Supers, Sorting, and Set Champs

Brittany, Nikki, and Lesley are back to talk theme decks, new-player-friendly prereleases, and the current challenge of making a Supers deck work in a Blurple-heavy world. They also dive into card organization systems, collecting habits, preparing for rotation, and the never-ending question of how many binders is too many binders. Plus, they share their Set Champs goals, weekend plans, and the importance of finding balance outside of Lorcana. Happy Questing! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Larconna Music podcast. I'm Nikki. I'm Brittany.

SPEAKER_04 0:04

And I'm Leslie.

SPEAKER_03 0:05

And we're so excited to have you guys back. Yes, we are back one week later, as promised. So thank you for being patient with us again. And uh we've got lots of things to talk to you guys about today. And today we're gonna kick it off with Theme Decks.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

First weekend update, though.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

You want a weekend update? Okay. You want to start with me? Yes, you had the most exciting weekends. I did. I was in Dallas for the last six days. Uh we had a big family reunion with family from all across the country, which was a really great experience. It was wonderful to see family that I hadn't seen in a few years. And, you know, not being a bad circumstance and just being there to celebrate each other and celebrate being a family. Um so that was wonderful. But I did get some card shopping in while we were in Dallas. We did visit a few game stores. Some had really great stock and some had absolutely no Lorcana stock. So that was a little disappointing. I feel the ones we went to were very either magic or Pokemon heavy. So it's a little bummer, but we did get a good chunk of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I mean, I've I know that there's a large Lorcana community in Texas, so I bet it was fairly specific regionally where they're at. Yeah, could be. But no, I I've heard good things about the Lorcana community there. So just specifically in Dallas, maybe they have like pockets of Lurcana. Very possible. Just didn't find it. Yeah. I mean, I I mean that's how the stores are here too. Very true. We do have some stores that just do not do anything Lurcana-based. And we have a lot of game stores here. So I'm always actually surprised at how many stores support Lurcana play. Like pleasantly so.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's it's cool because we're spoiled here with how many stores do Larcana supporting Larcana play because we have friends in, you know, big cities like like Washington, Washington State or you know, California, and even they have trouble finding stores to play in regularly. And so the fact that, you know, you can hit a local night here on Monday and then on Thursday and on Friday, it's it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

No, I actually think there is a Lorcana play almost every day of the week.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

In like some part of the some part of Phoenix. Like there is just there is somewhere every single night. Now, depending on the sizing, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:29

Or where you want to drive.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Oh, yeah, or where you want to drive. But you know, you drive an hour any direction and you will be able to play Lorcana one night a week.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Or in the middle of the day on Sunday, because Sun Valley plays middle day Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

So which is really nice, I think, especially if you can't make it on a Friday night or Saturday night because maybe you have work or you have kids, and maybe Sunday afternoon might be easier for you to, you know, rearrange things.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

Yeah, and it's also a good time for like kids to come and play too. Because it's they're more well, I I heard they're more casual on Sunday. Um, and it's just a lot of like opportunities to practice essentially. Um, and it's a great place for new players and and kids to come and learn and play too.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah, I will say that the kids that play at Sun Valley are not new players.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Yeah, that's well, one specific.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, yeah. No, that there is definitely a seven-year-old.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Yeah, there's no menaces up there.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

She plays very well. Yeah. No, my son got to do the pre-release event when the release came out, and it was his first time doing a release event, and he absolutely loved it. And he did pretty well, actually. So, you know, he's he's dipping his toes into the waters of Lorcana at this time.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

I really like when a lot of stores tried to make the release events as entry-level as possible. And we had lots of new players here at Game Outpost Mesa on that Friday night because we had so many. Yeah, it was like 50 or something.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

It was like 60 something, but then people dropped after they got their kit.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah. So it was, it was crazy. It was pandemonium. It wasn't hear yourself thing. No, it was really busy, but it was also it was such a positive energy in the room. For sure. And that's part of why I like sealed and released pre-release and all of those things, because I just feel like it is an entry-level way to enjoy Lorcana, but then you can also have it be super competitive if you want.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Yeah. Yeah. I think the pre-release kit drew in a lot of people this set because it's less intimidating. I don't know. It feels less intimidating, right? Like even though it's the exact same thing. Same thing as like sealed packs. But I feel like the whole idea of a pre-release kit, right? You show up, you don't have to bring anything, you know, no dice, nothing. It's all there for it's all there for you. And I think that that like makes it any barrier that you can remove for new players definitely helps bring them in, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, absolutely. Uh so you were in Texas for the weekend. I had a migraine and didn't get to play in league on Friday. It's not fun. And that was super not fun. Um, but then I ended up going to well, we were going to go play at Sun Valley on Sunday, and they had a Pokemon event. So we actually came and played here at Game Outpost Mesa because they didn't have any events on Sunday. So we just came here instead and played basically with all our teammates that we're gonna come and play at Sun Valley. We all played here at North Valley Games Way. So it was good. It was, yeah, it was a good, it was a good little practice run, um, especially since I haven't been doing a lot of the team play testing over the last few weeks, just because I was kind of taking a little bit of a, you know, I was taking, I was saying this is my take it easy set before I lock in with rotation, you know, getting ready for the LCQ. But it was it was still super fun. My super deck is super fun. My super deck is doing very well overall. It feels like it is an auto loss to blurple though, which is a hard loss to have.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Yeah. Especially considering how much of the meta share list right now.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, so that's where I'm having a hard time is like it beats, it beats the dogs list, it beats the it beats the uh the toys list, it beats Sapphire Steel, it beats every version of Sapphire Steel that I played, unless they get every single detective line. It beats it beats the Amber Steel, it beats the aggro, it beats so many decks, but it is an auto loss to Blur Bowl.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

