Disney Lorcana: How to Play, Card Types, Strategies, Deck Building

Breakdown on how to build decks in Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter

Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter has dropped and physical cards are available to build decks and battle. If you’re looking to jump into the action early, here are the basics of how to play so you can get started.

The Goal of Disney Lorcana

This strategic card game has the goal of gaining 20 or more lore before your opponent. Lore can be gained through playing certain cards or sending character cards on quests. Along the way, you want to stop your opponent from gaining lore by attacking their characters or using certain actions that disrupt their strategy or quests.

Building a Deck

Your Disney Lorcana deck should have 60 cards total. You may only have up to four copies of a card.

The easiest way to build a deck is to watch a YouTube video or read a guide on some of the best meta decks and their playstyles. See which one is right for you!

You can also purchase a pre-made starter deck and switch up the cards as you fit as you start learning more about how to play the game. You’ll discover over time which playstyle is right for you and which cards require more or fewer copies in your deck to make your deck as efficient as possible.

Types of Cards in Disney Lorcana

There are three main types of cards in Disney Lorcana.

Character Cards

Known as glimmers of Disney characters, character cards are what you will use to go on quests for lore as well as attack your enemy’s characters in order to stop them from getting lore.

You will need a certain amount of ink to get a character card out and activated. There are multiple types of ink and you will usually only want to include one or two ink types in a deck in order to make it easier to gather enough of that ink type to activate the character.

Every character also has a certain amount of strength indicated on their card, which is how much damage they do when they attack. They also have a certain amount of will power — and once they are damaged past this amount they will be banished.

Each character card also indicates how much lore they will gather when they quest.

Characters also have effects and abilities. Some characters simply do damage while others can help you get more ink, collect more lore, or heal damaged characters. In general, you will want to create a deck with character cards that all work together to achieve a certain goal. For example, you may want a Ruby deck that focuses on doing a massive amount of damage to the enemy or you may want a deck that focuses on getting characters out early and begins farming ink to power you up fast.

Item Cards

Item cards all have unique capabilities that should be chosen because they have synergy with your characters and their playstyle. For example, if you have a healing-focused deck, play some Dinglehopper item cards to further heal your characters and keep them in play longer.

Action Cards

These cards are used one time and then discarded. When you play an action, you are most likely going to disrupt the game in some way, either further advancing your own strategy or disrupting your opponent’s plan.

How to Set Up a Game of Disney Lorcana

Each player should shuffle their deck — and then have you give it a final cut to make sure it’s shuffled properly. After that, each player draws seven cards. You can choose to mulligan and draw again this first time. If you choose to mulligan, pick however many cards you’d like to swap and put them at the bottom of your deck. Draw up until you have seven again and then shuffle your deck.

The first player will then place a card from their hand into their inkwell. This is where you will put your ink, the resource you use to play other cards. There are some cards you can convert to ink, which is indicated on the card. Show your opponent and then place them face down. Then, play a character, item, or action from your hand. You may also choose to do nothing.

The second player will draw a card and then generate ink and play whatever cards make sense. This is how play will continue from here, with each player drawing a new card at the start of their turn and then making all the plays they desire.

How Your Turn Works in Disney Lorcana

Your turn has two parts. The beginning phase and the main phase.

During the beginning phase you need to ready your exerted cards by turning them upright. Check for effects that may be impacting your turn, following their instructions if they do exist. Then draw a card from the top of your deck.

During the main phase, you can put a card face down into your inkwell at any time, but only once per turn. You don’t have to place ink every turn but you definitely should. The point of the game is to use ink to power up your cards so you can start going on quests and attacking your opponent.

You can then do the following actions any number of times and in any order you want. You can play a card, use a character ability that doesn’t require them to exert, use an item ability, or take an action with a character that’s been in play since the start of your turn. Your character’s actions include questing for lore, challenging an opponent’s exerted character, or using an ability that requires them to exert.

You can also keep the Disney Lorcana app handy to keep track of your ink and lore!

What Do I Need Aside From a Deck?

If you want to play Disney Lorcana at a local shop or with friends, you may also want to grab a playmat, a deck box, sleeves, and tokens. These tokens keep track of the damage done to your characters.