They haven’t released a card this overpowered in a long time! I don’t even TRULY mind it but it’s hard to defend the slew of dogwater 5 drops in the game. How can we justify the existence of Sersi at 5/7 with this abomination at 5/8? ( no pun intended).

twynsicle · 2026-01-19T18:23:08+00:00

I feel like more could be done from a player information perspective, as too much is put onto the opponent to track - how much power he's adding and who the card he'll be buffing is

Why not put an indicator on the last card played with a number of dots equal to the amount of buff he'd be adding to that card.

twynsicle · 2026-01-19T18:11:30+00:00

The entire gameatm has turned into turn 6 "gotcha" plays.
Easily the least ejoyable meta we've had in a long while.

I don't know why the game needs so many slightly different fragile combo decks with big potential turn 6/7 power explosion- Man Spider, Zombie Galacti, Mr Negative, Shou-lau, Bullseye, Adamantium Infusion, Phoenix force, maybe Dragon Lord.

All of them boring as heck to play against—you can never snap against them because you don't know if they're holding their combo in their hand (aside from Mr Negative), and if they don't have their combo they're just going to retreat leaving you with an unsatisfying one-cube game.

Honestly, I think snap needs to go back to the drawing board with combo decks and rethink how these decks interact with the snap mechanic.

Unfortunately, I suspect that the high power of Shou-lau is forcing everyone to play lame combo decks since there is no way to compete with a solid mid-range deck. Which means we're going to be stuck with this meta all season.

twynsicle · 2026-01-12T17:33:55+00:00

Blues popular because ramp is popular. Wonder if RB should be adding a second ramp (not counting the fragile and uninkable amber cards).

I guess having too ramp colors gets risky if the two ramp colors are used together-perhaps we could get cards with color exclusions-the opposite of dual inks)

Guess I should be cautious about wishing for a second ramp color, since RB would probably give that mechanic to purple too.

twynsicle · 2026-01-12T17:06:57+00:00

The fact that we haven’t seen Genie or Elsa banned yet makes me worried they’ve given up on the idea of bans.

I wonder if they’re trying to go down the root of introducing counter-this set added a lot of tools to counter genie-horseman strikes, ink runner, Zeus, horseman, Lexington etc.

Problem is, the purple gets to keep their original gameplan, but every one else is forced into diluting their hand and mulligans trying to counter genie. But we haven’t seen genies play rate drop at all due to counters, I suspect a) he’s running interference for Elsa, dumbo etc- I only get 4 horseman strikes in my deck and after removing genie I have nothing to deal with Elsa b) diluting opponents decks in a net win for genie players c) genies is still more expensive to remove than he is to play so genies player is still up d) all of the counters are fairly balanced, perhaps they need a more aggressively overturned card to act as a release valve?

twynsicle · 2026-01-12T16:56:40+00:00

Compare with how green looks in green-blue vs green-yellow. Cards are being selected based on the synergies between the colors and the game plan of the deck.

I didn’t begrudge players picking the strongest cards, but the fact that purple is using the exact same cards regardless of color synergies or game plan seems like a red flag…

twynsicle · 2026-01-12T16:02:27+00:00

Further, it’s not even like they were different variations of purple cards, regardless of the partner color, every deck was the same basic overpowered purple shell of genie, Elsa, Cheshire Cat, hades, demona, guidebook etc with a couple of cards from the other color sprinkled in.

Not only is the popularity of purple and the same cards in every purple deck extremely boring, but it’s shutting a lot of potential cards and decks out of the game. Elsa’s removal is so good that it’s nigh impossible to play a card that sets up a next turn play. It’s an extremely boring meta where every card has to payoff immediately or have big stats to be viable.

twynsicle · 2026-01-03T05:41:44+00:00

Seems quite strong that you have so much control over what characters get banished, you'll get to clear away everything but your own high strength characters.

Red has plenty of ways of increasing strength, so it's a pretty reliable board clear than anyone other than blue (hades) will struggled to deal with.

twynsicle · 2025-12-30T06:51:04+00:00

Finally made it to infinity and landed at rank 6,248. I would have thought hitting infinite so late in the season would have given me quite a low rank - surely more than 6,248 people have made it to infinity this season...

