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Disney Lorcanais not a game known for banning cards, so when it happens, it’s a pretty big deal. While the community has been begging for card bans for quite some time, the only big change that came was from a card in Set 2 Rise of the Floodborn,Bucky - Squirrel Squeak Tutor, with an errata that took place with Shimmer Skies.
The point of this errata was to make the game more fun and balanced, creating an environment everyone would enjoy.With Archazia’s Island, the first bans have taken effect. Both the item cardFortisphereandHiram Flaversham - Toymaker, have been hit with bans. But why Fortisphere? Here’s what you need to know.
What Does Fortisphere Do?
Not from a Disney property, Fortisphere is an original Disney Lorcana item. Item cards can be played and left in play unless removed by you or your opponent, or the card itself says it must be banished to be used. To understand why Fortisphere, this seemingly uninteresting one cost card is worth being banned, you’ll need to understand how it works.
Fortisphere has two abilities, one of which is why it’s been banned. Fortisphere can do the following:
When you play this item, you may draw a card.
Extract Of Steel
Pay one ink, Banish this item – Chosen character of yours gains Bodyguard until the start of your next turn.
Bodyguard forces your opponent who challenges one of your characters to challenge your character with Bodyguard if able.
In a single item, you’re able to draw a card when you play it, immediately replacing the card by gaining another in your hand upon play. While in play, you may, whenever you choose, give Bodyguard to another one of your characters until your next turn, forcing opponents to attack a specific character and protecting your other characters.
While Fortsphere was designed to do both, it was most often used for the additional card draw mechanic tied to Resourceful. This allowed deck combinations with Steel to get a very early card draw option, with Fortisphere only costing one ink to play.
Importantly, in Steel, most cards that allow you to draw will force you to discard a card after, meaning most of Steel has a draw and discard mechanic, not just a single draw a card mechanic, balancing out the deck without just giving you a card in the way Fortisphere does.
Fortisphere With Hiarm Flaversham – Toymaker
This one item allowed decks that benefit from items, namely Sapphire/Steel decks, to have an additional card draw near the beginning of the game. Barelyused for the Bodyguard, a player canplay Fortisphere (or Pawpsicle) on turn one,draw a card, and then use any number of discard an item mechanics to capitalize on this.
To capitalize on this Hiram Flaversham – Toymaker allows a player todiscard an item to draw two cards. With Fortisphere having met its usefulness, discarding it to draw two cards was a popular play, meaning thisone Steel item would give a Sapphire/Steel player three cards over the course of the game, and it was relatively cheap to do so. If you play more than one Fortisphere, a good play means this one item could get you three cards for every Fortisphere on the field, as Hiram allows you to not only draw two cards by discarding an item when he’s played, but also when he quests.
Without immediate removal, Hiram Flaversham – Toymaker is a card with 6 Willpower, making it difficult for several deck color combinations to banish him early on. The drawback is his 1 Strength, making him an easy target or removal if you’re playing the proper colors.
Pawpsicleis another card that is similar to Fortisphere. On play, it lets you draw a card, and it only costs one ink to play. Instead of Bodyguard, however, it sticks with its own color identity in Sapphire and provides healing upon banishment instead.
A player with four Fortisphere in their deck has the unlikely but technically possible opportunity to draw 12 cards in a single match. A Sapphire/Steel player with four Fortisphere and four Pawpsicle could technically draw 24 cards off of this combination if all the cards necessary were drawn perfectly. While completely unlikely, this feat sounds a lot more like the color identity of Amethyst, the deck almost exclusively known for its strong card draw identity.
The Importance Of Color Identity
A huge advantage in almost any card game that you can have is card draw.The more cards you have, the more opportunities you have to deal with whatever situationmay arise while playing. A color notorious for filling your hand with cards is Amethyst, with cards such as Finders Keepers,Friends On The Other Side, and Amethyst Chromicon, all cards that have made an appearance in several decks, allowing you to draw additional cards into your hand. However, none of these cards can perform the action of gaining you additional cards as early as turn one, and with the Amethyst Chromicon, while it can net you an additional card on turn two, it does so for your opponent as well. This usually makes theadvantage of card draw a bit more balanced.
Looking at Hiram Flaversham – Toymaker and the Pawpsicle/Fortisphere combination, it allows that same card draw advantage in a color not designed for the mechanic, The real problem here though, is that youropponent usually has no answer to the 6 Willpower Hiram this earlyin the game, or no way to remove items that early before the Hiram combo is pulled off and your opponent has a three card advantage against you by turn four. If you’ve got the ability to play another cheap Fortisphere or Pawpsicle, you can continue the combo by questing with Hiram next turn, further exacerbating the advantage given.
This unfair advantage made games"virtually unstoppable," and that"playing these cards together often led to predictable and one-sided outcomes.“So, soemthing had to be changed. This is where the ban to Hiram and Fortisphere came in. But why Fortisphere and no Pawpsicle?
Why Fortisphere And Not Pawpsicle?
So, if Pawpsicle and Fortisphere both allow Hiram to gain an unfair advantage, why was the Steel card banned and not the Sapphire card? Once again, it has everything to do with color identity. While Sapphire is a color known for its items, Steel isnot.This combination placedtoo much importance on playing items in Steel decks, something not intended by the game’s design for what Steel should represent. Sapphire/Steel decks would almost exclusively have to add Fortisphere as an item, meaning the deck color combination would always look and play the same.
While Pawpsicle does the same, draw a card, with the Hiram ban, you can no longer get three cards out of this single interaction. Not only that, but Sapphire items are always a strong deck, andwithout Hiram, Pawpsicle can still thrive in the intended wayand in the color that lends itself to that identity. There’s no reason to move an item from the color that thrives on items, and therepetitive issue that Pawpsicle/Hiram had is removed with the Hiram ban.
The hope is that players can still use cards that interact with Pawpsicle in Sapphire, such asNick Wilde - Wily Fox, andSteel won’t be forced to play an item style deck just to keep up. The goal is to allow Steel, the color not entrenched in items, to play more creative decks that won’t be forced to stick to an item focused deck, which was never intended.
As the game heads into its next season, the last thing anyone wants is to watch the same decks playing the same cards over and over. With this ban, the meta has a chance to try new things, without having fans watch the same matches repeatedly. At least, that’s the hope with these card-targeted bans.
