The cheapest competitive Lorcana deck you can build right now — The Incredibles' Parr family, upgraded from a starter deck for less than most people spend on boosters. Rotation-proof through 2027.
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If you built our Amber/Emerald Toys deck, you already own this deck. The Wilds Unknown 2-Player Starter Set ships with two preconstructed lists: the Toy Story Amber/Emerald build on one side, and this — an Amethyst/Ruby Supers deck built around The Incredibles' Parr family — on the other. Most buyers focus on the Toys deck and leave the Supers list in the box. That's a mistake, because with roughly twelve dollars in upgrade singles, this deck becomes a legitimate Core Constructed contender that plays nothing like its Amber/Emerald counterpart.
Where the Toys deck floods the board with cheap bodies and triggers synergy chains, Supers plays a more calculated game. Evasive characters quest for lore without getting challenged. Edna Mode pumps every Super's lore output when she quests. Hero Work turns your challenges into multi-opponent lore drains. And Jack-Jack — the most unpredictable card in the starter — can gain +2 Strength, +2 Lore, or just banish an opposing character at the start of every turn. It's a midrange tempo deck with an Incredibles coat of paint, and it punishes opponents who can't answer threats they're not allowed to challenge.
Like the Toys list, every card in this deck comes from Sets 9 through 12, making it completely immune to the July 2026 rotation. Unlike the Toys list, the upgrade path is absurdly cheap — the most expensive single in the build costs less than a cup of coffee. What follows is the full upgrade guide: which cards to max out, which filler to cut, and how to turn a beginner-friendly starter into a deck that wins games at your local game store. Every card is verified. Prices change — double-check before you buy.
→ Short Version
Start with the Amethyst/Ruby deck from the Wilds Unknown starter. Cut every non-Super character — Daisy Duck, Mickey Mouse, Rabbit, Goofy, Winnie the Pooh, Elinor, all of them. Max out the Parr family and their support cast to four copies each: Edna Mode, Violet Parr, Frozone — Super Slick, Mirage, and Jack-Jack are the priority targets. Fill your action slots with Hero Work and Inner Strength — they trigger constantly and cost almost nothing. Total upgrade cost runs about twelve to fifteen dollars in singles if you already own the starter, or around forty dollars all-in if you're buying from scratch. That makes this the cheapest competitive deck in Core Constructed.
→ Expand Your Arsenal
In This Guide
Why Amethyst/Ruby Supers?
This deck earns its spot on the budget shortlist for three reasons — and cost is only one of them.
It plays a different game than the rest of the budget field. Most budget Lorcana decks are aggro lists that want to flood the board and race. Supers is a tempo-midrange deck built around Evasive characters that quest without getting challenged and combat tricks that turn your challenges into multi-opponent lore swings. When your opponent's answer to aggro is bigger characters, your Evasive lineup flies right over them. When their answer to Evasive is removal, you reload with Mirage and Super Relocation Program. It's a deck that punishes reactive players and rewards the pilot who reads the board correctly.
It's the cheapest competitive upgrade in Lorcana. If you bought the Wilds Unknown starter for the Amber/Emerald Toys deck, you already own the full Amethyst/Ruby starter at zero additional cost. The upgrade path from there is roughly twelve dollars in singles — the pieces you need run the whole rarity ladder, from common Frozone — Super Slick up to Legendary Mr. Incredible — Super Strong, but none of them is a chase card, so the total stays tiny. Even if you're buying the starter fresh, the all-in cost lands around thirty-five to forty dollars, making this the cheapest route to a real Core Constructed deck in the current format.
It's completely rotation-proof. Every card in the build comes from Sets 9 through 12. The July 2026 rotation that removes Sets 5 through 8 doesn't touch a single card in this list. You're buying into a deck with a competitive lifespan measured in years, and the Incredibles IP gives it evergreen appeal — new Super characters from future sets slot straight into the existing engine.
What the Starter Gives You
The Amethyst/Ruby deck in the Wilds Unknown starter is sixty cards built around the Super classification. You get the core Parr family — Mr. Incredible, Mrs. Incredible, Violet, Dash, Jack-Jack — plus support Supers like Frozone, Edna Mode, Mirage, and the Negaduck Shift package. It plays out of the box and teaches the Super synergy game plan through its preconstructed matchup against the Toys deck.
The dilution problem is the same as the Toys side: Ravensburger padded the deck with off-tribe characters that don't interact with the Super engine. Daisy Duck, Mickey Mouse, Rabbit, Goofy, Winnie the Pooh, and Elinor are all decent cards in isolation, but they don't get Edna's lore buff, they don't trigger Hero Work's drain, and they don't benefit from the Super-specific synergies that make this deck competitive. Every off-tribe slot is a wasted turn where your engine isn't firing.
