Summary
Disney’s Lorcanabrings together some of the most iconic Disney characters ever made into a single card game. Each with their own unique abilities and powers, players must quest and challenge each other to be the first to hit 20 lore. That is, unless there’s an evil sea witch like Ursula to defeat.
Disney Lorcana Illumineer’s Quest: Deep Trouble brings back one of the most iconic Disney villains to act as a raid boss battle for cooperative play. Can you stop Ursula before she hits 40 lore? Here are ten tips for beating Ursula in Illumineer’s Quest: Deep Trouble.
10You Can Customize Your Deck
You Can Use Your Own Deck
The first thing you will notice is that Deep Trouble comes packaged with two basic decks and four different difficulties. These decks are designed to tackle the first two difficulties with one or two players. However, they will have a tough time winning on Hard and Extreme.
With so many good cards to strengthen your deck, it can help you build a deck that addresses Ursula’s strengths and takes advantage of her weaknesses. This includes herdeadly draw engineand her battleground buffs. As long as it’s legal, you can even use a competitive deck.
9Learn To Banish Her Characters
Challenge When Necessary But Use Songs If Able
One special mechanic that only appears in Illumineer’s Quest is when players are forced to choose which characters Ursula will deal damage to. Most of the time, Ursula’s characters will quest, which means they do not attack you unless a card specifically states that they must.
Unfortunately, many of her characters have high defense and strong attack power. If you must challenge, try sacrificing characters that are less vital to your strategy or use cards that can banish characters likethe song, Be Prepared, which can banish all her characters and buy you some time.
8Understand Ursula’s Draw Engine
Ursula Can Draw Multiple Cards
Understanding how Ursula draws cards is vital to coming up with a strategy to beat her. She can draw additional cards depending on the difficulty level as well as during certain lore milestones. This makes her even more dangerous as the game extends.
One card that can turn her advantage into yours is Diablo, Devoted Herald, since the character can allow you to draw a card whenever Ursula draws a card. Be careful, though, as the more players in the game, the stronger her draws become, and the more bonuses she gets as she collects lore.
7Know When To Spend Lore
Lore Can Buy Buffs
Each Battleground includes a buff that increases Ursula’s strength. It also includes a few buffs players can apply by spending their lore. To win, each player must hit 20 before Ursula does. If one player fails to meet this quota, then everyone loses.
Luckily, players who hit 20 lore early, can still play the game and are recommended to spend any excess lore on using their abilities to slow down Ursula. This can mean getting rid of a random card from her hand or automatically readying a character of your choice.
6Slow Ursula’s Lore Count
Try To Interrupt And Hand Rip
Since Ursula’s mechanics work as a countdown clock for every player, the best strategy is to slow down her means of success. This means getting rid of characters and items that can generate lore whenever possible.
There are some player abilities that can rip cards from her hand. Ursula’s hand works a bit differently than other players, so any card bounced back to the hand will go back into her stack and be available to use next turn. Unless, of course, they are sent to the discard pile. In some modes, this will become the same thing.
5Exploiting Ursula’s Weaknesses
Ursula Must Quest
Ursula may seem like a tough cookie to beat, but that doesn’t mean she is without weakness. First off, every card in her hand gets played each turn one by one. If she does not have enough ink to play it, it goes in the inkwell. This can lead to her inking her best cards automatically.
Ursula is also forced to quest whenever possible, so stopping her from doing so is a must. One card that can shut this down is Mother Gothel, Selfish Manipulator. As long as Gothel is exerted, Ursula can’t quest. This slows down her lore gains tremendously.
4Working Around Ursula’s Greatest Strength
Get Rid Of Ursula’s Items
Ursula’s most overpowered mechanic is her ability to play cards without paying the cost; she only needs to have enough ink in her inkwell. Since Ursula plays her entire hand each turn, it won’t be long before she has enough items and characters to swarm the field.
If you want to get around this strength, you need to verify you take out her items first, especially in extreme difficulty. Items are the one thing she can’t return to her hand automatically using her most powerful ability.
3Go Aggressive
A Time For Ruby Decks
Aggressive ruby decks work really well against Ursula. This is because they can often dish out enough damage to take out her characters. If built correctly, they can also dish out damage faster than Ursula can build up her own field.
Keep in mind that on extreme difficulty, she has a special power: any character that is banished returns to her hand instead. So, even if your characters can beat them in other difficulties, they will need to keep applying pressure if they want to stall out Ursula’s wrath.
2Avoid Mill Decks
She Can’t Deck Out
Decking out is a real issue when going up against Ursula. Every player’s natural instinct is to maintain card advantage by digging deeper into their deck for the cards they need. However, with Ursula, it’s easier to find yourself with no cards left.
Ursula can’t deck out. Instead, when she has no cards to draw, the discard is turned into a new deck for her. Milling is no longer a win condition. Vice versa, if you or any one of your team members deck out, it’s a game over for everyone.
1Focus On Questing
Lore Is The Key To Winning
Ultimately, one strategy that holds true is to simply focus on questing for lore. Ursula won’t always attack, so unless her characters say otherwise, your own have a better chance of staying on the board. You can enhance these strategies with ramping techniques such as Lucky Dime or Belle, Strange But Special.
Using a deck specifically made for rapidly gaining lore might be the way to go. This will also allow you to have lore to spare that can go into interrupting Ursula. Your teammates are counting on you to beat thisiconic villain, so don’t fall behind.
