Azurite Sea Emerald/Sapphire Starter Deck Upgrade Guide

Azurite Sea’s Pirates vs. Robots theme comes alive in its two new starter decks. Disney Lorcana’s sixth set is a high-seas adventure featuring swashbuckling heroes, rescuing rangers, and tech enthusiasts from Big Hero Six.

Genius Reinvented is Big Hero 6-themed deck that features strong synergies between both Inventors and Robots. Its build-around character, Gadget Hackwrench, requires you to have lots of items in play, so items are another focus of the deck. It also features several sub-themes, like Ward and optional activated abilities known as Kicker in other TCGs. This is the first Emerald/Sapphire starter deck, but this unconventional color pairing packs a serious punch.

Which Deck Is Best For You?

This guide features three upgrade paths for this starter deck.

• The ‘Good’ version features only a small increase in the number of rare cards so that you can get started making tweaks right away without needing to buy any expensive cards.
• ‘Better’ is a more streamlined version that will include all the rares you need and some Super Rares for added power.
• The ‘Best’ version is made of cards from all six Lorcana sets, including legendaries.

This guide aims to improve the deck’s consistency and performance without sacrificing its core themes.

While all of the original deck’s various themes might not be present in every version, you can expect to see an emphasis on Inventors, Items, and Big Hero 6 characters in all three.

Good – Budget Emerald/Sapphire Deck

The first upgraded version of this starter deck aims to improve consistency while maximizing the Inventor synergy. A lot of the one-of and two-of cards have been increased to four, or removed in favor of cards that compliment the decks core strategy better.

One of this starter deck’s biggest problems is a lack of card draw. Other than Clarabelle, Contented Wallflower, the base deck offered no way to draw additional cards. Luckily, Sapphire has access to Hiram Flavershim, Toymaker, one of the best draw engines in the game which just so happens to also have the Inventor classification.

With his item-centric ability, Hiram was practically made for this deck. Adding four copies of Hiram and four Pawpsicles increases the draw power and consistency of this deck immensely.

Another new addition to this version of the deck is Belle, Inventive Engineer. Not only is Belle an Inventor, but she also gives you a one-ink discount on playing items whenever she quests. This will allow you to play your Pawpsicles for free.

Finally, Donald Duck, Strutting His Stuff, is an Inventor with Ward, making him a potent threat in this deck. With Resist +1 from Hiro Hamada, Team Leader, Donald becomes difficult for the opponent to remove efficiently.

Normally the budget upgrade wouldn’t include any additional Super Rare, but considering Gadget Hackwrench, Brilliant Boson is a key component of this deck’s strategy, it’s recommended to add at least one.

If you can’t source any additional Gadgets, increase the number of Hiro Hamada, Team Leaders, or Baymax, Personal Healthcare Supervisor.

How To Play The Budget Emerald/Sapphire Deck

This deck has a rather interesting curve, given that neither of the two-cost characters are meant to be played on turn two. An ideal opening for this deck is to play Yoaki, Professor Callaghan on turn one, followed by the Institute of Technology on turn two.

You can use your extra ink to move Yokai to the Institute, giving Yokai an additional Willpower and activating the location so that you’ll earn a lore at the start of your next turn.

It would also be wise to get a Pawsicle in play in the first few turns so that you can play a Hiram Flavershim and refill your hand.

The sooner you can get Gadget Hackwrench, Brilliant Boson in play, the better, since it will reduce the cost of all your Inventor characters and allow you to out-value the opponent on the board.

You won’t always be able to play Gadget Hackwrench, Perceptive Mouse, shift her into Brilliant Boson, and get three items into play – especially when Hiram is busy banishing your items – but when the pieces come together, it’s important to take advantage.

Don’t underestimate the Emerald Chromicon in this deck. Most of the characters here are strong questers with weak Willpower, so your opponent will be looking to make favorable trades on their turn to control the board. Emerald Chromicon is incredibly disruptive to slower decks because it can prevent your opponent from establishing big threats on their side of the board.

Better – Mid-Cost Emerald/Sapphire Deck

Maxing out some of this deck’s most powerful Rare and Super Rare cards improves this deck significantly. Go Go Tamago can earn you tons of un-interactable lore and punish the opponent for making favorable trades – something Lorcana players are conditioned to always do.

