What is the best Disney Lorcana Starter deck?

It seems yesterday that Ravensburger released the very first set of Disney Lorcana, a new Trading Card Game featuring the amazing characters and art from the Disney's movies. In reality, three full sets of Disney Lorcana cards have been released so far (the last one just at the end of February) and we are already halfway through to celebrate the first anniversary of this awesome game.

I started playing Lorcana since the release of the very first set and I personally think that the game is really well designed and fun to play. In particular, I think the game provides enough challenges to keep more experienced players engaged while still being accessible for new players that want to jump into it. This last aspect is very important for me as I know by experience how scary it can be to pick up a Trading Card game that has been around for years like Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! On the contrary, it is quite easy to get into Disney Lorcana and when we meet new players at our friendly local Board Game cafe, I usually start from the basis.

What is Disney Lorcana TGC?

“Lorcana” is the name of a magical realm set in a distant dimension. At the centre of the realm stands the Great Illuminary, a place where complex mechanisms allow to capture fragments of Disney Stories and Characters that can then be summoned as Glimmers using Magical Ink. After a long sleep, the machines inside the Great Illuminary came to life again summoning players from our world to take the roles of Illumineers and use their imagination to bring Disney Characters to life once more. The lore of the game suggests that a great threat (“a Storm”) is looming at the horizon and every new chapter of the game adds more pieces to the story creating a nice narrative that makes this game more enjoyable. You can catch-up on the story at this link.

To play Disney Lorcana, each player needs a deck of at least 60 cards. Cards can represent Characters, Items, Actions, Songs and (from the latest set) Locations and they can belong to one of the 6 different colours of magical ink (Amber, Steel, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby and Amethyst). Each deck can only have cards from one or two Ink colours but there are no limitations on how many cards from each Ink you can use as far as there are no more than 4 copies of any card. Yes, for now there are no limited or banned cards

During the game, players take turns playing their cards or sending them to their Inkwell to be used as Ink, the resource needed to play any card. The aim is to build an effective strategy to be the first to reach 20 Lore and there are many ways to achieve this. The primary way to collect Lore is to send your characters on a quest. Alternatively, challenging or banishing an opponent character can generate Lore and there also a few items and actions/songs that can provide you some Lore. Of course, each card has different abilities and characteristics that can support your strategy or synergize with other cards even if they are not directly generating Lore.

As you may imagine from this brief overview of the game, the ability of a player to create good decks and use their cards to generate efficient “combos” and strategies is key to achieve the victory. Considering there are more than 600 Disney Lorcana cards to choose from, building your first deck can be quite challenging in particular if you have never played a trading card game. Starter Decks are therefore available to help new players to smoothly get into Disney Lorcana and learn the ropes. Unfortunately, considering there are now 7 different starter decks, new players may then have a different question: which Starter Deck would be best to choose?

What a Disney Lorcana Starter Deck looks like?

In Disney Lorcana, each starter deck is designed to provide any player with everything they need to start playing. Therefore, these products include a 60-cards deck (including the foil version of the two main characters), a small player mat with a lore tracker, a few damage tokens and a small guide with all the game rules. The best part is that each Starter Deck also includes a Booster pack of 12 additional cards that can help players to find the fist rare cards for their collection even an Enchanted one! Overall, the value of the contents is pretty good for the retail price of the starter deck.

The most important feature is that each starter deck has been designed around a certain strategy (“engine”) and includes a balanced set of cards to use that strategy effectively to beat the opponent. This is quite important as it may not be that easy to learn the game rules while you also need to understand the abilities and complexities of all the cards. Starter decks provide, on the other hand, a limited set of cards that interact well with each other and they therefore offer a smooth learning curve into the game. Obviously, starter decks may not be as competitive as fully constructed decks (made using selected and often very rare cards) but that's not the scope they are created for.

