How to Play Lorcana

Disney Lorcana is a two-player trading card game (TCG) where players collect cards featuring characters, items, and songs from Disney movies. In this article we are going to learn everything you need to know about How to play Lorcana as a new player.

The goal of the game is to be the first player to reach 20 lore points. Lore points are earned by questing with characters.

---

Game Setup

To set up the game, each player shuffles their deck. Each player then places their lore tracker at 0. And prepare some damage tokens or dice around the play area.

Each Player then Draws 7 cards from their deck. you have the ability before starting to return any number of unwanted cards from your hand back to the bottom of the deck and draw the same amount as replacement cards.

Example; I drew 7, decided to return 3 to the bottom of the deck and draw 3 new cards from the top.

This process is used to get a better start according to your game strategy.

Once the game setup is done the players decide who goes first (can be by flipping a coin, dice, rock paper scissors or basically any way they want).

Lorcana Turn Structure

Set Phase

During the Set Phase, any abilities on cards you control that happen at the start of your turn are activated. For example, some characters have abilities that allow them to draw cards or gain lore points.

Draw Phase

During the Draw Phase, you draw one card from your deck.

The player who starts the game does not draw a card on its first turn.

Main Play Phase (Play In Any Order)

During the Main Play Phase, you can do any of the following in any order you like!

This is where Disney Lorcana gameplay is at its best, allowing you to strategize and decide what are the best options for you to take toward the game.

The Options You Got Are:

• Play cards from your hand.
• Quest with your characters for lore.
• Challenge your opponent’s exhorted characters if able.
• Use the abilities of your cards.
• Put one card in the ink pool (inkwell).

When finishing the main play phase, you simply tell your opponent it’s their turn to start playing.

Questing With Lorcana Characters

To quest with a character, you must exert it. Exerting a card means turning it 90 degrees to its side. When you exert a character, you can gain lore points equal to its quest value icons.

Any new played character card cannot take action during its play turn except for rush characters. This means the card is out of the field upright but unable to quest for lore or even take action like challenging opponents which we are just getting to.

Challenging Lorcana Characters (Battling With Cards)

To challenge your opponent’s character, that character must be already exerted (spin sideways), after that the combat between them can start.

You basically compare each card strength and defense (willpower), and once the willpower is reaching zero that character is put into the discard pile or also known as Banished.

Please Note! Any damage done to a character during battle is staying on the card. There are abilities and cards that can remove or add damage so it’s important to keep track of the damage with dice or damage counters.

Some special card abilities cannot be challenged by specific ones.
Example: Evasive Cards cannot be challenged by any other card except for evasive cards.

Lorcana TCG Winning the Game Conditions

There are 2 ways to win a Lorcana match:

1. The first player who reaches 20 lore points wins the game – Achieved by questing with characters.

2. Any player who cannot draw cards from its deck (empty deck / deck-out) – if I have 0 cards to draw and it’s my turn to draw new ones it’s basically game over for me.

Card Types of Lorcana

There are 4 types of cards in Lorcana

Characters – The main board force which is used both in combat and in questing for lore. They are a crucial part of the game and you cannot win without them.

Items – Cards that are put aside next to the play area while playing, it gives the player the option to exert (sometimes with extra pay) it and gain the ability written there.
Item cards can be used right away, compared to character cards.

Actions – serves as some kind of magic or event, one time used card which is thrown into the discard pile after use.

Songs – also considered as an action card but the way it’s plated is a bit different. You can pay its ink cost or choose to exert a character on the field with the same ink cost of the song to play it instead of using your inkwell.

What is the Lorcana Inkwell?

The Lorcana inkwell is the source of “magic” that is used to pay the cost of cards in the game.
Ink is basically the game currency or resource.

Each card has a number on the top left and that is the amount of ink needed to be paid in order to play it.

The ink is actually cards from your deck. Once per turn you can put a card from your hand face down into the ink pool (inkwell) and by doing so you will have options to pay for higher cost cards in your deck.

Please note that not every card can be used as ink!

Around each card number there is a golden swirl that indicates that card can be used as ink if so you have the option to ink the card or use it to play.

But there are several cards that don’t have the swirl and they cannot be inked, only to play.

Pro Tips for Playing Lorcana

How to Play Lorcana is just the first step of becoming a pro player Deciding when and with who to quest, use abilities or challenge and in what order can be a big part of the game strategy. Allowing a character to be exerted puts that card at potential risk on your opponent’s turn.

Returning cards to your deck and redrawing at the beginning is crucial to set-up a successful game start. Make sure you get enough low cost cards to play early on and also keep cards that can be used to ramp-up your inkwell and get to more advanced cards.

Having fun experimenting, playing and editing your Lorcana deck over and over is super important to find your own unique playstyle and get ahead.

Conclusion of How to play Lorcana

With this Complete Guide to Playing Disney Lorcana you are set to go out and play anywhere.
Playing Lorcana is now easier than ever, and it will definitely keep on growing with more new exciting Disney cards.

Hopefully you enjoyed this guide on how to play Lorcana, good luck with your games!

If you want to pick up some Lorcana Products you can use the links below:

FAQ on How to play Lorcana