Playing all four copies of Gadget Hackwrench, Brilliant Boson is also essential to pulling off this deck’s core strategy: flooding the board with discounted Inventors and buffing them with Resist and extra Willpower.

Typically, an item-centric Sapphire deck will utilize Tamatoa, So Shiny! to retrieve Pawpsicles that Hiram Flaversham has banished. At 8 ink, Tamatoa is too slow and expensive for this deck. Instead, we can make use of Nicke Wilde, Wily Fox to retrieve our banished Pawpsicles, then play them to either draw more cards with Hiram or set up Gadget’s ability.

One of this starter deck’s weaknesses is its characters – they’re literally weak! Good questers often have low Strength, which often lets the opponent take control of the board with favorable trades.

How To Play The Good Emerald/Sapphire Deck

This deck can punish opposing damaged characters with the combination of Go Go Tomago and Megabot, but with the addition of Cri-Kee, Lucky Cricket, it can also fight back in a surprising way.

The final new addition in this version is Sail the Azurite Sea, a two-cost item that allows you to add an extra card to your inkwell and draw. This is one of the most efficient ramp cards in the Sapphire tool kit, and you should expect to see them in virtually every Sapphire deck going forward. This may not be a ramp deck, but a little ramp can still go a long way.

Goofy, Expert Shipwright curves perfectly into Gadget Hackwrench, Brilliant Boson. Playing Goofy on turn five and Gadget on turn six will allow you to quest with Goofy and give Gadget Ward for one turn. This ensures Gadget survives until turn seven, when you’ll have plenty of ink to play out your low-cost Inventors (or additional items you need).

This is a tempo deck that can put a lot of questing pressure on the board early. The combination of Hiro Hamada, Robotics Prodigy, Hiram Flaversham, and Nicke Wilde ensures that you will have access to your items and find consistent card draw.

All of your Inventors become difficult to deal with once Hiro Hamada, Team Leader, and the Institute of Technology come into play, and if you ever fall behind on the board, Cri-Kee, Lucky Cricket can help you instantly turn the tables.

Best – Top-Tier Emerald/Sapphire Deck

The best version of this deck includes significantly more item synergy. There’s a variety of Sapphire cards that benefit from an item-heavy deck like this one, and by including them here, you can squeeze some extra value out of them. With access to the Legendary, this deck also benefits from another Baymax, increasing Robot synergies and adding an additional way to benefit from high WIllpower characters.

Oswald, The Lucky Rabbit has too much potential value for an item deck to be ignored. His ability allows you to play items for free and negate the tempo loss one usually occurs by playing items, especially early in the game. You can use this ability each turn once Oswald is in play, and when combined with Sail The Azurite Sea, you can use it twice.

Of course, with only 11 items in the deck, it’s unlikely that the card on top of your deck will be an item. Fortunately, we have a couple of tools that can help stack the deck.

How to Play The Best Emerald/Sapphire Deck

Hiro Hamada, Robotics Prodigy, lets you search your deck for an item and put it on top, while Gyro Gearloose, Gadget Whiz, will let you take items out of your discard and put them on top of your deck – a perfect way to get Pawiscle back after Hiram Falversham banishes them.

Combining these characters’ abilities with Oswald’s means you can ensure that you’ll always have an item to play for free when you ink.

There’s some setup required to get this item engine going, but the nice thing is that even if the pieces don’t align, these characters still have value independently. Questing for two lore with Oswald is going to be good enough in a lot of situations, and Gyro’s 1/4 stat line makes him an annoyance for the enemy to remove. Hiro can retrieve items or Robots, so you might consider putting a Baymax, Armored Companion on top of the deck if you’re headed into turn five.

Baymax, Armored Companion has good synergy with Baymax’s Healthcare Chip, but he’s also just an inherently valuable character. He can generate two lore instantly when he’s played and remove two damage from a character, then do it again each time he quests. He’s a significant threat at a moderate cost and a great addition to this deck.

Finally, Ariel Treasure Collector is a no-brainer for a deck that plays this many items (and gets them into play consistently, thanks to Hiro Hamada). Her abilities ensure she will always quest for five if you have more items, which means your opponent will be under a load of pressure when she comes into play. Save a You Came Back (or two) until Ariel is in play, and watch your opponent panic when you go from 5 to 20 lore in a single turn.