Top 10 Coconut Cards Core and Infinity Passed On

Analysis date Sep 12, 2026 Last updated Sep 14, 2026

Playing against three opponents increases the value of some cards, compared with what they are worth in a single-opponent format. A card whose payoff is counted per opponent pays up to three times for the same ink. A trigger that watches the table now watches three boards. In the census post I went through the whole pool and found 179 cards that scale this way and never saw much use in Core or Infinity Constructed, in any meta. These are the ten I think gain the most at a table of four. The order is my call and the gaps between neighbors are small.

10. Grimorum Arcanorum

Amethyst item, 3 ink, inkable, from Whispers in the Well. DOCTRINA ADDUCERE: “During your turn, whenever an opposing character becomes exerted, gain 1 lore.”

Last on the list because it does nothing on its own: it requires you to exert ready opposing characters during your turn, which takes another card, and singleton decks are bad at assembling pairs. What keeps it on the list is that the enabler is a whole Amethyst package, not one card:

One ready character per opponent, up to 3 lore at a full table: Swooping Strike at 1 ink, Anna — Eager Acolyte, Chernabog — Creature of the Night, and Gwythaint — Savage Hunter, which repeats on every quest. Ursula’s Plan also makes each opponent exert a character, but they can pick one that is already exerted, and then the book gains nothing.
Every opposing character at once: Anna — Mystical Majesty, Demona — Scourge of the Wyvern Clan, and Restoring the Crown, an Amethyst and Steel dual that also gains 2 lore whenever one of my characters banishes another in a challenge that turn.
Smaller exerts in the same ink: Elsa — Spirit of Winter takes up to 2 on arrival, Elsa — Snow Queen can exert one each turn, Peter Pan — Shadow Catcher exerts one whenever a card goes into my inkwell during my turn, and one-shots like Petrify, Freeze and Isis Vanderchill — Ice Queen of St. Canard round it out.

Demona is one line of several: she reached 48.7% in the Whispers in the Well meta of Core, CELERITAS on the book names her, and an Amethyst Coconut deck wants her with or without the book. The floor is still a dead draw when no enabler is out, and being inkable is the consolation. The ceiling is the whole table exerted with the book down, 1 lore per character. The book’s maximum usage rate in decks is 0.8%, in the Whispers in the Well meta of Core.

9. Pack Tactics

Emerald action, 4 ink, inkable, from Rise of the Floodborn. “Gain 1 lore for each damaged character opponents have in play.”

Pack Tactics counts damaged characters across three boards at once, and my opponents damage each other’s characters without my help: challenges between them happen on turns I never touch. In my games, five damaged characters by the midgame is an ordinary table, and that is 5 lore for 4 ink. The next card on the list reads the same count. Its maximum usage rate in decks is 0.4%, in the Whispers in the Well meta of Infinity.

8. Robin Hood — Sneaky Sleuth

Emerald character, 5 ink, inkable, 3 strength, 5 willpower, 1 lore, Shift 3, from Shimmering Skies. CLEVER PLAN: “This character gets +1 lore for each opposing damaged character in play.”

He counts the same damaged characters as Pack Tactics, and he counts them again on every quest. At the five-damaged-character table from the previous entry, each quest is worth 6 lore. He is also the card the Robin Hood coconut names, so that deck runs up to four copies, and the coconut deals 1 damage to a chosen opposing character or location whenever I play a character named Robin Hood. Its maximum usage rate in decks is 0.1%, in the Archazia’s Island meta of Core and the Wilds Unknown meta of Infinity.

7. Ursula’s Trickery

Emerald action, 1 ink, uninkable, from Ursula’s Return. “Each opponent may choose and discard a card. For each opponent who doesn’t, you draw a card.”

Each opponent decides alone: give up a card or let me draw one. In 1v1 that is a single decision, and the opponent takes whichever side hurts less. At four players it is three separate decisions, a ceiling of draw 3 for 1 ink, a floor of three discards, and every mix in between gives me something. No meta of either format records it at all.

6. Flotilla — Coconut Armada

Ruby location, 2 ink, uninkable, 6 willpower, from Azurite Sea. TINY THIEVES: “At the start of your turn, if you have a character here, all opponents lose 1 lore and you gain lore equal to the lore lost this way.”

