Learn to Play Disney’s Lorcana!
On August 18th, Disney’s Lorcana trading card game will be released in game stores all over the world! Want to learn how to play? In this article, I’ll discuss everything you need to know about the cards, how to play, and even what you need to know when it is time to build your very own deck. Sit back and read on to learn how to play the newest tcg to hit the market, Lorcana!
Let’s look at some of the basics first. Lorcana is a fairly traditional card game with only few card types to keep track of, characters, items and actions. You’ll need a deck of at least 60 cards of one or two colors of ink. For any given card, no more than 4 copies can be in your deck. Grab something to keep track of damage on your characters, like coins or tokens, and make sure you can keep track of your lore. You’ll need 20 lore to secure your victory, so a pad of paper or a d20 are great options. Find a friend with the same, and you are almost ready to go.
The Cards
In Lorcana, the characters you play quest for lore, challenge your opponents characters, and sometimes even sing a song to assist you. With their own unique abilities, each character in Lorcana brings something different to the table. Along the way, powerful items assist your plan by preventing damage to your characters, drawing cards at opportune moments, readying your characters to protect them from your opponent’s challenges, and more! Finally, actions allow for a powerful, single use ability, potentially altering the entire flow of the game! Now it is time to look at the cards a little more closely.
Parts of the Card
Lorcana cards have a lot of information on them. Oftentimes, the first thing you’ll notice when you look at a card is the number in the upper left corner. This is the cost of the card. You will need to exert that much ink in your inkwell to play it. To exert a card means to turn it sideways. There are no cards that specifically act as only a resource in Lorcana. Any card with an inkwell border can be placed into your inkwell. If the card does not have the inkwell border, you can’t play into your inkwell. More on the inkwell later.
The next thing you may notice is the color of the nameplate. Amber, Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, and Steel are the colors you’ll encounter in Lorcana. This color, along with an icon just under the name of the card, will tell you what color of ink that card belongs to. For now, just remember that you can only use up to 2 colors of ink in your deck. In the future, I’ll talk all about the strengths and weaknesses of each color. That will be another article, so check back for more!
Speaking of the name, you may notice there are multiple types of the same character in the game if you have had a chance to look through a starter deck or set list. Under the name is the version name. As long as two characters have different version names, they don’t count as the same card when it comes to deck building.
The next line down shows us the classifications of the card. Some of these traits, like Villian, Broom, or Princess, can be important to you or your opponent’s game plan. If a card isn’t a character, it will tell you on this line if it is an item or action. If it is an action, you will see the song classification here as well.
Below this are the abilities and effects of the card. Abilities can be keywords like Rush or Bodyguard that affect how a character can be used in quests and challenges. Activated abilities exist on characters and items that may require a cost to pay in ink and or exerting the item or character. Read the text boxes on your cards carefully so you know what each card does.
But what are those numbers and symbols to the right of the text on characters? The numbers are the Strength and Willpower of your characters. During challenges, characters deal damage equal to their Strength to each other. When a character has taken damage equal to their Willpower, they are banished to the discard pile. The symbols below them represent the lore value the character collects when sent on a quest.
Finally, the rarity symbol is on the bottom of the card. Shown below in order, cards come in Common, Uncommon, Rare, Super Rare, Legendary, and Enchanted. Foil versions of all the cards exist at the same rarity, except for the secret foil Enchanted cards. Enchanted cards are extremely rare versions of some of the most powerful and iconic characters in the game. If you pull one from a pack, be careful as it could be worth quite a lot of money to collectors. We’ll have another article going into rarity more in-depth later, so watch for it!
That should cover everything about the cards, but how do you actually play the game? I’ll show you.
How the Game Plays
Lorcana has a simple layout. Your deck will go to one side or the other, with your discard pile closer to you. If one of your characters or items are banished, you play an action, or if you have to discard a card, place those cards here. Characters and items are laid out next to the deck, and can be rearranged as you need throughout the game. Closer to you is your inkwell. This is the spot you will place your cards to act as ink to play other cards later in the game.
Now it is time to sit down and play! Shuffle your deck and draw 7 cards. If there are cards in your hand you don’t want to start the game with, You may want to use the Alter Draw rule! In that case, put the cards you don’t want on the bottom of your deck, draw that many new cards into your hand, and reshuffle. Each player may only choose to do this once before the game begins. Finally, determine who goes first by whatever means both players can agree on.
Beginning Phase
The Beginning phase is broken up into three parts:
Ready! - During the ready step, ready all the exerted cards you have in front of you. Exerted cards are cards turned to the side, to indicate they have been used in some manner. Turn them upright and they can be used again on your turn.
Set! - Some abilities or effects happen at the beginning of your turn. Now is when you will check for them. Some characters only have their abilities on your or your opponent's turn. This step lets you declare what those effects are.
Draw! - Each player draws one card each turn. Going first is quite the advantage, so if a player goes first, they do not draw a card on their first turn.
Main Phase
The main phase is when you can play your characters, items, and actions. You can use abilities, challenge your opponent’s exerted characters, or quest for lore. You’ll also be able to put cards face down into your inkwell. All of these and more are important on your quest to 20 lore.
First off, ink. Without it, how can you play your cards? Each turn, you may play one card face down into your inkwell if the card has the inkwell border around its cost. Show your opponent what card you are placing down and put it in the ready position. You can only put a card into your inkwell once per turn, so make sure you eventually put down enough cards to pay for all the cards you want to play.
When you want to play a card, exert enough ink from your inkwell to play it. Characters and items are placed in front of you and actions are placed in the discard pile after completing the instructions on the card. Some cards also have abilities that require ink. You simply pay the ink like you would for a character, as well as any other costs, and perform the ability. Items can be used right away, while characters need to start your turn in play to perform any action that requires exerting. Also, there are some abilities that trigger when something else happens. For example, Gramma Tala puts herself in your inkwell exerted if you would have to banish her.
Characters have many actions they can perform in a turn:
- Quest for Lore
- Challenge an opponent's exerted character
- Sing a song
- Use an ability on their card; if the ability requires exerting, the character has to start the turn on your side.
When a character quests for lore, exert them and add their lore value to your lore total. Some cards can add to or reduce your and your opponents lore total without questing. Be careful of these kinds of characters and actions.
When you want to challenge an opponent’s exerted character, exert your character and add damage to each character in the challenge equal to the opposing character’s Strength. If the damage a character has received is ever equal to or higher than their Willpower, banish that character to the discard pile.
Song is a classification on some actions that will allow a character to exert and perform that action for you. A character can sing a song with a cost equal to or lower than their cost. Some characters have a natural talent for singing. They will have an ability called Sing ‘X’ that will allow those characters to sing songs as if they were that higher ink cost instead of their actual cost.
An easy way to keep track of all this is if the action or ability you want to perform requires exerting the character performing that action or ability, you can only do that if the character started the turn in play on your side.
Finally, there is one other thing to mention and this is important, The Golden Rule. The Golden Rule of all card games is, “If a card tells you to do something that would normally be against the rules, do what the card says.” For example, if you have already played a card into your inkwell, you cannot normally play another. If you use the action on Fishbone Quill, you can play another card into your inkwell and it doesn’t even need to be a card with an inkwell icon! Also, you don’t have to show your opponent. If you are ever unsure, apply the rules of the game, then do what the card says instead.
So that’s it. We’ve gone through pretty much everything you need to know to play Lorcana! While these are the rules and everything you need to know to start, this article is just the first step on your journey. We’ll explore the adventures and quests, heroes and villains, songs and stories in further depth, that await us in Disney’s Lorcana, together. Thanks for reading and be prepared for more in the future!