Whether you are looking to build a new deck based on one of the starter decks in Ursula’s return or what cards to look for to upgrade your deck during a starter deck tournament, here’s your Ursula’s Return Sapphire/Steel starter deck upgrade guide.

In this article, I’ll be highlighting key cards to look out for from Ursula’s Return booster packs that you will want to consider adding to your deck to make it even better.

How to use this guide

The idea here is to present advice for two different formats. First of all, you will want to make easy quick fixes if you are playing a limited format like most Lorcana starter deck tournaments are. In these tournaments, you might get a few booster packs which you can use to upgrade your deck.

Secondly, this guide will also present a potential budget deck you could bring to compete at local league events. While this list won’t be the most top notch deck competitive deck out there, the idea is that it would compliment the existing strategy of the starter deck while also giving you a little more cohesiveness and power in constructed play.

Sapphire/Steel Starter Deck Tournament Upgrade Guide

One of the first rules of Lorcana deck building is consistency. Cards that actually let you search for specific cards are few and far between in the game right now, which means your are going to want/need multiple copies of the same card if you want to be likely to actually find them during gameplay.

Starting here with my favorite of the two starter decks in Ursula’s Return, we’ll be looking at a few cards you’ll want to add more of in Sapphire/Steel.

Namely, there are two cards in this deck that you really should be running four copies of each. Those are Anna and Phil.

Why are Phil and Anna so good?

The Sapphire/Steel deck is all about synergy between hero cards. Luckily, we get a lot of additional support for hero characters in this set. But the starter deck itself only comes with one copy of each of these cards. You will fare far better with four of these each in your deck. Anna makes it much easier to blitz your way to 20 lore while Phil grants you lore each and every time a Hero character is played.

Neither of these cards are likely to be very expensive once the set is out. You can pick them up as singles via TCGplayer or add them to your deck from booster packs you pick up.

Double down on Rapunzel and Pascal

Unfortunately as is often the case with starter decks, the good cards they come with come in scant supply. Rapunzel is actually a really strong card, and she benefits from your Anna – True-Hearted character, bolstering her lore value all the way up to four.

If you have Pascal in play, she also gets Ward, making her trickier to take out. Pascal, meanwhile, has a srong capability, letting you look at the top three cards of your deck, and put them back in any order.

While Pascal won’t be necessary if you choose to go the build with Aurora – Dreaming Guardian (more on that later), bulking up your deck with two additional Pascals could be a very effective strategy during a sealed Starter Deck tournament (if you happen to pull one).

In a perfect world, I’d run four of each of these cards and use them as a core part of your strategy.

Add a Kida

Kida is a very strong bodyguard character and she’s great for this deck. She diverts attacks from your other characters who you want to keep in play for questing, protecting them from getting taken out too early. This deck has three of her already, and would benefit from an additional Kida being added.

Add two more Mickey Mouse – Detectives

Mickey Moue – Detective has been a core ramping card for Sapphire since the beginning. He would also be quite helpful in an upgraded Ursula’s Return Starter Deck. Run three or four of these Mickey Mouse so you can start playing some of those stronger characters more quickly.

Also add an Anna

One easy thing you can do during your Starter Deck tournament is to add an additional Anna (if you pull her). While she probably won’t be necessary in constructed, she can be a handy character in your Starter Deck tournament, letting you get access to additional lore pretty easily.

She not only gets +1 lore for having a hero character in play, she’s a hero herself, meaning you can quest for three lore if you have Anna – True Hearted up and running.

Add Aurora – Dreaming Guardian

An easy, cheap but powerful card that would fit pretty seamlessly into this deck would be Aurora – Dreaming Guardian. She’s fallen out in popularity since The First Chapter a bit, but she remains a strong card, casting Ward on all other characters on your board.

Getting two of her into play could help protect your characters while they quickly race to 20 lore. Because you already have plenty of other, lower cost Aurora’s in this deck, adding four Aurora – Dreaming Guardians would fit right in.

Add Hans and Great Stone Dragon

A Villain card in a Hero deck? While that might seem counterintuitive, if you happen to pull a Hans during your starter deck tournament, he could easily fit right into this deck strategy. Hans grants you a lore when he’s played while there is a princess or Queen character in play. And guess what? There are plenty of those in this deck.

Meanwhile, Great Stone Dragon is a card you can pull from Ursula’s Return booster packs. This card will greatly help you start ramping up the Ink in your Inkwell. The best part about it is you won’t need any resources to make it happen. Just add discarded character cards to your Inkwell and you’re good to go!

What cards should you cut from the Ursula’s Return Starter Deck?

Now that we’ve gone over some of the best cards included in the starter deck out of the box, let’s look at some of the cards you should get rid of. Unfortuantely, as interesting as the hero theming is to this deck, there are a lot of cards you simply aren’t going to want to use if you don’t have to. If you want to build this deck into a playable constructed one, the cards below should go.

Remove Mulan Cards: despite being heroes, the Mulan cards in this deck serve very little purpose. Look to remove them for more usable characters instead.
Hercules: As cool as this six-cost Hercules looks, the Floodborn Hercules from Rise of the Floodborn is stronger. I would look to run four of his two-cost form and the six cost version instead.
Imperial Bow: I wouldn’t bother with Imperial Bow as you can challenge and banish characters pretty easily without it.
Ariel – Determined Mermaid: This card could see some play in other decks that are more focused on songs. However, in a Starter Deck tournament or even in a lightly upgraded list, this card won’t be very strong.

Replace these cards with one of Steel’s many powerful song cards or beefy challenging characters like Captain Hook. That will serve you much better in the long run than this hodgepodge of characters that don’t really help your strategy.

Do what you can depending on your format

As options are limited in a starter deck tournament, however, use your best judgement on which of these cards you include. As they have powerful strength, you could use them to gain a lot of lore in tandem with Thebes.

In constructed, however, there are just too many more powerful, cheap characters you are going to want to prioritize.

Sapphire/Steel Starter Deck – Ursula’s Return Upgraded Budget List for constructed

So, with all that being said, here’s a pretty affordable, upgraded list that you could run with instead of what you have above.

4 Aurora – Regal Princess
4 Kida – Royal Warrior
4 Aurora – Dreaming Guardian
4 Mickey Mouse – Detective
2 Hans – Noble Scoundrel
2 Great Stone Dragon
4 Hercules
4 Captain Hook – Forceful Duelist
4 Hercules – Divine Hero
4 Hercules – Hero in Training
4 Dig a Little Deeper
4 Anna – True Hearted
4 Philoctetes - No-Nonsense Instructor
4 And Along Came Zeus
4 Let the Storm Rage On
4 Thebes – The Big Olive

While this deck won’t be as competitive as the top notch, pricey decks out there, it’s a lot stronger than what the Sapphire/Steel deck comes with right out of the box, and should also give you the tools you need to play well.

Ursula’s Return Sapphire/Steel Starter Deck Upgrade Guide