Why, why is that?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Or do you think that's uh I think it's just the removal on every turn is just so difficult. And I because it's different than the steel removal where they have to have their exact amount of damage and things like that, because I'm not having issues with the steel decks. I'm only having issues with blurbow because it's like Hades and Into the Unknown. Um Let It Go. Let it go. All of those pieces. And the Super Deck is not a it's not as fast as a lot other Ruby Amethyst decks that I've played, which is why I would not be an auto loss against Blurbull beforehand. But now it is because it's not quite as fast. Even with Dash, I did make an adjustment and put in Diablo, the two-drop Diablo, because that is always such a good card against Blurbull, but it didn't increase my uncle count for the deck. So I'm still kind of tweaking those things, trying to make the matchup less bad, but we'll we'll see because I don't know. But we we also have some deck lists from the CCQ this weekend because Ruby Amethyst. They won. They won. And so I I'm kind of interested because I I think they played it the way that they did because Dogs was such a large meta share for that area. Yeah. And that's not necessarily the case for our local meta, which is where I'm gonna be playing set champs.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

Yeah, it's definitely like this every time a deck that you know came out of nowhere, quote unquote, wins a tournament. Chris and I always have this conversation of like, how did they make it like how did they dodge all of their bad matchups? Because it's like he had it had to have played a purple deck at some point, right? It's always back and forth between obviously these players who make it to the top are very, very skilled players, but there's also a lot of luck involved in being able to dodge your matchups, right? Like, because this is way off topic, I guess. But when you went to the DLC for Milwaukee, I brought an anti-purple deck, and I didn't see a single purple deck for the first like five or no three rounds. And at Milwaukee, I think purple was like what 40 or 50 percent of the meta. And how did I not see a single purple deck? And so you have to, it's it's skill, of course, and then a mix of like luck and who you get matched to as well. And so yeah, it's just the fact that, like you said, it's an ant it's like an automatic loss to Plurple and and they were able to win the whole tournament, it's just crazy. No, I I saw that and I was like, wait, what was the meta share?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, yeah, because for me, I I don't know how to beat that matchup. Like I I know that there are playlines, I'm sure that there are. There, they're it's not a hundred percent, right? It's not like you just automatically concede, right? No, it is, but it is one of those things where I'm like, what am I doing in my playlines that is making this matchup so difficult? Or what are my deck choices? Those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Yeah, sometimes it's it is a loss if they just get all the tools, right? And for Blurple, that's really easy because you can draw a lot of cards. And so if they as long as they hit ramp and they hit a draw card mechanic like Book or you know, Demona, right, then what do you do against that?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Well, and then that's where I'm because I feel like every Blurble player I've been playing recently has gotten at least three let it goes and three Hades. And I'm just well, that's that that that's six, that's six turns basically, because they don't they generally play one removal attraction.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Right, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Like that's six turns, and I'm I'm not quite going as wide in the super deck as I would do in a lower to the ground deck, which is how I would play against blurple in a non-themed deck, basically.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

But even the lower to the ground like aggro decks this set are struggling against blurb bull because the merry weather does so much work for blurbul. The fact that they printed like an inkable for five with ward is ridiculous. And I'm a blurbole player, I'm a blurb bull girl, and I'm like, that's a ridiculous card.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, I I I have such an interesting relationship with that card right now because I played it so well with sealed packs, right? I was so excited to put I opened so many of them in all of my sealed games, and then I was like, oh now I don't want to see them ever again.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, unless I'm playing them.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah, it's a gross card. It really is. It's it's just it's it's a big body, and the ward, especially in decks that you know want to exert your characters and want to use removal, like ward ward is very difficult. And I I will say that I haven't played the amber sapphire ward deck that I had played last set or that I was played against last set, but I also think that that deck would wait would be my supers deck because of the amount of impossible.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:13

