That chill down the spine...Hello, everyone!Here in Brazil, we're in the middle of Set Championships season, and a very special one for our country – after all, even if we're a little late to the party, we're now officially on the Lorcana world map!I had the pleasure of playing – and winning! yay! – a Set Championship organized by one of the local stores in my region, Gruta Bsb. Today's article isn't exactly a report, but it will focus on a more competitive aspect of the game – I'll talk about the thought process, deck selection, and try to show how you should prepare for a competitive event.Let's go!Set Championships - A Doorway to Competitive EventsLorcana, as we know, has regular, weekly tournaments, hosted by local game stores and attended by local communities. And of course, there are the Challenges, which are mega-events on the official circuit, qualifying for the Continentals and eventually the World Championship, and focused on the more competitive aspect of the game.The Set Championships, then, are a way to present a more competitive aspect of the game to the local community, without putting aside the friendly and fun atmosphere that the Lorcana community always manages to provide!The great thing about the Set Champs are the unique promos. In this case, the tournament I'm going to talk about awarded promos and a champion's playmat from the Fabled Set:Fabled Set Champs Promos and PlaymatAt the time of the event, the tenth set, Whispers in the Well, had not yet been released in Brazil. Therefore, the store opted to run this event in the Infinity format, with sets 1 through 9 valid. Being a competitive event, it would also be held in a Best of 3 format.Preparing for the EventAs I mentioned before, this event would be the first official Set Championship held here in my local region – in this case, Brasília, the capital of Brazil.The local community is very enthusiastic and has a very healthy mix of people who are already experienced in other TCGs, and people who are playing their first TCG in Lorcana. Also, in general, the level of play is very good, so I certainly didn't expect to have any easy games. This is something that makes me look forward to an event, because playing a great, well-fought match with many twists and turns is very fun – it doesn't matter who wins in the end, since everyone gave their best for a good game!With all this in mind, I was then ready for the first stage of preparation: choosing the deck.Deck SelectionI basically had two main goals for the event:First and foremost, to have fun. This can't be underestimated at all, because if you're going to dedicate 4+ hours of a weekend to an event, you can't feel like you're in a grind, or that you'd rather be somewhere else. So, I knew I needed a deck that would make me feel relaxed and that would be fun to play.Of course, fun has a certain subjectivity to it – everyone will have different tastes, different things that make them laugh, and so on. In my case, for this event, I wanted to play with a deck that I had already analyzed in a previous article, meaning I would remember the general game plan; and also that leaned towards faster games, because I came from a tiring week at work and wanted to be able to play a little more relaxed.The second goal was that I wanted a good result. Not necessarily being the champion of the event, win-everything, but I wanted to at least feel satisfied and happy about my game strategies and my decisions.Of course, winning games is a good indication that your game state analysis, micro-decisions in each turn, strategies, etc., are in somewaht good shape. But winning isn't always the condition for that feeling of satisfaction with your own level of play – as I said before, playing a good game, even if you lose in the end, can be very fun and challenging.With these two goals in mind, I started thinking about and selecting which deck I would like to play in Set Champs. One that I thought of right away was one of my favorites, the Emerald-Sapphire Mufasa Combo:This is a slightly more updated list compared to my article from last year, but the game plan remains the same.The idea is to ramp your ink with the Sapphire cards, and once you reach 8 ink, play Mufasa - Ruler of Pride Rock. On the next turn, once Mufasa's ink is dry, you chain several You Came Back and Do It Again! to ready Mufasa multiple times, always gaining 4 Lore in the process with his Quest. After a few repetitions, you make 20 Lore in a single turn!I considered the Mufasa Combo a good option because I imagined it would have a great surprise factor, catching my opponents off guard. I like the idea that the deck does something quite different from what the rest of the metagame tries to do, and has a well-defined and objective game plan.On the other hand, one of its major weaknesses is fast decks, or aggro decks, as they are usually called. And, since I really didn't know what to expect from the decks the other players would bring, I was apprehensive about facing many aggro decks in a row.Another factor was the confirmation that the event would be Best of 3, and the Mufasa Combo has more difficulty when the opponent already knows how the deck works. For example, they will save removals knowing you'll play Mufasa.For these reasons, I understood that Mufasa Combo would be a somewhat risky choice, and so I thought of another option. I went for another favorite deck of mine: Amber-Emerald ChernaDog.Again, this is a slightly updated and budget version than the one I presented in this article, but it maintains the deck's entire game plan: create several low-cost but defensively strong characters, such as Nala - Mischievous Cub, Little John - Camp Cook, Pegasus - Gift for Hercules, among others; and capitalize on these various characters by chaining cards like Tramp - Street-Smart Dog into Chernabog - Evildoer as early as turn 4.What appeals to me most about the ChernaDog game plan is the combination of speed and powerful plays, especially with Tramp and Chernabog - no wonder they're on the deck's nickname!However, the budget issue made me rethink choosing that deck, especially since I didn't have any copies of Rapunzel - Gifted With Healing, which greatly helps in recovering cards in hand. I was also worried about facing more midrange decks, which could counter my starting characters and thus cripple my entire game engine.In short, the lower consistency was a significant enough factor to steer me away from that choice. But I had a clearer idea of the type of deck I wanted.Now more confident, I started seriously considering Amethyst-Ruby Burn as the new option:This deck combines some elements that I believed were important for the unknown meta I was going to face at the event.It's a reasonably fast deck, and although it's not as fast as ChernaDog, it manages to generate enough Lore and surprise the opponent with Lore bursts, for example with Gathering Knowledge and Wisdom.In addition, the deck has a very linear game plan, which gave me a greater sense of security in the decisions I had to make during the games. Since I had an article with an analysis of the deck, I was also comfortable with the strategy.Regarding the updated list, there were 8 cards in total that were changed: 4x A Pirate’s Life were replaced by 4x Friends on the Other Side, mainly for utility reasons. The deck rarely needs to exceed 4 ink, so it's difficult to play A Pirate’s Life without singing, which reduces the usefulness of some characters.The second change was to remove 4x Tinker Bell - Fast Flier from the deck and replace them with 2x Agrabah - Marketplace and 2x Michael Darling - Playful Swordsman. Agrabah makes the deck less vulnerable to global removals like Be Prepared, and more importantly, often forces the opponent to challenge the Location, thus making your Goofy - Super Goof very effective. Michael increases the pirate count in the deck from 8 to 10, and thus helps Wendy Darling - Courageous Captain to be more consistent. These may seem like small changes, but they were very relevant: in at least 3 games throughout the event, these additions were crucial for me to win.ConclusionIn the end, choosing a deck that combined a faster and more objective game plan with a strategy that made me feel more confident, even when facing a variety of decks as expected, worked out very well!The rounds went smoothly, within the allotted time, and everyone showed up very enthusiastic to compete and have fun. It was wonderful to have this first event in Brasília!It's also important to remember that the date for the first Disney Lorcana Challenge in Brazil has already been announced: April 25-26, 2026. Now we have even greater expectations and a little bit of excitement to prepare our decks for the Core Format.Hugs, and until next time!
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