Disney Lorcana Offers Lots of Card-Gaming Fun—If Players Can Get It

Gen Con broke its attendance record this year, with over 70,000 people showing up for the annual tabletop gaming convention. Ask any of these attendees what game stole the show and they’ll likely tell you it was Disney Lorcana, even if they didn’t themselves brave the long lines—14 hours or even more—to pick up the trading card game. It’s safe to say Lorcana, designed by Ryan Miller and Steve Warner and published by Ravensburger (also the publisher of Disney Villainous), has achieved considerable hype.

Is that hype rightly earned? After getting the chance to play at Gen Con, my view is it really depends on what kind of experience you’re looking for. If you’re a fan of Disney, or you’re trying to introduce someone who is to the card-gaming community, this game is worth looking into.

Disney/Ravensburger

In Lorcana, players take on the role of Illumineers, sorcerers capable of using magical ink to conjure Glimmers—facsimiles of beloved Disney characters, from Mickey Mouse to Queen Elsa to John Silver from Treasure Planet. It’s worth noting that because these Glimmers are merely living replicas of their original counterparts, it is possible and often encouraged to have more than one of the same character in play simultaneously. You send them on quests to uncover forgotten lore, and whoever scores 20 lore before their opponent(s) is the winner.

To send a Glimmer on a quest, you’ll exert them by turning the card sideways, a mechanic that will be familiar to anyone in the card-gaming space. They’ll then collect lore equal to the number of pips shown on the right-hand side of the card. I’ve heard comparisons made between the gameplay of Lorcana and that of Magic: The Gathering and Keyforge, both of which are designed by Richard Garfield. Personally, I see it borrowing more from the former than the latter, as the similarities Lorcana shares with Keyforge are also shared with Hecatomb, an earlier Ryan Miller design from the mid-2000s. You’re collecting lore instead of reaping souls, and you’re getting it from the ether rather than stealing it from your opponent(s), but it’s largely the same idea, with the twist that you can exert a character to directly challenge—fight and try to banish—an opposing character who is themself exerted. Regardless, because you’re counting up toward victory, Lorcana is better suited for multiplayer than games featuring player elimination.

Send characters on quests to collect lore. The Queen (Wicked and Vain) has only one lore pip on the right-hand side of her card, meaning she’s not the best choice when questing. Joshua Anderson

Until the rules of the game were revealed, most of the previewed cards suggested gameplay that would be one-to-one Magic, but it turns out they’re completely different games. In Magic, you’re often holding on to mana to spend in response to what your opponent is doing on their turn, whereas in Lorcana, most actions including playing cards happen on your own turn. While at first glance this seems to oversimplify things, in practice it offers new considerations. Banishing a character won’t erase the lore they’ve already collected, but it will keep them from collecting more. I had suspected that teasing cards suggestive of Magic-style gameplay was a deliberate marketing effort on the part of Ravensburger, and I had that assertion confirmed by one of the company’s team members during the private Lorcana party I attended at Gen Con. The bottom line is that if you already play Magic and are reluctant to play a game that is just Magic but with Disney characters, know that that’s not what this is.

More concerning than its resemblance to existing games is Lorcana‘s demand far exceeding supply. As I mentioned, lines for this game proved inordinately long. It sold out each day, and a lot of those sales are now being scalped on eBay and other sites. It will be difficult to pick this game up on the day of its release, which is August 18 for local game stores and September 1 for chain retailers. Ravensburger’s response to the massive demand will be critical. After all, who knew a collectible Disney game would be such a crowd-pleaser? But should the publisher be able to get this game into the hands of everyone who wants to play it (or even just collect it), I can see Disney Lorcana being a competitive IP for years to come.