That's yeah, that's it's one thing that I've talked about with Chris a lot, is like they I don't think that the card designers are careful enough with the word ward. Um, and I feel like if they're gonna print more ward characters, they need to print something that gives them anti-ward, you know, remove ward for the turn or or you know, pay X amount of ink to ignore it. Um, you know, in magic, when you have Ward, it's something like pay two life or ward pay like four ink, or not ink, but mana, right? There's a way to get past the ward, which I think it is a fair trade-off. And I hope that's something that Lorcana takes into consideration. Ward is is strong, and I think it's necessary for some cards because otherwise, with the game where there's a lot of removal, it just you know, you you just remove everything on site, but I think there there needs to be like a way to play around it because it's just too strong of a keyword right now, and it's dominating the meta.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Well, I also just feel like they didn't they haven't printed enough cards that have the demona-like effect, right? Like you exert all the characters or where it's your choice. Like Lady Tremaine got around Ward because it was the other person's choice. And we have Be King Undisputed, but I don't feel like there's a lot of cards where you have to choose. That mechanic hasn't been as wide. So I think if they print more cards that have that mechanic, that would help balance out the ward and make it easier to combat.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

Yeah, I mean, technically there's Sid this set that makes you pick a character that you think is true, but it's six cost, unekable, and it's very specifically for the toy deck. So I think I agree with you. Either printing ward in a way that there is like a cost you can pay to get around it, or something like more of those cards that are more accessible in more colors than just red. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Maybe even an item, yeah, that can be used.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Yeah, but yeah, because the removal like Lady Tremaine and Be King and Sid are all red cards and they're all uninkable and they're all very expensive, you know. And so I think that's it needs to be available in more colors and more inkable cards, I think. Well, then it can't be Ruby at all.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

No, because you use that word, you you use inkable. It's like you use that word. I I say that and I've been playing a lot of like there are lots of equal Ruby cards.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

They're not necessarily the cards, but I don't know. Mr. Incredible has been doing some work.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

He gets so giant. Yeah. I think I got him up to a had six characters on board with him.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

So he was insanely giant because he gets plus and the fact that he has a one-drop shift, which I think is like really cool. Yeah. I was really sad the Mrs. Incredible in Steel didn't have a one-drop to shift on because she I think she would be a menace in this meta if she if they did have a one drop for her to shift on. The two drop for her to shift on is not as like it's not as good of a shift target, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

No, I don't disagree. I I do actually think that that is a good card by itself. Yes, which is why I think they made it on the two drop versus the one.

SPEAKER_04 14:31

Oh yeah, I don't think that card should be a one-drop. I think there should be just generic one drop like two two.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

This is incredible or something. But yeah, no, I don't I I always feel like shift is such a strong mechanic. I do think that they try to balance it out as much as they can. Yeah. And it's one of my favorite mechanics in the game. So I I'm still always excited to be able to shift a card. I've gotten a so much draw off of the Mr. Incredible shift line, which because I I'm playing almost primarily all supers.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Now I took a few out to play Diablos in there, but but I think the trade-off has been worth it at least so far in my play testing.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

Are you playing the super suit in your I am not playing the super suit?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

That's so thematic and it's so thematic, it's so cool. It's a little too slow. It's true. Uh it is very fun. I'm also not playing Edna, which I think is kind of a win more card in general. She is fast, like it does it does increase the speed of the deck, but it makes some matchups not as great because you don't have as many tools to combat other pieces.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

So also a lot of decks are playing item removal to combat dogs and chromicon and things like that. And so they get rid of your super suit.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

Yeah. That's fair. But it becomes, well, I guess in blue, because that's the only item removal I know, then it becomes ink. So it's just like another way, another ink for you, right? The other one I was thinking about was uh the superhero relocation card. It's so fun and sealed.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

So fun and sealed, but it's not I'm not playing it in my competitive deck.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

Yeah, I mean four cost and losing momentum on the board to draw two cards is like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

So I'm playing Mirage, and she only draws you one, but she also has a decent, she's a four-cost, inkable, three-three body, but you draw a card if there's a super or a hero on board, and there's I mean on your side of the board, but yeah, no, there's always a super or a hero. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:33

I'm super excited that they're that the card designers are supporting more tribal decks because I love tribal decks. So when this set came out, I tried to build a red steel supers deck, but there red steel always seems like it's right on the cusp of being an awesome deck, and there's always just something missing, like either card draw or like ways of removal or controlling the board until you get a board presence. Like I every set I try to make it work and it just it just doesn't. And I'm so sad.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, it always feels very, very close.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

And it and it has good matchups, but it's but it doesn't have enough widespread matchups that makes it viable.

