One of the first articles I ever wrote for GTN was about Lorcana. For those of you who’ve been sleeping under a rock, Lorcana is the upcoming Disney trading card game. Designed and printed by Ravensburger, makers of the Villainous boardgames, Lorcana promises to shake up the TCG scene. Lorcana got its first big info drop back at the D23 Expo in mid-2022. Since then, both Disney and Ravensburger have been tight-lipped about the game. Information has come in only the smallest of drips from the official Lorcana Twitter account.
On January 17, Ravensburger finally dropped the biggest Lorcana news yet. Disney’s Lorcana officially releases on September 1, 2023! Here’s what we know:
Lorcana releases in only three languages
At launch, Lorcana will be available in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Cards will be printed in English, French and German. There’s no information on why, but this means no Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian or Japanese at launch. These five major language groups are heavily targeted by MTG and other games are being left of the first wave. Thanks to the Lorcana social media team we know that they are already working on expanding localization to other regions, but no word on when that will be.
Prerelease is August 18, only at your Local Game Store
Lorcana releases in Local Game Stores first. Players can get their hands on product in their LGS on August 18. Expect a lot of competition for preorders, event signups and more, so be ready! Watch your local game stores’ social media and be prepared, or risk losing out like most of us did with the D23 exclusive promos. This is great news for local game stores, as they’re facing big changes in distribution with other card games and a revolution in the RPG industry. I for one am hyped to see what sorts of release formats Lorcana offers. More gameplay news drops in Spring of this year.
The Lorcana product line looks…familiar.
The first wave of products in the Lorcana line features three starter decks, booster packs, a gift set, and an “Illumineer’s Trove.” For long-time TCG players, this is a pretty familiar offering. The Trove can be compared to MTG bundles or Pokémon elite trainer bundles. Each trove comes with 8 booster packs, 2 deck boxes, and 15 tokens along with the storage box and gameplay guide. Booster packs contain 12 cards each. Distribution is 6 commons, 3 uncommons, 2 rare/super rare, and 1 foil. The card count puts it solidly between Pokémon and Magic, so hopefully this means less chaff at least in the beginning. Best of all? No indication of energy/basic lands, tokens, or advertisement cards. It feels bad to crack a pack and immediately toss three of your fifteen to the side.
The gift set looks to be like the Pokémon Vstar collections. The first features Hades – King of Olympus opposite Mulan – Imperial Soldier. These are hugely nostalgic choices for players in the Millennial age bracket, which is absolutely no coincidence. We Millennials buy a LOT of cards, and we eat up adult Disney merch. It’s a marketing no-brainer. Each gift set comes with an oversized foil card of each featured character, playable versions of the same, a whopping 34 game tokens and four booster packs.
Getting started is easy!
Starter decks feature other popular characters on their box art: Moana/Sorcerer Mickey, Cruella deVille/Aladdin, and Sleeping Beauty/Simba. Each deck represents a two-color combination: Amber/Amethyst, Emerald/Ruby, and Sapphire/Steel respectively. It’s too early to speculate about the archetypes for each deck. Ravensburger has been clear that we won’t see gameplay information until the Spring. Regardless, I am psyched that they are featuring different types of Disney characters and not just setting up Princesses versus Villains.
Each starter deck comes with a booster pack, like the old Magic: the Gathering planeswalker decks. The deck itself is 60 cards, and includes foil treatments of the face characters. You also get 11 tokens and a rules guide to help get the game going. There is no mention of an included QR code for digital content. That said, at the moment we don’t even know if there will be a digital version of the game at launch. Lorcana’s social media team has deflected every attempt to get more information about a possible online card game.
Accessorize your play
Rounding out the starting product lineup are official sleeves, playmats, deck boxes and binders. It isn’t known at this time if Ravensburger will be making these themselves or if they’ll farm it out to a company like UltraPro or DragonShield. The sleeves feature Elsa, Captain Hook, and Mickey Mouse, as do the deck boxes. Art of Maui, Maleficent, and Mickey graces the playmats, and the binders feature Stitch and The Queen. Right off the top, I know I’ll be getting the Maui playmat for Andrew from the MTG Rundown and the Stitch binder for myself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the marketing team knows exactly what they’re doing and they’re targeting these products perfectly to guarantee a MASSIVE launch.
So there you have it! Lorcana launch is shaping up to be the biggest TCG event of the year. Gameplay announcements come in Spring – the same time WotC’s March of the Machine MTG set drops. Release for Lorcana itself is August/September, which is right around when the much-anticipated Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings products arrive. Ravensburger and Disney are pulling no punches and coming out swinging in the retail slugfest and I am here for it. Collectors and scalpers are sure to be drooling over the array of new products announced today. Beat the scalpers and support your LGS!
I’m super excited for Lorcana, so keep checking back with GTN for news, speculation and announcements. Want to share in the love? Hit me up on Twitter or drop a comment below!