The good news: unlike the Toys deck (where Woody — Jungle Guide is a pricey required upgrade), the Supers deck doesn't need any expensive singles to function at the budget tier. The upgrade is almost entirely about maxing out cards you already own one or two copies of — going from inconsistent to reliable by turning singles and doubles into full playsets. The most expensive card in the entire build costs less than a booster pack.
The Lore Engine
Lorcana is won by reaching 20 lore first. These three cards accelerate your lore generation beyond what your opponent can match — one pumps every Super's quest output, one turns challenges into multi-opponent lore swings, and one does something different every single turn.
Edna Mode — Fashion Designer
3 Ink · Amethyst · Storyborn Ally Super · 2 Strength / 2 Willpower / 2 Lore. The engine card that defines this deck's identity.
Why it wins: Whenever Edna quests, every Super character you control gets +1 Lore for the rest of the turn. In a deck where nearly every character is a Super, that's a board-wide lore pump every single quest. If you have three other Supers questing on the same turn Edna does, that's three extra lore — an entire extra turn's worth of progress, generated for free. She also has a bounce ability that returns cheap items to their owner's hand and draws a card, giving her utility beyond the lore pump. Four copies, always — she's the card the entire deck is built around.
Hero Work
2 Ink · Ruby · Action. One of the most efficient combat tricks in the format at common rarity.
Why it wins: Hero Work gives all your characters +1 Strength for the turn and gives your Hero characters an additional ability: whenever they challenge another character this turn, each opponent loses 1 lore and you gain 1 lore. In a multiplayer game, one challenge with a Hero active under Hero Work drains every opponent simultaneously while pushing you forward. Stack multiple Hero challenges in a single turn and the lore swing is devastating. At 2 ink, you can cast it and still have ink left to deploy characters or play Inner Strength. Four copies — it's the card that turns your combat phase into a lore engine.
Jack-Jack Parr — Incredible Potential
4 Ink · Ruby · Storyborn Hero Super · 4 Strength / 4 Willpower / 1 Lore. The wild card — literally.
Why it wins: At the start of each of your turns, you may put the top card of your deck into your discard pile. What happens next depends on what you milled: if it's a character, Jack-Jack gets +2 Strength for the turn, becoming a 6/4 that challenges almost anything and wins. If it's an action or item, he gets +2 Lore, turning him into a 4/4/3 that quests for as much as your 5-drops. If it's a location, he banishes a chosen character — unconditional removal, every turn, for free. You don't control the outcome, but every outcome is strong. In a deck with very few locations, you'll hit characters or actions most of the time, making Jack-Jack a reliable source of either aggression or lore pressure.
The Evasive Lineup
Evasive characters can only be challenged by other Evasive characters. In a meta full of ground-based aggro decks, that means your Evasive Supers quest for lore turn after turn without opposition — and when Edna is active, each one quests for extra. This is how the deck steals games against bigger, more expensive lists.
Frozone — Super Slick
2 Ink · Amethyst · Storyborn Hero Super · 2 Strength / 2 Willpower · Evasive. Cheap, widely available, does exactly what it says.
Why it wins: A 2-ink Evasive Super is the perfect early play in this deck. He comes down turn two and starts questing immediately, safe from challenges unless your opponent has their own Evasive characters to throw at him. With Edna on the field, Frozone quests for 2 lore per turn — at 2 ink. He's also a Super, meaning Hero Work's drain effect applies when he challenges, and he counts toward every Super-synergy trigger in the deck. Four copies is mandatory — he's the backbone of your early pressure and the card that makes Edna's ability worth building around.
Violet Parr — Learning New Powers
3 Ink · Amethyst · Storyborn Hero Super · 4 Strength / 2 Willpower · Evasive. The Evasive threat that hits back.
Why it wins: Violet combines Evasive with 4 Strength, making her both unchallengeable by most characters and strong enough to challenge opposing threats on your terms. She also has Deflect — when you play her, you can move 1 damage from one of your characters to a chosen opposing character. That's a heal and a ping on the same trigger, protecting a wounded Edna or Frozone while softening up an opponent's blocker. At 3 ink she's your follow-up play after Frozone, and Edna's lore pump makes her quest output even more dangerous. Four copies.
Mrs. Incredible — Super Stretchy
5 Ink · Amethyst · Storyborn Hero Super · 5 Strength / 6 Willpower. The deck's top-end anchor.
Why it wins: Mrs. Incredible is a modal character who can choose to gain Evasive at the start of each turn, making her a 5/6 body that can't be challenged by non-Evasive characters. A 6 Willpower character with Evasive is extremely difficult to remove through combat — she tanks damage that would banish smaller characters and keeps questing through it. She's the card you deploy when the board is contested and you need a threat that survives. Three copies is the sweet spot: she's powerful enough to win games on her own, but at 5 ink you don't want her clogging your early hand.
