Disney Lorcana Beginner’s Guide

Collectible Card Games (or CCGs for short) have been big business since Magic the Gathering stormed into the scene in 1993. While Magic's popularity remains high, other CCGs have appeared and their player bases and collectibility remain high. Part of the demand comes from taking elements of training cards and adding deck-building and gaming elements. The latest CCG making a storm is Disney Lorcana by Ravensburger. Want to know what Lorcana is all about? What products are available and what the best decks are? Then you're in the right place, our Disney Lorcana Beginner’s Guide will reveal all.

What Is Disney Lorcana?

Disney Lorcana is a CCG that features characters from Walt Disney Pictures' film history. 2 players each build a deck, and then play against each other, drawing and playing cards until one player wins by reaching 20 lore.

How Do You Play Disney Lorcana?

The rules for Disney Lorcana are quick to read and start playing. Printed copies come in starter packs, or they can be downloaded from Ravensburger here. There is also an app, that along with listing al the cards in the game, also has a handy lore tracker for use in game, and some step-by-step guides for learning to play, or if videos are your preferred way of learning, you can also watch those on the Ravenburger website here.

Players begin by selecting one of the several pre-made decks, or by building their own. Decks are made up of 60 or more cards, with no more than 4 copies of any one card. All of Lorcana's cards also come from 1 of the 6 types of inks, Amber, Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire and Steel. Decks can only include cards from a maximum of 2 inks.

After drawing your starting hand of 7 cards from your deck, players start to take turns following a set turn format. The player taking the first turn doesn't draw a card, to balance out the advantage of going first, but every turn after, players will start their turn by drawing a card from their deck.

During each turn, players can play one of their cards facedown into an area known as the inkwell. This means that the front of the card's details have no further effect on the game, and it is only used to generate ink. This is done by exerting the card, which means turning it on its side to show it has been used and can't be used again until it is readied at the start of your next turn. When exerted in this way, the card provides 1 ink which can be used to cast cards from your hand. A card's cost is the large number on the top left-hand corner of the card.

There are 3 types of cards in Lorcana.

• Characters, who can go on quests to earn you lore, which is how you win the game, but they can also be used to battle other characters to try and slow your opponent's lore gaining down
• Items, which can give you special actions and abilities
• Actions, that are the only cards that don't stay in play, and they activate one-time effects and are then discarded

Play alternates back and forth between players, each taking their full turn before passing to the next until one player has 20 lore, or a player needs to draw a card a card from their deck, but can't because their deck is empty.

Disney Lorcana Launch Product Breakdown

Disney Lorcana The First Chapter is the current set of Disney Lorcana and has several products available and we detail them all below:

Disney Lorcana Starter Set

Disney Lorcana has 3 starter decks available and each comes with a fixed 60-card deck, that's the same in every starter and also includes a randomized 12-card booster pack, a rule leaflet, and tokens.

The 3 starter decks that are available are:

• Amber and Amethyst / Micky Mouse and Moana
• Sapphire and Steel / Simba and Aurora
• Emerald and Ruby / Cruella De Vil and Aladdin

Disney Lorcana Booster Pack

Disney Lorcana booster packs come with 3 different images on the packaging but they all contain the same randomized content inside.

Each booster pack contains:

• 6 common cards
• 3 uncommon cards
• 2 rare, super rare, or legendary cards
• 1 foil card (random rarity level)

Disney Lorcana Gift Set

The Disney Lorcana gift set is a special pack containing 2 fixed foil cards and some randomized booster packs.

The Gift Set contains:

• 2 oversized foil cards for Hades and Mulan
• 2 playable foil cards Hades and Mulan
• 34 game tokens
• 4 booster packs of 12 additional game cards each

Disney Lorcana Illumineer's Trove

The Disney Lorcana Illumineer's Trove is a special box containing several randomized booster packs and a large storage box to transport your cards in.

The full contents of the Illumineer's Trove are:

• 1 storage box
• 2 deck boxes
• 8 booster packs
• 15 game tokens
• 1 player's guide

Disney Lorcana Accessories

There are several themed gaming accessories available for Disney Lorcana. These feature characters from the set sets, but aren't required to play, but are just there to protect your cards and enhance the experience. 

