If you read GeekDad, chances are somebody in your life, and probably you, yourself, have a soft spot for Disney. Equally, if you read GeekDad, it’s likely you have a passing acquaintance with collectible card games. For the first time ever, these two geek culture behemoths have come together in the form of Disney: Lorcana.
What Is Disney: Lorcana?
The intention of this post is not to fully review Lorcana. That will come further down the line, but I wanted to talk about my experiences with the game so far and report on the culture shock non-gaming parents might encounter if they’re coming over from the “kids who love Disney side.” After all, Ravenburger, publishers of Lorcana also make the incredibly successful (and great fun to play) Disney: Villainous series and you might expect a similar playing experience.
Lorcana is a trading card game, similar to Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon. We can expect regular releases of new cards that change the way the game plays. Old powerful cards may become less so. New powerful cards will replace them, and if we’re lucky, old weaker cards will have their time in the sun too.
If there’s one truth about collectible card games it’s that if you want to play competitively, you’ve got to keep buying the releases as they arrive or putting it another way, “You gotta catch ’em all!”
Cards are sold in blind boosters, so you may end up opening lots of packs in search of one or two elusive cards, or turn to eBay in the hopes of finding a particular card for a reasonable price (More on that later). This is made even worse by the fact you can field up to 4 of each named card. So, if a particular card is finding its way into lots of people’s decks it becomes harder to find driving the price up.
Heigh-Ho, It’s Off to Play We Go!
The overall tone of this post started to get a bit gloomy, so I’ve lifted all of the positive stuff about Lorcana to the front of this piece and moved my reservations about some of its community to the end.
First up, Lorcana is an excellent family game. Unlike most tcgs it scales nicely. So if you have multiple children you can still all play together as long as you have a 60-card deck each. I love this aspect of the game. It’s a game we can all share and if a friend comes round we can deal them in too. My guess if you play with many more than 4 people, things will start to become unwieldy, but nevertheless for a family of 5, a scaling card game is perfect.
It’s sense of theme is strong too. I love that the songs from the films have powerful effects. As somebody who likes to singing appropriate snippets of songs when playing games (which I’m sure is never annoying) a gilt edged excuse to do so makes Lorcana the game for me!
Whilst my initial perception of the community was that it was quite toxic (more of that below), in the time it’s taken me to write this piece, the nicer sections of it have bubbled to the surface. I’ve seen several other people comment on the toxicity of the original Facebook forum and friendlier alternatives have arisen. Places where beginners and first-time tcgers can learn about the game and trading card games in general. Playing Lorcana can be something of a culture shock for those coming with only experience of traditional board games.
This group is great for beginners.
You Gotta Friend in Starter Packs
At the time of writing, you can at least buy the Lorcana starter sets (or you can in the UK) and these are an excellent way into the game. We’ve had a lot of fun with one of each. There are three starter boxes, each with a predefined set of cards featuring two of Lorcana’s six different colored “Inks.” We’ve enjoyed the experience so much, I picked up another set of three to open up our deckbuilding capabilities. More cards = more options, even though I’ve merely duplicated what we own.
One of the things I really like about the starter sets is that each one comes with a foil-packed booster. There is some mystery with each purchase. In the UK boosters cost £5 and with each starter set retailing at £18, you’re essentially getting all the other cards included in the box for £13; considering how much fun we’ve had with the decks this is very good value for money. (You can see all the cards in each starter deck, here.)
A significant chunk of discussion about the game has been about over-inflated prices and people getting very hot under the collar about card pricing and secondary selling. My advice? Buy what you can locally, play with the starter sets, and enjoy the game. Ravensburger has promised reprints of all the Chapter 1 cards at the beginning of 2024, so hang on in there, and you’ll be able to get most cards that you want, without paying through the nose for them. If you are a busy parent, now the kids are back at school, you’ll be sliding into Q1 2024 faster than you can say “Pumpkin Spiced Egg Nog.
Casual or Competitive?
In tcg terms, Lorcana is a strange beast. It has a recommended playing age of 8+, which is low for a game of this type. It is, by necessity, an accessible game. After all, whilst there are lots of adult fans of Disney, the Disney magic works best on the under 10s.
Highly competitive 8-year-olds, thankfully, aren’t that common.
“Adults,” on the other hand, it would seem, become rabidly competitive.
I define myself as a casual player. Whatever I play, I play it for fun, and whilst I like winning, I don’t care enough about winning to try too hard, certainly before a game starts. I’m not going to spend hours planning and preparing for a game. There’s probably a whole other article examining the lengths I’ll go to not be competitive, but we don’t have time for that right now!
The Facebook forum dedicated to the game that I originally joined was a rough place to be. Bear in mind I also spend a lot of time in forums dedicated to Games Workshop games. I’m more than used to entitled whiners, but this Lorcana group was attracting significantly more than its fair share.
The game’s first problem is lack of stock. Ravensburger appear to have underestimated the popularity of Lorcana. There isn’t enough of it on the shelves. This of course has sent demand through the roof and unfortunately, many people seem to have no impulse control.