Another important aspect to consider when looking to pick a Starter Deck is what play-style would suit you better. In fact, each Ink colour is also associated with a very different game strategy and each deck can use cards from two of these Ink/styles to create your winning engine. For example, Ruby cards focus largely on challenging the opponent's characters and they can synergize nicely with Steel cards as they include quite resistant characters and a lot of ways to deal additional damage. If you are new to this or TGC games in general and you don't know what type of style will be more fun for you to play, trying out different Starter Decks can also be a good (and cheap) way to decide which type of deck is the most suitable for you.

Which Disney Lorcana Starter Decks should you pick?

At the time of writing, there are 7 Disney Lorcana Starter Decks, three for the First Chapter and two for both the Second and Third one. Choosing among them is not easy but there are a few factors to be considered. First, the three released initially may be the most difficult to find while the easiest to find are the two just released in February as part of the “Into the Inklands” third set. The two Starter Decks released for the second set “Rise of the Floodborn” are also still largely available and you can buy them here for example.

In terms of cards and strategies, it is important to note that the two decks just released are quite interesting as they contain the new type of cards, Locations, that were not available in the first two sets. The first one is an Amber/ Emerald deck featuring the 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan which focuses on playing a lot of cheap characters and to use locations to make additional lore. This deck is not super efficient but it is definitely the easiest to learn and to play with.  

The second Starter Deck, on the contrary, features a more complex strategy based on the Sapphire cards Scrooge McDuck/ Huey/ Louie/ Dewey that can support each other while also reducing the cost of playing new items. The Ruby part of this deck includes the very handy “Sumerian Talisman” (that allows the player to draw a card every time one of their characters is banished in a challenge) and 2 copies of Dragon Fire to banish any opponent character you may struggle to deal with. Overall, this is the most interesting of the two decks recently released and it can be easily improved by boosting the Sapphire portion of the deck adding some items from Chapter 2 and Chapter 1 and other cards that reduce the cost of playing/benefit from having items in play (“Belle – Inventive Engineer” or “Ariel – Whoseit collector” for example).

The two decks released in December for “Rise of the Floodborn” are also quite interesting. The Amethyst/Steel one includes the Merlin/Madame Min engine that allows you to constantly bounce some cards back to your hand to play other cards or to obtain Lore. This engine has been largely coupled with Ruby cards to obtain one of the most competitive decks of the format that aims to control the board by playing “Lady Tremaine - Imperious Queen” to banish or “Maui - Hero of All” to rush-challenge one of your opponent's characters and then taking them back to hand to re-play them the next turn. This strategy is still quite efficient although it may take some time to master it.

The Amber/Sapphire, on the other hand, includes the backbone of a deck based on the 7 dwarves characters that is one of the most efficient budget deck players can make. Being this fully made of Amber cards, it can be combined for example with some Steel cards to deal damage to your opponent characters or to provide some bodyguards to protect your dwarves. This Starter deck also comes with a part of the Pawpsickle/ Nick Wilde/ Judy Hopps/ Hiram Flaversham engine that can provide a lot card drawing to any deck. Interestingly, the Sapphire portion of this deck can benefit from the ones from the Sapphire/Ruby deck recently released.  

Overall, I hope the above overview can provide some hints of which starter deck may be more suitable to buy if you are looking to get into the game. Personally, I think the best option for new players would be to buy the Sapphire/Ruby deck from “Into the Inklands” as it comes with Locations and it offers the opportunity to dig a bit more into how cards can interact together. If possible, I would add the Amber/Sapphire from “Rise of the FloodBorn” set as it can be used to practice some different mechanics but also to mix and match to start learning how to make your own deck. This aspect can be a bit tricky and I would recommend finding out if there is a group of players close by you can join as the Lorcana Community can be of great support with learning the game and helping you design fun decks to play with. Ultimately, playing Lorcana is part about collecting great cards by opening booster packs and booster boxes but also enjoying playing them with other like-minded people and making new friends in the process.