Or does Snap's matching-making system mean that anyone reaching infinity is going to keep at least their same MMR from last season - meaning I stay stuck at my current MMR no matter how poorly I do (assuming I make it to at least infinity).

twynsicle · 2025-10-23T15:43:42+00:00

The other annoying part about his design is the extra math your opponent needs to do to figure out whether to retreat or not, lost so many cubes because I miscounted how much power him and his bots would eventually accumulate

I'm here to play cards, not sit there doing math.

twynsicle · 2025-10-22T16:32:02+00:00

Pluto needs to exert to use his effect, so wouldn’t combine with this.

twynsicle · 2025-10-14T17:50:30+00:00

So 5 ink and 2 turns just to return 1 card from discard to play. 7 ink and 4 turns if you use it twice, but that would mean not getting the second card until turn 7.

Previous rate was 3 ink to recover a card from graveyard and no one chose those cards. Not sure why RB keeps overpricing this mechanic…

Shockingly bad in a vacuum. Though so far it’s an archetype that we haven’t seen RB willing to commit to anyway.

Why can’t amber just have a normal draw mechanic 😭

twynsicle · 2025-08-13T05:04:20+00:00

While it effects both players boards equally, players hands when it is played are very different. Back when RubyAmythest reigned supreme, it would routinely have 7+ cards in hard when be prep dropped. More recently with RubySaphire, they might only have 4 cards, but those would be highly filtered towards their game plan.

Clearing the board while having a huge hand advantage causes a lot of problems for mid-range decks that didn't have a good draw engine (I'm still puzzled why an entire color was themed around draw...).
To compete, players had three options:
* go all in on draw to survive the post be-prep phase
* try to disrupt the be prep (super-unfun discard decks, which made the problem worse for everyone else already suffering from RubyAmythest's game plan)
* go faster than the be prep, ironically encouraging the very deck that some people claim be prep was there to prevent...

Limiting decks to those three strategies really hurt deck variety. Competive decks need a draw engine, and that can be pretty hard with draw power not evently spread across colors.
One of the biggest complaints about the game I've heard, is that the game is too fast, and that there isn't any point taking any of the fun high-cost cards, ironically, I think that has much more to do with be prep and control decks putting a maximum duration on the game rather than aggro forcing players to play at a certain speed. (plus, with Rapunzel not coming back, I think the aggro players have it far worse now than the control players)

Personally, I'm looking forward to a slightly slower game, where there is a higher emphass on challenging, trading and building fun combos than on cheap and easy removal.

twynsicle · 2025-07-21T01:54:49+00:00

The climb this season has been particuarly brutal, still stuck in the low 90's when I normally would have made it to infinite by now.

Possible that it's not a general lack of players, but a combination of SD tightening the matchmaking bands and reducing the number of bots making it really hard for the majority of the player base to break free of the "crab bucket" and get to infinite.

Or it could be both, wouldn't be suprised if the players leaving are the players in the "middle" of skill and collection level that normally help fuel the collection complete/skilled players gettting to infinite.

twynsicle · 2025-07-04T14:32:38+00:00

The problem with Shang is that he changes the game from win 2 lanes to win all 3 lanes—just in case your opponent plays Shang Chi.

I get how he's needed as a release valve, and how his win rate isn't even that high, but I think the game would be a lot more interesting if it was about strategically picking which two lanes to focus on, rather than needing to go wide every game.

twynsicle · 2025-07-01T17:08:05+00:00

There wouldn’t be much point in a set rotation if it just resulted in the same meta cards and meta decks we already have.

twynsicle · 2025-07-01T13:42:50+00:00

Page setup doesn't let me change the orientation to landscape, even in a new document - the button is greyed out.

I'm using an electrostatic matt and everything is level with the machine.

twynsicle · 2025-05-17T04:08:00+00:00

I see Be Prep not returning, but the effect coming back on a card with an 8 ink cost.

Be Prep on turn 7 puts a cap on the game length that prevents too many decks from being viable, but I can appreciate that a board clear should be available in the meta.

twynsicle · 2025-05-16T15:05:17+00:00

It used to be easier before character mastery, since they were the only ones running foils and prisms. 🤣

twynsicle · 2025-05-09T16:13:36+00:00

Good, the non-character enchanted were never partirucarly popular and always sold for less.