The official accessories available are:

• Card Sleeves - for card protection during shuffling featuring 1 of 3 characters - Captain Hook, Elsa, and Mickey Mouse
• Deck Boxes - to protect your cards during transport featuring 1 of 3 characters  matching thee Card Sleeves - Captain Hook, Elsa, and Mickey Mouse
• Playmats - for protection during play featuring 1 of 3 characters - Maleficent, Maui, and Mickey Mouse
• Portfolios - for card storage featuring 1 of 2 characters - Stitch and The Queen

Understanding Disney Lorcana Card Rarity

Disney Lorcana The First Chapter has 204 cards across the set, and each of those cards also has a foil variant. There are also 12 Enchanted cards, which are the same as the cards they share their name with from the set, but feature exclusive artwork. This means for collectors, there are 420 cards in the set, but for the purposes of playing, there are 204 unique cards.

The card rarity in Disney Lorcana indicates how likely those cards appear in booster packs. The Disney Lorcana rarities are:

• Common
• Uncommon
• Rare
• Super Rare
• Legendary
• Enchanted

The rarities themselves are easy to spot and work out on cards and include an increasing number of sides on their icon. For example, Common is a 1-sided circle, Uncommon is a 2-sided book, Rare is a 3-sided triangle, Super Rare is a 4-sided square and Legendary is a 5-sided polygon.

As mentioned above, some of the products available feature set cards, and these still have card rarities, which shows how likely they are to appear in the randomized packs outside of the fixed packs.

Ravensburger has made it clear that no unique cards will be available outside of the core set. Promo cards will be available at events and for taking part in Disney Lorcana Organised Play, but they will only have unique artwork and no unique text or abilities.

What are Enchanted and D23 Cards?

Enchanted cards are special foil art cards that contain unique artwork. The cards themselves are the same as those found in the rest of the set, but their art and rarity make them highly collectible. 

D23 is short for Disney 2023 Expo, where players were able to pick up a set of exclusive Disney Lorcana cards. These cards feature the same artwork and text as those found in the First Chapter set, but they contain an exclusive D23 logo at the bottom, making them extremely collectible and they are currently selling for thousands online.

Disney Lorcana Deck Types

If you're new to CCGs, you will hear several deck types being spoken about when it comes to creating your own decks, and what is doing well in the current Meta, which is how the current dominant deck types are referred to.

Ramp

Ramp decks try to outpace their opponents by putting extra cards in their inkwell. Mickey Mouse Detective is a great example of this, allowing you to put the top card of your deck into your inkwell when played. This allows you to play more expensive cards before your opponent.

Card Draw

Some decks focus on drawing cards fast, playing cheap cards, and refilling their hands with A Whole New World, which also forces your opponent to discard their hand and draw new cards. By having a deck filled with cheap cards, it means that when you draw a new hand, you will be able to play a lot of the cards before hopefully using another copy of A Whole New World.

Lore Aggro

Aggro decks in most CCGs focus on damaging your opponent as quickly as possible. Lorcana Lore Aggro decks focus on gaining lore as efficiently and cheaply as possible. Lilo Making a Wish is a 1-cost card that allows you to gain 2 lore when questing, is a great example of this, and Lore Aggro decks are full of similar cards, plus those allowing you to protect them.

Battle Princess

This deck build focuses on Moana, who when she quests, can ready your other princesses. This allows you to use them twice in one turn, once to quest, and then when readied by Moana, they can then all challenge your opponents' cards.

Control

Control decks are a staple in CCGs. Where Aggro decks try and outpace their opponents, Control decks aim to remove your opponents' ability to do things, while building up their own board presence. This is done through cards like Dragon Fire, which can banish a character. Control decks need to spend less to remove than your opponent uses to cast in order to be effective, and there's not a lot of removal in Lorcana yet, so Control decks are possible, but not currently prevalent. 

Mill

Mill decks focus on one thing, making your opponent run out of cards before you do. They do this by using cards like A Whole New World, which cycle through yours and your opponent's deck, which means Mill decks generally contain more cards than your opponent's deck in order to avoid milling yourself first. Mill decks aren't considered very friendly, so it's best to avoid these when playing in friendly games.

The Disney Lorcana products used to produce this guide were provided by Asmodee UK and purchased by the Author.