The problem is exacerbated with a trading/collectible card game because the collectors want to hunt down as many of those rare cards as possible and the competitive players want to catch their 4 copies of the optimum cards.
For those with no deckbuilding experience:- Whilst it’s true that you can have fun with starter sets and just a few extra cards, not all cards are created equal. To increase your chances of winning you want your deck filled with as many of those good cards as possible. In simple terms imagine you were playing a trick taking card game with 4 copies of each ace in your deck. You’d beat those chumps with a standard deck with only one of each ace. The math of probability also drives card price.
This leads into discussions about which cards are good and something called “the meta,” which exists for every game of this type. Meta players can be very dismissive of casual players. You’ll also find people endlessly arguing how card effects should be implemented, when to your or I, the wording is a plain as day. This is called “rules lawyering” and is very off-putting.
Scalpers Gonna Scalp
It’s a sad fact of life that for any product that creates demand, whether it be games, Lego, or Taylor Swift tickets, there will always be people who will buy more than their fair share so that they can sell it on for a profit. It’s classic supply and demand capitalism. Some people see this as legitimate, whilst it infuriates others beyond measure.
I sit somewhere in the middle. I see why people do it, but I really wish they wouldn’t and I would never ever pay above and beyond the retail price of something. If nobody did, there would be no market for selling on cards at over-inflated prices and I feel duty-bound to hold the line against scalpers.
It’s been really hard to find booster packs, particularly in the US, and whilst it would be nice to think that people might take a little of what’s available to let others join in the fun (and some do), unfortunately, it only takes one person to decide they’re going to buy all of a store’s stock and everybody else is out of luck.
But Isn’t This Meant to Be Fun?
Games are fun, right? If you walked unprepared into the main Facebook Lorcana forum, you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Everybody seems to be obsessed with cheating. It makes you realize that for a lot of people, these games aren’t fun. They’re serious business. We’re not just talking heat of the moment bending the rules here, but full-scale, planned, and premeditated game manipulation.
It’s enough to terrify a casual observer. If I ever planned to go to a store and play this game, I would be scared off by the cheating discussions. I’d assume I’d be accused of light-fingered treachery at every turn.
To Sleeve or Not to Sleeve?
I think the worst post I saw in the forum is this one:
This is the essence of everything that is wrong about the community at the moment. There’s a colossal amount of gatekeeping going on.
Lorcana is a “Collectible Card Game,” and there’s a lot of space between those who are in it for the “collectible” and those who are in it for the “game.”
Die-hard collectible card game fans have their own arcane code about card grades and rarities and have very strong opinions about the right way to do things. Put this against another large part of the community who is in it for fun and for “the Disney,” and some of the reactions are just plain horrible.
Yes, there are some very rare (or enchanted) cards out there and yes, you might be able to sell these for lots of money but not realizing this is the case, or not minding, because your child just wants to play with their cool looking unique card, is more than ok.
I’m possibly an outlier, but I say play with your toys!
I also think sleeves are a scam. You can sleeve every single card in your collection if you want to, but that will cost you an awful lot of money and is terrible for the environment. I’ve played many many iterations of this sort of game, and almost never use sleeves and have never regretted it. Perhaps I’ve missed out on making a few bucks on a sale, but more than likely, I’d never sell the card anyway.
The only time I use them is if I enter a competition. They’re often mandatory for competitions, because, going back to cheating, it can be very easy to mark cards. Even inadvertent nicks in a card back might tell you what card is coming next. For casual play, unless a card has a huge glaring mark on it, I never bother with sleeves. Life is too short and I’m not going to cheat…
Obviously, each to their own, but never let anybody tell you that you are doing your hobby wrong. Have fun with it the way you want to have fun with it. If you don’t, you’re doing your hobby wrong!
What’s the Point of This Post?
That’s a good question! I started out with a sense of injustice and frustration at the way I saw some people in the Lorcana community treating others. At GeekDad, it’s our intention to try to open up the wonder of all things Geek to as wide a community as possible. As I said at the top of this piece (which seems like an awful long time ago, now – thank you for reading this far) there are few things geekier than trading cards and Disney.
Ravensburger have produced an excellent game that reframes favorite Disney characters and stories into a deliciously playable format. As a casual family game it absolutely hits the nail on the head. For a fairly small outlay, you and your family can have great fun with Lorcana. It should definitely bring in a host of new players into a great fun hobby and I would hate to see people put off by the gatekeeping antics of a vociferous and vocal minority.
My point then is, I guess, if you want to play Lorcana don’t be put off by shouty people on the internet. Like most things, the real-life community is bound to be 1,000 times lovelier than the online one. I know my FLGS has a great little of pool of players that it’s hoping to expand. There are lots of good people out there, who share the same objective as you: Playing a fun game that lets them slap, Mickey, Maui, and Moana down on the table. Even better, you and your family might be tempted into some impromptu singing, You’re Welcome!
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
