Two cards, no ink, four cards drawn, and a location that starts printing 4 lore a turn. That is the Touch Paradise engine, and unlike most combos people get excited about, this one is verifiable straight off the card text. Here is exactly how it works, the line that opens the game, and the one thing about it we are not going to oversell.
- Sing, move, then draw. Order of operations is the whole trick: the location is worth 1 lore empty and 4 with a character on it, and the draw counts after the move.
- The whole engine costs zero ink, because the song is sung for free.
- The opening line is turn one Tod into turn two Vixey, and the reason is not the one most people give.
- Nothing in the deck costs more than 4, which is why it can be aggressive and grindy at the same time.
- The tournament numbers do not back this up yet, and we will explain why that is not the dunk it looks like.
Credit where it belongs: we came to this deck through The Illumiteers' deep dive on the archetype, and the list below is the one they showcased. The verification, the math and the extra lines are ours.
The combo, and why the order matters
Touch the Sky (Steel, 2, Song): a character with cost 2 or more can exert to sing it for free. Move a character of yours to a location for free. Then draw cards equal to that location's lore.
Paradise Falls - Exotic Destination (Emerald, 4, Location, 1 lore, 7 willpower). QUITE A SIGHT: while you have a character here, this location gets +3 lore.
Paradise Falls sits at 1 lore while it is empty. Touch the Sky moves a character onto it first, which makes it a 4 lore location, and only then does the song count lore to draw. Sing for free, move, draw four. You spent no ink, and you now own a location generating 4 lore a turn on top of the cards.
The song does not draw four because the location is good. It draws four because you moved onto it before it counted.
And it repeats, at a price. Max Goof - Rebellious Teen returns a song costing 3 or less from your discard when he enters, but read the whole line: you may pay 1 ink to do it. It is a cheap rebuy, not a free one. The list runs 3 copies so the 4 songs can be cast more than four times a game.
How it actually opens
Turn one Tod, turn two Vixey. Vixey normally costs 3, but SHOWIN' UP drops that by 1 if you have a character named Tod in play, so she lands on turn two.
The obvious payoff is that she is a 1/3 Evasive body questing for 2, so your clock starts immediately and most decks cannot challenge her. The payoff people miss is better: she is a 3-cost character on the board on turn two. From turn three onward she can exert to sing Strength of a Raging Fire for free. You are casting 3-cost removal without spending ink while still developing your board.
Tod is quietly doing two jobs there. He discounts Vixey, and he is a Shift target for Tod & Copper - Best of Friends, which brings a 4-cost Evasive threat down for 2.
The interaction people get wrong
Look What You've Done (Steel, 2) deals 2 damage to chosen character, and says that during your turn, when you discard it, you may play it from your discard. Then in parentheses: you pay all costs.
So it is not free removal, and it is not a hand-size effect. Lorcana has no maximum hand size, so nothing is ever discarded automatically. It needs a deliberate discard outlet, and this deck runs two: Angel - Experiment 624's GOOD AIM, and Strike a Good Match.
The real line: activate GOOD AIM and choose Look What You've Done as the card you discard. Angel deals 2. Look What You've Done sees itself discarded during your turn, so you may pay its 2 ink to replay it from the discard for 2 more. Four damage, split across two targets if you want, for 2 ink and a card you were spending anyway.
The number that should keep you honest
Here is the part most coverage skips. Nobody has enough post-rotation results to say where it sits, so treat it as untested rather than as proven.
That number is close to meaningless, and we would rather explain why than quietly drop it. Paradise Falls is an Attack of the Vine! card. Our snapshot is almost entirely events from before this shell was legal to play. A deck cannot post results in data gathered before it existed. What the number actually says is that Emerald/Steel has historically been a weak pair, not that this build is bad.
Treat it as a starting line, not a verdict. The engine is real and checkable from card text alone. The results are not in. If Touch Paradise is the real thing, it will show up as share and win rate climbing together over the next few weeks on our card library, and we will report it either way.
The card we would test next
Our own addition, flagged clearly as untested. Emerald and Steel share exactly one dual-ink card in Core, and this deck does not play it: Rapunzel & Flynn Rider - Unlikely Pair (5, 4/4, 2 lore, Shift 3).
CLEVER SWAP: whenever this character quests, you may draw a card, then choose and discard a card. That is a repeating discard outlet stapled to a quest, which is exactly what Look What You've Done wants and what this list currently only gets from Angel and two copies of Strike a Good Match.
The honest counterargument is the curve. It is a 5-drop in a deck where nothing else costs more than 4, and that discipline is a real strength. Shift 3 softens it, but neither Rapunzel nor Flynn Rider is in the list, so you would be adding a package, not a card. We think it is worth testing. We have not tested it, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Order of operations is the whole trick. The location is worth 1 lore empty and 4 with a character on it, and the draw counts after the move.
What to watch for
- Can it survive to turn four? Paradise Falls costs 4 and needs a character standing on it. Against a fast start you may be drawing four cards on a turn the game is already decided.
- Location removal. The engine is one permanent with 7 willpower. Decks that answer locations get a clean blowout and your four songs get much worse.
- Does the draw convert? Cards that do not become lore or removal are just a bigger hand.
- Ursula - Deceiver is quietly huge in the mirror. She makes an opponent reveal their hand and discard a song of your choice, which can strip a Touch the Sky before it ever resolves.
If you want to build it, open the deck builder, choose Emerald and Steel, and work from the list. If you are still learning why a curve like this matters, the free course covers it.
