Amber/Emerald Discard Deck Gets Buffed in Ursula’s Return

Amber/Emerald discard might just be stronger than ever in Ursula’s Return. With a plethora of new support for discard, and the delightful new Floodborn Ursula, Lorcana players are going to be curious about how to make this strategy work well for them.

Below, let’s look at an early concept deck of how this deck could look and work, as well as get into some of the strategy stuff that you can use to get ahead of the competition early on in the season.

*Updated May 9, 2024

Amber/Emerald Discard Deck List

3 Flynn Rider - His Own Biggest Fan
4 Sudden Chill
4 Flynn Rider - Charming Rogue
4 Mother Knows Best
4 The Bare Necessities
4 Ariel - Spectacular Singer
4 We Don't Talk About Bruno
4 The Queen - Commanding Presence
4 The Queen - Regal Monarch
3 Cursed Merfolk - Ursula's Handiwork
4 Bucky - Squirrel Squeak Tutor
4 Ursula - Deceiver of All
4 Ursula - Deceiver
3 Donald Duck - Perfect Gentleman
3 Ursula - Eric's Bride
4 Prince John - Greediest of All

This Amber/Emerald deck is really focused on songs and Floodborn characters to totally decimate your opponent’s hand. This is more possible than ever thanks to some of the really strong new cards released in Ursula’s Return.

How to Play Amber/Emerald Discard

Let’s start with the very powerful Cursed Merfolk. This card has seen a ton of successful play at major tournaments and it is no wonder why. Not only does it benefit from having two lore (something which in-and-of-itself is remarkable) it also forces your opponent to discard a card straightaway. This can be incredibly deadly early on in the game, and the reality is your opponent will be pressured into taking this strong quester out or suffer the consequences of you getting too far ahead in Lore right out the gate.

Cursed Merfolk – Ursula’s Handiwork

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Apart from Cursed Merfolk, you also have a strong option in The Queen – Commanding Presence. I’ve included her in this deck for a few reasons, one of those is the fact that she makes singing the five-cost “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” considerably easier.

As early as turn two, you can shift the one-cost Queen into her Floodborn version, and start letting rip some powerful songs.

Speaking of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno…”

We Don’t Talk About Bruno isn’t just a strong new card for this deck, it’s one of the strongest cards in Ursula’s Return. Full stop. Why is it so good? Using it you can bounce a character (presumably your opponent’s) into the hand, then force your opponent to discard a card. This is especially great if you can get it off against a powerful, undesirable character, as discarding it with one of your many others tools should be pretty easy.

The best thing you can do is use one of your characters to sing this song. However, as you might notice most of your characters are pretty low cost. This makes using either The Queen or Ariel imperative to sing this powerful song.

The Queen – Commanding Presence covers some of your weakness

A glaring weakness for this deck is the fact that your characters are pretty weak. However, that’s less of an issue with Queen – Commanding Presence. If you need to, you can grant strength and decrease it strategically to take out otherwise very tough characters.

Get Prince John out as early as possible

Prince John is a unique draw engine as he allows you to draw cards whenever your opponent discards cards.

While you can start discarding your opponent’s cards whenever you want, it’s most advantageous to do so once you have Prince John on the field. That means playing your Sudden Chill song card, You Have Forgotten Me, or Hypnotize, or any of the other cards that help gain card advantage over your foes.

Set Flynn up to Shift later

It’s relatively important to get Flynn out onto the board when you can. It’s much easier to pay two Ink to play four-cost Flynn – His Own Biggest Fan than to eat up four Ink to do so, and also means you can combine playing him with other songs and characters.

Depending on where you are at, Flynn is a great option to play turn two. Not only does he enable some additional, incremental questing, he also has that handy ability, forcing your opponent to discard a card when he is challenged.

Combine Ursula with discard songs to devastate opponent’s resources

As important as getting Prince John out is to your strategy, it could be just as effective for you to play Ursula – Deceiver of All. After all, Prince John’s ability is passive, meaning it happens just from the card being in play. Meanwhile, you’ll need Ursula to have been in play a turn before you can use her to sing songs.

The best option would be to play Ursula turn three, then use her to sing either Sudden Chill or The Bare Necessities the next turn after playing Prince John. This also gives you added time to find Prince John if he is not already in your hand.

Thanks to Ursula’s broken ability, any song you sing with her will be sung twice.

After reducing your opponent’s resources, start questing

Ideally, by the time you are able to start playing your most powerful questing cards you already have gained a little lore with some of your early questers. However, you’ll start really being able to take lore once you are able to get to your strongest quester out: Flynn Rider – His Own Biggest Fan.

Flynn Rider is this deck’s strongest questing card. While that lore value is impressive – especially considering he’s only a cost 4 character, he will need your opponent to have no cards in their hand to be used optimally. His Evasive ability is stronger than you might think, coming in quite useful in tight spots.

Bucky and Floodborn Characters

This deck includes the powerful Bucky Floodborn combo that forces your opponent to discard a card whenever you play a Floodborn character. This can be combined with your other discard strategies to totally decimates your opponent’s hand.

This is part of the reason this deck runs four different Floodborn characters. You won’t have to rely solely on Bucky as you have plenty of ways to discard cards, but that extra card discarded just from playing a character an make a huge difference.

Use Ursula’s – Eric’s Bride for double the discard

Ursula – Eric’s Bride is one of the cards from Lorcana’s Fourth Set that’s gained a significant amount of publicity. She’s an intriguing card, and she works pretty well in this deck thanks to the fact she’s a Floodborn. A few of her other noteworthy attributes include her powerful discard ability, actually letting you search your opponent’s hand for a card to discard, and her alternate shifting method.

You can easily play Ursula for free by just discading a song card from your hand. This deck runs plenty of songs, as well as Ariel for searching them out. Additionally, you have several Ursula’s at a lower cost built into the deck, making the shift incredibly easy. You could get this character out as early as turn two assuming you have the stuff you need in your hand.

Amber/Emerald Discard Deck Weaknesses

No deck is without its weaknesses. If you are forced into a situation where you have to attack in order to stay in the game, it’s unlikely you’ll win. This deck does not do well being put in the challenger’s shoes.

Additionally, there’s a pretty strong vulnerability here to Steel decks who can both destroy your characters with a plethora of songs and draw out of your discard with a well placed Whole New World.

All that being said, it’s really exciting to see such strong synergy for this largely forgotten deck coming out in Ursula’s Return, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this deck or one like it saw quite a bit of play at least early on in the upcoming season!

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