Tabletop Game / Disney Lorcana

The standard card back for the game

Disney Lorcana is a Collectible Card Game released in August of 2023, developed by Ravensburger in collaboration with Disney. Much like their previous tabletop collaboration Villainous, it features Disney characters hailing from all manner of works and variations of them as well ^note  though solely from Disney's animated franchises; live-action media and acquired universes such as Marvel and Star Wars are not included.

Across the vast Inklands, in the centre of the realm of Lorcana, sits the Great Illuminary. Maintained by the Curator, this stronghold is a repository of every story ever told, keeping them safe from ever being forgotten. The Curator gathered Illumineers, a group of imaginative apprentices, to aid him. By collecting the light of story stars and combining them with the realm's magic ink they were able to create "Glimmers" of characters, items, and events from the stories. More traditional glimmers were dubbed Storyborn, while variations influenced by the imagination of the Illumineers are Dreamborn.

After a time, the Curator, original Illumineers, and many of their glimmers vanished for unknown reasons. The Great Illuminary called out to our world and summoned various creative people to be new Illumineers, and they began discovering their own glimmers to summon. But one of them found a hidden room and unwittingly unlocked a sinister book, unleashing a flood of ink across the Inklands. This ink washed precious lore and relics out of the Illuminary, as well as shifting assorted glimmers into Floodborn—characters made stronger but even further removed from their original stories. As such, the new generation of Illumineers venture out to retrieve them and face whatever dangers await them...

Like that other famous card game, Lorcana involves resource management to summon characters, items, events, songs, and locations—in this case, they cost "ink". A player accrues ink by placing cards from their hand face down in their inkwell, and and can play other cards based on how much they have in their inkwell. Decks are composed of 60 or more cards in your choice of two colours (Amber, Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Steel). Games are between two players, and the winner is the first to reach twenty pints ("Lore"). Lore can be gained by exerting your characters and sending them on a quest, but your opponent can challenge your exerted characters with their own characters, and both players can use items and actions to change the course of the game.

Disney Lorcana releases new cards in expansion sets called "Chapters", each telling a new tale in it's world and adding more Disney works to the game. Chapters released and announced so far are:

• The First Chapter: Released August 18, 2023.
• Chapter 2: Rise of the Floodborn: Released November 17, 2023.
• Chapter 3: Into the Inklands: Released February 23, 2024.
• Chapter 4: Ursula's Return: Releases May 31, 2024.
• The fifth and sixth sets have been confirmed to release on August 23, 2024 and November 15, 2024, respectively.

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Lorcana contains examples of:

