End of year recaps are kind of a tradition at TG. In past years I’ve used the final week of the year to look back on games likePokemon Uniteand reflect on the state of theearly access market, but this year I only really feel qualified to memorialize one thing: Disney Lorcana. Boy, I sure went all in on Lorcana.
Betweenshooting a Lorcana video serieswith co-designer and Brand Manager Ryan Miller, to planning our massiveLorcana Weekcelebration with tabletop editor Joe Parlock, traveling to Gen Con for the game’s launch (and interviewing artistNicholas Kole), playing twice a week at my local game stores, and writing about it constantly (over 70 articles this year!), Lorcana has become a big part of my life. And if you’re reading this, it was probably a big part of yours, too.So let’s take a walk down memory lane to remind ourselves how far this game has come in such a short time, and maybe even gain some perspective about where it’s going.
Our first big announcement for Lorcana came in January, when IGN revealed the release date, August 18, and the product line-up for The First Chapter, which included 24-pack booster boxes, three starter decks, an eight-pack Treasure Trove, and four-pack gift set, which included two jumbo cards: Hades, King of Olympus and Mulan, Imperial Soldier - two cards that inspired us to imagine what kind of cool deck synergies Lorcana might have, but had yet to find their place in the game.
Two months went by without any kind of update, which ended up being the longest two months of silence we had this year, or will ever have again. In March we found out that set two would launch in LGSs November 17, and I got tochat with narrative lead Samantha McFerrinto find out more about the story and world of Lorcana. Just a few weeks later, on April 10,Joe got to publish the Quick Start Rules, and we finally found out how Lorcana is played.
While there had not yet been enough cards revealed to actually play the game, this development allowed the community to start developing ways to build decks and simulate playing games, which has become a big part of Lorcana this year. This is also when we learned about Songs, one of the unique and defining gameplay mechanics of the game. Finally,we saw all the TFC accessories, including the Steam Boat Willie playmat I still don’t have, but Joe, annoyingly, does. Here’sa summary of what, at the time, was Lorcana’s biggest week ever.
Card reveals started coming a lot more frequently once the rules were revealed. By the timeTG showed off the animal companions on May 16, almost 80 of the 204 cards had been revealed, with more coming almost every day - though we’d yet to see TFCs most important players, like Tinker Bell, Giant Fairy; Grab Your Sword, Ariel, Spectacular Singer, Be Prepared, A Whole New World, Rapunzel, Gifted with Healing; and Kuzco, Temperamental Emperor. It’s funny to think about how little we actually knew about the game then.
Ready For Launch
July gave usour first gameplay previews with Ryan Miller, who visited sites like TG, IGN, and Comic Book to show off the starter decks and demo the game. We also got tointerview the designerabout many aspects of the game, like gameplay philosophy, organized play, and the decision not to print a first edition run of TFC. The insights Miller provided then are still relevant today and more of the game is revealed in each new set.
On August 3, just a week afterTheGamer’s Lorcana Week event, the game launched at Gen Con in Indianapolis to throngs of eager players and collectors. It was a bit of a disaster, to put it mildly. Shortly before the doors opened on the first day, convention organizers dissolved the line that formed overnight, instantly causing widespread chaos as thousands jockeyed to get onto the show floor to buy booster boxes and accessories.
This caused so many dangerous hazards for convention goers that, starting the second day Gen Con enacted its first ever line policy at the event to ensure better organization and fairness going forward. Gen Con attendees (and TG readers) also discovered Enchanted cards, Lorcana’s sixth rarity that had been kept secret until the game’s launch.
In the lead up to LGS launch on August 18, it became clear, both throughword of mouth from retailersandinterviews with Ravensburger NA CEO Stephane Madi, the product availability for The First Chapter was going to be extremely limited at launch. Store owners were told by distributors that product was “heavily allocated”, and caused the market price for booster boxes to skyrocket.