The Closer Package
These are the cards that end games. When your Evasive characters have pushed you to 14 or 15 lore and your opponent is scrambling to stabilize, these threats close the gap before they can recover.
Mr. Incredible — Super Strong
5 Ink · Ruby · Storyborn Super Hero · 6 Strength / 4 Willpower / 1 Lore · Shift 3. The deck's heavy hitter — still remarkably cheap at singles prices.
Why it wins: Shift onto Mr. Incredible — Bob Parr on turn three for just 3 ink, and you've got a character that gains +2 Strength for every other character you control. With two other characters in play, he's swinging for 10 Strength. With four, he's at 14. He also draws you a card whenever one of your Super characters challenges, turning your combat phase into card advantage. The combination of scaling Strength and challenge-based card draw makes him the deck's best late-game threat — he gets stronger as the board fills up, and he refuels your hand while doing it. Two copies is the recommended count; he's an upgrade buy, not a starter card, but the price is trivial.
Negaduck — Public Enemy Number One
5 Ink · Ruby · Floodborn Villain Super · 6 Strength / 5 Willpower · Shift 3. The Shift payoff that punishes your opponent for having lore.
Why it wins: When Negaduck challenges, your opponent loses 1 lore. That's not just forward progress for you — it's backward progress for them. Combined with Hero Work's challenge-triggered drain, a single Negaduck challenge under Hero Work swings the lore race by 3 points: your opponent loses 1 from Negaduck plus 1 from Hero Work, and you gain 1. Shift him onto Negaduck — Evil Doppelganger on turn three for 3 ink and start draining immediately. He's also a 6/5, which means he survives most challenges and keeps draining turn after turn. Two to three copies — he's your primary Shift target alongside Mr. Incredible.
Frozone — Super Cool
6 Ink · Amethyst · Storyborn Hero Super · 6 Strength / 4 Willpower · Rush. The finisher you play once and win with.
Why it wins: Rush means Frozone can challenge the turn he's played — no waiting, no setup. At 6 Strength he removes most threats in a single hit. His ability exerts an opposing character when he enters, clearing the way for your other characters to quest freely the turn you deploy him. He's not a card you build around; he's a card you hold until the moment you need to clear a key blocker and push for the final lore. One copy in the budget list — he's 6 ink, so you don't want multiples in your opening hand, and one is enough to close out games that go long.
The Upgraded Deck List
Start with the Amethyst/Ruby deck from the Wilds Unknown starter. Cut every non-Super character — Daisy Duck, Mickey Mouse, Rabbit, Goofy, Winnie the Pooh, Elinor, and LeFou. Drop the Sleepy Hollow location (no Super synergy). That frees roughly eighteen to twenty slots. Fill them by maxing out your best Supers and adding the upgrade singles below.
- 1-Ink (6–8): Mr. Incredible — Bob Parr ×4, Inner Strength ×2–4
- 2-Ink (12): Frozone — Super Slick ×4, Negaduck — Evil Doppelganger ×4, Hero Work ×4
- 3-Ink (8): Edna Mode — Fashion Designer ×4, Violet Parr — Learning New Powers ×4
- 4-Ink (10–12): Jack-Jack Parr — Incredible Potential ×4, Mirage — Super Recruiter ×4, Super Relocation Program ×2
- 5-Ink (7–9): Mrs. Incredible — Super Stretchy ×3, Negaduck — Public Enemy Number One ×2–3, Mr. Incredible — Super Strong ×2
- 6-Ink (1): Frozone — Super Cool ×1
- Flex Slots (2–4): Will o' the Wisp — Forest Spirit, Mushu's Rocket, Dash Parr, or additional copies of Inner Strength
- Total: 60 cards
The curve peaks at 2 and 4 ink, which is deliberate. You want turn-two Frozone or Negaduck — Evil Doppelganger into turn-three Edna or Violet, then turn-four Jack-Jack or Mirage. That sequence gives you an Evasive threat questing safely, Edna pumping its lore output, and a draw or modal threat backing them up. The 5-ink cards are Shift targets — you'll often play them for 3 ink via Shift rather than paying full cost.
Super density matters for the same reason Toy density mattered in the Amber/Emerald build: Edna's lore pump only affects Supers, Hero Work's drain only triggers on Heroes (which all your Supers are), and Mirage only draws when you have a Super or Hero in play. Every non-Super character in the deck is a slot where your engine isn't firing. The budget list above runs roughly forty-four to forty-eight Super characters out of sixty cards — that's the density that makes Edna's quest trigger consistently devastating.
Deckbuilding Mistakes to Avoid
Keeping the off-tribe filler because the stats look decent.