Yes, the format’s codename is Coconut and this is a Coconut Armada. It still had to pass the same cut as everything else. In 1v1 this is drain 1, gain 1. At a full table it is drain up to 3, gain up to 3, at the start of each of my turns with a character there, from a 2-ink location that takes 6 willpower to remove. Against each opponent, that moves the lore gap by up to 4 per trigger. The real cost is keeping a character alive at the location through three opposing turns until the trigger comes back around. Its maximum usage rate in decks is 0.1%, in the Archazia’s Island meta of Core.

5. Sign the Scroll

Amber action, 3 ink, uninkable, from Ursula’s Return. “Each opponent may choose and discard a card. For each opponent who doesn’t, you gain 2 lore.”

The same three-way choice Ursula’s Trickery offered at number 7, paid in lore at three times the ink. The ceiling is 6 lore for 3 ink and the floor is three cards stripped from three hands. Like Ursula’s Trickery, it never shows up in any meta’s numbers.

4. Ink Amplifier

Sapphire item, 3 ink, inkable, from Whispers in the Well. ENERGY CAPTURE: “Whenever an opponent draws a card during their turn, if it’s the second card they’ve drawn this turn, you may put the top card of your deck into your inkwell facedown and exerted.”

In 1v1 there is one opposing turn per round, and the trigger needs that one opponent to draw past their turn draw. At a Coconut table there are three opposing turns per round, and singleton decks lean on draw effects to find their pieces. Each trigger is a free card into my inkwell, up to 3 extra ink per round from a 3-ink item. Its maximum usage rate in decks is 0.3%, in the Winterspell meta of Infinity; the Core meta it was printed into, 6,269 decks, shows it at 0.0%.

3. Scrooge McDuck — Ebenezer Scrooge

Ruby character, 4 ink, uninkable, 4 strength, 3 willpower, 1 lore, from Winterspell. PAYMENT DUE: “Whenever this character quests, each opponent loses 1 lore. Draw a card for each 1 lore lost this way.”

Scrooge McDuck — Ghostly Ebenezer sits at 13.8% in the Attack of the Vine meta of Core, and Scrooge McDuck — Resourceful Miser held 6.7% in two Core metas and above 17% in three Infinity metas. This version’s maximum usage rate in decks is 0.5%, in the Winterspell meta of Core. Read PAYMENT DUE at a full table: every quest is quest for 1, drain up to 3, draw up to 3. An opponent at 0 lore loses nothing and gives no card, and that same opponent turns on FORECLOSURE, which adds 1 more lore at the end of my turn if any opponent sits at 0. The drain makes that likelier in the early game.

2. Colors of the Wind

Amethyst song, 4 ink, inkable, from Winterspell. “Each player reveals the top card of their deck. Draw a card for each different ink type of cards revealed this way.”

Two reveals in 1v1 keep the draw small, and its launch meta, Winterspell, ran it at 0.8%. At four players it reveals four cards, dual-ink cards count both of their inks, and six ink types exist, so the ceiling is draw 6 for 4 ink. Its maximum usage rate in decks is 2.6%, in the current Core meta, Attack of the Vine.

1. Source of the Vine

Amethyst item, 4 ink, uninkable, from Attack of the Vine. SIPHON: “Whenever an opposing character quests, you gain 1 lore unless their player pays 1 ink.”

Its usage rate in decks is 1.0%, in the Attack of the Vine meta of Core. At a Coconut table SIPHON triggers on every quest from three boards, and every opposing quest either costs its player 1 ink or gives me 1 lore. When the table starts holding ink to play around it, RADIANT BLOOM sets the floor: exert the item, pay 2 ink, gain 1 lore.

Methodology

“Never saw much use” here means under a 5% play rate in every meta of both formats on inkdecks, all-time, The First Chapter through Attack of the Vine. One meta over that line disqualified a card, and 43 of the 222 scaling cards fell that way. The full method is in the census post. Card texts are as printed on September 12, 2026.

That is the ten. Which card should have made the cut?

Changelog

September 14, 2026:

Robin Hood — Sneaky Sleuth replaces Vision Slab at number 8. Vision Slab gets easier to turn on at a bigger table, but its payoff stays at 1 lore.
Ursula’s Plan no longer counts toward Grimorum Arcanorum’s 3 lore, because each opponent can choose a character that is already exerted.
New title, previously “Top 10 Coconut Cards That Core and Infinity Never Played”.
Text edits across the post: card conditions spelled out for Flotilla — Coconut Armada, Scrooge McDuck — Ebenezer Scrooge and Restoring the Crown, usage lines now name set and format, and the methodology moved to the end.