Winterspell Debuts!Hello, everyone!In the last few weeks, we've seen the first major tournaments around the world with the new set, Winterspell, fully valid for the Core Constructed format!Today, let's analyze some of the results from these major tournaments and identify which decks stood out and showed the best results.Of course, we must begin by giving credit to InkDecks for all the work in compiling and publishing the event decklists. Thank you very much!All right, let's go!DLC MelbourneLet's start with the largest one: the Disney Lorcana Challenge in Melbourne, Australia!This event took place on February 21st and 22nd, 2026, and had 418 players! It was the first Lorcana Challenge with the 11th set, and since it was part of the official circuit, there were spots in continentals and world championship on the line! Several well-known players were present, such as Edmond Chiu, North American regional champion and 2025 world runner-up, and Dinh Khang Pham, champion of DLC Melbourne 2025 and 2025 world champion, among many others. In other words, it was a very high-profile event.After the Swiss rounds on Saturday, the top players advanced to a Top 32 elimination round on Sunday, and at the end of the day, Dillon Leduc was crowned champion with an updated list of the powerful Amber Emerald ChromiDogs deck:The list uses two cards from Winterspell, but they were quite an upgrade - no wonder Dillon played no less than 4 copies each!Willow was a much-debated card when revealed, and it immediately proved its worth! The combination of ink and tempo advantage more than compensates for its below-average stats.Nani, similarly, was another important consistency piece, something fundamental when playing a fast deck like this. Although it has a high cost of 3 ink – for the deck's average, of course! – the fact that it's inkable significantly mitigates this problem.In short, we have here an extremely well-prepared deck, tested with new cards that help the deck's strategy and provide consistency, and, of course, very well played by the champion!When looking at other lists from the DLC, it's worth highlighting two more decks that made Top 8 in the event:Finally, we have a Ruby deck breaking the streak of bad results this ink has been through in competitive play. While the jury may still be out on Ruby in general, this decks is certainly a step in the right direction!This Amethyst Ruby list combines the well-known Evasive Package of Amethyst with Ruby's strong board control, and with the help of two new cards: Beast - Snowfield Troublemaker and Beast's Castle - Winter Gardens, the Challenge strategy becomes even more valuable.This excellent Amethyst Steel list deserves a highlight for two reasons: first, it's a deck focused on Locations, which shows a great opportunity to exploit perhaps even a weakness in the current metagame.Second, it dispels the myth that to be successful, you necessarily need to play the most expensive decks. This list, which made Top 8 at the event, was valued (at least until the completion of this article) at approximately $50, which undoubtedly places it in the budget category.Beyond DLC Melbourne, we had two other major events to highlight in our article!Ink Inc Open CCQIn the United States, more precisely in Baltimore, MD, we had a large event with almost 270 players, organized by Ink Inc. The event took place on February 28th, a week after the Melbourne DLC.However, we once again had an Amber Emerald deck as the champion! But the list already shows some important changes, following metagame trends:This is a variant of the Dogs deck - a nickname for the Lady and the Tramp theme-focused decks. This list forgoes the potential of Emerald Chromicon to bring more board control, with 4 copies of Under the Sea. For this reason, this variation is known as SeaDogs.In terms of cards from the recent set, we again see Grandmother Willow - Ancient Advisor and Nani - Stage Manager as the new tools, guaranteeing speed and consistency to the deck.Mega Illumineers CupLast but not least, we had a great event in the UK – the Mega Illumineers Cup, which had almost 250 players.This event took place on February 21st, therefore on the same weekend as DLC Melbourne, meaning it wasn't as affected by the metagame established in the Challenge.This doesn't mean, of course, that we didn't see some very interesting innovations in the decks! A highlight was the event's winning decklist, Amethyst-Steel Midrange:Despite the ink pair, the list doesn't feature the full Evasive Pack from Amethyst. While we have Genie - Wish Fulfilled, other core cards like Dumbo - Ninth Wonder of the Universe or Iago - Giant Spectral Parrot are not part of the list.Instead, the deck focuses more on character development, always aiming to play characters with above-average stats at each point on the ink curve.And we have several new cards to help with that! Starting with Christopher Robin - Joining the Fun, the first card with the Underdog mechanic that sees success in major events. In addition to this, we also have Pocahontas - Following the Wind, Genie - Magical Researcher, and Angel - Experiment 624. In fact, Pocahontas and the new Genie have an interesting synergy, since Pocahontas will essentially double the amount of Lore you can generate with Genie, which can be a huge Lore swing if you've already boosted him a few times!ConclusionAs we saw today, Winterspell is still being explored by players, but it's already showing results and waves in the metagame. Far from being solved, the meta is in a moment of fluctuation and experimentation – something that I believe is the most fun part of any TCG's competitive side.Even though Amethyst continues to stand out for the strength of its Evasive Package, decks like Dog Decks have received many new tools to play on equal footing with the consistency of Amethyst. And, of course, with the success of Dog Decks, it's natural that more controlling decks will begin to emerge, capable of fencing off against fast starts that, in turn, can be countered by other decks, thus creating an extremely healthy competitive environment.In other words: we're in a wonderful moment to test and explore Lorcana's competitive scene, since the multiplicity of strategies allows for a lot of flexibility in deck building, and you might discover a real hidden gem through some card combination that hasn't yet been thought of and played in competitive events.I hope you enjoyed today's review and analysis!We'll continue to follow the Winterspell metagame, and be attentive to the highlights of the next big events!Cheers, and until next time!
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