While it's totally up to the Editors discretion I am pretty sure that this isn't my first review from ROJ you've seen. If it is, be aware. I'm not doing cards by list or ranking this time. I am just posting the Emerald cards that made me stop and think. Those of you who have read me before know that I am a casual-first player. I like new brews more than competitive win rates and this set is made for that. Which is perfect timing considering the large shift that is about to take place in rotation.

While not groundbreaking at all, Louis is an interesting take on removal in Lorcana. I can play the lovable gator then force you to Challenge him because he is exerted. Four power will remove a lot of cards while he might still survive to go for Lore. I would have liked him better at 5 power or 2 Lore.

What's important about Raya is the missing part. In most cards that ready a character the text includes "they can't quest for the rest of this turn." She doesn't, so let's pretend with a hypothetical. You control a Robin Hood - Sneaky Sleuth, Raya, and your opponent has 4 Damaged characters. On your turn you quest the Robin for 4, then quest Raya for 2, pay the two ink, ready Robin and again quest for 4. Two ink for half of a win is pretty good. She is situational and a bit expensive in ink but she is inkable so feel free to play her face down if the time is right.

At 3 Lore this screams "Challenge me!" The cost of a card would just make it a bigger Cursed Merfolk if it didn't have 4 Stamina. In today's mix of cards, it may take two challenges and two cards to remove this handsome devil. Notice good ol' Louis who I mentioned earlier. He gets rid of Flynn and doesn't lose a card for it.

It's nice to see some "burn" lore happen in Emerald. It is conditional and the 3 OTHER characters in play probably aren't hard to remove so it isn't very viable. It might be a good two-of in a decklist. It's also likely to go back to your deck if you see it in your opening 7. I could see a scenario where we play and replay Jock but his cost and power limit our choices.

With Evasive, a 2 / 5 is pretty tough to remove. Being able to quest for 2 and deny your opponent from their best lore source can shift a table to your side. Especially when teamed with a good removal suite.

I'm putting both of these together because I feel item removal is going to be the next needed item in every deck. Like Evasive answers are now. Fred has decent stats on his own and the owls free filter is a bonus. By the way, let's say you happen to use a Megabot to remove a Lucky Dime with Archimedes in play. You would get to draw/discard twice.

See above item talk. Plus replaces itself!

This one feels to me as a "breakable" card. The other Freds are playable and we're in Morphlings color. So, the Shift 5 seems playable while the 7 may be too much. The tough part will be building your other shift chains for your soon to be coming flood of Floodborn cards. Of course Diablo and Baymax don't really need chains and even if it is just an extra card for ink it's an advantage.

At 7 ink this is probably only for your kitchen table with friends. The problem is once he is online he is grabbing two lore and generating some serious card advantage so they might not feel very friendly anymore.

These are the Emeralds that gave me a pause from our newest set. Finally, just a reminder, all the cards that are cool to ink can be found at coolstuffinc.com.