Could Disney Lorcana Be the Next Big TCG?

To say Disney Lorcana has taken the TCG world by storm would be an understatement. No other game since Yu-Gi-Oh! debuted over 25 years ago has a game generated so much hype and provided a real challenge to the status quo of the genre.

By combining Disney characters with stunning art, high collectability, and an excellent and accessible game, Disney Lorcana hit the ground running for its first year. But does it have the staying power to be here in another year, or even 25 more? Here’s everything you need to know about Lorcana.

As mentioned, Lorcana is Disney’s and Ravensburger’s big attempt at its own trading card game. Bringing together the worlds and characters of over a century of Disney movies, Lorcana has you control a deck of characters, locations, items, and even songs to race your opponent to 20 lore.

In just its first three sets (The First Chapter, Rise of the Floodborn, and Into the Inklands), Lorcana’s managed to solidify its place in the TCG genre. The first two sets were so popular the game was plagued with stock shortages, and yet, despite that, the game has a thriving competitive scene and regular play in local game stores across the world. Where some other games struggle to find a footing in the busy TCG space, Lorcana managed to use its nostalgic theme and excellent gameplay to carve out its own space.

With the level of hype Lorcana has had, it’s hard to imagine a world where it falls to the wayside like so many other TCGs. The tricky first set and the even harder second set were both huge successes, both for Ravensburger and for fans of the game, meaning we’ll likely be seeing the game on our tables for a long time yet. In fact, we recently had confirmation that Lorcana will be releasing three other sets this year, following on from February’s Into the Inklands.

One great sign for the health of Lorcana is its collectability. While most cards in the game are cheap enough for anyone to buy a few singles and make their own brews, there are a handful of chase cards that still fetch a high price. Out of every card in Lorcana, there are two types everybody seemingly wants to get their hands on more than any other. First, as mentioned, are those exceedingly rare Enchanted cards. The art styles on them are simply stunning, and plenty of the best cards in the set get to enjoy the treatment.

The other are the D23 Promos. This is perhaps one of the best indicators for the game’s health, as these were a limited-time product only made available at the D23 expo in 2023, months before launch. They were the first time anyone ever saw Lorcana cards, let alone had the chance to actually own them, making them highly-sort after both at the show and long after it. These days, sets of them can fetch around £15,000 at auction. Nobody drops that much on cards for a dying game, after all.

Alongside the alt-art enchanted rares that make up the most lucrative of every set, we’ve got format-staples like Rapunzel and Beast that make cracking packs exciting, regardless of whether you play or not. In fact, Lorcana is a fantastic way for Disney fans to get something from their favourite, most underrated movies.

Maybe you really love Treasure Planet (in which case, you have impeccable taste)? In that case, why not pick up the two John Silver cards and all those Jims to show your love for the movie. With Frozen, Robin Hood, Atlantis, The Lion King, Beauty of the Beast, Hercules, Mulan, and so, so much more, this is a game for Disney adults as much as it is for TCG players.

Collectability alone can’t carry a TCG though, there needs to be a cracking game underneath it too. Fortunately, Lorcana delivers that in spaced with a game that’ll be very familiar to anyone whose played a trading card game before, but have enough new twists and tweaks to help Lorcana stick out.

For instance, the resource system in Lorcana does away with the lands of Magic or the energies of Pokémon. Instead, almost any card in your deck can be “inked” to give you resources to play other cards. This is a great move for the game, as it allows decks to be full of interesting and useful cards, instead of losing a third of your deck or more to resources.

Another big change comes in Lorcana’s interactivity. Unlike Magic and its instants, Lorcana only allows you to play cards when it is your turn. There’s no shortage of interaction in Lorcana, but doing away with instant-peed spells helps newer players learn exactly how to play, while also forcing some interesting situations where an opponent has a big card ready to be played, and you can’t do much about it.

Lorcana is, at its core, a simpler game than other TCGs, which is a good thing. It still has an immense amount of tactical depth and creativity when it comes to deckbuilding, but it’s also much easier for newcomers to get the hang of, with fewer abilities, combos, and interactions to memorise. Turns are much more freeform too, letting you play cards and challenge freely during your turn instead of worrying about memorising rigid phases and steps like Magic.

The collecting experience is also different. Compared to either Magic or Pokémon, Lorcana lets its base cards do the talking, with fewer alt-art treatments (just one, and only for select cards in each set) and only one type of foiling to be found. The few cards that get enchanted rares feel all the more special for it, and it’s very refreshing to not be overwhelmed by secret arares and a hundred different foil treatments in each pack. Lorcana has a simplistic beauty to it that other TCGs might struggle to match.

A big problem that faced Lorcana when it first launched in September 2023 was availability. With demand for the game so high, it was almost impossible to get your hands on product, and prices for it utterly skyrocketed. Though this problem did bleed over into Rise of the Floodborn a few months later, Ravensburger was quick to respond to it with reprints of both sets and increased production to help get it out there as much as possible.

Today’s Lorcana is like night and day compared to those early weeks. Now, you can easily find packs just about anywhere, and even the more sought-after Trove bundle boxes and Gift Sets are easily acquirable. It looks likely that Ravensburger has solved the game’s stock woes, and you’ll be able to get the game for a long time yet.

And Lorcana is going to be around for a long time, too. Ravensburger has already confirmed we’ll be getting three more sets this year after Into the Inklands, with one due in May, another in August, and the final one of the year in November. This will bring the game’s first year to a close, ending the current story arc and moving on to new, wild adventures as its ongoing story develops.

We don’t know what these will include, though – will Pixar make it into Lorcana within its first year? What other Disney Channel cartoons will pop up? Will Amber and Amethyst’s control deck ever face stiff competition? We’ll just have to wait and see what the year brings.

These aren’t the only new things coming this year, either. In August, alongside the fifth set, Lorcana is introducing Gateway. This is a brand new starter product designed to teach you how to play the game. The cool bit is how it does it – starting off with a streamlined, smaller deck, as you progress through tutorials and learn more of the game, you’ll unlock extra cards until you finally have two viable, playable decks ready to take to your card shop and play with.

We can expect this to include plenty of reprints too, helping get cards from those early The First Chapter and Rise of the Floodborn days out into circulation even more. If you’ve been wary of getting into Lorcana, or even TCGs in general, Gateway sounds perfect to break down the barriers and get you shuffling up.

In a genre full of CryptoZoos and Doctor Who: Battles In Times, where TCGs come and go on the regular, Lorcana has stuck its flag into the ground and proclaimed that it is here to stay. With its engaging but approachable gameplay, gorgeous art, reasonable collectability, and a promising roadmap for the rest of the year, it’s impossible not to be excited for what Ravensburger and the House of Mouse have cooking up.

Into the Inklands launches on Magic Madhouse on March 8, 2024. Make sure you’ve preordered with packs, Troves, Gift Sets, and the two excellent Starter decks, as this set is absolutely fantastic, and not one you’ll want to miss. While you’re at it, why not pick up some older singles from The First Chapter and Rise of the Floodborn, and get brewing for your own Disney mashup decks?