Upgrading the Disney Lorcana Archazia's Island Starter Decks

Upgrading the Disney Lorcana Archazia’s Island Starter Decks

Archazia's Island brought us two new starter decks to help players get into the game. But can you make the decks more competitive on a budget?

Jake Valentine
April 3, 2025

Images courtesy of Ravensburger

Starter decks in Disney Lorcana are generally the easiest way to have a ready-to-play deck. The one issue starter decks in any TCG have, though, is that they’re usually underwhelming in terms of raw power. The starter decks in Archazia’s Island do contain powerful cards, such as Belle – Apprentice Inventor and Giant Cobra – Ghostly Serpent. Still, the decks aren’t suited to take advantage of these cards in the way something like a traditional meta deck can.

This week, with everyone tired of talking about Sapphire decks dominating the meta, I figured it would be a good idea to go over some upgrades for the Archazia’s Island starter decks. For this exercise, we’ll only have a $50 budget available.

Ironically, one of them is Ruby Sapphire, but it’s nothing like the traditional builds; this one is more focused on items.

Table of Contents

Ruby/Sapphire – Disney Lorcana Archazia’s Island Starter Deck

Characters (42)

Actions (5)

Items (13)

The first thing that comes to mind here is that this is an item deck that doesn’t run enough items. Belle – Mechanic Extraordinaire wants to actively put items from our discard back into our deck to gain lore. But with only 13 items, her effect can gain no more than 13 lore a game, so we’ll first focus on maximizing her potential, including adding another copy of her alongside the powerful new Belle – Apprentice Inventor.

We also want to solidify the foundation of our deck in terms of card advantage and items. Thankfully, Ruby Sapphire has no shortage of options here.

Expect anything different? Pawpsicle and Hiram Flaversham – Toymaker are the backbone of any Sapphire deck. Hiram will account for a quarter of our budget, but he’s entirely worth it. It just means we’ll have to be economical elsewhere, especially since the traditional win conditions in Sapphire are a little pricey. That’s where something like Shield of Virtue can come into play, pulling double duty as an inkable one-cost item that can also protect anyone we quest with. This is doubly important because, while we can rely on McDuck Manor in theory for a win condition, we can’t afford traditional board wipes such as Be Prepared or Sisu – Empowered Sibling. I don’t think it’s worth it without those cards.

Without those, we have to be smart about our removal options, and something like Sapphire Coil alongside Brawl and Madame Medusa – The Boss are our best bets. This helps increase the value of Unconventional Tool. Is this an ideal card? No, but we’re working with restrictions. Plus, it’s more item fodder for Belle – Mechanic Extraordinaire.

Since we’re playing so many items, the quality of something like Ariel – Treasure Collector is improved. We can also leverage Ariel – Whoseit Collector as well to have a steady gain of lore every time we play an item. So, where does that leave us with our updated starter deck?

Ruby/Sapphire – Upgraded Disney Lorcana Archazia’s Island Starter Deck

Characters (34)

Actions (4)

4 Brawl

Items (22)

Despite our budget restrictions, we can still include some heavy hitters like Tamatoa – So Shiny! and Lucky Dime with the deck. Our removal suite is admittedly lacking since not being able to run those board wipes is rough. Something like Beagle Boys – Small-Time Crooks helps, and we can have a turn where we play Medusa, quest with Beagle Boys, and give Medusa a rush.

The nice thing about the budget restriction is that it forces us to be creative with our deck building instead of, you know, just replicating the more traditional Ruby Sapphire list.

Speaking of creative, Amethyst Steel isn’t as pricey as Ruby Sapphire but still has some expensive staples in Strength of a Raging Fire and Doc – Bold Knight. So, what can we do with this starter deck upgrade? Let’s find out.

Amethyst/Steel – Disney Lorcana Archazia’s Island Starter Deck

Characters (47)

Items (6)

Actions (7)

The centerpiece of the deck is being able to play your aggressively costed Illusions with the caveat of being able to return them to hand thanks to Jafar – Newly Crowned. There are a couple of issues with this philosophy, though.

First, the deck only has a single copy of Jafar, so that’s not ideal. Second, these Illusions, with the exception of Giant Cobra, are outclassed by other powerful Amethyst/Steel cards. Why would you play Rajah – Ghostly Tiger when Madam Mim – Snake exists, and it’s only a handful of cents more? There’s synergy alongside Treasure Guardian – Foreboding Sentry, and if it eats an action, that means your more powerful characters get to stick around.

Iago gets some credit for being evasive and having an impressive stat line as a 4/6, but unfortunately, those are the only three Illusions available in these colors, and only Jafar and Treasure Guardian interact with them. So that’s the core of the deck, and we can complement it alongside a more traditional Amethyst/Steel package.

Treasure Guardian is a nice replacement for Doc – Bold Knight, which is out of our budget. Merlin – Shapeshifter can gain additional questing power whenever Illusions are bounced to our hand, thanks to Jafar.

We also have to be smart about our removal, as Strength of a Raging Fire continues to balloon in price. Thankfully, Along Came Zeus isn’t terribly expensive; we just have to be smart about our other options.

Let’s see what we can come up with and bring in some familiar faces.

Amethyst/Steel – Upgraded Disney Lorcana Archazia’s Island Starter Deck

Characters (52)

Actions (8)

Here we have a healthy marriage of the “bounce” package Amethyst is known for alongside improved numbers and synergies for Illusions. We even came $10 under our $50 upgrade budget!

The removal package feels nice here, as we’re able to pick off something like Diablo – Devoted Herald with the Ba-Boom! as well as being able to take out a Maui – Half-Shark with And Then Along Came Zeus.

Magical Maneuvers is also a nice way to return something to your hand to help gain lore as well.

There’s a lot of flexibility with the Amethyst/Steel deck, especially if we see more Illusions in future Disney Lorcana sets.

I hope you get a chance to give these upgraded Starter Decks a spin at your local game store soon!

Looking to learn about the biggest meta decks? Then check out my guide for five decks here.

Jake Valentine

Jake has been playing TCGs since he was buying packs of Magic: the Gathering's newest set, Tempest, in a CD store. He's dabbled in competitive Magic off and on, with his best performance coming at the 2016 SCG Columbus Invitational, where he finished 26th off of an 8-0 Standard record. Today he mostly plays Magic casually with friends while slowly but surely dives into the competitive Lorcana scene, drawing as many cards as Hiram allows.

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