SPEAKER_04 17:13

Yeah, well, I was the reason why I was building Red Steel was because there's the one last hope song that lets you challenge ready characters, and then Mrs. Incredible says when an incredible or when a super like banishes a character, you can ready. And so you could clear an entire board theoretically. And with yeah, you have you know, this is Christmas Land. I always live in Christmas Land, I call Dex. But it's like if you have Mr. Incredible on the board and Mrs. Incredible, then you draw a billion cards, you clear the board, and resist three is not anything to sneeze at, you know. So I tried to make that work so hard. And Chris was like, You're just it's not gonna work. And I was like, I'm gonna make it work.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Maybe maybe we'll play a theme night and you'll be able to play it then.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

Yeah, maybe well, you can't use one last hope because it's a Hercules card. Oh, that's fine. But yeah, the the like supers and heroes was so it felt like such a good fit, and I'm so sad that Ruby always just has like the one thing that's missing to make it viable.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

It feels like I I I try every set because it is my favorite ink, but it makes it very difficult sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 18:24

Yeah, because you mean you don't want to play a competitive deck with like 25 uninkables in it? I really don't, I really don't have to be very strategic with those uninkables.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

I still think, you know, I know everyone says, oh, 13 is your max. I still think that's too much. I try to limit myself to like nine or ten is my mo my max. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Let me tell you about the time that I only ran 10 uninkables in my entire deck. And I pulled in my opening hand after Mulligan seven uninkable cards. Oh my gosh. Well, I was like, well, maybe I'll still hit like I was playing blurb. Like maybe I'll still hit like Teepo or like Sail and you can ramp. And uh I drew a one drop that I could ink, and then a two drop that I could ink, and then a three drop that I couldn't ink, and I said, That's it, you win. Yeah, that was fun.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

I think that always happens to us at least one one to two times. That always happens.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Yeah, when I talk to people about it, and they're like, that's statistically like so like not supposed to happen.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And I'm like, it happened to me. So you're like you're like, you know those statistics, they have a load. I found it. Yeah, it was crazy. You saw that percentage chance? Yep. I found it. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

I love that. So if you had to choose a theme deck, not maybe not necessarily Ruby Steel supers, what would you play right now?

SPEAKER_04 19:52

I mean, it has to be Lilo and Stitch. Surprise? No, no, not surprised. When we went to the theme deck, like the theme tournament, I did play a Lilo and Stitch uh aggro deck, Amber Steel, and it's almost a constructed deck. It was so fast. Like I played against Daryl, and on turn like four, I think I had like two steel Lilo's of one drop Lilo that quests for two. If there's a stitch on the board, a stitch, and like by turn five, I was like almost at 20 lore, and Daryl was like, What is happening? Because the steel Lilo is a menace. Like she really is. She's really hard to deal with. So I thought like that was so fun. Um, but if it wasn't Lilo and Stitch, I'd probably do like uh my mind totally blinked. Uh, do you have one in mind?

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Yeah, I would love to make uh Snow White and Seven Dwarves work. That's one that's that's definitely something I've always like wanted to do. Snow White's my favorite princess. I know Britney, she's not yours. But anyway, um that is anytime I see those cards, I'm always like, it'd be so fun to actually make it work. And when Dave and I first started playing, that's what he did. He made a dwarves deck and it just it just didn't function.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

Well, this set, the at the beginning of the set, everyone was saying that the dwarves deck is gonna dominate the meta. Yeah. And I don't see it. But it actually, but it's like pretty functional, you know. So you could bring a dwarves deck. You could. Would it be a winning deck though? Um, it's pretty fast. It is very fast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

If if you if you get enough of the combos off, it's very fast.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

Yeah, it's probably it it wins, but inconsistently, which is you know, yeah, always the sad part, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

It's like if you get magical Christmas land playlines. Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

In La La Land. Yeah, I feel like though the dwarfs deck isn't necessarily only magical Christmas land. Like, you know, my my whole thing about I have to have Mrs. Incredible and Mrs. the Super and then the one less who no, there are enough pieces. I think there's enough pieces that it might be more like sort of Christmas landy.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah, yeah, no, I when I saw that they had I was I was excited to look at that too. I also love extended art so I was super excited when they put all these together. I still don't have all the pieces. I had to figure out which one, which dwarves I'm missing because I did pull a foil of the Snow White, so at least I have her as the end.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

And then I have at least four of the seven dwarves. That's the one the snow white's the one we're missing to finish it. I was like, I'm like, I did I opened that one. There was one in what in one of my first packs was that so was the Snow White. And I was like, well, now I have to do it because this was gonna be the hardest card to find.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

That was a hard card to find. It took us a lot of packs to finally pull one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Now we have at least four, but well, still I think she's actually my fourth for my play set of snow whites. So now I need to find one that's not so that I can put it in my binder for the art. The art.