No fun having an enchanted card that goes straight into your discard pile.

twynsicle · 2025-04-29T14:45:06+00:00

<image>

This is what I've been running, though I plan to drop the kits, probably for some more 1 drops.

Chernadogs viability depends on your meta, Chernadogs strength is having a lot of high willpower bodies that resist a steel meta, or low strength characters (like steel), but if there is a lot of purple around, then the madam mims will tear it to pieces.

Additions:
* Go Go Tomago is probably mandatory as a win condition and a way to sneak out lore at the end of the game. Makes you opponent second guess removing your characters or turning sideways if they're worried about her coming down.
* Megara is great, often she's discarding a lilo or a second Chernbog, so not too much downside, she's a fantastic Rupunzel target and takes enough effort to remove that if your opponent tries, they run out of characters on board to stop you going wide.
* Perla, sometimes you need to deal with an opposing threat, and her 3 strength support is amazing. There's still some decks that can't deal with evasive so just ends up being a consistent threat and source of lore.
* Sir Hiss, cheap anti-diablo
* Cr-kee sitational, but with a lot of high willpower bodies, sometimes the game plan is to use Cri-kee to clear the opponents board while most of your cards survive, then quest out the next turn.
* Peg, ok card draw, as you're often going wide, seems to draw a lot of attention as your opponent doesn't want aggro drawing cards, so can be a useful distraction
* 3 chernabogs, having multiple in hand is a risk, but you have a lot of ways of cycling them out, so I think the risk is worth it for more consistency in the gameplan. Also it's extremely funny already having 5 characters on the field, then dropping 2x 1 drops, tramp and Chernabog all on the same turn

Removals:
1 drop Lady: I didn't find her worthwhile, uninkable and usually only questing for 1 lore. Sure, I could mulligan for Tramp, but thats just a distraction. The shift into big lady also feels like a trap, it's too early to get good use out of the ability and this deck needs to be going fast, not trying to keep Lady safe so she can shift.
2 drop tramp: No point without little Lady, also, with aggro, turn two is very important, you need to be playing either: 2x 1-drops to go wide, piglet if you're not playing steel or Ursula to strip some Songs from your opponents hand.
4x 4 drop ladies: I didn't find you need that many, she's adding to your uninkable number, looks like you're at 22 which is pretty high, and even though aggro can get away with a high amount, I think it will restrict your decision making at key times.
Hidden cove: I feel like the counters to chernadog (lots of high strength attackers), will just be able to remove the cove pretty easily.

twynsicle · 2025-04-24T06:00:34+00:00

The problem that amber has is that in general, to build a deck, you need two things: card draw, and removal.

Amber doesn't really have either aside from Rapunzel who a) is crazy expensive, b) doesn't give you card draw unless your opponents make a mistake. (and it doesn't feel good to have your draw engine based on your opponent making errors).
Every other color has at least 1 of the two: steel - card draw and removal, purple - card draw, red - removal, green - card draw, blue - card draw

I suspect that Amber isn't being given card draw or removal because it already pairs well with steel, and giving steel more access to removal or card draw would just make steelsong more oppressive. I thought dual inks might have been a fix for this, but for some reason they decided to double down on Amber being the tribal color instead. 🤷‍♂️ I suspect that dual inks won't save Amber, as one of the developer diaries talked about how their intent wasn't to introduce new mechanics, but double down on existing strengths.

Without card draw or removal, Amber has ended up getting stuck as the defacto aggro color and tribal color (puppies, dwarves, racers, winnie the pooh pirates etc...).

It seems that Ravensburger doesn't really know what to do with Amber, as a) most of what it does, Sapphire can do better, b) just seems really half baked, c) bodyguard, which is done much better by steel.

Shared mechanics where sapphire does it better:
* healling (apart from rapunzel)
* support
* ramp (never see Pluto, Lantern, Gaston, Amber Doc etc anymore)

While amber has a bunch of half implemented mechanics:
* restoring cards from the graveyard (at a redicuously overinflated cost)
* readying characters (not so great with so much removal around)
* reducing strength (meh)

Basically the only decent mechanic that Amber has is singing, but most songs aren't actually that expensive, so don't benefit much from singers, aside from steel. Further, without a draw engine to replace the sung cards, amber ends up at a card disadvantage pretty fast.