Goofy — Marley's Clumsy Spirit is a 5/5 for 5 ink. Looks fine in a vacuum. But he doesn't get Edna's lore buff when he quests, he doesn't trigger Hero Work's drain when he challenges, and Mirage ignores him when checking for Supers. A 2/2 Frozone — Super Slick with Evasive and the Super tag outperforms a 5-ink body whose only printed ability — Prepare Yourself, which readies a chosen character who then can't quest for the rest of the turn — does nothing for this deck's Super engine, every time. Cut every non-Super character. All of them.
Loading up on 5- and 6-ink cards because the Shift targets are exciting.
Mr. Incredible — Super Strong and Negaduck — Public Enemy Number One are game-ending threats when Shifted on turn three. But Shift requires having the base character in play first — and if your hand is all 5-ink Shift payoffs with no Bob Parr or Evil Doppelganger to Shift onto, you're doing nothing for four turns. The deck needs at least eight 1-ink cards and twelve 2-ink cards to function. Keep the curve bottom-heavy and trust that your 3-ink Edna and 4-ink Jack-Jack do the heavy lifting while the Shift targets arrive naturally.
Ignoring Hero Work because it looks like a combat trick.
Hero Work isn't a combat trick — it's a lore engine disguised as one. The +1 Strength is nice, but the real value is the Hero drain: every Hero that challenges under Hero Work makes each opponent lose 1 lore while you gain 1. In a game against two opponents, that's a 3-point lore swing per challenge. If three of your Heroes challenge in a Hero Work turn, you've moved the lore race by 9 points in a single combat phase. It's the card that turns your "fine" board into a race-ending one. Four copies, and cast it every turn you have characters ready to challenge.
Where to Buy the Pieces
If you already own the Wilds Unknown starter from building the Amber/Emerald Toys deck, you have the entire Amethyst/Ruby starter for free — just buy the upgrade singles. If you're starting from scratch, the starter set is the cheapest entry point and gives you two full decks. TCGplayer is the best source for the individual upgrade cards; most of them are commons and uncommons that sell for pennies. Mr. Incredible — Super Strong is the only card that costs more than a few cents, and even he's less than the price of a single booster pack.
Budget Supers FAQ
- I already built the Toys deck from the same starter. Do I need to buy anything else for the base list? No — the Wilds Unknown starter ships with both decks. If you have the starter, you have the full sixty-card Amethyst/Ruby preconstructed list ready to upgrade. The only cost is the singles you need to max out your key Supers, which runs about twelve to fifteen dollars total.
- How does this deck compare to the Amber/Emerald Toys list? Different strategies, similar power levels. Toys is faster and more aggressive — it floods the board and wins through raw synergy volume. Supers is more calculated — it uses Evasive characters to quest safely, Edna to pump lore output, and Hero Work to turn challenges into lore swings. If you like proactive aggro, play Toys. If you like tempo and board control, play Supers. Owning the starter gives you both.
- Will this deck survive the July 2026 rotation? Yes. Every card is from Sets 9 through 12. The rotation removes Sets 5 through 8, leaving Sets 9 through 13 legal. Nothing in this list rotates. New Super characters from Set 13 and beyond will slot directly into the existing engine, making the deck stronger over time rather than weaker.
- Is Mr. Incredible — Super Strong required? Not at the bare-minimum budget tier — you can run the deck without him and still compete. But he's the best upgrade buy in the entire list: for less than the cost of a booster pack, you get a Shift-3 character that scales Strength with your board and draws cards on every Super challenge. Two copies is enough. He's a quality-of-life upgrade, not a structural requirement, but the price is so low that there's no reason to skip him.
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What's the upgrade path beyond fifty dollars? The mid-tier upgrade adds a third Frozone — Super Cool, maxes Mrs. Incredible — Super Stretchy to four copies, and brings in Like a Bird in the Sky — a 2-ink Song that gives a character +1 Lore and Evasive for the turn. Beyond that, premium upgrades look for the best Super-synergy support from Sets 9 through 11. But the honest assessment: this deck's power floor is already high at budget, and the marginal gains from mid-tier upgrades are small. Your money is better spent building a second deck for variety.
No Capes. No Excuses. No Budget Problems.
Amethyst/Ruby Supers is the rare budget deck where "budget" isn't a caveat — it's the selling point. The upgrade costs less than a booster box, the deck runs exclusively on rotation-proof cards, and the Super engine generates enough lore pressure to compete with lists that cost three times as much. Edna pumps your lore, Frozone and Violet quest through Evasive, Jack-Jack does something terrifying every turn, and Hero Work turns your challenges into game-ending lore swings. It's a complete competitive package for the price of a pizza.
If you already own the Wilds Unknown starter from building the Toys deck, you're leaving money on the table by not upgrading this side too. Twelve dollars in singles turns a boxed precon into a deck that wins games at organized play. And if you're new to Lorcana entirely, the starter gives you both decks — two competitive archetypes, two completely different play styles, both rotation-proof, both under fifty dollars. That's not just a good deal. That's the best entry point into the game, period.
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