you an extra card in your Inkwell, and it’s from the top of your deck so you don’t need to have cards in your hand in order to use it. Besides playing One Jump Ahead (as early as turn two), Mickey Mouse is your most reliable ramping card and the main Ink acceleration engine of the deck.

McDuck Manor – the toughest Location in the game

It’s worth mentioning that this deck runs two copies of McDuck Manor. While logic might have you incorporate the powerful Queen’s Castle, it makes sense this player would run with McDuck Manor. McDuck is hard to take out, and can help carry a lot of lore for you, whether you play it early game before your opponent has a chance to counter it or late game to seal the deal.

Sapphire/Amethyst Ramp – card removal plus bounce

Last but not least, we should chat a little bit about the powerful card removal and bounce mechanics included in this deck. You have a ton of options for making sure your opponent’s board remains clear once you hit six plus Ink in your Inkwell. This starts with the seriously helpful Yzma – Scary Beyond All Reason, and culminates with Hades – Infernal Schemer and Elsa – Spirit of Winter.

My favorite of these is actually Hades. He’s insanely helpful at clearing your opponent’s board, and is actually pretty easy to get into play with your ramp capabilities. One of my favorite strategies is to use him to remove a powerful character my opponent has in play, and then use either Madam Mim – Snake or Fix to bounce him back into the hand to banish another character.

Hades – Infernal Schemer

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Madam Mim – Dragon

Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning the inclusion of Madam Mim – Dragon in this deck list. Madam Mim – Dragon has had a hard time finding a spot amongst top tier decks. In this deck, however, we have the perfect use case for her, enabling you to bounce powerful cards and recycle them, take advantage of Merlins, and quest to twenty lore faster without threat of being challenged.

Sapphire/Amethyst Ramp Control – Matchups

Like with any meta deck, this deck is a top contender because of how it fares against other top decks. However, there are a few bad matchups to look out for (which we will get into below).

Against more aggressive decks, you have strong early game challenging options to keep them from getting ahead to quickly.
Against Steelsong or Steel/Sapphire you have Cogsworth to prevent unnecessary damage and plenty of card removal to dominate the late game.
Against discard decks you have a clear disadvantage. Your draw engine isn’t strong enough to reliably overcome the discard strategy.
In the Ruby/Amethyst matchup I would give the edge to this deck. The main tools Ruby/Sapphire has that you don’t are Maui – Hero to All and Be Prepared. However, Be Prepared doesn’t hurt this deck much as you can easily slap down powerful characters to content with your opponent, and even jump to twenty lore faster with Madam Mim – Dragon.
In the Ruby/Sapphire matchup I would say it’s relatively neutral, with maybe a slight edge to Ruby/Sapphire because of its more advanced draw engine.

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