Could Shimmering Skies finally be Mufasa Roulette’s breakout set?

This deck strategy has been around since the middle season of Rise of the Floodborn and it has not let up. The main focus of the deck, of course, is to leverage Mufasa’s powerful ability to play overpowered characters for free. What makes this deck especailly appealing right now is the new aggro options available to both Ink types, helping you race ahead in lore well before you start playing your biggest baddies.

Mufasa Roulette could very well be the dark horse of the current Lorcana metagame, and in this guide, I’ll teach you how to play it.

Lorcana Amber/Ruby Deck – Why Mufasa?

Mufasa – Betrayed Leader

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At first sight, you might wonder what all the fuss around Mufasa is about. He doesn’t have the most fantastic of stats. However, at second look, you can see that Mufasa’s ability is what makes this card really special. The Sun Will Set’s ability reads as follows:

When this characters is banished, you may reveal the top card of your deck. If it’s a character card, you may play that character for free and they enter play exerted. Otherwise, put it on top of your deck.

It’s this ability to play any character for free when Mufasa is banished that makes him such a strategically important card.

Of course, to ensure that you always have a character card on the top of your deck, you need a deck that runs almost all character cards.

4 Rapunzel - Gifted with Healing
4 Minnie Mouse - Always Classy
3 Prince Eric - Expert Helmsman
4 Maui - Hero to All
3 Hydra - Deadly Serpent
4 Stitch - Carefree Surfer
4 Simba - Protective Cub
3 Maleficent - Monstrous Dragon
4 Stitch - Rock Star
3 Stitch - New Dog
4 Minnie Mouse - Stylish Surfer
4 Mufasa - Betrayed Leader
4 Mother Gothel - Withered and Wicked
4 Doc - Leader of the Seven Dwarfs
4 Teeth and Ambitions
4 Lady Tremaine - Imperious Queen

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Mufasa Amber/Ruby Roulette deck strategy guide

When you take into consideration the powerful lore gaining characters added into this deck’s wheelhouse after the last few sets, it’s not hard to see why this deck is doing well right out the gate this season.

Specifically, I’m talking about Daisy Duck and Flynn Rider. Both can gain you a lot of lore early on before the really powerful cards in your deck kick in.

Together these two cards make Mufassa Roulette a powerful threat to the control based establishment.

Damage your own characters for cards

One potential issue I see with Amber/Ruby, however, is the fact that in order to get ahead, you have to do damage to your own characters. This can be a small problem against decks like Steelsong which can quickly wipe away your softened up characters.

At the same time, you have plenty of characters capable of healing characters with the added and primary benefit of enabling you to draw extra cards.

Whether you are inflicting damage to your own characters via Teeth and Ambitions or cards like Mulan or Mother Gothel, or simply healing damage dished out by opposing songs via Rapunzel or Julieta Madrigal, having damaged characters in play isn’t a problem for this deck, assuming they don’t get wiped out entirely.

Play Mufasa and hope for the best

Once you get to the part of the game where you can play Mufasa (typically turns four or five – assuming you draw him), you can start getting into the core strategy of this deck. That strategy is to play Mufasa, quest with him or attack with him, and then enjoy getting a free character in play when it is banished.

This can be particularly helpful against the popular Ruby/Amethyst deck which likes to wipe the board of characters. If your characters are all banished by Be Prepared, you could theoretically refill your board thanks to Mufasa’s ability. And because you have almost no non character cards, it’s quite likely that for each Mufasa you have in play, you will have a free character played.

The two strongest character cards you could hope to play for free in this way are Hydra and Lady Tremaine. Both cards are not only powerful in stats, they help you remain in control of the board by banishing your opponent’s characters when they are played or countering Amber/Steel by reversing course of damage dealt.

Amber/Ruby Mufasa Roulette – Key Cards

Pongo acts as a draw engine

Every good Lorcana deck needs a draw engine, and most have multiple. While we’ve already covered the damaging/healing combo to get added resources into your hand, another excellent way to keep the cards coming is via Pongo – Determined Father. Pongo’s Twilight Bark is the ideal fit for this deck as you have mostly character cards. This means that most of the time you will be getting an added card into your hand each turn just by paying two Ink.

While that might sound like a bit, if you can chain enough Lanterns together, you actually should have left over Ink to spend on this ability.

If you happen to hit one of your very few non-character cards, that’s also not the worst thing in the world as it will just enable your Mufasa’s ability to get off more reliably.

Lantern

You can’t have a discussion about the key cards in this deck without highlighting the Lantern item. Lantern has been a critical element in this deck ever since the deck type was first thought up. Using it gives you unprecedented speed and agility to play the characters you need right when you need them. It’s also because of cards like Lantern that you have the bandwidth to pay extra costs for abilities like Twilight Bark.

Lantern is vital to this deck’s ability to flood the board with characters and utterly overwhelm your opponent in the race to twenty.

Additional strategies to keep in mind

While we’ve covered the core of what makes this deck effective, there’s even more things to consider to help you win the race to twenty lore.

First this deck runs the new Maximus card. This card works just like Flynn Rider from this deck only it gains you even more lore if you manage to get a really powerful character into play with 10 or more strength.

One such character I can think of is the Gaston – Pure Paragon card, a character who can be played for free via Mufasa or if you happen to have enough characters in play.

Additionally, don’t underestimate your three cost Sisu character. This character can be vital in gaining additional lore via Flynn Rider and Maximus, especially if you happen to fill your opponent’s hand with cards via Daisy’s ability.

There’s a lot going on in this deck, but that’s partly why it is so good right now. With so many different strategies and cards to deal with the scenarios you are likely to face, Mufasa Roulette is an increasingly versatile deck that has a good chance against whatever you face.

Best Amber/Ruby Mufasa Roulette Deck List and Guide