SPEAKER_04 22:53

So do you guys still collect like every one card from every, like all the cards from every set?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

So the way that Daryl and I do it is we try, but it's not we don't seek out a master set. No. We seek like we want to have at least one play set of all the cards in general. But unless it's something we know we will never play or things like that. But we're not like a we don't seek out like all the foils or anything like that. We if we get them, great. If not, it's not a big deal for us unless we want to play it. I wanted to get a play set of epics of the Mr. Incredible. I wanted to get a playset of the epics of the uh Daisy Duck, this set, because I just adore the art on that card. And so we seek out specific like playsets of a foil if we're gonna play it, or if we really like the epic art, we'll get that. But it's not if it's an extended art, I want to get those. I want to do the pieces. Yeah, yeah. But it's not we don't necessarily need a master set. We don't do one of we don't do master sets and just put them to the side. No, we have like workable binders that have our play sets of cards in them.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Gotcha. Yeah, Chris, Chris and I started from set one and we tried to collect every, not like, you know, all the foils and stuff like that. It was literally just we wanted one copy of every card, whether it was foil or non-foil or whatever, um, from like the base set. And so we were able to do that from sets one through eight. And then after that, we said, it's like we just want to collect the cards that we want to play with, and we'll go from there, and whatever we get, we get right. Um, so we have a full place or we have full sets from one through eight, and then starting in fabled set nine, we we've just been keeping our collections together and and uh like organizing our cards that way.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah, so the way we organize now, so like we each each set has its own binder and like they're giant binders, right? Yeah, so each set has its own binder, and then we have up to 12 copies of each card in that binder. Anything over 12 goes into our bulk, and 12 was a very specific number because we were like, okay, well, we want two playsets and then an extra play set in case people want to borrow cards or things like that, or something happens to one of the cards. Yeah. Now we do not have 12 cards, 12 of every card. Yeah. No, it's mostly 12 of commons and uncommons and even rares sometimes. Um, but past that, no, we just have as many as we can of the other cards. We will trade anything above eight of legendaries or even super rares, depending on how playable it is, because we we want eight cards of all the cards because there's two of us, and we want to be able to both play whatever we want as soon as we have it. So we seek out those things. If we know we're gonna play the card, we look for it quickly. If we don't think we're gonna play it like right away, we'll take longer to search for it. Like this set, because I've walked in on Ruby Amethyst because of the color game. I haven't really cared that much about getting, you know, four of the Emerald Emerald Queen or getting other cards. Now I don't think the Emerald Queen legendary card is good this set. So I wouldn't care about having four of that anyway. But but that's where we kind of work on our system. And it works for us. It's it took a while to figure out which system worked for us because there's so many systems. Like some people put all their cards in boxes, some people put all their cards in binders, some people don't keep bulk at all, and they they literally just give everything that's extra away or sell it. We just have boxes of bulk to share with our community members and things like that after we put together our binders. But also the way we have it, because we do it based on so when inside the binder, it's organized by card number. So it makes it very easy to build decks. Now that means I have to put all those things back in those binders after we make those decks. Yeah. And that's the part of the organization that is always tedious, is like putting cards back away after you make the system, right? It gets a backlog. So I have basically three boxes on my Lorcana shelf that are like I have a foils box because they don't get organized with the regular cards. I have a to-be sorted current set box because we always are opening packs from that set during the set because you get them as prize packs and things like that. And then I have a to be sorted past sets box. Yeah. And so, like, that's at least three boxes to to get the pre-organization done. And then from there, it takes XYZ amount of time, depending on how many cards are in there. We also have what we call meta binders because they're the cards that we play the most. So instead of getting out the giant binders every single time, we have a mini binder, like a four by four binder for each color. And then we have one binder that's a dual ink binder of the same size. And then those are organized by ink, like the amount of ink costs. Oh my gosh, ink of the amount of ink, ink, ink, they're organized by ink. They're organized by ink cost. And so, like, we have all the Ruby one drops that I feel like are viable, playable cards. So, like the one-drop Tinkerbell's in there, Card Soldiers is in there, uh, Card Soldiers is gonna be taken out of the binder because I haven't played in a lot. And so those binders in general are cards that we feel are the most playable, that each of us independently, like the Ruby binder, Daryl doesn't play Ruby very often. So the Ruby binder is almost all cards that I would play regularly, and it might be different than what you might put in the Ruby binder. Yeah, yeah. But what I would put in the Ruby binder, because like I I have played a lot of the one-drop Tinkerbell. Um, and so she's in almost all of my Ruby Amethyst decks that aren't super based. And then, but also like Mal Dragon is in there, like at the very top end, right? So it's things that are very playable Ruby cards are all in their own binder.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Um, and that's how we kind of speed up the deck building process and keep things in a little bit easier to carry around to build the decks versus these giant binders that are, you know, the 16 by like the 16 page page, right? That those are the binder size we have for each set. That's kind of how we organize ours. And then we're not quite exactly sure what we're doing with our excess, you know, in rotation. Like we've just kept everything from the first rotation. Yeah. We we put it all, we put everything that was meta in the meta binders. We have a what we call a infinity binder. So instead of or reorganizing them back all into the set, the masters, I call them the master sets, but they're not really master sets. Putting, you know, first chapter all back in first chapter. No, we made an infinity binder for cards that we still feel that in the infinity format might still be playable. So if they moved out of the meta binders and got put into the infinity binder. So many binders. So many binders. We have so many binders. We have two bookshelves. Like, like we have we spend most of our time on Lorcana. Like, either I am talking talking about Lorcana on a podcast, I'm doing social media for it on our Instagram. I, you know, we have our team Discord where we have lots of conversations about decks. I watch a lot of other Lorcana content. Organizing. I'm organizing Lorcana. I'm playing Lorcana. Like Daryl and I travel, and most of our travel in the last year and a half has been for Lorcana. And so it has just become such a part of our lives. Like we have specific furniture in our house. I just Mikey here, teammate Mikey, came over and helped me build like a big chest of like drawers and all this like piece of furniture. Because I had a card table in my living room that now is an actual piece of furniture. Uh, and because Lorcana's not going anywhere, so it needed to become a permanent fixture in the living room versus you know the chaos, the chaos of the card table. So, and we had two two bookshelves that had full of trove boxes where we put all of our excess from the bulk and all of our binders.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