• Alliance of Alternates: Between the canonical Storyborn, the variations on them as Dreamborn, and the radically different Floodborn (who are actually easier to play if you have another version of the on the field), it's possible for a deck to contain many different versions of the same character.
• Alternate Self: Characters have numerous variations that can be divided into three classifications: Storyborn, Dreamborn, and Floodborn. Storyborn are the traditional versions of the character. Dreamborn are versions a little different from usual, created by the imaginations of the Illumineers who deal with them. Floodborn are characters who were doused in magical ink and shifted into radically different versions of themselves, such as a Cinderella who's a stoic warrior. All of these versions can coexist in the play area, and Floodborn specifically have the Shift mechanic that makes it easier to play them if you're already playing other versions of the character.
• Action Initiative: Characters with the Rush keyword can challenge the first turn they're played, even though their ink isn't finished drying. Many Amethyst and Ruby cards have this, reflecting the theme of being brave but foolhardy.
• Arc Villain: While Ursula appeared in the first and second chapters, she takes centre stage in "Chapter 4: Ursula's Return".
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Floodborn "Tinker Bell - Giant Fairy" shows her as a giant and giving Captain Hook's ship a Death Glare, and lifting it out of the water in the enchanted art version.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: Several characters known for their singing voices have the "Singer" keyword, letting them "sing" Song cards more powerful than they otherwise would be able to.
• Berserk Button: "What Did You Call Me?" references Professor Ratigan's, depicting him flying into a rage as the flavor text quotes Basil repeating his statement.
  Basil: No one can have a higher opinion of you than I have, and I think you’re a slimy, contemptible sewer rat!
• Card Cycling: A player may Alter their starting hand by placing any number of cards on the bottom of their deck, then drawing that many cards.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Cards are split into six different colors of ink, representing both the character philosophies and mechanical thoroughness. At first glance it seems similar to Magic: The Gathering, though mechanically it differs in two ways: a player doesn't need specific colors of ink to play their cards, but is also limited to only have two colors in their deck.
  • Amber is the color of community, providing healing, buffs, and general support.
  • Amethyst is for magic and wonder, their cards usually spellcasters or magically animated, and specializes in locking down your opponents and drawing you cards.
  • Emerald is the color of flexibility and quick-thinking, with cards that can disrupt your opponent and keep you ready for anything.
  • Ruby characters are brave, but also foolhardy, able to rush into battle and challenge your opponents characters with much stronger characters of its own.
  • Sapphire is the color of intelligence and creativity, so its cards help you push towards accumulating ink and lore faster than your opponent.
  • Steel represents strength and intimidation, using tough characters to protect you while you set up powerful combo turns.
• Crowd Song: "Sing Together" Song cards represent these, as they allow multiple characters to join in on "singing" to activate the cards' effects.
• Distressed Dude: In Ursula's Return, Prince Hans kidnaps Kristoff for an as-yet-unknown purpose, though given the text and a portrait of Anna inside the card reading "Noble Scoundrel", it's likely that Hans is using Kristoff to get revenge on Anna by bringing her to Ursula.
• Draw Extra Cards: Many cards allow a player to do this. Most of them are Amethyst, but other colors do it with their own spin—the Amber ink "Rapunzel - Gifted Artist" lets you draw whenever you remove damage counters from one of your characters.
• Expansion Pack: Called Chapters, so far each has contained 204 unique cards. Each release also has two ready-to-play starter decks that highlight new cards from the set as well as reprinting some previous ones.
• Enemy Mine: It's not uncommon for players to use both heroes and villains to both quest and challenge their opponent's heroes and villains. Likewise...
• Evil Versus Evil: It's also not uncommon for players to use villains to challenge other players' villains.
• Faction Calculus: Amber is balanced, Amethyst and Emerald are different flavors of subversive (Amethyst more proactive and Emerald more reactive), Ruby are cannons, Sapphire is the Horde, and Steel is the powerhouse. In general it's suggested to pair a direct damage color (Steel, Ruby, Emerald) with support/control (Amber, Amethyst, Sapphire). Of course with enough skill and luck a pure aggro deck could keep their opponent on the ropes before they reach enough Lore, and a pure control deck could protect their side of the board while they rack up Lore faster than their opponent.
• First-Player Advantage Mitigation: Like many card games, the player going first doesn't draw for turn on their first turn.
• Geo Effects: Location cards depicting places from various stories were introduced in Into the Inklands. Some passively gain Lore for their controller at the beginning of their turn, while others can grant boosts to characters that move to the location. They also have their own willpower stat, so they can be challenged and defeated by opposing characters.
• Great Detective: Basil from The Great Mouse Detective continues to be this both in the story and on his cards (all with the Detective classification).
• Harmless Freezing: Both "Elsa - Snow Queen" and "Elsa - Spirit of Winter" can exert an opponent's characters and keeps them from readying at the start of the next turn, but after that they thaw out like normal.
• Heal Thyself: Several cards allow players to remove damage from their characters or locations, with Amber and Sapphire in particular specializing in this.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: The action card "I'm Stuck" appropriately features Winnie the Pooh stuck in the entrance to Rabbit's House. It prevents an exerted character from readying at the start of their next turn.
• Hidden Depths: When the Great Flood was released, The Duke of Weselton teamed up with "Mickey Mouse - Detective", and successfully helped him uncover that seaweed was involved—eventually leading to the revelation that Ursula was involved.
• Highly Specific Counterplay: "Moana - Chosen by the Ocean" from The First Chapter can instantly banish a Te Kā card with its ability. There are all of two Te Ka cards in the game, and as more sets are released you're less and less likely to encounter one. You also can't use its ability to banish your own Te Kā if that would give you an advantage.
• Light Is Not Good: At first glance, Amber ink seems the most altruistic of the bunch, but the focus on community and healing can also be taken advantage of by villains with effects like reanimating banished characters or gaining strengths among other villains. "Chernabog - Evildoer" is an Amber card and has the second-highest Strength and Willpower, the highest Ink cost, can get a cost discount by having enough characters in your discard pile, and shuffles all discarded cards into your deck when he's played.
• Mana: Ink, which is represented by a player putting an Inkable card (denoted by the swirl around their ink cost in the corner) onto the play area face down in their "inkwell". Ink is then exerted to play other cards.
• Magic Music: Some Action cards have the classification Song. They're based off of names and lyrics from popular Disney songs, are a little stronger than standard Action cards, and their gimmick is that the player can take the action by spending Ink or they can have one of their character Glimmers "sing" instead (with the limit that a character can't sing a song that's stronger than they themselves are). Ursula's Return introduced "Sing Together" Songs, which allow the characters with a total combined ink cost sing the song and thus make them easier to play.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Obviously the game reached this thanks to including the myriad films in the Disney Animated Canon, but it's also expanded to include characters from both Ducktales 2017 and the original Talespin.
• Mythology Gag: The player can have 99 copies of Dalmatian Puppy - Tail Wagger in their deck, a nod to the 99 puppies from 101 Dalmatians.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The plot kicks off when one of the Illumineers accidentally opens a locked book in the Illuminary and causing a massive ink flood.
• Oh, No... Not Again!:
  • Quite literally on Donald Duck - Not Again!
  • The flavor text on the "I'm Stuck!" card reads "Oh, bother—not again."
• Portmantitle: The name "Lorcana" comes from "lore arcana", or story magic.
• Prestigious Player Title: You are an Illumineer, a creative and imaginative person brought to the Inklands to protect stories and characters in the Illuminary. The game's story features several fictional Illumineers as well, using "Inkcasters" to summon characters, items, events, songs, and locations from Disney stories.
• Vanilla Unit: There are some cards without any abilities, but they make up for it with some combination of a low ink cost, high stats, or large Lore value.
• Villain Team-Up: In Chapter 4, Ursula recruits Prince Hans and has him kidnap Kristoff for unknown reasons, and muses on recruiting other villains like Captain Hook.
• Waxing Lyrical: The Song cards are based on song titles or lyrics from the films. The creators have also noted that, in their playtests, playing a Song card also tends to get the players singing the appropriate line as well.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Several game terms are clearly equivalent to things from other trading card games, mostly Magic: The Gathering, but have to be changed to avoid being accused of infringing on other company's games. Characters (not creatures) don't have Power and Toughness, they have Strength and Willpower, which they use when challenging (not attacking) another character, and the loser is banished rather than destroyed (which also keeps the game feeling low-violence). Cards aren't tapped, they're exerted (evidently different enough from the actual Magic keyword "exert", which does involve tapping a creature). Other keywords are clearly the game's own spin on the other game's terms.

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