Disney Lorcana Organised Play - A Comprehensive Guide

The last few weeks have been an adrenaline-filled roller-coaster of exciting events for Disney Lorcana and for all the fans of this very exciting Trading Card Game. These included the very first Set Championship in April, the launch of the latest set, Ursula's Return with its first Cooperative game product and, of course, the first European Lorcana Challenge in Lille. The best part is that most of these events are not just isolated appointments, but the start of a very dense and well structured Disney Lorcana Organized Play circuit. Considering how much it is going on with this game, perhaps it is a great time to summarize a bit which options are available if you would like to get involved in the game and meet other fellow Disney-Enthusiasts.

Tutorial: What is Disney Lorcana?

Lorcana is the name of a fantastic realm filled with imagination and magical energy. At the centre of this realm, lies The Great Illuminary, a large structure able to harness the power of story stars and to preserve the lore associated to these stories. In the past, the Great Illuminary was home of the Illumineers, people gifted with a powerful imagination that were able to use magical Ink to summon Characters and items from the Disney stories in the form of glimmers. Even if the original ones have long been forgotten, a new generation of Illumineers has been summoned once again by the power of the Great Illuminary to protect the Realm from a great danger. As you can imagine, as a player you are one of these new Illumineers and your role is to have save the Realm while also having fun playing the game.

One of the aspect I love the most about Disney Lorcana is actually the feeling that you are doing more than just playing a game and that there is a large story behind the cards. At first you may think this is because all Characters remind you of some beloved Disney movies, thus they are filled with nostalgia. However, there is much more to it that meets the eyes as Ravensburger has done an amazing work in creating a complex background story for this game. Most important, a number of hints and clues about how the story will developed have been hidden in the art of cards or their flavour text so that players have been actively thinking about “what will come next?”. In essence, Lorcana is a game about collecting Lore, so what can be best than having a story that unfolds progressively, one Lore, one game and one set at a time?

Entry Level: Playing and Collecting Lorcana cards

For all those who are not playing Lorcana yet, the good news is that the game is still very balanced and easy to be picked-up. In addition, there is no need to catch-up on older sets in order to enjoy the game and this is a major advantage considering the costs involved in Trading Card Games.

The best place to start if you are interested in the game are the Starter Decks. These deck are all quite balanced and easy to use, therefore they are very suitable for learning the basis of the game. In addition they provide you everything you need in order to play, including a booster with 12 additional cards that can be the start of your collection. As there are new Starter Decks released with each set, it should not be difficult to find one of your liking but I personally recommend to try to always pick one from the latest set as they will have the most current version of the rules.

Once you have your Deck (or even before if you want), you should try to get in contact with any local playing groups. The Lorcana community is always very welcoming and it is generally easier to pick-up the game by playing with someone a bit more experienced. Most of the groups also have a lot of spare cards that can be a good help for any new players.

Once you have moved your first steps into the game, you will probably be faced with the hardest decision a player can face in a TGC: what deck should you make? As you will learn very soon, there are 6 different colour Ink in Disney Lorcana and each of them has a peculiar play style. Making a deck means deciding which Ink colours/Play styles you want to mix and which cards will create you strategy. Every deck can be interesting and fun to play and some of them will be more consistent than others however in order to play with them you will need all the cards.

There are various ways to decide which deck works best for you and all of them can be suitable to meet your aim. As a start, you can use the Companion App that Ravensburger created for the game to look through all the cards available in the game to create your custom deck. The next step would be to actually test the deck to see if it suits you but in order to do so you will need source all the cards. Local players may be happy to spare or lend some cards but otherwise the best strategy can be to just look to purchase all the Single cards you need. Magic Madhouse can help on this process as there are a very good amount of both rare and staple cards available to buy.

Alternatively, you can also try to just widen your collection by purchasing Booster Packs in order to collect as many cards as possible from each set. When taking this approach, my personal recommendation is always to save up for a Booster Box as they provide you the best value for your money at least once you start collecting a new set. Looking at Magic Madhouse today, for example, you can obtain a Booster Box of the latest set, Ursula's Return, for just over £100 that is less than the cost of purchasing 24 single Booster Pack. Most important, by opening a box you are more likely to have at least one copy of each Common and Uncommon card, a good portion of the Rare and Super Rare and between 4 and 6 Legendaries, which are usually the most powerful and expensive cards. With a bit of luck you may pull cards that can fit into your strategies otherwise you can always decide to trade them with other players for the cards you need.