That's yeah. I mean, how how do you manage it? You're getting back into the game.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Yeah, I mean, we ended up, you know, obviously we kept everything because we knew that it was just gonna be a break. Yeah, we didn't really get a lot of winter spell, which was where kind of we, you know, stopped a little bit in general. And so now we're kind of getting back up of winter spell. Still missing a lot, but that's okay. So, you know, the way we organize everything is we have binders as well. I usually get like the two-inch, like, you know, school binders, and then just get the card sleeves, and I'll have two binders for each for the set. So then I put three colors in one and three colors in the other. Um and we do it by ink cost. So that way when we're looking at our deck, you know, we're building it on, you know, the Lorcana app, that way we know what one drops we need from where. Um, you know, and so on. So that's the way we do it. Um, I mean, when the first rotation happened with Fabled, we took a lot of our stuff from, you know, the other sets and put it in our Fabled Finders because they were still playable cards, even though they didn't say set nine, they said one or two or whatever it was. But you can still play with those cards. So, but same thing we, you know, since it's me and Dave that play, we keep eight, you know, eight sets or eight cards. Uh so that way we have enough. But sometimes you don't get all eight. And we kind of make sure that, you know, if I'm playing something where we do have four legendaries of something, he decides, you know, I'm not gonna do the same thing because legendary cards typically end up costing a little bit more if you have to go buy them. So, and now that we have our kiddo involved, now we're thinking, okay, do we now sit while we have to do 12? Or, you know, do the same thing. Well, if I'm playing Ruby, if I'm playing Ruby Amber and Dave's gonna play Amber Steel, okay, kiddo, you're gonna play Emerald Amethyst because nobody's playing that. So at least that way we can kind of, you know, get everybody to play without having to break the bank, so to say. But um, organizing is kind of a big deal, I think. Once we kind of get to a point where we're like, okay, we've bought enough, we have enough. We, you know, we organize everything, we get the color together, then we on our table, we do in order one, two, three, four, whatever it goes up to, and then we just start cataloging in the in the app and then put it away in our binders. Oh, yeah, that is something I do not do. I do not do any digital catalogs, you catalog in the yeah, we catalog in the app so that way, like, okay, say we're out at a store somewhere and we're looking at cards and like we're like, oh, you know, do we have do we need one more of this card? Well, they have it for, you know, whatever, you know, then I can look on the app and say, oh yeah, we actually we only have you know two of those.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

We only have three of those. It makes complete sense. Yeah, but it the overhead of it is so crazy. I did it for one set right at but I did it for one set right after we opened just our initial open. Yeah. And then I was like, I do not ever want to do this again. Yeah. Because it took so long. And then I had to keep track of who was borrowing cards. I had to keep track of I I had so like where did the card go? Is it also because we don't keep everything in one binder, right? We have meta binders too. Where is the card? Right. And so, like, that is the part of my system that needs to improve, but also how much do I want to have to do it?

SPEAKER_04 34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

And how am I gonna track where all the cards are going?

SPEAKER_04 34:49

Yeah, I always am so jealous of people I see who are very, very organized and they have like the spreadsheet with the number and like where everything is, and and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I don't even remember what I opened yesterday. Like, honestly, my ADHD brain can't handle that. So Chris keeps track of a lot of the cards we opened. So for this set, for instance, he was like, Okay, I'm gonna list all the legendaries until we have eight. And if we have eight, then we're good because like most likely we've opened that much product. We've already had like an enough of the super rares and the rare cards. And so once we hit like the eight for both play sets, we were like, okay, we're good. We don't have to track anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:28

But yeah, we we started with binders and something it just what happened was my ADHD brain never put the cards back. And Chris was always like, Where's this card? And I'm like, I don't know, it's somewhere in one of my deck boxes that I put together like three cents ago. So we changed systems over to the box, but we don't make a label for every card, we just make a label for the character name. So, like Anna, Anna has one label and all the purple Anna cards. We do it by color, so like each box has its own color, and then Anna has her label in purple, and so all the Anna cards are in there, and then we just keep eight of every card and like put we also have tons and tons of troves with bulk in it. Yeah, but that seems to work better because it's easier for me to be like, oh, I'm gonna alphabetize my list and then or like my cards that I pulled for the set and then put them in like order alphabetically in the box that we have by color. So that for me, for some reason, is more manageable than opening the binder and being like, hey, this is card 200, like where does it go? That's a lot for me too.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

No, so I do I that's why I do it that way though, is because I I need the numbers. The numbers help me. And so I always so I do all of amber first and then I work my way, you know, all the way to you know, steel. So I work work my way all the way through it, but I organize one through ten first, right? So I I organize by tens basically. Yeah. So like each each color has about three, yeah, right. And so like I organize that way. Yeah. Three to four, right?