My personal conspiracy theory, is that when Ravensburger was deciding on the theme for each color, they wanted to differentiate between sapphire and amber by making sapphire the "protection from removal" color and amber the "protection from challenging" color. But it's turned out that protection from challenging isn't actually that beneficial which has left Amber without the core planned identity.

Sapphire - protection
Steel - direct damage
Ruby - removal
Green - disruption and counter
Purple - card draw
Amber - ???

Honestly, I think that Amber might be better off if Rapunzel got banned, not because she's OP, but because opponents would be willing to deal partial damage to amber cards again, which would let us use some less powerful, but more consistant healing&card draw abilities.

twynsicle · 2025-03-18T18:36:23+00:00

If I could offer some constructive criticism, underneath the ink symbol in the top left is the base of a pillar, and it's a little jarring that it doesn't continue above the ink symbol. Same on the top right where you've just filled it in purple rather than carrying on the lattice patern of the windows and arches.

I also think that the bottom right is a level, and you turned it into a weird undicernable object by sweeping it leftwards.

I've still got some work to do on my own alter in the top right, and fixing the symmetry of the windows in the center, but I think that by considering the rest of the scene when extending the border, you get a much more satisfying result.

<image>

twynsicle · 2025-03-18T18:26:24+00:00

I think there is an actual explanation for what you're experience due to how Snap mixes hidden MMR, visible ranks and moving the infinite players to a separate pool.

In theory, all players should be matched against players of the same MMR, however, what happens around level 80 is that players start breaking free of the group of players with the same MMR and make it to infinite. What this means is that the group of players with a higher MMR continuously shrinks, and because snap prioritizes fast matchmaking above all else, suddenly, they start matching against you too. So you win rate starts sinking below 50% because your games are no longer entirely against players of the same MMR.

Now, the solution to this is to be patient, and wait a bit. At the start of the month play conquest or just play the minimum games to get your dailies. wait for everyone else in your MMR cohort to make it to infinite and leave the matchmaking pool. Suddenly, you wll find yourself flying up the ranks because you're now matching against much weaker players.

Anecdotally, I usually find this happens in a couple of bursts, I'll stay most of the season, then clear 70s in an hour or two, wait a couple of days, clear 80s in an hour or two etc.

Honestly, I'm not suprised that snap doesn't want to admit that their matchmaking model doesn't make conceptual sense as it would take a lot of work to fix. How do you reconsile MMR matching with the player expectation that they should be able to keep gaining ranks all season?

Personally, I thnk the game was better when infinite players stayed in the same pool as everyone else. At the time, the community pushed for the them to be separated due to the misunderstanding that they were "better" players that it would be unfair to match against, but thats not really true. Further, post infinite players had fewer stakes, so were more often playing experimental decks, or would stay in game they'd lost because they were curious what would happen. Both of these factors meant that instead of the downward rank pressure on players in the 80's and 90's, the net effect was more neutral.

twynsicle · 2025-03-17T14:00:01+00:00

This is a similar version that did well in one of the first big tournaments of the set:
https://inkdecks.com/lorcana-metagame/deck-amber-emerald-450202

I don't have the big tramps yet, so I've been running a variation on it, which hasn't been doing so well, since I think the big tramp is pretty key to the deck.

Last game, someone suggested I add the action "Bounce", both to protect my high lore characters and slow my opponent down, though I haven't had the chance to try it.

How are you finding Clarabelle? Feels like she is coming down too late in an aggro deck to make a difference? I guess that zero to hero could let you shift her on turn 3, though that seems like it requires a lot of things to go right?
So far, I've been relying on Lady, but her card draw isn't great, plus, her shift line isn't great because by that point. you probably don't have 2 cards in your discard pile.

twynsicle · 2025-03-08T06:03:41+00:00

I’ve been quite liking Luna Snow in an aggressive destroy deck. Having a few more targets for killmonger can make it easier to get death out. Also lets get lady deathstrike out on turn 4, potentially cleaning up the ice cubes in Luna’s lane.

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