Collecting new cards and creating your Decks is a great part of the hobby but of course you will need someone to play with. If your family is not interested in the hobby, you can surely look to join any of the many local playing group for casual games and events. Once you do, you will likely find that there are many ways to enjoy the game by engaging in the “Lorcana Organized Play”. With respect to other TGCs, it is interesting to note that this organized play include both casual and competitive events to suit different type of players and level of commitment. Most important, these events are always rewarding not only because the players are always very nice and playing the game can be very fun, but also because Ravensburger is providing prizes and memorabilia to support these events. Ready to do your first step?

First Level: Lorcana League

Since the release of The First Chapter at the end of August 2023, Ravensburger has been focused on supporting local playing groups and ensuring the game would be accessible to player of any age and level of experience. As a result, all venues have been encouraged to organize and maintain casual gaming events under the “Disney Lorcana League” format.

Each League includes three Seasons of four weeks and runs roughly from the week after a New Disney Lorcana Set releases to the one before the release of the subsequent Set. Each venue has the freedom to schedule playing events for the League as they see fit and player can attend each of them without obligation. The main rule is that players earn 2 or 1 points for every game they play depending if they win or not but they can not earn more than 10 points per week. There are also points to be earned for just showing up, wearing a Disney item or costume, teaching someone to play etc but the weekly cap is still 10 points.

Ravensburger support to the Leagues comes in the form of a kit of promo cards, pins, and other prizes that each local organizer can award to the players at the end of each season basing on their scores.

The overall format is quite efficient as every player has a chance to achieve the maximum score and win some nice prizes just by playing and enjoying the game. The format is also quite nice to bring together new and experienced players and to promote the use of fun-to-play decks. The relaxed environment is also perfect for young players and families and it helps creating a nice community for the game.

Second Level: Set Championships

Once players start to build up enough experience they may start to be also interested in testing their skill in a more competitive environment. Stores and Boardgame cafe' often organize small tournaments of different formats including Draft, Sealed and Constructed. In the first two, each player builds their deck on the day using the cards pulled from a number of Booster Packs (usually six). In a Sealed format, each player can use the cards from the packs directly while in the Draft, they need to open one pack at the time, chose 1 or 2 cards to keep and then pass the rest around to repeat the process till everyone had the equivalent of 6 booster packs.

The last format, the constructed, is likely the most diffused one and requires the players to build and play with their own deck. Building a Deck, plan your winning strategy and try to overcome the opponent one is a very engaging and rewarding experience. All these events usually are based on Swiss-system with prices that vary depending on the Store organizing them and the number of players involved.

A very peculiar type of Constructed event is the Set-Championship that kicked-off with the set “Into the Inklands”. These tournaments are still based on the Constructed format and they are usually scheduled in the last month before a new set is released. The peculiarity of these events is that prices are provided by Ravensburger and include 4 Alternate art Promo Enchanted and a playmat for the champion and the runner-up. The first promo Enchanted released for this format, “Stitch, RockStar” was an amazing card and the next one “Ursula, Sea Witch Queen” is looking to be another super-sought after card for collectors.

Third Level: Regional Challenges

Once you start enjoying the competitive aspects of playing Lorcana, you may start looking to bigger challenges in order to test your skills even further. If your aim is to become “the very best” (no puns intended), you may want to consider the Regional Challenges of Disney Lorcana.

The regional Challenges are very large and tense events with more than 2000 players competing against each other over 2 days for some unique prize cards. Challenges were kicked off in May 2024 for the first time in Lille (France) and there will be a total of 4 events in Europe and 6 in North America. UK players are very lucky as we will have our own Challenge in September in Birmingham.

If you are among those who will be able to attend any of these events, you should be mindful that the prize cards can also be obtained by cumulating tickets in the side events. In a similar way of other TGC events, this can be a great way to secure some very rare cards and other unique goodies. Of course, if you manage to rank quite high in the main tournament you will also be able to earn a chance to qualify for the final event, the World Championship.

Boss Level: World Championship

At the time of writing, the information on Disney Lorcana World Championship are still a bit vague. We know that there will be a final event in North America and in Europe and the expectation is that the winners of the single challenges will be invited to attend. However, it seems that there will be another way to qualify for these Championships that has not been revealed yet.

Personally, I guess the event will be taking place in one of the Disney Parks but I am sure we will soon know more about the Championship.