At its peak, the market price for TFC booster boxes, according to TCGPlayer, was almost $390. The big box store launch on September 1 didn’t have a big impact on prices or availability, largely thanks to resellers, and though Ravensburger initially promised a reprint in September,that was later updated to October, before a fresh wave of TFC product finally hit LGSs just a few days before the end of the year.
There was considerable fallout from the lack of Lorcana product in the market at launch.Store ownersexpressed hesitation to fully support a game they didn’t know if they’d even have access to, while some LGSs seized the opportunity to make a huge profit, andalienate potential customers. There wasat least one robbery, which is something that happened during the pandemic too when the Pokemon card supply was low and demand was high.
The biggest consequence of the game’s limited availability at launch might be the popularity ofPixelborn, an unofficial digital version of the game. While it’s likely Pixelborn would have found an audience regardless, many people who couldn’t find product or felt priced out of the game turned to the free digital version, which led Pixelborn to build the biggest Lorcana community anywhere on the internet.
A Flood of new cards
On September 12, less than two weeks after Big Box release, the first expansion,Rise of the Floodborn, was revealed. The title, theme, product line (including thespecial Disney100 gift set) and a handful of cards were revealed in early September. Thisfrustrated some that were still unable to find TFC product(and would continue to be unable to find product for the next two months) and delighted others that were excited to see what was coming next for the TCG. This also began a trickling spoiler season for RotF that continued up until the expansion’s launch on November 17, with one or two new cards revealed almost every day for eight weeks.
While we waited for Rise of the Floodborn to launch, we got news in October thatLorcana is coming to ten more regions, and with the launch of set three, the game will also be available in Italian. The First Chapter reprints hit local game stores in early November, and RotF launched on November 17 with better, but still not ideal availability.
Something disastrous happened when Ravensubrger tried to sell product directly from its website for the new expansion. Despite creating a queue system to streamline the process,a DDoS attack brought downthe site and forced the company to cancel its plans to. Ravensburger promised to reallocate that product to other channels to ensure it would still be available for the holidays, but only a small group were able to purchase anything.
Despite many bumps in the road, Disney Lorcana is in a fairly healthy place right now. The First Chapter product is readily available on store shelves in some regions, and online prices are hovering right around MSRP. Rise of the Floodborn sealed product is still demanding a bit of a premium, but the prices on singles never shot up as high as TFC cards. Those looking to buy singles to build decks will find much more reasonable prices than ever before, and prices are still trending downward.
Looking ahead
The meta is fairly wide right now, even though there’s only about 400 cards in the game today, and players are still experimenting and trying to find the best decks. Local weekend tournaments are still producing a variety of winning archetypes, though as was the case with TFC, Ruby/Amethyst control decks are still leading the pack.
The third expansion,Into the Inklands, was revealed on December 6, with a scheduled release date of February 23. The set will introduce Locations, the new card type that is said to be a core mechanic for Lorcana moving forward, and seems to be the missing puzzle piece that will bring the full scope of the game into focus. Much like Rise of the Floodborn, the spoiler season for Into the Inklands has begun with a trickle of new cards that will likely continue until the expansion’s release next February.
There have been many highs and lows for Lorcana in its launch year, and it’s clear that Ravensburger wasn’t fully prepared for the overwhelming amount of demand for this game. But what Lorcana has already achieved is nothing short of incredible. There hasn’t been a TCG launch this impactful in over 20 years, and all signs point to a bright future for Lorcana. This game has had a huge impact on my life this year both personally and professionally, and I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given, the friendships I’ve made, and the Enchanteds I’ve pulled.
Next year will be the true test of Lorcana’s longevity. We’ll need to see if it can maintain hype over multiple expansions and keep people’s attention once the new game excitement dies down. The state of the meta will become more important as the game matures too, and players will expect the game to constantly evolve and reinvent itself in interesting ways from set to set. I can’t wait to see what Ravensburger has in store for 2024. I hope it’s Baymax.
