It’s been one week since the release of Disney Lorcana’s latest set, Ursula’s Return, and while a lot of things about the meta will still take some time to resolve, there’s one deck that’s undeniably positioned to be a major player this season. Ruby/Sapphire Pawpsicle Control, or Pawꦅp Patrol as I (and almost no one else) call it, was arguably the best deck during the Into the Inklands meta, and Ursula’s Return has only made it more consistent, more flexible, and more deadly. There’s no question what the best deck is right now. The question has become, can Pawpsicle Control be beaten?

There are quite a few new additions in Ursula’s Return that have brought the deck from one-of-the-best to borderline broken. In Ruby, Pawpsicle Control benefits from Brawl, a three-cost action that ban🅠ishes a chosen characꩵter with two strength or less. This cheap, inkable action targets tons of top-tier meta-cards and gives Pawpsicle Control some early game removal tools it was missing before.

Sisu, Daring Visitor - an Evaꦕsive three-cost character that banishes a chosen character with one Strength or less - is another great early game removal tool, and pairs perfectly with Sisu,ꦍ Empowered Sibling, a Floodborn eight-cost character than banishes all opposing characters with two-strength or less.

Rounding out all this great low-Strength removal is Ice Block, a new Sapphire item that can be exerted to reduce a character’s Strength by one. Not only do this, Brawl, and the Sisus target more high-strength characters, but it also powers up Madame Medusa, The Boss, the most oppres൩sive removal tool in the meta today.

There are a lot more options to experiment with. Scuttle, Expert on Humans makes finding the deck’s key item cards like Fishbone Quill, Lucky Dime, and Pawpsicle easier by increasing your chance of hitting one. Ariel, Treasure Collector is a great Lucky Dime target that’s much hardღer to remove than Belle, Strange But Special. Goofy, Super Goof; Mulan, Elite Archer; The Queen, Diviner;꧟ and Medallion Weights all have potential for inclusion in this deck.

The New Red Blue

The biggest challenge Ruby/Sapphire players face right now is figuring out how to fit everything in, b🍸ut that might not be as hard as it sounds. In a ,🔯 the winning Ruby/Sapphire deck ran a staggering 20 uninkable cards.

Three out of the top four decks in that tournament were all Ruby/Sapphire. Seeing decks that were already strong succeed early in a new meta is to be expected, but it’s difficult to see how you can beat a deck that ra✅mps quickly and almost exclusively plays cards that can remove your characters from the board, often before you can get any value from them. What’s the answer to a 🌠deck that can get control quickly and never let it go?

Ruby/Sapphire doesn’t have many weaknesses, but exploiting the ones it does have may be the key to beating it. It’s loaded up with removal tools, but almost all of them - excluding Maui, Hero to All and Maleficent, Monstrous Dragon - can only choose low-strength characters. Ice Block is included in the de🅰ck to give it more targets, b🦩ut you can counter a lot of Ruby/Sapphire control tactics simply by playing high-Strength characters.

When you take away Madame Medusa’s ability, she’s just a 6-cost, uninkable 4/4 character that quests for one, which is a terrible stat line. A two-cost Gaston, Arrogant Hunter can take her out, and he’s not easy to remove either. Buildi𒆙ng a deck around characters with four Strength or more hinders Ruby/Sapphire significantly.

Ruby And Sapphire Cards To Beat Ruby/Sapphire

You may also find that the best counter is to fight fire with fire. Other decks with Ruby and Sapphire have answers to Ruဣby/Sapphire’s game plan, like using Lumiere, Fiery Friend to raise the Strength of their characters to keep them safe from Brawl, Sisu, and Madame Medusa. Sapphire players have access to a lot of Ward characters, which can’t be chosen by any of Ruby/Sapphire’s abilities. This deck has so many characters and items, that players are starting to cut the number of Be Prepared they play to fit more in. Without Be Prepared, the deck can’t effectively deal with Ward.

If the meta narrows around Ruby/Sapphire, d💦ecks will need to use specific countermeasures to combat it. Steel gained access to I Find ‘Em, I Flatten ‘Em, a board wipe for items🐼 that is useless in a lot of matchups, but can devastate Ruby/Sapphire decks if used at the right time.

Characters with a 4/7 stat line are safe f💖rom both Madame Medusa and Maui, so cards like Chien-Po, Imperial Soldier’ Tik-Tok, Ever-Present Pursuer, and Ursula, Sea Witch Queen may seem slow, but they have a better chance of surviving than more high-impact characters like Beast, Tragic Hero and Robin Hood, Champion of Sherwood Forest. Even the Fཧang Crossbow could be a viable tool for removing the high-value dragons in this deck, Sisu and Maleficent, Monstrous Dragon.

It’s an uncertain meta right now, but the sooner you start thinking about how to counter Ruby/Sapphire, the better. Pawpsicle Control is a deck that should have died a hero last season, because now it's lived long enough to become the villain of the Ursula’s Return meta.