SPEAKER_04 37:02

That's how we did it when we when set one and two and three came out because it was I think that was alphabetical. Yeah, it was alphabetical and numbered. So I was like, this is perfect. Like we can do it by alphabetical number or number, but like, yeah, then they did the dual link stuff, and and for me, I was like, this is this is a lot. And when things get a lot, I create clutter. Um, and Chris is very anti-clutter, so he is very much like, why do you have like all the you know, when I tried an amber steel location deck back in like set four or five or something, and I still had that put together in set eight, and he was like, Where is the docs? And I was like, I don't know, it's somewhere in my deck box. So the system's working much better for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Yeah, Daryl and I have a we have a rule that we're we can't have more than two decks put together each so that we don't lose track of as many cards as we do. And now occasionally that goes up to three if we're like playing in like a theme deck, yeah, or things like that. Um like core but but competitive decks. Core competitive decks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:03

See that is fine for me because I pick a deck and I just play it the whole set. Chris builds a new deck every other day.

unknown 38:09

Thank goodness.

SPEAKER_04 38:10

So at least he's the organized one. Because if I was building a deck every other day, we just would have zero organization in our course. He's very good about like, okay, I'm not playing this deck anymore. Let me take it out, put it back. I'm like, I'll do it later.

SPEAKER_03 38:25

Okay, I have to say I do that. I'm like, okay. I need like five cards from this deck, but I don't want to just maybe I'll go back to it.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

That that is that is why I we have the intake boxes, though, is because like I can leave it for later, but those intake boxes, I'm like, once they're full, like it has to be organized, right? Like, I'm not gonna put a second intake box next to that one.

SPEAKER_04 38:48

So, how often do you organize your cards then?

SPEAKER_01 38:51

I wanna say weekly, but that's a lie. It depends on like where everything is at, like how many extra tournaments there are, how many those types of things. I would say probably every two weeks, depending on like where everything's at during set champs, it gets a little weird because I don't have as many weekend days. Um, and I don't really enjoy organizing in the evenings or anything like that. So it's definitely a weekend chore for me. Uh, but yeah, it it depends. And there is definitely a backlog right now. One of Daryl's birthday requests, because his birthday is coming up on Friday uh of this week, was that I organize the cards that were going to dig to get put back in like our meta binders because we we split Lorcana chores, and so he organizes things that go into the meta binders, and I organize the rest of it. And so, but he also makes decks while I'm at work and things like that too from the meta binders. So uh so it is more balls than you think.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

I'm just joking.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

I know, but it he uh so that was his ask was that I would organize those cards that he had left up up in his, you know, desk area near every and I was like, oh, that's a simple birthday request for him. And so I'm planning on getting that done before we go to fan fusion this weekend because that's what we're doing this next weekend. So it's gonna be another weekend of me not playing very much Lorcana because instead of playing in the set first weekend of Set Champs, uh Phoenix has it's fan fusion, which is this big comic nerd convention, and so I'm gonna do that. And so I'm cosplaying on two of the days and things like that. So I'm kind of excited. Can you tell us who you're cosplaying? So I'm gonna wear my Kita cosplay, the one that I did for the reveal. Yeah, so I'll wear that again, and Daryl's gonna dress up like Milo. Um so that'll be fun. He he is super excited about that. Uh-huh. Uh and then and I and I got my nails done for Kita when I went to the salon this last time. And then the other day I'm doing like a mashup character from Has Been Hotel. So I'm combining two characters from that show, Alistair and Rosie. Um, it's not a family-friendly show, so we're not gonna talk about it too much on the podcast. And so I'm possiblying as two of those characters kind of mashed together. Nice. So I'm super excited about that as well. And then if my dress arrives, I have a 1950s-esque themed bell dress that's coming, but it's TBD if it's gonna be here in time for me to wear it. Fingers crossed. Yeah, I really want to wear it, but I ordered it last week and I'm not sure if it'll be here in time. Um, yeah, so that's kind of what my plans are for the weekend is to go be a not Lorcana-based nerd.

