Wilds Unknown TCG Booster Set Hands-On Preview

Disney Lorcana finally includes fan favorites with their latest booster set expansion, Wilds Unknown. The wildly popular Pixar makes its debut in the card game with the likes of Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, The Incredibles family, and Princess Merida from Brave just to name a few. The twelfth set will release at local game stores on May 8th followed by the wider release on May 15th, alongside a new way to get cards. With new Disney characters in the fold, that leaves room for entirely new deck archetypes as the meta transitions between the last set, Winterspell, that also introduced new faces and elements to the card game. How will gameplay shake up now that we have more Super characters and Toys to play with? From what I’ve seen so far, some card combinations are more obvious than others, while other decks may get a little boost from the deluge of fresh cards to choose from.

The Disney Pixar movies are arguably some of the best family movies ever made, so of course, fans of both Disney and Lorcana are excited to see these characters come to life in card stock form. The most prominent Pixar characters of the set are from Toy Story, so we’re seeing much of Woody and his gang of Andy’s toys. In addition, we’re even getting a slew of characters from their nemesis, Sid Phillips, and his abominable toys that he experimented with. The first Toy Story card that caught my attention was the legendary Buzz Lightyear Jungle Ranger. When played he can recur or bring back an action card of cost 7 or less from the discard pile back into the player’s hand. Recursion is always a valuable option in any card game, and Buzz’s second ability seems to capitalize on the opportunity to have more cards to play. For instance, if Buzz is on the field when the owner plays an action, Buzz can give a character +1 lore this turn. When paired with the Like a Bird in the Sky action card, a chosen character can get a new total of +2 lore with Evasive until the start of the player’s next turn. Depending on the order of play, you can recur or take back the used action card to play it again for a grand total of +3 lore. This is an easy way to get one last big push of lore to end a game, or just get a bigger lead to add more pressure to your opponent. Even if you don’t have this particular combo, Buzz has the option to bring back a destructive card like Bend to My Will, which forces your opponent to discard their hand, if the player wants to go that route in the end game. With that said, the Toy Story cards tend to mainly stick to the colors of emerald (green), amber (yellow), and ruby (red), so a little bad news for folks that prefer the other half of the Lorcana color spectrum.

Speaking of ruby, another Toy Story card that players can build a deck around is Sid Phillips Toy Surgeon. There are a handful of Sid’s toys in this set, and they all have synergy with his two abilities. First and foremost, when Sid is played, the owner may banish one of their characters. If they choose to do so, that forces the opponent to also banish one of their own characters. It lines up pretty well with Sid’s background of sacrificing toys for his enjoyment. This is also a good way of removal if characters have ward or are untargetable. Sid’s second ability is whenever a Toy character is banished during the owner’s turn, gain 2 lore. That includes your opponent too, if they happen to be playing Toy characters. Since Sid is all about banishing, his toys have positive effects for being banished or via discard manipulation due to the early banishing of cards. For example, when Pterodactyl Janie Doll is banished, your opponent loses 1 lore and the owner gains 1 lore. If Sid is on the field when this happens, the owner gets an additional 2 lore just from the single banish. Additionally, the Hand-in-the-Box may be played for free if you put a toy character from your discard pile to the bottom of your deck. Usually the discard doesn’t have anything in the early game, but with Sid’s sacrifice ability, cards like this can reap the rewards.

Continuing on the Pixar trend, the Incredibles is a very cool addition to the game – including more characters under the Super classification like Darkwing Duck from the last set. With numerous Super cards now, players can build around Supers specifically using cards like Mr. and Mrs. Incredible. Mr Incredible Super Strong has an ability that lets the owner draw a card whenever one of their Super characters challenges another character. Mrs. Incredible Determined Rescuer has an ability that readies a Super when another character is banished. For example, when Frozone Super Cool enters the field, he can exert or rest an opposing character if either of the Incredibles are already in play. With his Rush ability, Frozone can immediately challenge and potentially banish another character, which can trigger either Mr. or Mrs. Incredible’s depending on the deck you’re playing. So between the additional buffs to strength and defense they provide, they’re allowing for so much value from Super characters banishing or defeating opposing characters. Essentially, they’re good at fighting, and the abilities do a good job of showcasing their synergy within the Incredibles family and other Super characters. To round out the Pixar love, the Legendary Merida Formidable Archer solely exists to dish out damage with the action card Three Arrows. When this Merida is played, you can return Three Arrows from the discard to your hand. When you use said action card on an opposing character, she does an additional 2 damage to the same character. Three Arrows does 2 damage to one character and 1 to another, so with Merida’s ability that’s a grand total of 7 damage from the one action card. These are some great options for Pixar’s debut in Lorcana.

Based on the current Winterspell meta and what we’ve seen from the recent larger events, we’re seeing a lot of sapphire (blue)/amethyst (purple) decks alongside some sapphire/emerald (green) ones making the top cut. The first being an evasive deck led by the elephant of value, Dumbo Ninth Wonder of the Universe. For those unfamiliar, Dumbo allows for card draw and lore gain. The kicker is that he can also give evasive characters the same ability too. The deck is, of course, proven already, so there’s not a lot of room for other cards, but these new cards might be interesting suggestions. For example, the new sapphire Isabela and Bruno Madrigal cards allow for damage removal to keep your evasive characters in the match to continue getting value every turn. There’s also the new location Ring of Stones that allows your exerted characters to move there for free. With your characters already exerted due to Dumbo’s ability, it’s an easy decision to get some extra lore by moving to this new location for free.

For the other top cut deck of sapphire/emerald, we see a lot of mana or inkwell gain in addition to filtering of the deck, so these new cards might be helpful new additions. The new action card The Family Scattered has your opponent choose 3 characters: one goes back to their hand, one goes to the bottom of the deck, and the other goes to the top of the deck. With how quickly this deck builds up mana, the high cost of 8 for this card isn’t tough to get. Not to mention, this kind of removal is absolutely devastating if players don’t go wide enough. Other new cards that could find a home in this deck include Elinor Renowned Diplomat and a different Buzz Lightyear, On the Way. Elinor deals 1 damage to an opposing character, gains 1 lore, and draws a card as long as there are 3 or more exerted characters in play by the end of the player’s turn. Great value if the deck can go wide with the mana ramping. Finally, the other Buzz Lightyear triggers abilities when a 2 cost or less non-character is played. Considering the deck has about fourteen cards that fit this requirement, there’s a good amount of options to get extra value from this Buzz.