Introducing the Disney Lorcana TCG card game

Even in his youth, Walt Disney tried his hand at being an editor, drawing comics, and making a name for himself in the entertainment industry. He struggled for a long time, and his early attempts failed before they really got off the ground. But in his early twenties, he and his brother founded Disney Brothers' Studio, which we know today as The Walt Disney Company. It is now one of the biggest brands on the planet, with a quarterly revenue of around 20 billion dollars.

Disney is a giant that everyone knows today. It operates several theme parks around the world, owns television stations, streaming services, and distributors. Its portfolio includes brands like National Geographic, Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm from Star Wars. Not bad for a company that started as a group of young people who just wanted to animate animals…

The stories and characters of the Disney studio have influenced the childhoods of kids all over the world. I belong to the generation raised on DuckTales, Adventures of the Gummi Bears, and a bunch of suspicious rodents led by Chip 'n Dale. I grew out of it quickly, but I doubt you know anyone who doesn't know at least Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. Those of us who have kids know Frozen or Toy Story by heart. But what would happen if Goofy and Nemo faced off? Would Olaf or Tinker Bell win a fistfight?

Welcome to Lorcana

You are an Illumineer, a hero wielding a magical pen that allows you to summon well-known and lesser-known characters from the Disney world, save the story, and defeat your opponents. Lorcana is a classic card dueler in the style of Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, or KeyForge. The creators have a bit more freedom here; they don't have to figure out how to package a fundamentally confrontational game so that the players and characters aren't at each other's throats, trying to kill each other, while keeping everything looking sunny and peaceful. We seasoned players won't be fooled by that, and we look forward to Cinderella finally having it out with the Evil Stepmother and Bambi mowing down hordes of dwarves led by Snow White!

Lorcana is a Trading Card Game (TCG). To start, you can pick up one of the many ready-to-play decks, which you just need to unbox, shuffle, and play. But every deck gets old sooner or later. That's when booster packs come into play (a Lorcana booster has 12 cards), which help you get new cards. If you're not careful, you'll soon have a room full of cards, and people might laugh at you for being a collector. It's happened to so many people already! They ended up poor, but happy…

How to start

So, you have some cards. Now you need to prepare a deck (unless you use a pre-constructed one). A standard deck in Lorcana contains 60 cards. Each card can be in the deck a maximum of 4 times. All cards in the game have six different colors (Inks). However, a deck can contain cards of at most two colors. Each ink color also determines the playstyle. The red (ruby) color is aggressive, focused on a straightforward playstyle, while amber specializes in guarding and healing, and so on. This gives the game a huge number of combinations.

Lorcana currently has four types of cards. Characters are key. Thanks to them, you gain victory points (lore), use their unique abilities, or destroy opponent's characters. The second class of cards are items, which you give to characters so they gain new abilities or better attack and defense. Cinderella herself might not be that scary, but when she gets a proper frying pan in her hand, it's a whole different story! Another type of card is actions. These are one-time effects, spells, or instants that happen and then leave the table. What would a fairy tale be without a proper song? That's why the fourth type of card is songs. They basically have the same effect as actions, but when you play them on a corresponding character, they sometimes have a stronger effect, and most importantly, a lower cost.

Each card has a cost you must pay. However, there is no mana or resource cards in the game. Every turn, you have the option to play any card from your hand, turn it face down, and consider it a resource (ink). So, when you want to play a card, you exert (a term similar to tapping in Magic, but due to licensing rights, other authors have to come up with strange terms; in Lorcana, it's the word exert) the corresponding number of face-down cards and play your card. It's not the first time this mechanic has been used, but it forces you to plan and think about which card doesn't fit your strategy. Once a card is turned, it won't affect the game anymore, and it would be a shame to waste something you might need later. Some cards cannot be used as ink, but you'll recognize them by the corresponding symbol on the card.

How is Lorcana played?

You have a deck of cards, you have a rough idea of what's what, so let's play! First, each player draws 7 cards. If any don't suit them, they can swap them. The game is then divided into two phases.

Beginning phase - all previously played cards are readied (untapped), and effects that directly refer to this phase are checked. At the end of this phase, each player draws a card. This does not apply to the first turn of the first player, who does not draw, which slightly compensates for the first-player advantage.

Then comes the main phase. During this, you do everything else – play cards as resources (ink), play other cards after paying the ink cost, use their abilities, or gain victory points. Most characters have a number of victory points on them that you gain when you quest (exert/turn them). Whoever reaches 20 lore first wins. The trick is that you can only attack (challenge) characters that are currently gaining victory points (questing) or using abilities (i.e., they are exerted), thereby preventing them from gaining more points.

And that's more or less it. You can find the details in the rules. Lorcana is not difficult to understand, but it offers so many possibilities and tactics that mastering it will require some practice and getting to know the cards. At the moment, it doesn't seem cluttered and offers a relatively brisk experience. But that may change with future expansions.

The game is primarily designed for two players, but you can enjoy it with up to six (theoretically, the game has no maximum number of players; it just depends on how many equally obsessed friends you have). Multiplayer has no special rules; players take turns as in a regular board game and decide for themselves who they attack.

What are our first impressions?

Lorcana is a very good-looking game. It retains the iconic Disney visual while surprisingly maintaining a unified style. The game system doesn't bring anything that players of Magic and other card games wouldn't already know. For now, it keeps things grounded, without an excessive number of keywords and abilities. Therefore, you can expect games to be fast-paced. Nevertheless, it offers enough room for fun and deck tuning. The secondary market for cards (selling single cards, etc.) has already started up nicely, with some rare cards hitting prices in the hundreds of dollars. Lorcana has plenty of collector potential. Hardcore players will likely turn up their noses and stick to Magic, or perhaps Pokémon, where, despite all the childishness, it's mainly about animals beating each other up.

If I had to compare Lorcana to another game, it would be KeyForge, which was developed by Richard Garfield, one of the authors of Magic. The resource management is significantly different, but the rest is like a mirror image of KeyForge. That, of course, is not a bad thing.

However, I'm really wondering who Lorcana is targeting. Despite the nice combo-based game system, it's still about princesses and annoying mice "fighting" each other. I'll admit without torture that I'm not the target audience. It's also quite possible that I'm too old to play with Donald Duck at night. For some, the fact that the game is only in English may be an obstacle.

But if any company has the capital and know-how to push Lorcana, it's definitely Disney (and Ravensburger, who is collaborating on the development). History is full of card games that quickly faded into the dust of history. Let's wait and see. Lorcana is well on its way to success.

author Karel Krajča