SPEAKER_04 41:35

Yeah, well, we did talk about like having balance, right? Yeah, yeah. It's it is hard because you know, we have so many friends and our team and the community here, and we want to play every weekend and see everybody, but it's like really hard to make other plans and really do other things. Sometimes it's good for a break. It totally is.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Give your mind a reset, go do something different or you know, veg out at home because that's what I plan on doing. I need to reset after travel.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Yeah, and then like my mom always knows, she's like, Are you guys in a tournament this weekend? I'm sure, I'm sure she's always like, What is happening? Like, she's like, she always knows a Friday night is league night, so she never asks us to do anything on Friday night, which is kind of funny. She's like, Where are you? She's like, Wait, I she called me and she's like, Oh, are you in a are you in a tournament? And I I was at home with my migraine on Friday, and she's like, Wait, I don't hear things in the background. Too quiet, too quiet. Uh so it's it's kind of funny that our families have adjusted to that too. Yeah. That's what we spend the majority of our time doing. That and you know, working.

SPEAKER_04 42:37

So yeah, yeah. I mean, I I took a break this last weekend and we went and played board games with friends, and and it was really, really fun and not like just not thinking about Lurconna. Yeah. I went on sometimes. I do this because like that's how my brain works, is I get really obsessed with an idea. And this last two weeks I was super obsessed with getting back to blurple because it's been a couple sets since I played. So I probably I probably like play tested, I don't know, like 50 or 60 times in the last two weeks. Wherever I got a chance, I was like, play testing, play testing, play testing. And oh my gosh, I burned out. So the last weekend was like a good break, a good cleanser.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah, no, and I and I'm working on like making sure I have a balance. Like I I try to not work as much as I and I have been failing at that right now, just because like I my job has been very incident heavy because I work in, you know, safe health and safety. Um, so it's been really incident heavy. So like my work life has been really complex. Yeah. Um so I've been kind of taking a little bit of a step back with this set anyway for Lorcana, just because of that. So I'm trying to do better, right? About having a balance in all things. And it's difficult. It is, it's a constant balancing act.

SPEAKER_04 43:50

Especially because that's a game that I think I I I can't speak for you, obviously, but like we enjoy playing it so much. And it's when Chris and I started dating right about the time Lorcana came out. So we basically grew our relationship. So it's like that's that's like the main way we spend time together. So yeah, it is hard to like step away and and oh absolutely. And then FOMO is definitely a thing, right? That's a big thing. Because I'm sure you're like, but I want to be getting my set champ card this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yeah, no, we we did have that conversation. Daryl and I were like, oh, are we gonna try to go play in a set champs while we're doing this? And I'm like, no, we're not gonna do that. I already bought the tickets, like these things. We also just need to do something that's not Lorcana, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Do something together.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Do something together that's not Lorcana, right? We we've done a lot of independent things. So that's one of those things we're trying to have a balance. But yes, a lot of our relationship. Now we got married before Lorcana came out and everything. But uh a lot of our relationship, at least in the last few years, has been very Lorcana-centric, yeah, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that we get we have a hobby that's we spend a lot of time together doing. Uh and we didn't have that before Lorcana. We we would play board games, we would play video games, we would do things together, but they weren't necessarily our main hobby together. And this has definitely changed that dynamic in our relationship. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

So you'll be vegging out. Yeah. You'll be at Fan Feasion. Yes. I'll be judging the recreation set champs on Saturday. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

So you have to give us like a little bit of the judging experience.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's so the last couple of times, unfortunately, because of like scheduling issues, you know, because we're very fortunate to have so many stores support Lurcana, it is hard to schedule where there isn't a conflict. Um so they have been kind of small, but I think this weekend we, the recreation store, will be the only store in the East Valley that's holding a set chance because most of them are in the West Valley. So I was like, you could pop out of Anfusion into a set chance if you wanted to. But so hopefully that means that there'll be a big turnout. So that'll be my first time judging something with a big turnout. Mostly it's been judging with the local group, and they're all like, you know, locals, right? You go to this chick game shop, you know the rules, like it's not too bad. But there's some been some rule changes, and so we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

That's awesome. Yeah, I I'm I'm excited to play in set champs, but again, like my only goal is to get a top eight. And past that, I I'm not gonna change that goal, even if I feel like I if I challenge myself, I feel like I could do better, but I haven't been playing as much.

SPEAKER_04 46:30

So Yeah, I I don't know, like, yeah, we want the card, like the top eight card, but last set I was like, I want to win a set chance, you know. Um, but I I just didn't like you said it it does take a lot of reps and practice. And this set I feel more comfortable with blurb, but I don't know how it's gonna go um in set champs because our our competitive scene here is so crazy. There's phenomenal players everywhere, but the concentration of phenomenal players in Arizona is very high. Um, and so it's just it's so hard.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

No, it's it's it's kind of crazy when we think about like we have a lot of players that you know are playing so well at the big tournaments that like we play with them just on a regular basis. So it's it's it is good for us on a competitive level to practice with them. Yeah. So all right. Well, with that, we will all talk to you next weekend. We'll give you our fantastic weekend updates and happy questing. Happy questing.